Is started pulling together canon on the TDM and aftermath... so far I'm at about 15 pages. Hang on guys, it's going to be a long, rough ride!

November 8, 1997

To impede the arrival of additional reinforcements from the US by way of Japan, the east coast ROK port cities of Busan and Ulsan are targeted for destruction. The Echo II-class sub K-34 surfaces in the early morning hours in the Sea of Japan and launches two nuclear-tipped P-1000 Vulkan cruise missiles, one each at Busan and Ulsan. Several minutes later, the 350 kt warhead aboard the first P-1000 detonates over Busan, wrecking the port and badly damaging the eastern half of the city. The missile targeting Ulsan suffers a critical engine failure soon after launch and crashes into the sea well short of the Korean coast (the warhead did not explode). A JDF P-3 Orion, on routine ASW patrol over the Sea of Japan, spots the smoky missile launch signatures on the western horizon and closes at speed to investigate. K-34 has difficulty retracting one of its missile launch tubes, delaying its escape. It attempts to submerge just as the JDF P-3 arrives overhead. The P-3 drops two Mk. 46 homing torpedoes, both of which track and hit the crash-diving K-34, sinking it along with all hands.

Unofficially,

Alarmed at the growing losses at the front, collapsing Soviet economy, massive damage already endured from NATO nuclear strikes and the utter impossibility of retaking East Germany, the Politburo confronts General Secretary Sauronski, demanding he reach out to seek a negotiated and immediate end to the war. The "peace faction" - composed of the Minister of Defense and nearly all the civilian members of the Politburo - argue that the USSR is in a better position than it was prewar, for while East Germany has been lost, the USSR now controls China, Romania, Jugoslavia, Austria and Turkey, and that the potential for a disastrous continuation or escalation of the nuclear war has the potential to destroy the USSR and the Communist Party. The opposition - Secretary General Sauronski, KGB Chairman Yangel and the aged ideologue Nikolai Kozlov - decry the defeatism of the peace faction and boldly claim that Western resistance is collapsing and that victory is nearly at hand.

Another Forrest Sherman-class destroyer, the USS Bigelow, is recommissioned in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

To provide more trained and combat capable small units to battered units at the front, the Army staff in Washington directs the "Bravo Company transfer" - all combat battalions in the strategic reserve (the 46th ID, 49th AD, 194th Armored Brigade, 197th Infantry Brigade and 13th Armored Cavalry Regiment) plus the 193rd Infantry Brigade in Panama - are to transfer their complete B Companies to the front and to stand up a new B Company with new replacements being sent from the training base. The battalions are to identify their highest performing soldiers in the remaining companies and promote them to leadership positions to staff out the new companies.

The nuclear attack forces the delay of the trial of the former commander of the battleship Missouri, charged with dereliction of duty for the unauthorized release of a nuclear missile in October.

Tensions grow higher in Bratislava as the 155th Motor-Rifle (my 235th Rear Area Protection) Division's commander demands resupply from the city authorities in Bratislava. The Soviet general is forcefully ejected from the town hall after a confrontation with the city's Communist Party chief.

The American XI Corps and German V Korps evacuate Legnica, Poland after thoroughly demolishing the former Soviet Northern Group of Forces and Western TVD headquarters complex and the nearby command bunker. To the north II British Corps defends Gorzów Wielkopolski, a town which it captured in May, holding on only by the determined efforts of its artillery gunners and intrepid Harrier jump-jet pilots who bombard the attacking Soviets with cluster bombs, rockets and iron bombs.

A team of engineers, contracting experts and civilian experts (American expats employed by the Saudi state oil company) arrive in Aden, Yemen to assess the condition of the city's refinery, which, thankfully, was only lightly damaged in the fighting for the city.

November 9, 1997

The US responds to the nuclear attack on Pusan by launching a single Trident I submarine-launched ballistic missile from the USS George Washington Carver at the Soviet port and naval complex of Vladivostok. (unofficially) The eight MIRVs aboard all function, destroying the docks (three warheads), Pacific Fleet headquarters (two warheads), PVO headquarters (two warheads) and the ship repair yard (one warhead). American nuclear bombs will return to Vladivostok in the weeks ahead, but for now the city is crippled.

Unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship Seattle Freedom is delivered in Portland, Oregon.

The troop ship General Patch completes reactivation and is towed, with only a caretaker crew, to Atlantic City, New Jersey to serve as FEMA emergency housing. While thought is given to using the ship in its designed purpose, the decision is made to continue shipping replacements to Europe by air, using the many intact airfields in the UK, rather than cram thousands of recruits into a single hull, vulnerable to Soviet submarines and raiders, and uncertain as to the condition of any European port large enough to dock the 600-foot long ship.

The defense attorneys for the former commander of the battleship Missouri request a change of venue to the continental US, concerned about their personal safety (and that of their client) in a region increasingly targeted by Soviet nuclear weapons.

The commander of the 155th Motor-Rifle (my 235th Rear Area Security) Division arrays his troops around vital sites in the city of Bratislava in an attempt to intimidate city authorities into releasing supplies to his unit. He dispatches battalions to the city's local and regional government buildings, the telephone exchange, refinery, truck plant, military academy and airfield.

In southern Germany, the US VII Corps comes under pressure on its northern flank as an attack from the Soviet 41st Army, heading south out of Nuremburg, begins.

As the 82nd Airborne moves south and they and their Kurdish allies rove across northwestern Iran disrupting Transcaucasian Front's rear area, General Suryakin orders 7th Army north to, initially, secure a supply line and following that to combat the marauding American force.

The Politburo is in turmoil as the various factions struggle for dominance. Sauronski and the KGB hold the upper hand, however, and one of the peace faction's leaders, Chairman of the Trade Union Council Ivan Maksimov, is arrested by the KGB and transported to the notorious Lefortovo Prison in Moscow. His children - sons serving as a fighter battalion commander in Iran, another son in a tank regiment in Poland and his daughter's husband serving in an air defense battery outside Moscow - are relieved of their commands and ordered to return to the capital, clearly a signal that they are to at least serve as hostages.

Britain dispatches reinforcements to Belize. The first two aircraft are British Air 767s carrying Territorial Army infantrymen from the 4th Battalion, The Kings Own Border Regiment, whose home defense duties are taken over by recently raised Home Service Force companies. 1st Battery, Royal Artillery, a training unit, is mobilized as well and moves to RAF Brize Norton to load on board one of the UK's odder transport aircraft, a chartered former RAF Shorts Belfast. Another of the gargantuan aircraft arrives to load the three Gazelle light helicopters of 25 Helicopter Flight for the transit to Central America.

November 10, 1997

Nothing official for today! Unofficially,

The 108th Armored Cavalry Regiment completes Rotation 97-9 at NTC-3 at the Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona and is declared combat ready.

The US Navy continues its cycle of rapidly bringing 1950s-era destroyers back into service as the USS Morton is recommissioned, under the command of Commander Michelle Lamberton, an experienced officer that previously commanded the landing ship USS Boulder

The officers of the 12th Motor-Rifle Division, battered in action in China and North Korea, return to their pre-war garrisons in Mongolia and prepare to activate a new division. The division's command structure is a shell, with some regiments commanded by captains and the entire reconnaissance battalion missing.

The last Allied troops cross the Taedong River, departing the northern half of the largely ruined city of Pyongyang and demolishing the remaining bridges to slow the Soviet and North Korean advance. On the east coast, Wonsan comes under heavy attack; the presence of the cruiser USS Des Moines is crtical to the city's defense.

The battleships Missouri and New Jersey rendevous north of Japan and pass through the Japanese-held Kurile Islands.

The Dutch 9th Amphibious Combat Group completes its initial training period and is rushed to the front, assigned to duty in the Baltic attached to the US 5th Marine Division as a tenth line infantry battalion.

In a remarkable feat of lucky timing, American forces unleash a Trident I submarine-launched ballistic missile on Bratislava-area industrial sites - the refinery, truck plant, military academy, airfield and regional government headquarters. The Soviet 155th Motor-Rifle (my 235th Rear Area Protection) Division, which has units at all of these locations, is destroyed in the strikes.

The British I Corps counterattacks west of Nuremberg, catching the 30th Guards Motor-Rifle Division in the flank and stalling the Soviet attack, saving US VII Corps from a disastrous flank attack.

In Iran, III MEF goes on the offensive against the supply-starved 40th Army. The lead attacks are from the Australian Brigade, whose tanks have superior gunners to the tired Soviet conscripts that have replaced the Afghanistan veterans that were lost in the earlier months of the campaign. The Soviets put up resistance that can be described as "slightly more than token", falling back in near-panic to the relative safety of the Zagros Mountains.

At the Tblisi electronics plant, the engineers are proud to have completed their prototype of a production SS-23 guidance package. It is immediately sent to Moscow for testing, while the Tblisi plant begins to tool up for an initial production run. In Moscow, the power struggle within the Politburo has played out, with three members of the peace faction fleeing the city and the Minister of Defense announcing his immediate retirement.

