June 15, 1998

The 49th Armored Division (Texas National Guard), on civil security and relief duties in the Upper Midwest, is ordered south to halt the Mexican invasion.

Command of surviving fixed-wing elements of the US Navy and the US Marine Corps 1st Marine Air Wing is transferred to USAFCENT (9th Air Force) for operational and administrative purposes. (Unofficially) Resistance to this development from Marine officers, who insist that 1 MAW should continue to be dedicated to supporting I MEF, is overruled by General McLaren, who declares the situation too serious for Marine commanders to hoard such scarce assets and rightfully points out that the move allows the most efficient use of the remaining combat aircraft.

Unofficially,

The 47th Infantry Division gives ground in British Columbia, trying to delay as long as possible to give local civilians time to evacuate.

In Colorado Springs, the FEMA laison officer to the Joint Chiefs passes away due to complications of the bubonic plague. He is the last FEMA official still serving that had knowledge of the Strategic Reserve Stockpile system assembled at great expense in the prior two years; his deputy, who has assumed his responsibilities, never was cleared to be briefed on the program. This development assures that the Joint Chiefs are unaware of the vital assets that could be used to assist American recovery.

The Joint Chiefs order the evacuation of nuclear weapons from Texas south of San Antonio and California south of Bakersfield.

The US Navy begins evacuating non-combatants and civilians from San Diego as overland ties to the rest of California are cut. The evacuation effort makes use of the vast numbers of harbor service craft, excess support ships stranded in port from lack of fuel and ships in or awaiting repair that are still seaworthy. The Marines holding the perimeter (which have largely replaced the sailors facing Brigade Ensenada) repel another Mexican attack, although they lack armored vehicles, heavy weapons or even machinegun ammunition to try to break the 1st Mechanized Brigade's blockade of the harbor area. Mexican cavalry troops and paratroops begin tentative probes north into Camp Pendelton.

To the east, the Mexicali Brigade has established a series of blocking positions along Interstate 8 to, hopefully, slow any advance of the 108th Armored Cavalry Regiment and 223rd Armored Regiment (the OPFOR for the Yuma Proving Ground's National Training Center), should those units attempt to cut off the lone Mexican brigade.

The Battle of Fort Bliss continues, with repeated attacks on the garrison while the Mexican Torres Mororized Cavalry Brigade issucceeding in suppressing the Texas State Guard's 9th Brigade, advancing to the northern outskirts of El Paso. Back in Mexico, the Durango and Torreon Brigades are ordered to reinforce the effort; they begin preparing their cavalry regiments for immediate deployment while transport is arranged for the infantry. To the east, the Chihuahua Brigade has dramatically increased its mobility through requisitioning civilian vehicles and stocks of fuel stored on various ranches and oil wells. Given the desperate situation in El Paso and near-total lack of coordinated resistance (after overrunning the border patrol stations the brigade has only faced at most 10 armed civilians and no armed troops), 3rd Army orders the brigade to rush north to Pecos, then turn northwest to execute a double envelopment of the American force at Fort Bliss (and the base's extensive back country that runs into White Sands Missile Range and Holloman AFB).

The Nogales Brigade in Arizona has slowed its advance on Tucson, wary of its deep exposure on both flanks and shortages of fuel. Advance parties have Tucson in sight, but the main body remains farther south lest it be cut off by troops from Ft. Huachuca.

In central Texas the Monclova Brigade turns northeast after having smashed the Aggies of the 3rd Texas Regiment (part of the former Texas A&M Cadet Corps) and overrun Laughlin Air Force Base and its training squadrons. The Monterrey Brigade and 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment continue their advance up Interstate 35 towards San Antonio, slowed by low fuel supplies. To their east the battle for Brownsville is seeing Mexican progress, with the partially-completed hull of the USS Makin island now ablaze after mutliple hits by Mexican heavy weapons; the sailors' resistance begins to wane as ammunition and food runs low and the commander has authorized the evacuation of nonessential personnel to small and civilian craft operating in the Intracoastal Waterway. In Harlingen, the Mexican 2nd Mechanized Brigade has fought its way onto the campus of the Marine Military Academy, taking advanbtage of the massed artillery (as it happens to be) of 4th Army.

The managers of Lone Star Oil, a small oil company that is still operating a handful of rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, order the shutdown and evacuation of their platforms south of Corpus Christi, including Gulfwind 40 and Gulfwind 42.

map of front lines
The Soviet 21st Army launches another spoiling attack on the US XV Corps, ensuring that the unit diverts scarce ammunition, fuel and air support from other units farther to the west. The Soviet troops, however, do not press their attacks and have not, in fact, even overrun the American outpost line to reach the main line of resistance.

After five days of stop and start travel in a crowded and claustrophobic boxcar, during which ten prisoners die, Specialist Cutler and his fellow prisoners are unloaded at a remote siding in eastern Czechoslovakia. They are greeted by Czech SNB internal troops and Czecch militiamen, who begin marching the dazed prisoners (they were served two meals during their journey) along the tracks.

STAVKA realizes that the veteran 27th (my 90th) Tank Division is still stuck in eastern Siberia, en route to the European theatre, and directs that local and regional Party authorities make the division's passage to the front "highest priotiry". The decree is sufficient to compel authorities in the Krasnoyarsk region to release six heavy-duty LV steam locomotives, each with 225 tons of coal to propel the division (and its thousands of hungry, armed troops) far across the USSR.

June 16, 1998

As the struggle in Germany consumes more and more troops and supplies, Italian and Hungarian formations in the Balkans are starved of replacements, and the Pact high command issues calls for excess troops from the region to be transferred to the fighting in Germany.

