Compared with the Patriot missile, which was almost a complete failure, the red flag that stole the show immediately attracted widespread attention from the world. Some Western media described the red flag as "an impenetrable iron wall" and "the most trustworthy and loyal guard." Suddenly, the red flag became famous.
Although the US military is very particular about public relations and released the image data of the Patriot interception of the Scud, when people heard that the interception success rate of Chinese missiles was as high as more than 90%, they turned around and asked how the US Patriot missiles are. The interception success rate was so high that the US military immediately hesitated to explain.
Some more radical media sources said, "The poor performance of the Patriots is very disappointing. We can't help but wonder if the defense contractors took away the large amount of R&D funds allocated by Congress and finally came up with something like this? This is not at all There is no doubt that it is a squandering and waste of taxpayers¡¯ money, and it is even more doubtful that there are major loopholes and malpractices in our defense procurement and research plans.¡±
Some straightforward media even said: "According to unnamed insiders, the interception success rate of Patriot missiles in Israel is less than 40%. What's even more ridiculous is that when China's red flag enters Israel, the Patriot missile He became a bystander, and Chinese missiles often shot down the Iraqi Scud before the Patriots were ready to launch. In the words of this person familiar with the situation, he believed that the Patriots did not yet have full combat requirements. It can meet the increasingly severe air defense needs.
So, naturally, a voice emerged within the United States to purchase some Chinese-made Red Flag missiles for exploration and research, and then complete progress and transcendence on this basis. Because the United States has already purchased a large batch of All Maintainer attack aircraft from China, it should not be surprising to order another batch of weapons from China.
This voice was naturally resisted by some U.S. defense contractors such as Raytheon. They used their political and business connections to start building momentum, claiming that the U.S. Department of Defense wanted to reduce procurement costs and that the Patriots' performance was unsatisfactory. If they can be given more funding, they will surely be able to produce more patriots.
Of course, the unknown side includes commercial espionage and technical espionage from different forces of U.S. officials and these defense contractors, all aiming to obtain the secrets of China¡¯s air defense system. In order to obtain the secrets of the Red Flag, which is almost perfect, the Americans have spared no effort.
It is unclear whether the United States will purchase a small batch of Chinese air defense missiles, but many other countries are optimistic about the performance of Hongqi and hope that purchasing Hongqi will greatly enhance their country's air defense needs and increase the sophistication of national defense.
Among them, Israel is the most enthusiastic about this. Living in the Middle East surrounded by wolves, its enemies are everywhere, and missile threats from Iran, Iraq and other countries are very serious. For Israel, its defense level has never been too high. explain. However, there is no military cooperation between Israel and China, and China also maintains good relations with Arab countries, so Israel has no idea whether this matter can be successful.
Naturally, Saudi Arabia also hopes to replace the air defense system with a better one. In this war, the performance of the Chinese-made Thorn 2 equipped by Saudi Arabia was quite good, at least more satisfactory than that of the Patriot. However, the performance of the Hongqi equipped by the Chinese air defense missile force was really good. It is too bright, just like the stars compared to the bright moon, which cannot compete with it.
King Fahd of Saudi Arabia specifically notified relevant people and immediately began to contact China, hoping to obtain China's own red flag long-range air defense system.
For Qi Yiming, selling Hongqi missiles is not a big deal, because the main anti-aircraft weapons used in China have been upgraded to the Hongqi-19 and Hongqi-26 systems. Hongqi has gradually entered the reserve force. There are indeed many technical problems. It is not very advanced, but it is a third-generation anti-aircraft missile after all, and there is a generation gap between it and China's own. Moreover, if he wants to sell these gadgets, he will definitely do some tricks, such as downgrading a little, or even leaving a backdoor or something. In short, it is impossible to make it so complete.
He planned to call in Red Alert engineers. After the war, he disposed of ten Red Flag systems parked in Saudi Arabia on the spot and sold them to Saudi Arabia for US$200 million each. Each set came with a missile. If needed, more missiles would be provided. If you prepare more ammunition, you will have to pay for it.
The third country that has the idea of ????purchasing is Turkey. This country once had the idea of ????purchasing Red Flags in another dimension, but it is not known whether it was sincere or deliberately done to lower the price of the United States and NATO, but in the end this matter did not happen. But in this plane, some of the original obstacles no longer exist. First of all, China and NATO are nominal allies. Some important military information and information are shared. Before the war, they were equipped with a unified identification of friend or foe system. Furthermore, at this time, there seems to be no better flag than the Chinese red flag in the world. Anti-aircraft missiles, 30 are not considered, the Patriot's reputation is already bad, so the red flag that appears as the best option will naturally increase its competitiveness.