Guatemalan forces cross the border with Belize, immediately becoming engaged in fierce firefights with Belizian Defense Force (BDF) and police outposts. The posts are overrun after several hours of fierce fighting, giving time for word to reach the capital. The BDF dispatches two infantry companies to hold the road that cross the border, leaving companies to secure the airports and the harbor in Belize City, while again appealing to the UK for assistance and calling on the United Nations and Organization of American States to condemn the attack and lead efforts to restore the tiny Caribbean nation's borders. (The UN has been moribund since war broke out between Security Council members China and Russia in 1995, but many nations still participate).

November 11, 1997

Survivors of the Dutch 304th Infantry Brigade, largely destroyed in the nuclear attack on Rotterdam on October 14, are reformed in the town of Edam, northeast of Amsterdam. Pitifully understrength, the "brigade" is only a few companies strong and is assigned only local security and relief duties.

Unofficially,

The first American war-built light frigate, the USS Poole, is commissioned and placed on duty at Norfolk, Viginia after two months of post-delivery workups and training. The ship is assigned convoy escort duty. It is assigned a newly-delivered SH-2G anti-submarine helicopter; due to shortages only a single one of the ship's eight Harpoon missile launch tubes is loaded.

The American Essex-class carrier Oriskany, construction of which started in 1944 and originally commissioned in 1950, decommissioned in 1976, is recommissioned once again at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco. Present at the ceremony are the ship's commanding officer when she was decommissioned in 1976 and over a dozen "plank owners" - original crewmen from when she was commissioned in 1950. Its air wing, CVW-56, is training inland at NAS Fallon, Nevada. While Oriskany last operated F-8 and A-7s, the declining A-7 inventory is being used by larger fleet carriers, forcing CVW-56 to use older A-4s culled from training squadrons and the nearly empty AMARC in Arizona.

The battleships New Jersey and Missouri arrive off the coast of Sakhalin Island and begin pounding Soviet targets - ports, air defense radars, army garrisons, the airfields and transportation hubs. The Soviets in the region are so depleted by the nuclear attack on Vladivostok, months of action in the area and Japanese invasion of the Kuriles that they offer only feeble resistance.

The Soviet 30th Guards Motor-Rifle Division struggles to hold its positions, facing the British 1st Armoured Division on its west flank and the US 36th Infantry Division to the south. As the day drags on the 3rd Brigade, 1st US Armored Division arrives on the field and the Soviet formation is forced to give way. It is able to buy time to escape by calling down a strike by a nuclear-tipped SS-21 missile on the lead American battalions; the attack does little physical damage but throws the Americans off balance.

40th Army discovers that the mountains offer less protection than they had hoped as 1st and 4th Marine Air Wings' surviving helicopters are used to insert dismounted patrols of Gurkhas and Marines to hunt isolated Soviet detachments and capture key passes.

The 238th Rear Area Protection Division is ordered to complete its mobilization, a process that had been delayed innumerable times since it began activating and training in late 1996. The flood of refugees from the cities in the Volga region provide an abundance of recruits, but there are only three battalions worth of BTR-152 APCs and a single battalion of T-34/85s in the division’s stores. Nonetheless, the unit is sent by road to perform occupation duties in captured territories in Austria and southern Germany, freeing up other occupation forces for service at the front.

November 12, 1997

The nuclear exchange finally reaches the Persian Gulf region when Soviet ICBMs target the oil export facility at Kharg Island in the Gulf.

Unofficially,

The Freedom ship Honolulu Freedom is delivered in Galveston, Texas.

North Korean troops infiltrate the South Korean lines southwest of Wonsan and secure a solid blocking position, cutting off the South Korean division (a reserve division) holding the sector. The Soviets take advantage of the unit's isolation, pounding it with a half dozen nuclear weapons and it disintegrates. Soviet and North Korean light troops bypass the shell-shocked South Koreans and pour through the gap in the lines and reach the coastal road, cutting Wonsan off.

The light frigate USS Newell is delivered in Pascagoula, Mississippi and manned by a mix of USN and USCG personnel.

The US Navy continues its reactivation of mothballed combatants, with the recommissioning of the USS Decatur DDG-31, an aged guided-missile destroyer. (When it decommissioned in 1983 its name was released, ultimately used for a new USS Decatur, DDG-73. That ship was sunk in December 1996, making the name available for once again for the 1950s-built ship).

The judge presiding over the court martial of the former commander of the USS Missouri, in a long opinion detailing the long history of the JAG Corps in combat over many centuries, nonetheless notes the unprecedented threat that the trial is operating under and approves the change of venue to Bremerton, Washington.

Meanwhile, the officer's former command and its sister ship New Jersey remain off the coast of Sakhalin, pounding additional targets. The Soviet Pacific Fleet takes advantage of the opportunity to dispatch a number of resupply vessels to the beleaguered Aleutian Front.

The Dutch 9th Amphibious Combat Group launches a raid on a Soviet mobile air defense radar site west of Utska, Poland in its combat debut.

In southern Germany, the British I Corps continues its attack on the Soviet 14th Army. Supported by Allied tactical aircraft and a nuclear strike on the Soviet supply lines, the corps makes gains and by nightfall has the city of Nuremberg in sight.

The US Navy dispatches a trio of P-3 Orion patrol aircraft from Ascension Island in an attempt to locate the Soviet raider that attacked McMurdo Station, Antarctica the prior week. The task is nearly impossible, with tens of thousands of miles of iceberg-clogged ocean to search.

The lead battalions of the Soviet 7th Army arrive in the region south of Tabriz, deploying cautiously to try to locate the American paratrooper force.

British infantry arrive at the front in Belize, where their LAW80 anti-tank rockets and Milan platoon are able to halt the small Guatemalan armored force (a platoon of M41 Walker Bulldog tanks and a contingent of V-100 APCs) that had proved critical in defeating the light infantry of the Belizian Defense Force. As the sun sets, the first British artillery arrives within range; its aged M-56 pack howitzers (pulled from storage and rushed to Belize) the first fire support the BDF has enjoyed in this short war.

so will the Brits or Belize, recover any of the Guatemalan M41 Walker Bulldog tanks. if they do so who will crew them? just recovering the turrets and co-aux much less the main guns could be useful..

The Danish had an interesting M41 improvement fielded during the late Cold War: the M41 DK-1 featured a NBC protection system, an external laser rangefinder, and thermal imaging equipment. They also came with skirts and stowage, if I remember correctly.

I think it is unlikely just given the composition of the British and BDF force. The British battalion is a Territorial Army unit pulled from home defense duties. They have mostly Land Rovers with maybe a handful of Bedford trucks, but nothing powerful enough to tow a disabled light tank while their maintenance team lacks the tools, expertise, manpower and spares to work on it. Belize is a poor country so I think it is unlikely that there would be much similar capacity on the civilian side. If they retain control of the battlefield!

With that said, it might be possible for one or more of the knocked out tanks, if they didn't burn, to be emplaced as pillboxes at key points, or even in the jungle yards from where they were stopped.

November 13, 1997

Nothing in canon for today!

The seventh R-5D hypersonic spy plane is completed in Palmdale, California.

Irish forces in Northern Ireland have linked up with IRA paramilitaries in South Armagh but have made no real move to drive out the UDR and RUC garrison of Armagh, the county town. The Irish force has not attempted operations on this scale ever and is struggling to maintain momentum while learning how to support and sustain an effort this large.

Allied forces in eastern North Korea scramble to try to dislodge the enemy troops that are blocking the road south of Wonsan while the naval command once again hastily organizes a fleet to evacuate the surrounded force should that prove necessary.

Meanwhile, in South Korea the Soviet nuclear strikes are disrupting the war effort. Production at South Korean munitions plants has largely halted as their workforces join tens of thousands of civilians fleeing urban areas for the perceived safety of the countryside. The refugee flows result in massive traffic jams that block northbound military supply convoys. The nation's Combat Police and Civil Defense forces are overwhelmed; desperate Combat Police commanders try to clear the roads with gunfire. The effort instead results in panicked civilians, wild rumors and roads blocked by abandoned and shot-up vehicles.

The former commander of the USS Missouri and his defense team are evacuated from Japan aboard a US Navy C-9 aircraft, accompanied by a USN guard detachment.

The battleship task force off the Russian Far Eastern coast moves around the north coast of Sakhalin and slashes into the ferry route between the island and the mainland. After sinking two ferries, they move to demolish the ferry ports on both ends of the route with gunfire from their 16-inch and 5-inch guns.

The British I Corps continues its counter-offensive in southern Germany, reinforced with artillery and the US 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment from the adjacent US VII Corps. The British 2nd Infantry Division passes through the 1st Armoured Division's lines to enter the city of Nuremberg, engaging the retreating Soviet and Czech occupation force.

Soviet occupation forces in the Balkans continue to suffer from widespread local resistance from NATO-supported partisans. The remnants of the Jugoslav and Romanian armies and local defense militias, the American 71st Airborne Brigade and Green Beret detachments all undertake constant raids on isolated outposts and supply convoys, partly out of a desire to continue to resist and partly to capture food, fuel and ammunition. The USAF and CIA fly low level supply flights supporting isolated friendly detachments, and Special Forces A-teams call in lucrative targets for sea-based nuclear weapons in the Mediterranean. All this unrest causes the Southwestern TVD to recall major elements of the Southern Front from Thrace to bolster the occupation forces further north.