Major General Helmut Korell, commander of the 1st Panzer Division, assumes de-facto command of II German Korps.

Unofficially,

The US Army puts a formal command structure in place in the Southwest, with 89th (my II )Corps headquarters (located east of Los Angeles coordinating disaster relief duties) taking command of units at Fort Irwin and Yuma Proving Ground as well as other US military ground forces in the area and 63rd (my XVI) Corps, in the Bay area, ordered to move south along with troops from Forts Ord and Hunter Liggett and Camp Roberts to operate along the coast. In Texas, 90th (my XIII) and 122nd (my XIX) Corps are assigned to command the scratch forces opposing the Mexican 4th Army.

SOUTHCOM issues orders for diversionary strikes on Mexico via Guatemala. A B-team from the 8th Special Forces Group departs its base at Soto Cano air base in Honduras, en route to Chiapas, Mexico to "stir up some trouble" and divert Mexican forces from the American front. SOUTHCOM also dispatches attack aircraft to Soto Cano, six AT-33E Boeing Skyfoxes, for a strike on Mexican territory.

The 868th Tactical Missile Training Squadron arrives at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, with all 48 GLCM missiles intact and mission ready.

The Mexican high command empowers a new coordinator for the logistics effort supporting the war - the former chief logistics officer of a large American retailer, now (like most worldwide retailing) out of business. The new coordinator quickly seizes on the possibilities of using the vast fleet of commercial long-haul trucks and drivers, used to regularly crossing the border. Orders are quickly issued to mobilize the drivers and their vehicles to establish a relay from railheads in Hermosillo, Chihuahua City, Monterrey and Matamoros.

The 177th Armored Brigade departs Fort Irwin, California to halt the Mexican invasion. The brigade's VISMOD (Visually Modified) M551 Sheridans have, in many cases, been returned to combat-capable status, although the supply of Shillelagh missiles and main gun ammunition is short. Thankfully, however, the issues the Sheridan experienced in combat in Vietnam with the gun's recoil disabling the missile's guidance electronics, have been long resolved, allowing the system to be somewhat effective. (Commanders consider the Sheridan more than adequate to deal with the Mexican Army's armor). The 1st Brigade, 4th Armored Division will follow the 177th when the tank transporters return from moving the 177th to the vicinity of the desert town of Yucca Valley.

Mexican Marines land on South Padre Island and begin advancing on the Queen Isabela Causeway to the mainland, detaching a company of troops to assault the Coast Guard station and lighthouse at Brazos Santiago.

photo
The evacuation of San Diego continues as a force of Marine trainees and their drill instructors attempt to break through the Mexican lines to link up with the ad-hoc Marine force defending Camp Pendleton. The attempt is thwarted by elite Mexican paratroops and marines who exploit their superior firepower to keep the American force from advancing. Mexican Marines land on Coronado Island and begin driving north, pushing back the defending Marines and sailors; the Mexican naval task force beats a rapid retreat lest it be engaged by the superior American fleet departing the harbor.

The Mexican 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment has advanced along Interstate 15 to Temecula, part of the Inland Empire and considered the outer edge of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

The first evacuation vessels arrive at Port Hueneme, California; the harbor master directs the smaller craft to the nearby yacht marina to keep berth space open for larger vessels.

In Yuma, Arizona, the 108th Armored Cavalry Regiment headquarters issues an order for the unit's troops, scattered over 100 miles of territory protecting evacuee camps, distributing food and assisting local law enforcement, to abandon those duties and rally at the NTC-3 for combat actions.

In the vast stretches of empty desert between Yuma, Arizona and El Paso, Texas, the invading Mexican forces remain immobile for a second day as supplies of food, water and fuel run low. Mexican Army scavenging parties roam El Paso in search of food and fuel; commanders and NCOs have to exert strict control over their troops to prevent the parties from becoming looters.

The Chihuahua Brigade departs the town of Pecos, Texas, advancing against minimal resistance up the west bank of the Pecos River towards Artesia, New Mexico, reaching the state line at sundown.

American resistance in the Brownsville area is crumbling as the remaining sailors of the USS Makin Island begin to surrender, their ammunition, food, water and will to fight exhausted and Mexican marines cross to Port Isabel from South Padre Island. To their west, the 2nd Mechanized Brigade's AMX-13 light tanks and the massed artillery of 4th Mexican Army pound the campus of the Marine Military Academy into dust, destroying many of the defensive positions with direct fire while lighting the buildings afire. In central Texas, the lead patrols of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment clash with mobile American detachments, primarily HMMWVs mounting machineguns and Mk-19 grenade launchers, while the Monclova Brigade troops secure the shotgun factory in Eagle Pass, taking many of the guns for their own use and sending thousands of others south to equip newly forming units.

The 2nd Regiment, Tennessee State Guard is reinforced with federal resources - 200 sailors previously assigned to the Memphis Naval Air Station as well as a complement of small arms (M1 Garands, M3 greaseguns, M1911 pistols and M1919 Browning machineguns), 90mm recoilless rifles and ammunition, which arrive by truck from the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama. The Regiment is tasked to assemble excess fuel trucks (with fuel rationing in effect, not a difficult task) at the Memphis Refinery, which has received a shipment of five barge-loads of crude oil from Oklahoma to process.

