[chico20854]

July 4, 1998

Nothing official today. Unofficially,

Americans are not in their usual celebratory mood on this, the 222nd anniversary of their nation's independence from Great Britain. Hundreds of thousands of troops are scattered in desperate combat around the world, including in five American states and in neighboring Canada, the first time America has been under land attack since the War of 1812. Millions have died in the prior year from Soviet nuclear attack and the side-effects of those strikes, and not a single citizen's life is unaffected. The government that was established in the 18th century has been, at least in theory temporarily, supplanted by a ruling council of senior military officers, and many areas are completely lawless.

Fighting in Los Angeles becomes more widespread as increasing numbers of Mexican criminal gangs, paratroops, marines and armored cavalrymen arrive in the ruined city. As with other areas of the front, the cessation of resupply (barely adequate and haphazard as it may have been) as a result of the nuclear attacks has had a perverse effect - Mexican troops need to continue their advance to capture food and fuel from the Americans; to remain in static positions is to to court disaster without resupply.

The troops facing the Torres Motorized Cavalry Brigade at the New Mexico town of Truth or Consequences are identified as USAF security police, the 1606th Security Police Group, reinforced with local militia and police. The Mexican rear area is suffering from pinprick attacks from the cadre of the USAF special operations school at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque. To the east, Brigade Chihuahua is coming under increasing pressure as its strung-out infantry outposts, scattered over 450 miles of New Mexico and Texas, are cut off from resupply and attempting to deal with a largely hostile (and heavily armed) local population.

Grae notes that long hot dusty days are spent harvesting the winter red wheat in Nebraska to feed the nation in the coming year. Rail transportation moves the crops east to distribution points as best they can, given the poor state of the transportation network.

South Korean infantry (mostly reservists), liberally supported by Allied airpower, fights the advancing Soviet 194th (my 67th) Motor-Rifle Division to a halt on the outskirts of the ruins of Yongjiu, which was destroyed in the 1997 fighting. The effort presents an opportunity for the American 163rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (Montana National Guard) and South Korean 20th Infantry Division (Mechanized) to smash into the Soviet flank. The North Korean troops pressed into Soviet service drop their weapons and run, while the elite Soviet paratroops of the 203rd (my 14th) Air Assault Brigade seek to use the rough terrain and high ground to disrupt the armored counterattack.

The fighting in Macedonia escalates further, with the intertwined former allied Greek and Albanian units struggling to sort themselves out, defeat their opponents and form a coherent front line. Adding to the difficulty, both nations are struggling to sustain their forces in occupied Jugoslavia in the face of dire conditions at home - meaning that, despite the propaganda and exhortations coming from government mouthpieces, the troops at the front are starved of ammunition, fuel and the other supplies they need to sustain the fighting.