The Allied airborne force in Iran continues its move south, capturing the town of Bukan as the final elements of the 82nd Airborne Division prepare to abandon their last positions in Tabriz. The division's engineers supervise the demolition of the air base's runway, fuel tanks, hangars and other key infrastructure; they have already dismantled the secondary airstrip they had established shortly after arriving in the area.

The fallout of the unrest in the Politburo continues, with the resignation or sidelining of all the remaining members of the so-called peace faction. One of the members who fled the capital, GOSPLAN head Yuri Sigayev, is arrested in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on charges of economic sabotage of the war effort.

November 14, 1997

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

The twin light frigates Howard D. Crow and Petit exit the Gulf of St Lawrence to commence their first mission, an escort of Convoy 310.

The 108th Armored Cavalry Regiment is ordered held at the Yuma Proving Ground pending allocation of adequate equipment prior to movement to a theater of war. The regimental commander is grateful for the opportunity for his command to engage in additional training prior to deployment. His adjudant polls commanders for recommended personnel changes, relieving those who the recently-completed NTC rotation has demonstrated as not being up to the task and promoting those that demonstrated potential.

Due to an atmospheric anomoly possibly caused by the nuclear exchange, a radio message from the 139th (my 119th) Motor-Rifle Division is received at the Headquarters, 1st Far Eastern Front. The 139th, a poorly trained and equipped mobilization-only division thought lost since July, reports that it is deep in the Chinese interior and has been reduced to a battalion in strength. It is the last contact the Red Army has with the unit.

In North Korea, the evacuation of Allied forces in Wonsan becomes more chaotic as panicking civilians rush aboard the motley collection of fishing boats, tugs, small freighters and amphibious craft that the ROK naval command has commandeered into an evacuation fleet. Offshore, the guns of the USS Des Moines augment the embattled defenders of the city's perimeter; the heavy cruiser strikes a heavy blow when its onboard helicopter locates the commander of the Soviet 247th Motor-Rifle Division (using an unsecured radio) and wipes him out with one of the ship's tactical nuclear rounds. Despite the loss, the 247th holds its blocking positions, although the unit's planned attacks on the southern perimeter fail to launch.

Their magazines emptying and their fuel tanks running dry, the battleships Missouri and New Jersey conclude their attacks on Sakhalin Island and the Siberian coast opposite it. They travel south through the Strait of Tartary, heading for friendly Japanese territory. As they depart, a Soviet mobile coast defense missile battery looses a volley of SSC-1 anti-ship missiles at the American force. The escorting Aegis destroyers shoot down all but one, which strikes the frigate USS Gray. The missile's 2000-pound warhead tears the frigate's stern apart and tosses the ship's helicopter about in its hangar, igniting a massive blaze. The ship slips under the waves a few hours later.

The 25th Missile Brigade, a former East German Army Scud missile unit, is down to a handful of (non-nuclear) missiles. (The Soviets never allowed the East Germans access to chemical or nuclear warheads). NATO commanders, busy targeting American-built nuclear delivery systems, are too busy to assign the brigade targets and the German government has the brigade withdrawn to the Ruhr, where its remaining TELs (Transporter-Erector-Launcher trucks) are parked in a disused warehouse.

The American 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment battles to recapture its peacetime headquarters, Merrell Barracks in Nuremberg. The firefight adds to the damage the garrison's buildings proudly displayed (the original damage the result of Allied attacks on the former SS barracks during and immediately after World War Two). The American troopers are enraged to discover that the Soviet occupiers have looted the Regimental Museum, and that several historic artifacts (including Patton Silver, the Dragoon Book and several original oils by Stivers, Troianni, etc.) are missing.

NATO forces have largely evacuated all the territory they captured in the spring and summer invasion of Poland, falling back to mostly derelict defensive positions opposite Oder River crossings they occupied over the prior winter.

In the central Atlantic, the Sierra III-class attack sub K-231 completes over a week's patrolling of a remote area of the ocean, failing to detect any NATO or neutral ship traffic. It relays the news to Murmansk, where the Red Banner Northern Fleet orders the Typhoon-class boomer TK-20 and its Akula-class escort K-461 to the area.

Convoy 306 transits the English Channel after dark, concluding a long voyage that included a drastic diversion south to avoid a massive hole blasted in NATO's defenses of the North Atlantic west of Iceland.

A new head of GOSPLAN, the Soviet planning body responsible for control of the command economy, is named. As an indication of the new direction coming from the Kremlin the nominee is a Party official that has spent most of his career in the branch of the Party responsible for indoctrination and mass mobilization; he has no prior economic or industrial experience.

Belizian and British forces stop another Guatemalan assault along the road from the border to the capital city of Belmopan. The British and Belizian light infantry, guided by the instructors of the British Jungle Warfare School, adopt tactics similar to the Finns, striking road-bound units from trackless wooded terrain, then fading away before the enemy can respond. In the commerical capital, Belize City, the last elements of the British Force, 43 Battery, Royal Artillery, a light air defense unit equipped with captured Soviet ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft guns and obsolescent Blowpipe missiles, arrives.

November 15, 1997

Nothing in canon for today. Unofficially,

At the ministerial level, NATO political leaders raise a delicate subject - the status of the Jugoslav, Romanian, Turkish and Free Polish delegations, all of whom have had their territory overrun by Pact troops and are largely out of the war. After several hours of uncomfortable discussion the decision is reached to continue to allow them to participate in NATO decision making, as the Alliance still has an obligation to seek those countries' liberation.

The final FEMA emergency strategic stockpile is fully loaded and sealed up. This one, at Cardigan Mountain State Forest in New Hampshire, is the 37th one completed; plans for an additional 13 are ultimately not completed due to the nuclear exchange.

The first Soviet trawlers, patrol boats and small freighters that surged out of Petropavlovsk last week arrive in Anchorage, Alaska, bringing vitally needed supplies to the 25th Corps.

With the KGB network in the UK in tatters after months of hunts by the Army and MI 5, a fresh team of agents is dispatched from Moscow. They are flown to Turin, Italy, where they begin their covert trek to the UK.

The Soviet 30th Army, receiving reports of the numbers of Allied troops fleeing Wonsan and the immense damage to the city being inflicted by the fighting and Allied demolition teams, decides to hasten the capture of the city by detonating a Scud missile above the city. The resulting blast and fire from the 300-kiloton detontation destroys much that is left, swamps many of the small craft in the harbor and hastens the collapse of the defense. As night falls, the commander of the USS Des Moines brings the ship into the outer harbor, where it takes on over a thousand desperate soldiers and civilians who reach the cruiser from small craft or are rescued by the ship's boats.

The carrier USS Oriskany completes loading of stores and spares and begins her first voyage in 20 years.

In Singapore, the Freedom-class cargo ship Kansas Freedom is loaded with over 100 tank containers loaded with JP-5, the final cargo that can be hastily assembled for a voyage to Diego Garcia to replace what was en-route to the island garrison aboard the Galveston Bay, sunk last week.

The American battleship force arrives in Hakodate, Japan, where it refuels and the US Navy ammunition ship USNS Mount Hood can more rapidly transfer some of the nation's rapidly dwindling stock of 16-inch shells to the battlewagons.

The Dutch 9th Amphibious Combat Group, recovered from its raid on a Soviet air defense radar, assumes a position along the front lines on the western shore of the Szczecin Lagoon.

Refugee flows disrupt Central Europe as thousands of desperate Poles try to cross into Germany ahead of avenging Communist authorities; the flow of civilians on foot slows down NATO military traffic to and from the Oder bridgeheads. On the opposite side of the lines the Polish communist authorities are carrying out several campaigns simultaneously - a hunt for collaborators and spies, a drive to mobilize civilians to make emergency repairs to the war-ravaged nation's transportation, industrial, power and water systems, and mass relocation of the surviving population into areas that can sustain them as well as be carefully watched by loyal forces. To the west, a steady stream of German and Dutch civilians, fleeing nuclear attacks (or the potential of a nuclear attack) on their home, heads for the Belgian and French borders. The French and Belgian authorities conduct a careful screening of the refugees, but the basic humanity of the French and Belgian populations demands that the aged, young and helpless be granted refuge from a horrible situation.

Aircraft from the USS John F Kennedy battle group continue to range over Jugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria and Italy, striking a variety of industrial, communications and transportation targets and enemy troop concentrations with nuclear bombs.

To the east, the USS Nassau and USS Wisconsin withdraw from the southern Turkish coast, unable to meaningfully influence the situation ashore, where the remnants of 16th Air Force continue to fly attack missions from Incirlik Air Base, stiking Soviet targets in the Balkans, Transcaucasia and interdicting Soviet shipping in the Black Sea.

While the first ships of Convoy 306 arrive off ports in the North Sea, ships from Convoy 304 are still at anchor awaiting unloading berths at the remaining intact European harbors.