Specialist Cutler and several dozen other prisoners arrive at a work site along the railroad in the hills of eastern Czechoslovakia. They are shaved, hosed off, fed a meal of thin stew and introduced to the camp commandant and his staff, then ushered to an equipment shed, which has been converted to housing for the prisoner labor force. At dusk the shift of workers that has been toiling all day arrives, a motley collection of prisoners from all over NATO, exhausted from a hard day's labor. The new arrivals discover that they are going to be put to work restoring the rail line between Czechoslovakia and Poland, which was damaged by NATO conventional bombing as well as an American nuclear strike which left a massive crater in the railbed.

A firefight breaks out in Bamberg between Hungarian troops and a KGB Border Guard "rear area security detachment" that passes through town, seeking to "conduct an inspection of the American Army base." When the KGB troops are denied access (yet can see consumer goods being loaded onto a truck in the caserne) tensions rise, and for 30 minutes it is an intense battle between Pact allies.

In the area between Heidelberg and Frankfurt, American and German support troops and hastily drafted civilians are hurriedly evacuating maintenance and medical facilities which have supported the war effort to date, unsure of the ability of German troops to hold back the Pact offensive which has already captured thousands of square kilometers of southern Germany.

June 17, 1998

It is obvious to Major General Femerov, commander of the Soviet troops in Cuba, that Guantanamo II (the enclave at Mariel in which the Cuban government has confined Soviet troops in Cuba, nearly a division in strength) presents a very tempting target for the U.S. This fact, combined with pressure from a Cuban government anxious to appear increasingly neutral to America, causes Femerov to look for a means to get out of Cuba while striking a blow for the USSR. The opportunity to deliver a blow into America comes from the Marxist PRI/PPS coalition in Mexico. The PPS offers Femerov and his ""Division Cuba"" a passage off of the island and back to the USSR, in return for a short detour. Femerov and his soldiers are to assist
in the invasion of America, to drive into the Yankee heartland, and end the war.

At the Marine Military Academy campus in Harlingen, Texas, the stubborn, last-ditch stand of the Academy students in the face of overwhelming numbers comes to an end. There are no known American survivors of the battle, which will compared to Travis' stand at the Alamo. The final pockets of resistance are shattered by a terrific artillery barrage before being overrun by Mexican infantry of the Matamoros and 2nd Mechanized Brigades.

Unofficially,

On New York's Upper East Side, there is turmoil within the Hells Own marauder gang. One of the gangsters gets in a verbal argument with ex-Corporal Nathan Snyder, who then refuses to allow the member to collect his allocation of food (a bag of stale potato chips and can of chicken soup taken from a local salvager as "tax") for the evening. The gangster calls Snyder out, and in the brawl that follows Snyder and his girlfriend end up killing the upstart and injuring his best friend in the gang. There are few challenges to Snyder's control of the food from then on, and other gang members treat Snyder and "his old lady" with more respect, although it s unclear if that respect is out of admiration or fear.

The 347th Strategic Missile Squadron, operating on the Nellis Air Force Base range complex, observes the 868th Tactical Missile Training Squadron's dispersal near its stationary sites and makes contact.

The B-Team from the 8th Special Forces Group, travelling in a small convoy of unmarked civilian vans and trucks, crosses the border into Guatemala. The liberal application of cash and the grim looks on the faces of the rough, heavily armed men assures a welcome entry into Mexico's southern neighbor. At Sato Cano Air Base a C-130 arrives carrying ground crew, support equipment and a small stock of munitions to support the AT-33E Skyfoxes that arrived the day prior.

The troops of the Chihuahua Brigade encounter their first organized resistance, an entrenched infantry force blocking the highway into the town of Carlsbad. The outer pickets fall back when Mexican armor attacks under cover of infantry mortars; the dead left behind wear uniform patches from a military academy in the town.

American F-5Es from the 65th Aggressor Squadron, using some of the last stocks of aviation fuel at Nellis Air Force Base, launch a surprise raid on Mexican airfields. The defenders, believing the aircraft are in fact Mexican F-5s, hold their fire as a pair of fighters, with another pair trailing, approach the runway at Santa Lucia near Mexico City. The fighters come in low and slow, placing them in prime position to release the stick of runway-busting munitions that they soon release before hitting their afterburners and zipping away, leaving the pattern clear for the second pair to finish off the other runway.

As the fighting in San Diego continues, Mexican Marines advance on the Coronado Amphibious base. As they enter the perimeter, the captain of the landing ship USS Cleveland orders his crew to set the ship, damaged in the prior year's naval battles and unable to be repaired rapidly enough to be evacuated, afire. The few remaining munitions in the ship's magazine are used to set a large mine, which is detonated as the Mexican troops approach the dock.

In the desert east of LA, the 177th Armored Brigade disembarks from the motley collection of civilian trucks and military tank transporters that has brought it to the north end of the Imperial Valley.

The Mexican 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment cautiously moves north, scouting for organized American resistance but is mostly encountering desperate refugees from the strikes and chaos of Los Angeles.

The opposition encountered by the troops of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment are identified as members of the US Air Force, trainees and cadre from the Security Police training program at Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio acting in a mobile role while basic trainees (and graduates from the prior months, who have remained at the base thanks to the breakdown in transportation, performing relief and security duties) man fixed defensive positions.

The Mexican Marines in the Gulf of Mexico complete their disembarkation from the array of naval craft onto South Padre Island as the fleet is engaged by patrol craft from the USCG, now under naval command. The USS Steelhead is sunk by the Mexican destroyer Vincente Guerrero while the USS Point Nowell rakes the Mexican transport Manzanillo with 20mm fire before turning and fleeing north at high speed, dropping to 8 knots when out of range of the Vincente Guerrero's guns to conserve the last gallons of diesel aboard, allowing it to reach a friendly port.