T¨¹rkiye itself also has quite a fewDue to military pressure, this country does not have good relations with several Arab countries in its east and south. Although Turks and Arabs are both Muslims, they are of different races. Persians and Arabs are not welcome to see each other, so Turkey The status of people is not much better. In addition, the relationship between Turkey and Greece, another of its European neighbors, is not necessarily very good. The two countries are engaged in an arms race to defend each other.
Hongqi's export sales are in good shape, and Qi Yiming is also gearing up. He specially dispatched Zhao Jinsong, the marketing manager of Shenghua Company, to negotiate with countries interested in purchasing Hongqi. Before leaving, Zhao Jinsong said that if he signed a contract with less than 300 million, , I don¡¯t want all the bonuses this year.
¡°This is a responsible and motivated salesperson,¡± Qi Yiming couldn¡¯t help but sigh.
Hiding in a command post dozens of meters below Baghdad, Saddam is in a very bad mood now. Although the multinational force suffered some losses at the beginning, it soon showed the Iraqis how tenacious their combat capabilities were. During the bombing that lasted for more than ten days, the aviation forces of the multinational forces completely destroyed various military and civilian facilities in Iraq. The power generation in Iraq is now less than 0% of what it was before the war. Most of the chemical factories that manufactured chemical weapons have been razed to the ground. Some important transportation thoroughfares are basically attacked by fighter jets every now and then.
The air defense strategy formulated by Saddam was negative. He tried to preserve his strength and moved many fighter planes, so that the Iraqi army did not have enough fighter jets to take off for interception missions. Saddam's passive defense strategy is most likely because he did not want to win the war at all, but wanted to end the war quickly, and retaining his own strength would allow him to continue to rule in Iraq and control surrounding areas. countries maintain advantage or deterrence.
But the more passive they are, the greater the losses caused by multinational forces to the Iraqi army. Especially the cunning Chinese. Their attack planes and fighter jets often come over to bomb Iraqi airports. Originally, the runway of the airport was not difficult to repair for the war-torn Iraqi engineers, but the Chinese shamelessly used a large number of submunitions, and this The seed bombs are also unique. When they are dropped, they can easily blast out some large holes in the airport runway that are difficult to repair. Not only that, the warhead they use is very unstable, and some warheads actually fall after they fall. There was no explosion, but it did explode while the engineering troops were repairing the runway, which made the repair work extremely difficult. Later, when the Iraqi engineering soldiers refused to carry out emergency repairs, Saddam was furious and executed those engineering soldiers who refused to carry out the order, forcing other engineering soldiers to risk their lives to carry out emergency repairs.
"Your Excellency, some important defense facilities in our country have been destroyed. The mobilization of multinational forces in the past two days has been extremely intensive. We judge that they may be about to launch a large-scale land attack, and the target is most likely to be us. Haf al-Batin has been captured for many days," General Ahmed reported to Saddam worriedly.
Saddam frowned, and the war situation was not optimistic. This made him very anxious, but he did not have many means to reverse the situation. Although the Iraqi army still occupied Haf al-Abatin, this city was already a dead city. A large number of residents have been evacuated by multinational forces. The Iraqi armored forces stationed here were also attacked by multinational forces and suffered heavy losses. The supplies from the rear have also been delayed in arriving. This place has become an isolated city. Just like a mouse under a cat's paws, it is only a matter of time before it is thrown away.
"General Ahmed, do you have any good ideas?"
Ahmed smiled bitterly and said: "Although we are larger than the multinational force, the gap in equipment level and tactics is still very obvious, so we don't have many cards. At this time, we can only delay the multinational force as much as possible." , they will not withdraw from the war until they can no longer bear the losses of continuing the war, and we will win. Therefore, our best defense now should be to attack, constantly open up battlefields, and attack the morale and morale of multinational forces on various battlefields, so that we can win. It is exhausted, taking advantage of our scale, to win with blood and sacrifice."
Saddam's eyes lit up. If he could win with dead people, he would be willing to do so. He asked: "Then where should our next target be?"
Ahmed clicked his finger on a military map of the Gulf region, which happened to be on the eastern border of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. He said in a deep voice: "Khafji"