The new head of GOSPLAN delivers an address to the organization's staff and representatives of the various central ministries associated with industrial production. His speech calls for greater efforts from the workforce, calling on managers to inspire their workers to superhuman efforts in devotion to the victory of the workers in the worldwide class struggle. Privately, most of the laisson officers are disgusted, noting that his address fails to offer solutions to the myriad real problems faced by the Soviet economy - the cutoff of foreign trade, the loss of millions of workers to the war, nuclear attacks wiping out Kiev, Minsk and numerous other western cities, widespread ethnic and worker unrest, countrywide shortages of basic materials and much more.

The Guatemalan high command, dismayed by the Army's lack of progress in Belize, orders the air force and navy to get involved in the fighting. The Air Force redeploys several of its A-37 light attack aircraft and helicopters to airfields in the northeast, while the elite airborne force is rallied from its scattered garrisons (where they have been fighting Communist guerrillas) to the capital.

The "Light Frigates" that keep on popping about is this ship class notional? If so are we going to see the stats printed in a future issue of the newsletter like the Freedom class?

November 16, 1997

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship Fresno Freedom is delivered in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

The KGB agent team departs Turin and is driven to a remote sector of the Franco-Italian border, where the six new spies are able to cross undetected on foot in the darkness.

With the eastern end of the Allied line in disarray - as exhausted and demoralized South Korean troops fall back to the safety of the prewar DMZ - Allied forces in the west, under intense pressure by the Soviet 35th Army, begin to withdraw from the Kaesong River line. I and IX US Corps engineers have surveyed surviving prewar North Korean fortifications between Pyongyang and the DMZ, identifying some positions that can be used to hold off the advancing Soviets and their North Korean allies/clients.

The Chief of Staff of the 25th Infantry Division (Light), the senior surviving officer, begins reforming the unit at Camp Casey and Camp Hovey, facilities used by the 2nd Infantry Division in peacetime. The unit is initially assigned only survivors of the division's escape from encirclement and tactical nuclear strikes; 8th Army's G-1 (Personnel Officer) has determined that the best use of new replacements is to maintain the strength of units on the line rather than trying to rebuild the shattered 25th.

The Kansas Freedom sails from Singapore with a cargo of vitally needed supplies for Diego Garcia. The ship is relying on speed and a routing away from normally travelled sealanes, along with occasional overflights from friendly maritime patrol aircraft, for protection on the way.

As Pact forces close on the Oder River bridges become ever more important. NATO forces strike several of the Wisla crossings in an attempt to slow the flow of supplies and reinforcements to the front, while Western TVD tries to assemble remaining tactical bridging assets for the planned upcoming assault crossing of the Oder.

With Merrell Barracks in Nuremburg secure, the Colonel of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment receives confirmation that the regiment's artifacts are in fact missing. He assigns the entire unit a secondary mission to recover them; the officers raise a bounty of nearly $5,000 for their recovery. The regimental Command Sergeant Major offers his own special package of sweeteners - exemption from the guard and duty rosters, choice assignments within the regiment as well as certain material rewards - to the bounty. The regimental commander offers an on-the-spot one grade promotion to any soldier below the rank of 1st Lieutenant, Chief Warrant Officer or Staff Sergeant that recovers the items.

The soldiers of the 353rd Engineer Group (Combat) return to Fort Hood, Texas following two weeks of leave. Nine soldiers desert.

In Chernigov, Ukraine the 42nd Guards Training Tank Division, its leadership and some of its equipment returned from the Romanian Front, accepts its first contingent of new trainees, teenagers from eastern Ukraine whose teachers and local military commissions have identified as exhibiting leadership or technical potential. The division aims to take the raw talent and transform them into "instant sergeants" or tank or artillery crewmen for the Southwestern TVD.

In Belize, the day is another one of stalemate as the Guatemalan commanders struggle to sustain their troops with food and ammunition following the prior days' action and British and Belizian forces improve their defensive positions.

No, they're additional Coast Guard Bear/Famous-class medium endurance cutters, delivered with the defense features the USCG cutters were designed to be augmented with in wartime - a towed array sonar, two quad Harpoon launchers, some additional electronics and a LAMPS-1 SH-2 helicopter instead of the Dauphin. While they were disliked IRL as poor sea boats and there were questions about the ships' stability if all that armament was fitted, I posit that they were put back into production anyway, as they were cheaper and offered some decent capability while small enough to be produced at second-tier shipyards, such as the many smaller yards along the Gulf Coast that primarily build offshore oilfield support boats in peacetime.

I'll admit I scanned through a couple of months of entries after surgery to catch back up and probably missed where you put that. Interesting though, not a bad way to add more ships during wartime.

its your story, but the M41 comes in at 23tons. a 25ton wrecker (its standard for semis) could pull one. i don't think that they will have many, but it could be a way to fluff some being recovered if not totally returned to service. could be a good money sink for the goverment.

November 17, 1997

The American paratroops receive some welcome assistance from Kurdish irregulars in the Orumiyeh area.

Unofficially,

The freshly resupplied troops of the Soviet 25th Corps launch an attack on X US Corps' positions outside Fairbanks, Alaska, kicked off with a pair of tactical nuclear artillery rounds. The attack forces the American troops back; to protect the vulnerable civilian population from a winter of privation in the freezing Arctic weather X Corps abandons most of the city without a fight, falling back to defensive positions at Fort Wainwright and Eileson Air Force Base on the city's east side.

The KGB agent team destined for the UK links up with a sympathizer controlled by the KGB's Nice cell, who picks them up in his commercial van (carrying a variety of weapons, surveillance gear, supplies and communications equipment) and begins to travel to Normandy.

HM Government orders an acceleration of the annual technical inspection of the UK Steam Reserve, a collection of decommissioned steam locomotives kept in ready storage at various sites around the UK for emergency post-nuclear service. (They are entirely mechanical, immune to the effects of Electro-Magnetic Pulse and are not reliant on refined petroleum for fuel).

South Korean Special Forces troops sheltering in the remote mountains of North Korea identify a Soviet supply convoy heading south and report the movement. A nearby F-16 of the ROK 162nd Tactical Fighter Squadron arrives shortly thereafter and blankets the trucks with cluster bombs, depriving the 30th Army of much of what it needs to fight for two days.

The USS Des Moines arrives in the South Korean port of Pohang and discharges its massive load of passengers evacuated from Wonsan, North Korea.

The battleship USS Missouri heads back to sea, heading for the Yellow Sea to support the embattled Allied forces fighting in North Korea.

With final pre-deployment checks completed (a quick medical check, confirmation of wills and issuing personal weapons), the troops of the 353rd Engineer Group (Combat) (US Army Reserve) board a pair of requisitioned 747 jetliners at Fort Hood Army Airfield and depart for Europe.

The Guatemalan Air Force enters the war in Belize after several days of preparation. (The Air Force had been left out of planning because of inter-service rivalry, with the Army commander overly confident that his forces would be able to overrun Belize without Air Force assistance, clearing the way for future political advancement as a victorious general). Demonstrating the lack of coordination between the Army and Air Force, a flight of A-37s, flying at low level and 95 mph, flies down the road from the Guatemalan border. The pilots are unable to identify the camouflaged British positions, so they turn to the alternative target, the BDF headquarters in Belmopan. That facility is protected by a pair of emplaced machineguns, which succeed in distracting the pilots in their strafing run and damaging one of the slow-moving converted trainers. The sorties achieve very little of any consequence, and the skies over Belize are clear for the rest of the day.

November 18, 1997

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

The 8th Armored Cavalry Regiment completes Rotation 97-11 at NTC-2 at the Yakima Training Center and is declared combat ready.

The carrier USS Oriskany suffers an engineering casualty and lies dead in the water for 12 hours off the Catalina Islands.

Another KGB agent meets with the van driver at a highway rest stop south of Nantes, France and takes over driving the KGB team's van to the English Channel.

South Korean troops of the ROK VIII and III begin to rebuild a defense line along the prewar DMZ along the east coast of the Korean Peninsula. Military Police block all roads leading south and maintain active patrolling of the countryside (along with the patrols of the civilian police), sweeping all stragglers and deserters up and directing them to the battered units furiously rebuilding the prewar defensive positions.

Polish government authorities try to summon the remnants of their four territorial pontoon regiments to replace some of the bridges across the Wisla destroyed by NATO strikes and replace the tactical and assault bridges that Soviet and Polish Army units have thrown across the river, freeing those assets up for use in the upcoming planned Oder assault. Western TVD designates a site north of Świebodzin as the concentration site for the bridging and the troops to operate them, under the umbrella command of the Soviet 5th Pontoon Engineer Regiment.

The NATO counterattack from Nuremburg peters out as the British I Corps and US VII Corps' fuel tanks begin to run dry, a consequence of the destruction of the petroleum import facilities in Rotterdam and repeated nuclear strikes on pumping stations and tank farms of the Central European Pipeline System, the backbone of the NATO fuel distribution network in Germany.