In the early morning hours Specialist Cutler and his fellow new arrivals at the remote POW camp in eastern Czechoslovakia are roused to begin their first brutal 12-hour shift filling in a 100-meter wide, 49-meter deep crater (created by a 150-kiloton Ground Launched Cruise Missile ground burst) with their bare hands, a handful of shovels and no protection from residual radiation. At the end of the day the exhausted prisoners eat a meal of potato-barley stew before collapsing into a deep slumber.

XX US Corps, cut off from the remainder of NATO forces in Germany, is sustained by two C-130 flights daily, which bring in food (mostly French combat rations), fuel (like the Mexican Air Force, USAF Europe uses C-130's fuel tanks for transporting fuel, draining the excess in the aircraft before departure) and ammunition and evacuate the wounded. The flow is insufficient to maintain stock levels, but it helps morale and helps keep supply levels from dropping to critical levels. Aiding the situation is that the opposing Italian 4th Corps is equally starved of supplies, most of what arrives via the circuitous route through northeastern Italy, Austria and overland from Munich going to support 3rd Corps' mechanized troops.

NATO forces in Central Germany have established a somewhat-continuous defensive line along the Main River from Frankfurt to Kulmbach, with a significant Soviet-held salient north of Wurzburg. Retreating Allied forces had attempted to bring any small boats they could locate with them as they withdrew, to deny their use to the Soviets for assault crossings of the river.

The A-37s of the 169th Tactical Air Support Squadron (Illinois Air National Guard) fly their first deep strike sorties in Kenya, supporting the offensive against the Sudanese. Intelligence has identified three villages as supply depots and rest areas for the Sudanese, and refugees report that the Sudanese Army has driven all the Kenyans from the town. Satisfied that no civilians will be hit, the 169th's commander authorizes a strike by a lone A-37. The Dragonfly is carrying six M47A2 white phosphorous bombs, six CBU-24B cluster canisters and two SUU-11A gun pods, each pod weighing 323 lbs and mounting a 7.62mm Minigun identical to the aircraft's fixed armament. In a single sortie the Dragonfly is able to level to the ground all but three or four of the approximately 100 huts and other small buildings that comprised the group of villages.

In its first pass, approaching the nearest village in line, the aircraft opens fire with a simultaneous two-second burst from all three Miniguns. The shattering and splintering effect of these 600 rounds on the buildings in line of fire make the village look to the pilot like "hay going through a threshing machine."

As the aircraft passes over the village it drops two cluster canisters, each weighing 718 lbs and containing 600 bomblets. The bomblets release a total of 300,000 steel shards, densely meshing in all directions at hundreds of feet per second, cracking stone, deeply pitting wood, and shattering into fragments any less sturdy or less pliable materials, all in a matter of ten seconds.

To the aircrew above, it looks like "hundreds of sparklers going off."

People are seen running from the next two villages as the Dragonfly approaches, but the pilot believes that the first village had been taken fully by surprise. The subsequent villages are struck in the same manner, and on their second pass the crew drops their phosphorous bombs. As each bomb hits, the ground structures at the explosion's epicenter collapse in a cloud of brilliant white smoke, and long trails of phosphorous shot out of the cloud and arched for hundreds of feet in the air. Wherever they land, and all along the length of their trails, the particles of phosphorous stick to buildings, trees, vegetation and anything else with which they came into contact, immediately setting it afire. When the aircraft turns for base, the entire area is in flames.

The attack has taken about three minutes.

June 18, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

Fighting continues in San Diego as the ammunition supplies within the American perimeter dwindle to critically low levels. Captains of evacuation vessels refuse to return to the embattled ports, some out of fear, some because their craft are out of fuel; either way the harbor at Port Hueneme is now full of evacuation craft and the commander closes it to new arrivals, ordering them to the San Francisco Bay, the next series of harbors able to accommodate large craft.

The commanders of the 868th Tactical Missile Training Squadron and 347th Strategic Missile Squadron, having served together in prewar assignments, agree to consolidate their positions. The 868th moves into the secure area around the Desert Rock Airfield.

The lead battalions of the 49th Armored Division either hand over their areas of responsibility to state and local officials, or, unfortunately, abandon their disaster relief and internal security duties and prepare to move south and combat. The division commander inquires where his troops will be issued ammunition for their heavy weapons and armored vehicles; he authorizes the division's company armorers to remove the plates in their unit's M16A2s that prevent them from being placed on "burst" (the plates are a standard addition to National Guard M16s, semi-permanently installed for riot-control duties.)

Troops of Brigade Ciudad Juarez launch another attack on Fort Bliss, finally capturing the post MP station on the south side of the cantonment area. Far to the northeast, Brigade Chihuahua launches an infantry fixing attack on the cadets of the New Mexico Military Institute while dispatching an mechanized cavalry company with ERC-90 armored cars and infantry mounted in VAB APCs on a sweep to the east, hoping to encircle the cadets. Their attack is disrupted by a retired Korean-War veteran tanker and his two sons, who are singlehandedly defending the Highway 62 bridge over the Pecos River in his lovingly restored M24 Chaffee light tank. The Mexican advance is held up as the "old man" manning the 75mm gun destroys two ERC-90s; a duel ensues for the next three hours as the light tank dodges in and out of buildings and jockeys for firing positions to disrupt the cavalry's crossing. Eventually he runs out of ammunition and has to retreat, but has bought valuable time for the cadets to retreat to the cover of the city, where they are able to inflict heavy losses on the initial Mexican infantry incursion.