The Greek Type 209 submarine Proteus attacks an American resupply convoy supporting the USS John F Kennedy battlegroup south of Crete. The modern, quiet diesel boat is fortunate to have the convoy''s escort pass overhead without detecting it, placing it in position to launch torpedoes from all eight tubes. Three ships are hit - the frigate USS Antrim, ammunition ship USNS Santa Barbara and the aged oiler USNS Kawashiwi. All three ships end up going under, the oiler taking 17 hours to succumb to fire.

The 353rd Engineer Group (Combat) (US Army Reserve) arrives at Einhoven Airport, the Netherlands. The group commander is livid when he learns that the ship flagged to carry his unit's equipment (the large sealift ship USNS Sisler) has experienced engine trouble and is not expected to load for another 10-12 days. His unit is moved to several holding camps outside Amsterdam to acclimatize.

In midmorning, the Guatemalan Air Force appears over Belize once again. This time the A-37s are escorting a mixed bag of helicopters carrying paratroops to assault the Belize International Airport. The helicopters land, disgorging their paratroops into a hail of withering fire from the defending force of Belizian reserve infantry and British headquarters and support troops. The A-37s loitering overhead are unable to distinguish friendly from enemy ground troops and are forced to resorting to strafing the parked transport and liason aircraft that constitutte the Belizian Defense Force's Air Branch. Within four hours the last Guatemalan troops are surrounded; most chose to surrender rather than be killed. Five Guatemalan UH-1-type helicopters are lost in the assault.

November 19, 1997

Lieutenant Commander Michael Sacks, U.S. Navy, wounded in one of the earliest actions of the war, is released from the Naval Hospital at Bethesda, Maryland.

Unofficially,

Various sources report an increased possibility of a Soviet nuclear attack on the UK. The Prime Minister, having received considerable criticism for his rushed evacuations during previous false alarms since July and reluctant to panic the population, is reluctant to order another full implementation of Operation Peripheral. Instead, after some discussion it is decided that the Royal Family will leave London for their estate at Sandringham in Norfolk, accompanied by the Home Secretary. As a precautionary measure, other senior members of the Government quietly leave the Capital for secure locations throughout the southeast of England.

Eluding authorities with a skillful application of cash, a fishing boat departs Dieppe with the KGB agent team destined for the UK aboard.

The 7th Infantry Division (Light) receives four infantry companies and a 105mm artillery battery as reinforcements from the 193rd Infantry Brigade in Panama, part of the "Bravo Company Transfer" initiated the week prior.

Her propulsion system working again, USS Oriskany continues her workups, landing A-4s of VA-175.

In Europe, the recipients of the "Bravo Company Transfer" are the 43rd Infantry Division (from the 46th), the 3rd Armored Division (from the 49th) and the 8th Infantry Division (receiving companies from the 194th Armored Brigade).

As allied units return to East Germany the opportunity presents itself for soldiers, exhausted by months of fierce combat and whose units have suffered greatly, to become separated from their units, either intentionally or not. Military Police units establish screens to round up these wayward soldiers and return them to duty, either in their own units or some other nearby, understrength unit.

With the interruption to its supply of fuel and ammunition from yesterday's attack on its replenishment group, the John F Kennedy battle group is forced to scale back operations over Turkey and the Balkans and head to the central Mediterranean for replenishment. The battleship Wisconsin increases its activity in the region, beginning a foray into the Aegean raiding Greek positions in the islands. (Her supply of Tomahawk land-attack missiles has been depleted and the launchers cannot be reloaded underway).

To support the 82nd Airborne Division, a nearly constant flow of C-130s and smaller transport aircraft ferry supplies into northwestern Iran, landing on hastily constructed airstrips, straight stretches of highway or dropping them from low level. This situation creates a plethora of targets for Soviet fighters, demanding a concerted effort to maintain an Allied combat air patrol over the area. Saudi officials are unwilling to extend their F-15 and Tornado force so far from home territory, as are most of its GCC allies. The Iranian Air Force contributes what sorties it can, and over the objections of their commanders the F/A-18s of the 1st and 4th Marine Air Wings make an appearance over the region. The final force brought in is the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing, whose F-15E strike fighters possess superior air-to-air capabilities to those of the dedicated F-15C interceptors of the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing. This diversion, however, decreases the interdiction effort directed to keeping up the pressure on Soviet supply lines.

More unrest troubles the USSR as peasants in the Vologda region refuse to hand over the produce from their private plots to authorities, noting that their local collective farm did its best to fulfill its norms even in the face of no spare parts for the (overaged and worn out) tractors and cutbacks in fertilizer and fuel.

More great updates per usual. It strikes me that even before the TDM the conflict was approaching the broken-back level where each side was heavily damaged yet continued to pursue victory-(this is even before strategic nuclear weapons were flying) More than one pundit "back in the day" posited that a NATO/WP conflict would quickly become just that.

It is an incredible amount of work and a massive undertaking-it is also very well done and greatly appreciated.

Another nice touch to mention the SRS/FEMA caches. Very realistic (although I can imagine DLA doing something similar) and a great addition to the timeline.

Folks, I screwed up the other day. The following section

is from Rainbow Six's amazing Alternative Survivors' Guide to the UK.

It's such a great work that I have been leaning on it for much of what I have ging on in the UK. I screwed up by not giving Rainbow the credit he is most certainly due for his work, and I once again apologize!

Please take some time to read through his work. It has a lot more on the UK than I could ever hope to!

Once again, I'm sorry Rainbow! (And if I have picked up somebody else's work in my years of hoovering up timeline info, please let me know so I can get you the credit you are due!).

November 20, 1997

Dr. Allie Kurtz becomes the CIA representative on the Allied Joint Intelligence Task Force in the CENTCOM area of operations.

Unofficially,

The Essex-class carrier USS Oriskany makes her first catapult launches in decades as she works up to full operating capability. She is joined by two of her escorts, the reactivated destroyer John Paul Jones and the Coast Guard cutter Chase, to begin working on battle group operations.

The KGB team arrives in the predawn hours on the beach south of Dover. They quickly unload their rubber raft's cargo of weapons, supplies and equipment before launching it into the surf; 100 meters offshore one of the team members sinks it and undertakes a perilous swim ashore. They break into an unoccupied holiday cottage and shelter for the day, recovering from the rough crossing in cold weather.

The last Allied front line troops withdraw from Pyongyang, leaving stay-behind parties in well-hidden and -supplied observation posts. In the east, forward detachments of the 30th Army reach the prewar Demilitarized Zone, now adequately occupied by South Korean troops.

The battleship Missouri returns to action, firing on Soviet and North Korean troops attacking South Korean and American marines outside the North Korean naval base complex at Songang-ni.

The Soviet 12th Tank Division prepares for an assault crossing of the Oder near Gorlitz.

The commander of the US 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, seeing other units receive new companies from the US, pleas for additional troops to rebuild his battered unit, which is still at only 35 percent of authorized strength after months of action. He writes: "It is essential that 3rd ACR receive the requested persoonel and equipment to returnt the unit to full strength. However, even if we had all our personnel and mission capable equipment today we would still not be able to return to action because of our losses of senior leaders (sergeant through colonel) and our training status. We have been unable to train above squad level, and even training at squad level is limited by severe shortages of equipment. We have lost a large majority of our trained leaders and soldiers and gained few. None of the new personnel have conducted tactical training with the regiment's units. In addition, we have critical shortages in low density MOSs. 3rd ACR currently has four trained NBC specialists and most troops have no supply personnel; 2d Squadron's S-4 (Supply Officer) is an E-4 with 13 months in service. I have an aggressive training plan that will result in trained squadrons by March and a combat ready regiment by June, but in order to execute it I need the regiment filled with adequately trained personnel and mission-ready equipment."

The Wisconsin surface action group continues its rampage though the Aegean Sea and turns northeast, heading for the Turkish Straits. Lacking friendly air cover and given the near-destruction of enemy air forces in the area, the group proceeds with all of its radars on full power. Consequently, fixing the group's location, course and speed is relatively easy for Soviet ELINT aircraft orbiting over the Black Sea. They relay the information to Moscow and within 45 minutes a SS-20 IRBM is fired by the 19th Missile Regiment near Sumy in the Ukraine. The missile lands 600 meters from the battleship, sending her and her group to the bottom. (The reverberation of the shock wave from the blast off the shallow seabed did greivous damage to the escorts out of the direct range of the blast).

CENTCOM receives several companies of reinforcements from the "Bravo Company Transfer", with the 14th ACR and 48th Infantry Brigade receiving companies from the 13th ACR and 197th Infantry Brigades in the continental US.

In Soviet Georgia, workers at the Tbilisi Electronics plant begin the low-rate production of improved SS-23 guidance packages. The first prototype, completed a few weeks before, is rejected by Moscow because it is too heavy, a result of the unavailability of the proper lightweight alloy from the war-burdened Soviet economy. The initial series production lacks the proper metals as well. Deliveries of SS-23 missiles continue to be on hold while the new guidance packages are produced.

Unwilling to give up on the attempt to overrun Belize, the Guatemalan high command orders the Navy into action. The force, composed of a half-dozen or so patrol boats in the Caribbean and seven companies of marines (nationwide) needs several days to organize for an assault on Belize's many coastal villages and outlying islands.