In Texas, additional Mexican reinforcements are arriving in the theatre. The Ciudad Victoria Brigade crosses into Brownsville, joining the 2nd Mechanized Brigade and the Matamoros Brigade in forming a division-sized "Coastal Column" beginning to move north towards Corpus Christi. The Saltillo Brigade crosses the Rio Grande at Roma and Pharr and quickly moves north, maintaining communications between the now-advancing "Coastal Column" and the armored drive towards San Antonio, where the Monterey Brigade has arrived and begins adding pressure to the US Air Force defense of the city. American reinforcements are less numerous, with the Governor of Texas committing his personal guard of State Guards and Texas Rangers to the city's defense.

The Joint Chiefs, facing massive shortages of fuel and ammunition worldwide, simply does not have anything available to commit to the front; the strategic reserve is, absent the 49th Armored Division and the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing, frozen in place by lack of fuel.

The F-16s of the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing launch their most devastating strike yet, an air raid on the Mexican Air Force base at Monterrey, where the remainder of Mexico's F-5 fighter force has been deployed following the disabling attacks on their home base. The F-16s catch four F-5s on the ground between missions, destroying them as well as five other aircraft when they blanket the base with cluster bombs.

Mexico is under aerial attack from the south as well, with the appearance over the town of Tapachula on the Guatemalan border of the Boeing Skyfox light attack aircraft of the 198th Tactical Fighter Squadron. The converted trainers concentrate on the Tapachula Brigade's garrison, working it over with cluster bombs and rockets. Return fire is limited to small arms and machinegun fire, with the resident unit, like most of the Mexican Army, completely lacking in air defense systems. After five minutes and several passes the brigade's cantonment area is ablaze, leaving the unit (the only one with armored vehicles in the Chiapas and Yucatan Armies) struggling to maintain its own integrity and completely incapable of providing reinforcements to the war effort in America.

After weeks of effort, John Greendeer, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation and 1996 graduate of the University of Minnesota's engineering school, is able to bring the aged electrical turbine at the Hatfield electrical power plant back online. The 6-megawatt generator is capable of meeting the tribe's power needs in the months when the Black River is not frozen over.

The USS Barbour County arrives at the South Korean port of Pohang with a cargo of vehicles (mostly 3/4 and 5/4-ton trucks) salvaged from the mine-damaged Rhode Island Freedom, which was abandoned in the Japanese port of Kokura.

In northwestern Poland, at the urging of the Western TVD commander, the Baltic Front renews its attacks on the Marines and allied troops of II MEF. The assault is led by the three remaining SU-130s and 29 ISU-152s of the 1048th Assault Gun Regiment, with several dozen scared Estonian teenagers riding on the outside of the guns like their grandfathers in the 1940s. Most of the guns complete the road march to the departure point without breaking down and the behemoths prove remarkably resistant to the American’s LAW rocket fire and the infantry mortars that are the Marine's first line of defense. Six guns are lost breaching the defensive minefield and three more fall to TOW missiles while closing in on the embedded Marines. The surviving guns push into the American rear area, but the troops of the 3rd Guards Motor-Rifle Division, assigned to follow through on the breakthrough, remain passively in their positions.

The commander of Carrier Air Wing 10, from the damaged USS Independence, meets with his new commander, LtGen Thomas Forberg, USAF, commander USAFCENT and CG, 9th Air Force. Forberg is already familiar with the capabilities of many of the wing's aircraft, having served a combat tour aboard the USS Coral Sea during the Vietnam War as a F-4 pilot. The Navy Captain and the General discuss the training, personnel and logistic needs of the Naval Aviation squadrons, some of which can be more easily addressed than others. One of the most challenging issues is that of aviators' carrier qualifications - landing a tactical aircraft on a heaving flight deck, especially at night and bad weather, is a highly perishable skill that needs to be practiced regularly and which appears impossible with no operable carrier within thousands of miles.

They'll need a field somewhere-Saudi, Qatar, or UAE, where FCLP (Field Carrier Landing Practice) can be conducted. It's not the same as a real trap, but it would be the best possible under current circumstances.

Was the Twilight War ever a declared war, by anyone?

According to the v1 Referees Manual:

"On July 1st, Greece declared war against the NATO nations, and Italy, in compliance with her treaty obligations, followed suit on the 2nd."

but according to Howling Wilderness:

"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."

So a mixed bag...

June 19, 1998

The remnants of the Greek government/Army (unofficially, in actuality, a cabal of leftist field-grade officers that asserted control of the military in the chaotic last weeks of 1997, in no small part due to the intervention of a KGB hit team that eliminated various rightist or centrist generals and politicians) issues a declaration directly annexing the Jugoslav republic of Macedonia.

The 106th Guards Air Assault Division is ordered to the Ryazan area from its reserve positions near Grodno, Byelorussia.

Unofficially,

In the wake of the evacuation of the military facilities in San Diego literally thousands of seamen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen are brought to the San Francisco Bay Area. The fighting for control of the city's military bases continues, with troops from Brigade La Paz arriving on the front lines. Elsewhere in the city the population (many of which returned home over the winter, realizing life in an unpowered home may be preferable to that in a desert refugee camp) is suffering from lack of water and widespread fires that are burning unchecked. The final navy combatants and auxiliaries depart the harbor, taking minor damage from long-range Mexican small arms fire and taking the last noncombatants out of the perimeter.

East of San Diego the Mexican drive is encountering its first serious resistance as forward patrols of Brigade Mexicali clash with the 177th Armored Brigade's forward reconnaissance screen. The American commander has ordered his troops to maintain an active mobile defense while 89 (my II) Corps tries to scrape together enough ammunition and fuel for 1st Brigade, 4th Armored Division to join his command. The Mexican commander is able to begin shifting additional troops to face the Fort Irwin Contingent as Brigade Hermosillo begins arriving in the area and taking over the roadblocks on Interstate 8.