Meanwhile, the front along the sole road between the two nations remains stalemated, with Guatemalan Army troops struggling to maintain their morale in the face of supply shortages, the shock of facing competent opposition and the constant fear of British attacks emerging from the jungle.

November 21, 1997

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

The helicopter repair and maintenance center in Corpus Christi, Texas completesits first conversion of a US Navy TH-57 training helicopter into a OH-58 battlefield observation model for service at the front. The conversion was relatively minor, fitting additional avionics and weapons mounts, replacing the windscreen with a flat model as well as a coating of IR and radar-absorbent paint and a general update of aged components. A C-5 Galaxy awaits at the Naval Air Station to fly the "new" aircraft to Iran.

The American attack submarine USS Olympia arrives in Holy Loch, Scotland after a patrol that took it from Pearl Harbor, under the North Pole and into the Barents Sea.

The KGB team in the Dover area splits up into teams of one or two members, dispersing across the UK to begin tracking developments in wartime Britain.

Deep in the Chinese interior, the 292nd Motor-Rifle Division continues its advance on foot. In the month since it abandoned its vehicles (which were out of gas) the unit has advanced another 450 kilometers.

The freighter Kansas Freedom reaches Diego Garcia, carrying a load of JP-5 fuel, food and other essentials. The staff on the island begin storing the cargo discharged by the ship's cranes.

An A-team from the 20th Special Forces Group (National Guard) locates the Soviet 5th Pontoon Engineer Regiment's bivouac area and the growing equipment park containing much of the remaining tactical bridging equipment from Pact units throughout Poland. The team radios the find in to the group headquarters, which dispatches a Green Light Atomic Demolitions Munition team to the area. The strike team arrives shortly before dawn and, covered by the men of the first team, emplace it in between the tent sites and motor pool. The subsequent blast effectively wipes out the massed equipment and the specialist troops, severely limiting Western TVD's ability to ferry anything other than an assault echelon across the Oder.

The American light frigate USS Marchand begins its first operational voyage, an anti-submarine sweep of the approaches to Norfolk, Virginia.

The 234th Rear Area Protection Division, a unit composed of Romanian-speaking Moldovan reservists that performed well in quelling resistance to the Soviet 14th Army's occupation of southeastern Romania, is assigned to 26th Army and transferred to Jugoslavia.

The nuclear exchange continues in the Persian Gulf region, with USAF F-15Es taking a break from air defense to block the road junction south of Mashdad, Iran, where roads from Turkmenistan and Afghanistan join and continue to Tehran. Thanks to the efforts of the 82nd Airborne Division the road is one of the main routes for Transcaucasian Front to obtain supplies.

Whoops. Hopefully there were lessons learned there.

Let me just crest this hill and present a profile, what's the worst that can hap

Indeed. Hate to see the BB Wisconsin go down in the timeline.

November 22, 1997

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

The Freedom ship Toledo Freedom is delivered in Galveston, Texas.

FEMA commissions another evacuation center, this one a winterization and expansion of the campground at Vermont's Grand Isle State Park in Lake Champlain. The facility should be able to accomodate 1500 evacuees from Burlington, Vermont, Plattsburgh, New York or even more distant cities in New England. More controversially, the site is a mere 70 miles from Montreal; local emergency planners worry that the state may be burdened with supporting foreigners, even if they are allied civilians.

The battleship USS Missouri, operating in the Yellow Sea, is damaged by a conventional torpedo (one hit) in the bow from the Victor III-class attack submarine K-244 and heads for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii for repairs.

The British and American forces outside Nuremburg shift over to a defensive deployment, in many cases occupying defensive positions long planned for employment in the decades-long effort to defend West Germany from a Warsaw Pact invasion.

In Western Poland, corps commanders question the utility of holding bridgeheads over the Oder, pointing out that the NATO forces are in no condition to repeat the spring and summer's conquest of Poland and that the threat of infiltration and small size of the bridgeheads require troops to minimize dispersal, creating a lucrative target for Soviet nuclear weapons. The prior day's attack on Western TVD's bridging assets reduces the Pact's ability to threaten an assault crossing of the Oder as well, all arguing for a withdrawal from most of the positions east of the Oder-Niesse line.

In western Bavaria, the commander of XX Corps, facing off against exhausted Italian alpini mountain troops, requests reinforcements of artillery, engineers and modest armor forces to take advantage of the enemy's weakness and recapture territory. Unfortunately, 4th Army has no assets to send to the sector, such is the shortage of replacements, fuel, ammunition and spares.

Salvage specialists clear the entrance to the Danish port of Esbjerg that had been blocked by the Romanian freighter Ilfov, which had been sunk by Soviet bombs in an air raid over the summer. This effort clears a major obstacle to clearing the growing backlog of loaded ships in the North Sea. The backlog grows larger with the arrival of Convoy 310, which brings another 48 ships loaded with cargo.

Over the Baltic, an A-7E of the US Navy's VA-66, a survivor of the USS Coral Sea's air wing operating from the Danish Air Force Aalborg Air Station, intercepts a Soviet A-90 Orlyonok Ekranoplan craft flying at low level, ferrying a load of supplies into Poland. (Such is the desperate situation of the Pact forces; the craft carries a mere 28 tons of cargo). The A-7 diverts and downs the craft with several bursts of 20mm gunfire. Upon his return to base, the pilot is incensed that the squadron intelligence officer is uncertain as to credit the pilot with a "kill" (taking him closer to being an Ace) or with sinking a surface craft.

The 173rd Airborne Brigade in Kenya continues its fierce attacks on Tanzanian forces near Mombasa, defeating a planned Tanzanian attack before the forces can even get organized for an offensive.

That is an interesting conundrum there...

*checks calendar*

*tugs collar*

Ooof.

Keep in mind that Thanksgiving Day 1997 was on the 27th. Don't worry, I'm ready!

November 23, 1997

Nothing official for today. Unofficially,

Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Sauronski decides that the strategic situation is growing increasingly intolerable, with the US, UK and Canada continuing to churn out tanks, troops, guns and aircraft with inpunity, while the USSR has suffered the loss of Kiev and Minsk and is faced with diminishing prospects of restoring East Germany to Soviet control. Accordingly, he directs that the nation's nuclear forces prepare to execute a strike on the American and British homelands, to decapitate their Capitalist regimes and create a favorable situation for a worker's uprising, or at least demand an end to the capitalist war of aggression. To prevent the attack from igniting an all-out apocolyptic response on the Soviet homeland, the attacks are to use no more than 15 missiles.

Janet Clancy, daughter of Vice President Pemberton and her father set out on their annual multi-day Thanksgiving cross country ski trip to the family's cabin in North Cascades National Park, Washington. Taking advantage of the cold weather, they travel on the frozen Lake Chalen to the isolated hamlet of Stehekin, accompanied by her Secret Service bodyguard, a former Marine sergeant that learned to ski at the Mountain Warfare Training Center in the Sierra Nevadas. The bodyguard is armed with his issue SIG-Sauer P229 pistol and a M-4 carbine. When they arrive at the cabin they are greeted by another agent and the family's cook, who arrived the day prior via snowmobile.

Soviet troops in Manchuria revolt when they receive word that they are to be sent to the front in Europe. The men feel that they have alreeady won a war for the Soviet Union and that the many reservists, rear area troops and other able-bodied men who did not contribute to victory in China should spend time at the front before they once again risk their lives. The men are heavily armed combat veterans, and the revolt must be handled delicately.

The American carrier Oriskany reaches a new milestone - its first full squadron sortie evolution, when VA-175 launches a training strike (in support of Marines training at Twentynine Palms, California) and returns to the ship.

NATO forces in Poland hold on to the Oder bridgeheads against growing Soviet pressure. The opposiiton is mostly Soviets, the Polish Army being diverted to support the Border Guards in the hunt for pro-NATO partisans, stay-behind parties and collaborators that may have betrayed the Communist Party.

The Freedom-class ship Springfield Freedom diverts from the North Sea into the British port of Felixstone for discharge of its cargo of vehicles (mostly new M939 5-ton trucks but also a quartet of M-1A2D tanks and several dozen old M-561 Gama Goats. They spend only a few hours ashore before being loaded onto the USS Boulder, a LST that can land vehicles on beaches.

As the orders to strike the US and UK are received by the leadership of the Strategic Rocket Forces, Long Range Aviation and Navy, planners begin to pull together the concept for the operation. (Existing plans largely cover an all-out strike on the West using all available weapons). They will be fully prepared to execute in three days.

November 24, 1997

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

Having given the orders for an attack on the United States and UK, Premier Sauronski departs Moscow for the secret underground command center at Zhiguli Mountain near Kuybyshev. He is accompanied by his mistress, favorite son and small entourage to avoid attracting attention. His departure, of course, is noted by the KGB, whose Chairman Yangel, departs shortly thereafter for the safety of the bunker complex under Kosvinsky Mountain in the Urals.

The 2nd Brigade, 17th Airborne Division is declared combat ready after completing Rotation 97-11 at JRTC-2 at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. It is held at the base pending receipt of equipment and a decision from the Joint Chiefs as to where it will be sent.

The front along the DMZ in eastern Korea is static as 30th Army suffers from severe supply shortages and a lack of replacements for the heavy losses it has sustained in the long advance from the Soviet border. Allied lines in the central mountains are slowly receding to the prewar DMZ, while Allied mechanized forces in the west (mainly a handful of South Korean mechanized brigades and the 163rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (Montana National Guard)) south of Pyongyang are slowing 35th Army's reconquest of North Korean territory with frequent lighting mechanized raids on the Soviet advanced detachments. Meanwhile, South Korean stay-behind parties continue to identify Soviet supply convoys for interdiction strikes.

NATO troops along the Oder become increasingly nervous as each day passes without a Soviet attack on their bridgeheads. They spend the time furiously digging ever-deeper protective shelters, which hopefully will save them from the nuclear attacks they can't help but fear are coming shortly.

With the loss of the Wisconsin battle group in the Aegean to a Soviet missile strike, the commander of the John F. Kennedy carrier battle group departs Sigonella, Sicily and requests permission from 6th Fleet to shift his area of operations to the Tyrrhenian Sea north of Sicily and west of the Italian Peninsula. The Navy detachment ashore, caring for the damaged carrier America, once again requests an update on what to do, having largely repaired what they are able to do with the resources on hand.

The LST USS Boulder beaches itself at high tide at Scheveningen, Netherlands and drops its ramp to unload the vehicles it loaded the day before from the Springfield Freedom. Dutch motor-transport units are waiting with tank transporters to move the four M1A2D tanks, while the Gama Goats are loaded onto flatbeds and the 5-ton trucks are taken over by a detachment (composed of German civilian employees) sent by the US Army's 21st TAACOM.

photo
The F-15E strike aircraft of the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing return to the skies over eastern Iran, this time en route to the road leading from Herat Afghanistan. Mujaheddin fighters and their American CIA advisors reported the departure of the 682nd "Uman-Warsaw" Independent Motor-Rifle Regiment from Afghanistan to reinforce the battered 40th Army. A few hours later the F-15Es appeared overhead, ripping the column apart with an 80-kiloton B-61 bomb.

The Guatemalan Navy makes it's entry in the war with Belize when a force of six patrol boats, constituting all the craft in the Caribbean that can be made seaworthy, appears off the town of Dangriga, the largest town in southern Belize. They enter the yacht/fishing harbor and discharge two platoons of heavily armed Marines, overpowering the three confused policemen that had arrived to investigate. The Marines seize the police car and a number of civilian vehicles and head inland, securing the nearby road junction, cutting off the southern portion of the country and the direct road from the south to the capital.

November 25, 1997

Speaker of the House of Representatives Munson, next in line of succession to the Vice President, is skiing in northern California. He and his wife slip out of his vacation home and do not leave word of their destination (Munson is fanatical about his personal privacy).

The Commander of the USS Olympia releases half of the crew for some well-earned shore leave following the conclusion of the long, dangerous patrol as the boat enters a period of refit alongside the submarine tender USS Emory S. Land.

Unofficially,

1st Brigade, 4th Armored Division completes Rotation 97-101 at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California and is declared combat ready.

Aboard the USS Oriskany, a second squadron, VA-153, matches the achievement of its sister squadron VA-175 by launching a full squadron mission.

The newly arrived vehicles that were transported to Europe aboard the Springfield Freedom and USS Boulder are transferred to a holding area at the British Catterick Barracks in Bielefeld, Germany, where user units are to pick them up.

Elsewhere in NATO-controlled Europe, armies are struggling to sustain operations as the flow of supplies through the heavily damaged port infrastructure slowly chokes off operations. On the Warsaw Pact side things are even more dire, with the Polish civilian population on the edge of starvation following a year where the nation's fields were battlefields and whose young and fittest citizens worked to eject NATO troops from the country rather than produce food and goods. Their Soviet patrons and allies are of little help, overstretched themselves supporting war from Korea to Germany, with their own Baltic States, Byelorussia and Ukraine nearly as devastated as Poland and with the subjugated populations of Romania, Manchuria and Jugoslavia dependant on them for sustenance.

XVIII Airborne Corps and Third Army direct additional supplies of ammunition and replacement vehicles to the 24th Infantry Division in Iran's northern Gulf coast. Airlift planners note that the 82nd Airborne Division has moved south, allowing the smaller airlifters to carry greater loads.

The Belizian command responds to the Guatemalan incursion in the south. They dispatch one of the British Gazelle helicopters to reconnoiter the location; it takes fire from a Guatemalan light machine gun but is not hit. Upon its return to base, the Belizians dispatch an infantry company reinforced with a British platoon to dislodge the Marines.

The clock is ticking...
 

Whelp, time to start stocking the survival bunker...

November 26, 1997

The Honorable Judge Patrick Mahan Warren, a respected judge and community leader in St. Petersburg, Florida (and secretly the New American Natural Aristocrat in charge of the St Petersburg cell since 1990) suffers a debilitating stroke and is incapacitated. His wife Augusta assumes her husband's covert duties.

Colonel Nikita Borisov, one of the newly arrived KGB agents, arrives in London. He kills a beggar, Damien Metcalfe, and takes on his identity

Unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ships Mesa and Santa Ana Freedoms are delivered in Pascagoula, Mississippi. (Nine sister ships will be abandoned in various stages of completion after Pascagoula is struck by Soviet nuclear weapons.)

The Red Oak Victory, veteran of three wars, is activated for a fourth in Oakland, California. It begins movement to Concord NWS to load ammunition.

The cargo ship Ruth is activated in Oakland and leaves for Long Beach to load troops.

Rainbow Six reports that the senior KGB agent in the UK, Colonel Mikhail Romanov, based in London, leaves the British capital, having been alerted to the impending Black Thursday nuclear strikes by a coded message from KGB Headquarters.

CVW-546's last A-4 squadron aboard the USS Oriskany launches a full-squadron mission, this one a firepower demonstration for visiting VIPs at Camp Pendleton. The Oriskany group commander receives word that the two of the original escorts identified for the group - the missile cruiser Little Rock (CLG-4) and destroyer Barry (DD-933) - will be indefinitely delayed due to shipyard overcrowding, and that the last escort, the destroyer Mullinix, will be delayed until February. The Navy will attempt to identify other ships that can be assigned to the group as they complete repairs at various shipyards.

A team from the 3rd Infantry Division picks up the four M-1A2D tanks at the Bielefeld transfer site and returns to the division rear area, where they are issued to the 4th Battalion, 69th Armor. Two of the M939 5-ton trucks are issued to the 28th Infantry Division's 28th Signal Battalion, twelve go to the 43rd Infantry Division and the last half dozen to the 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment. Supply officers are confounded by the Gama Goats, which were replaced by the HMMWV in the 1980s and are not on any unit's TOE.

The 24th Infantry Division in Iran is allocated the newly arrived recruits that were received on a charter 767 from Fort Benning, Georgia. The privates are rushed from Saudi Arabia to the front north of Bandar-e-Khomeyni, where the dazed soldiers are welcomed into squads of grizzled veterans.

The Belizian Defense Force group responding to the Guatemalan Marine landing divides into two groups. Two platoons make a cautious advance along the road south from Belize City and, not unexpectedly, run into a Guatemalan ambush, triggering an intense firefight. The firefight absorbs the Guatemalan commander's full attention, allowing the remainder of the Force, traveling overland through farms and jungle, to recapture the town of Dangriga and its tiny port. The second force gets tied up in fighting the Guatemalan patrol boats in the harbor, but the application of several LAW80s convinces the boats to depart. The Guatemalan marines are cut off, but hunker down in preparation for a bloody final stand.

November 27, 1997 - Thanksgiving Day

part 1

Thanksgiving Day, 1997, had started well enough. The war which all rational Americans had feared for the previous 40 years had been going on for over a year without triggering the dire holocaust doomsayers had predicted. The fighting was on Soviet territory or other places equally remote from home and hearth. The news gave every indication that the Soviets would have to accept defeat any day now. The boys (and girls) would be home for Christmas. Meanwhile, there was plenty of work, the money was good, and everything seemed right with America. Then the bombs fell.