The Mexican 3rd Army, in the Battle of El Paso, is nearing a crisis. While a trickle of supplies is beginning to arrive, the School Brigade and its allied and Texas State Guard augmentees have fought Brigade Ciudad Juarez to a halt and, the Army commander, General de división Jose Gonzalez, fears that his command is vulnerable to an American counterattack if reinforcements do not arrive. (He is unaware of the dire situation on the cantonment area of Fort Bliss, where ammunition, food and fuel are all reaching critically low levels).

With Brownsville behind them, the so-called Mexican "Coastal Column" makes progress moving north, with parallel columns on highways 77 and 281 and forward detachment capturing the Kingsville Naval Air Station. The airfield is deserted, the aircraft having been flown off over a week ago and the garrison evacuated, taking everything of value along or burning what they couldn't carry. Many ranchers in the area are fleeing ahead of the Mexican Army, although others remain and defend their land. (These encounters rarely end well for the outnumbered and outgunned Texans). Some of this resistance is out of patriotism; for others it is a matter of survival, as the Mexican Army and refugees both are slaughtering their livestock at an alarming rate in order to survive.

South of San Antonio, skirmishing continues between Mexican Army and US Air Force contingents, the Mexican 4th Army rushing additional formations north as quickly as the ragtag transportation net can feed them.

RainbowSix reports that Faisel Khan, an immigrant to Leicester that in the years prior to the war had been a very successful businessman and charitable benefactor, has become the city's de-facto leader. This feat is not out of any desire to become a leader but instead the natural evolution that occurred as Leicester threatened to fall apart and descend into chaos and anarchy. Khan finds himself thrust to the forefront, bringing calm first to the Asian community and then to the city in general.

An odd truce reigns along the Rhine River between the German-Italian lines south of Heidelberg and the American-Italian lines opposite Strasbourg. The French Army has been maintaining active but low-key patrolling in the so-called "Dead Zone" opposite French territory. Those patrols are now running into Soviet-allied Italian troops; French commanders issue orders identical to those on the Italian border in southeaster France: correct relations, no assistance, and minimal cooperation, oriented towards deconfliction of space in an attempt to avoid NATO accusations of re-entering the conflict on the Pact side, which would raise the possibility of NATO nuclear retaliation.

The isolated guns of the 1048th Assault Gun Regiment are circled together in the rear of the US Marine's 6th Marine Regiment, low on fuel and ammunition, fight tank-hunting teams. The designated exploitation force that is supposed to advance through the hole in the lines the guns blasted, the 3rd Guards Motor-Rifle Division, remains largely immobile, its officers unable to motivate their troops to leave the safety of the forward trenches to advance on the American positions.

June 20, 1998

In Cuba, Major General Femerov, after several days of consideration, accepts the Mexican government's offer and begins preparing his troops for movement to Texas. (Unofficially, he has no amphibious shipping but a motley collection of shipping of various types; he is hoping the Mexican offer to transport his command to the combat zone involves sufficient shipping, his Cuban "allies" unwilling to part with any of their small fleet.)

Unofficially,

The Mexican supply situation begins to improve as the hastily reorganized supply and transportation effort begins to show results; the railheads are getting organized and regular convoys of requisitioned civilian 18-wheeler trucks are being dispatched into captured territory. On the other hand, the Mexican Army's pre-war structure, emphasizing internal defense, is increasingly hampering operations as maintenance on the many disparate weapons systems and vehicles comes due. The support structure is oriented towards maintaining vehicles from permanent facilities in garrisons throughout Mexico, often with contract or civilian staff; the brigades in combat lack the necessary mechanics, tools, spares and expertise to performs maintenance above the operator level. For unarmored vehicles this shortcoming is partially rectified by seizing similar vehicles from Americans in the occupied zone, but commanders are reluctant to send lightly damaged armored vehicles hundreds of miles south for repair, opting to keep them in action until they break down completely.

The 49th Armored Division's G-4 (supply officer) informs the commander that there is insufficient fuel and heavy trucks available to convoy the entire division to Oklahoma by road. (The tracked vehicles need to be moved by truck; they are so maintenance intensive that the few vehicles that could complete the drive to Fort Sill would need an overhaul upon arrival). There is a possibility, however, to make use of the many barges and towboats tied up along the Mississippi, Ohio and Illinois Rivers to transport the division to Muskogee, Oklahoma, about 225 miles from the division's rally point at Fort Sill, via the Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers. The Commanding General approves the plan and within hours troops are seizing tugs and barges along the rivers.

The lead battalion (the 5th Battalion, 37th Armor) of the 1st Brigade, 4th Armored Division, equipped with a full complement of IPM-1 tanks (the stock maintained at the National Training Center for units rotating through), arrives on the front lines north of Palm Spring California. To its west, the scout platoons of the 40th Training Division are attempting to identify clear routes through the post-nuclear chaos of the Los Angeles basin to reach the front.

In southeastern New Mexico, the resistance offered by the cadets of the New Mexico Military Institute runs its course as ammunition supplies run out after several days of fierce urban fighting in the town of Carlsbad. At dusk, Brigade Chihuahua resumes its advance and by midnight a forward detachment has arrived in the town of Artesia.