Rainbow Six reports that
On a day that British historians would later record as “Black Thursday”, the UK was attacked by Soviet nuclear weapons. (Unofficially) A single of SS-24 missile was fired at the UK by the 46th Missile Division from Pervomaisk in the Ukraine carrying ten 400-kiloton warheads. London was the first city to be hit, being targeted by a number of devices, the first of which detonated in an airburst above the Capital at 11:14am. One of the Soviet warheads aimed at London detonated in a ground burst several hundred metres from Heathrow Airport. The Tower of London suffered extensive damage, being virtually burnt to the ground in the firestorms that swept through London. The major business and financial center of Canary Wharf was destroyed by the firestorms as well. Whilst not a direct target of the attacks, the Thames Flood Barrier suffered significant damage and would require extensive repair work to restore it to full operating condition, leaving London exposed to the risk of potentially serious flooding. The London Underground rapid transit system, more commonly known as the Tube, offered no shelter on Black Thursday, with the fires that raged out of control above ground sucking in all the available oxygen, condemning most of those in the Underground system at the time to death by asphyxiation (many others were trampled to death as thousands tried to rush into Tube stations across London in a futile attempt to find shelter in the moments after the first nuclear detonation. Much of the content of the British Library was lost on (some items deemed to be of vital national interest were moved out of the Capital during the summer of 1997). Likewise, MI6’s London headquarters, Century House, was destroyed. Headquarters, US Naval Forces Europe (USNAVEUR) suffered heavy casualties, with the C in C amongst those either dead or missing. A number of personnel did survive however - some key staff had left London as a precautionary measure, whilst others had been on Thanksgiving leave.

Some three and a half million people were killed in the initial blasts and the firestorms that raged in London for a week afterwards. Another million people were displaced, with many of them exposed to lethal doses of radiation that would cause them to die a lingering death in the weeks and months that followed.

Cheltenham, home of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the arm of British Intelligence responsible for providing Signals Intelligence to the Government and the Military, was the second location in the United Kingdom to be targeted by Soviet nuclear weapons, at 11:15am on Black Thursday (approximately ninety seconds after the first warhead detonated over London).

(Unofficially) Of the ten warheads, seven targeted London (two aimed at the Palace of Westminster and Heathrow Airport, the others aimed to create a blanket level of destruction over the city), two were aimed at Cheltenham and the final one failed during re-entry.

November 27, 1997

part 2

Unofficially,
Word was received in Washington of the London strike within a few minutes. The Secret Service and military wanted to evacuate President Tanner immediately. NORAD confirmed that there were no missiles inbound to North America. The President refused to board the NEACP, unwilling to give the appearance of panicking, but agreed to leave the White House. After issuing a statement condemning the attack on America’s closest ally, offering condolences for the loss of life and ordering American forces in the UK to support HM Government’s relief efforts to the extent that it does not impede combat operations, Tanner departed the White House for the last time. His motorcade took him to the US Department of Agriculture research center in Beltsville, Maryland (adjacent to the Secret Service training center, which had a small Presidential Emergency Facility) for a relaxing jog. A US Marine Corps VH-60 helicopter of HMX-1 stood on standby at the Secret Service center. At mid-morning, he departed the Secret Service center, his motorcade disrupting traffic on the Beltway as the President travelled to Andrews Air Force Base for Thanksgiving dinner with the troops. To keep up the appearance of normalcy, Vice President Pemberton remained in the city to host the White House’s formal Thanksgiving dinner with VIPs.

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At shortly after 1700 GMT (3 pm on the US East Coast) in the North Atlantic the second phase of the decapitation strike, the attack on the US, was begun. As the satellites aligned the submerged Typhoon-class ballistic missile submarine TK-20 was able to receive an updated position fix from its onboard GLONASS satellite navigation system. The massive boat’s fire control system adjusted for the distance between the receiver on the navigation masthead and the missiles’ locations forward on the boat and with a final glance between the captain and the political officer the first SS-N-20 missile was launched. Within 90 seconds six missiles had been launched and the boat dove and turned northeast, accelerating as fast as the sub’s two nuclear reactors could push the 48,000-ton boat.

(Officially) An orbiting military surveillance satellite picked up a number of IR signatures, characteristic of the launch of SLBMs (Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles). Within minutes, messages were zipping through established channels and alarms began ringing across the nation. (Unofficially) The initial detection by Defense Support Program satellites was relayed to NORAD headquarters, which quickly relayed the news to the White House, Pentagon and Strategic Air Command (SAC). The launch was confirmed by the PAVE PAWS early warning radar on Cape Cod shortly thereafter.

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SAC ordered the alert bomber force - some 75 B-1s and B-52s stationed at 14 bases around the nation (as well as the 43rd Bomb Wing’s B-52Gs at Anderson Air Force Base on Guam), as well as their accompanying tankers - to scramble. The so-called Elephant Walk of bombers began within 90 seconds of the confirmation, and with 15 minutes of MITOs (Minimum Interval Take Offs) the bombers were airborne. Following standing Emergency War Orders, they immediately refueled from approximately half of the tankers, topping off their fuel tanks, and proceeded to holding areas over the Arctic and western Pacific for further orders, joining the dozen B-52s already on airborne alert over the Canadian Arctic.

Back in Washington, when the warning of the incoming SLBMs arrived President Tanner was rushed across the base to board the E-4B NEACP, which immediately took off. (Officially) Because an inbound missile had been detected Vice President Pemberton elected to try to make it to the Special Facility at Mount Weather. (Unofficially) Vice President Pemberton ran to the waiting VH-3 of HMX-1 that had been more or less permanently stationed at the White House since the outbreak of war.

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(Officially) President Tanner was killed, not by the strike on Washington, but by an accident during takeoff of the NEACP aircraft. The mystery of precisely what went wrong with one of the most rigorously inspected, carefully maintained aircraft in the nation has never been solved - the FAA never properly investigated the accident.

(Unofficially) Back at the White House, the helicopter’s crew already had the rotors turning when Pemberton’s military aide, a Marine Corps Major, heard the radio call about the NEACP crash. (Officially) Upon being informed of the President's death and told that no retaliatory action had been taken, Vice President Pemberton was forced to delay her departure and remain at a secure communications facility (the radios on the evacuation helicopter have never been considered reliable for this purpose). From the bomb shelter under the east wing of the White House (built during President Truman's tenure, and never intended to withstand a direct hit), Vice President Pemberton, after identifying herself, issued a proclamation of the existence of a state of war (only Congress has the power to declare war, and that body was not in session), and ordered retaliatory strikes on the USSR. With less than 10 minutes' notice between the rising of sub-launched ballistic missiles from off the Atlantic coast and their detonation over Washington DC, the orders to evacuate the cities were never given.

(Unofficially) The first missile to be launched by TK-20 was the one targeted at Washington. The SS-N-20 had ten 100-kiloton warheads aboard. One was aimed at the White House, two at the Pentagon, three at Andrews Air Force Base (necessary to ensure the destruction of aircraft on the base as well as cutting the runway) and one each at CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia, DIA headquarters at Bolling Air Force Base, the Presidential Emergency Facility and NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland and the National Reconnaissance Office headquarters at Westfields, Virginia. The missile warhead’s courses had been adjusted as they re-entered the atmosphere, adjusting for changes in atmospheric conditions, the missile’s performance, even differences in magnetic fields and gravity, all detected by the on-board electronics and cross-checked against the position reported by the GLONASS receiver. These adjustments allowed each re-entry vehicle accuracy nearly unmatched by any other Soviet (or many American) missiles. Each warhead landed, on average, within 220 meters of its aim point. With this level of accuracy, the strikes were devastating. The warhead aimed at the White House landed in the Kennedy Garden, just south of the East Wing, and detonated. The warhead created a crater 90 meters wide and 40 meters deep; the fireball consumed the adjacent Old Executive Office Building and Treasury Building and flattened all other buildings within a 1000-meter radius. Pemberton was killed when the missile detonated, the blast shelter completely inadequate against a blast so close and so powerful. (a representation of the blast is here). The other strikes were nearly as successful, with none of the Washington area targets surviving.

(Officially) The main target in Washington, DC was the White House, in an effort (a successful one, as it turned out) to destroy the executive leadership of the country. A sizable portion of the downtown area was damaged, not by the blast itself (which was a small one), but from the seismic shock and radiation of the ground burst and the flash-induced fires. As a side note, the National Archives was closed at the time of the attack. When the bomb destroyed the White House, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, the two most important documents in American history, were in their normal nocturnal resting place: a 50-ton subterranean vault designed to protect them from fire, flood, earthquake, and (of course) nuclear attack.

NORAD (North American Air Defense) headquarters at Cheyenne Mountain had three SLBMs aimed at it, each with a single 1 MT warhead set for ground bursts. (Unofficially) One of these scored a direct hit while the others landed nearby, creating quite impressive craters in the granite mountainside and delivering an intense shock to the underground facility. The facility had been designed to withstand just such a shock and was largely undamaged. (Officially) It was, however, out of communication temporarily.

Two missiles were targeted at SAC headquarters at Offutt AFB, Nebraska. (Unofficially) An Army Patriot battery at the base, deployed as an experimental anti-missile defense measure, succeeded in destroying one incoming warhead (as well as two decoys), leaving 19 100-kiloton MIRVs (Multiple Independently-targeted Reentry Vehicles) landing within the base perimeter. (Officially) Several, set for ground burst, were aimed at the SAC underground command post, while others attempted to sever the runway, destroy the SR-71s of the 95th Strategic Recon Wing as well as that unit’s and the 544th Aerospace Recon Technical Wing’s headquarters and facilities. The base was incinerated and all the targets were destroyed.

The Thanksgiving Massacre (as it came to be called) destroyed only a limited number of command and control centers, but these were vital. In a matter of minutes the U.S. had been delivered a massive blow.