The crisis in the 3rd Mexican Army zone is avoided when the first reinforcements from the Mexican interior arrive at the front in El Paso - the 17th Motorized Cavalry Regiment from the Torreon Brigade and the 50th Mechanized Cavalry Regiment from Brigade Durango. The cavalry's ERC-90 armored cars add much-needed firepower to Brigade Ciudad Juarez's tired and depleted infantry. As more Mexican troops (Brigade Monterrey and the 51st Infantry Regiment from Brigade Monclova) arrive on the front line south of San Antonio, the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment is withdrawn from contact with the city's American defenders and resupplied.

The Mexican Air Force has largely faded from the skies over the front following American raids on its bases and as shortages of fuel, spares and munitions begin to bite. Similar shortages also force the US Air Force to scale back its activity over the front.

The B Team from 1st Battalion, 8th Special Forces Group has completed its transit of Guatemala and crosses over into southern Mexico. A Drug Enforcement Agency field agent (a former Army Military Intelligence warrant officer) links up with the Green Berets to act as a local guide and to introduce them to some of the local indigenous leaders.

A contingent of Dutch Marines that remained with the American 2nd Marine Division score a victory against the guns of the Soviet 1048th Assault Gun Regiment, disabling the last remaining SU-130 with a well-placed Carl Gustav shot to the behemoth's engine compartment. Several other guns have been destroyed as well; in two of them the crew remains inside, continuing to fire back with small arms.

Along the front in Southern Germany, Soviet troops have paused their attacks as they await additional supplies of ammunition as well as the (likely vain) hope for replacement troops, weapons and vehicles to replace their losses in the advances to date.

Reflecting the poor condition in many navies around the world, the ammunition ship USS Mount Shasta is destroyed by a massive internal explosion while at anchor in Okinawa.

Sudanese and Somali forces in Kenya begin a general retreat under pressure from the combined forces of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, 30th Marines and Kenyan forces.

June 21, 1998

The Albanian Army, always a reluctant ally, protests the Greek annexation of Macedonia.

Cape Cod is completely under UBF control. The USCG and naval commands in the area, as well as the 43rd MP Brigade, have their plates full dealing with multiple crises in other areas and are unable to take any action.

Headquarters, 63 (my XVI) Corps issues orders redesignating the 40th Training Division (less 1st Brigade) back to an infantry division, as well as ordering its reinforcement with a hodgepodge of armored vehicles. Accompanying these is a directive for it to proceed south to halt the Mexican invasion. Orders are also issued to the 221st MP Brigade to move south, and (unofficially) for the 91st Training Division to provide trained troops to the 40th and 196th Infantry Brigade to allow those units to move south; the 91st is also to assume the internal security and disaster relief duties that the 221st and 196th had been performing. The 91st, which has been training locally-drafted troops continuously since the nuclear exchange, has excess troops that are available for these duties, although weapons and vehicles are in short supply.

Unofficially,

Mexican troops of Brigade Ensenada cut off the narrow corridor between the San Diego Naval Base and the Marine Corps Recruit Depot to the northwest, taking heavy losses in the effort as Mexican Marines advance under heavy fire across the runway of the heavily burning Naval Air Station North Island, former home of the Pacific Fleet's helicopter force.

Brigade Mexicali and Brigade La Paz's 160th Infantry Regiment launch a frontal attack on 89th (my II) Corps' positions north of Palm Springs; the American armored force easily turns back the largely dismounted attack.

3rd Mexican Army pauses offensive operations for the day to allow its exhausted troops a chance to rest and to allow the rapidly evolving support organization time to resupply the widely-scattered units. The day also sees the arrival of the first infantry companies from Brigade Durango arriving in El Paso.

Farther east in Texas, a task force built around the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and Brigade Monclova's 47th Infantry Regiment (motorized with captured vehicles) strikes out north from the former Hondo Airfield west of San Antonio, the beginning of an effort to bypass American resistance in the city. The column is attacked by an ad-ho force of Texas Rangers and armed civilians as it enters the hilly terrain, but beats the resistance back with machinegun and mortar fire. The so-called "Coastal Column" dispatches its first scouting parties into the ruins of post-nuclear Corpus Christi.

The Mexican Navy begins mobilizing a motley collection of ships and craft, dispatching them to Cuba to pick up the Soviet "Division Cuba" and its equipment.

The Soviet 2nd Southwestern Front begins planning the next wave of tis offensive, the effort to capture Frankfurt.

After assessing the situation in Byelorussia, the Byelorussian Military District commander, Colonel General Vitaly Ragozin, directs the conversion of one of his last remaining uncommitted forces, the cadre and student body of the Minsk Higher Military-Political Combined Arms School, to the 138th Motor-Rifle Division with the incorporation of any number of stragglers as well as men from the ages of 16-55 in refugee camps in the district. Equipment is appallingly short, but since the division is intended for internal duties the shortages are not crippling.

Great stuff. Keep it up!!

June 22, 1998

Nothing official for today. Unofficially,

The thousands of volunteers who have signed up for service with the Mexican Army are being processed, trained and formed into units. Nearly half are sent home for various reasons (health problems, addiction, criminal history or family responsibilities), and the rest are formed into over 80 independent companies of "voluntarios", volunteers. They are given training in basic first aid, marksmanship and small unit tactics; due to a general shortage of modern G3 and FAL rifles most are armed with M1954 bolt-action rifles.

Scout teams from the 40th Infantry Division identify three routes through the Los Angeles area that can, with sufficient troops, be secured for the unit's passage. The command elements of the teams return north to relay the route information to command, establishing observation posts in the Hollywood Hills and other high ground to maintain surveillance over the routes.

The Mexican 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment has transited the Temescal Valley on Interstate 15 into the town of El Cerrito, giving wide berth to the feared glowing remains of March Air force Base, which was nuked by the Soviets in December. The Mexican Marines have pushed the remaining defenders of the North Island naval station into the warren of (nearly entirely empty) ammunition bunkers in the southwest corner of the base, while another Marine detachment secures the western abutment of the Coronado Bridge; sailors defending the other end detonate demolition charges which drop the 1,880-foot long central span into the harbor, blocking the channel. Mexican paratroops have continued their advance north along Interstate 5, clearing the suburban areas between the city and Camp Pendleton of organized resistance. The rear areas in San Diego County are increasingly patrolled by armed Mexican street and criminal gangs allied with the Mexican Army, relieving combat troops for duty fighting the remnant American defenses; additional gang members are active throughout Orange and Los Angeles Counties, attacking small isolated American military units, interdicting supply routes and scouting for enemy troops.

North of Palm Springs the Mexicans adopt a defensive posture while sending small teams of dismounted infantry overland to try to interdict the supply lines supporting 89th (my II) Corps' troops in the Morongo Valley. To the east, the 108th Armored Cavalry Regiment has mostly reformed at Yuma Proving Grounds, Arizona and begins drawing armored vehicles and supplies maintained for units rotating through the base for training. Ammunition and fuel are in short supply.

Brigade Chihuahua resumes its advance as the eastern and northern pincer of 3rd Mexican Army's double envelopment of the garrison of Fort Bliss, leaving the Pecos River behind and turning west into barren desert terrain for Alamogordo and Holloman Air Force Base. The School Brigade launches a combined-arms counterattack across Fort Bliss, with the infantry of the 3rd Battalion, 56th Air Defense Artillery and its attached battery of 12 Diana self-propelled AA guns driving back troops of the Ciudad Juarez Brigade across the parade ground into the southern portions of the cantonment area.

As the reinforced 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment continues its offensive sweep west of San Antonio, Brigade Monterrey launches another series of spoiling attacks to hold down the city's defenders. Adding to the American challenge, Brigade Saltillo has crossed Interstate 37, the highway connecting San Antonio and Corpus Christi, protecting the dead zone between the forces attacking San Antonia and the Coastal Column. That formation's advance on Corpus Christi continues, with forward parties of 2nd Mechanized Brigade's 67th Infantry Regiment probing the defenses of the Chase Field Naval Air Station.

1st Czech Army renews its attacks on I German Korps as it attempts to continue its drive north out of Bayreuth. The fighting is confused as Czech-built T-72s battle the Soviet-built T-72s of the 29th Panzer Division in the dense woods and hills of the border region.

The sailing ship Statsraad Lehmkuh returns to its homeport of Bergen, Norway with its precious cargo of canned beef from Uruguay. After much celebration the task of unloading the ship (it has no cargo handling gear) begins.

A survey of available airfields in the CENTCOM AOR has identified three candidate airfields for CVV-10, the USS Independence air wing, to practice carrier landings. A US Navy SH-3 helicopter is made available to the wing staff to inspect conditions at each of the sites.

Nuking Mexico
 

Great stuff as usual. Wondering if you plan on addressing what always seemed like a hole in canon - why the US doesn't just flatten Northern Mexico with nukes. Even with the weapons expended and destroyed, there should be enough to wipe out Mexican supply and transportation centers. In my campaign, I solve this by having far fewer nukes used in general and with the Soviets (who are more active in the Mexican invasion) threatening a tit for tat exchange if the US bombs Mexico. I don't recall GDW ever addressing this (although I could be wrong). Anyway, looking forward to more of your posts.

Thanks for asking! Spoiler alert: it's coming. The Soviets already took out nearly all of Mexican oil refining with strikes in December. I have Division Cuba pretty much completely out of contact with STAVKA and their deployment is a strictly local arrangement.

The US hasn't released any of its tremendous remaining nuclear arsenal on Mexico for somewhat technical reasons... delays in command and communications, the lack of target intelligence and loss of nuclear weapon mission planners, even things as basic as knowing where the railheads are. (Once that is known then weapons need to be allocated, targeting information developed then sorties planned. SAC took a direct hit during the TDM, seriously depleting its ability to plan strikes. The prewar SAC planners didn't maintain the detailed information on Mexican targets, so that needs to be gathered... Tomahawk cruise missiles, for example, use radar terrain matching guidance. The US doesn't have the detailed terrain mapping in the form needed to feed that guidance system and needs to do radar mapping first, which is easier said than done at this point of the war.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that the US nuclear response is delayed but building...

Thanks for your patience and allowing me to explain my reasoning!

June 23, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

The Joint Chiefs, seeing the continued success of the Mexicans, especially in Texas, order planners to develop options for use of nuclear weapons to slow or halt the invasion. The G-3, operations staff, requests a day to determine what will be needed for such planning to occur, since it is not an area that the Joint Chiefs have previously been involved with. (Strategic nuclear planning had been the purview of the Joint Strategic Planning Staff at SAC headquarters before the TDM, while theater and corps commanders planned theater and tactical nuclear employment).

As Mexican marines clear up the last pockets of resistance at Naval Air Station North Island the commander of the Mexican 2nd Army requests they launch an amphibious assault across the harbor, landing on shores of the international airport and advancing through that complex to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot. The marine commander refuses, referring the Army commander to the Naval Ministry in Mexico City, which directs his operations rather than the Ministry of National Defense, which commands the Army and Air Force. Although it has taken over 40 percent casualties, Brigade Ensenada continues its assault on the San Diego naval base, making progress in reaching the harbor between the base and the massive shipyard, which has now been burning for several days, destroying the destroyer Harry W. Hill, cruiser Mobile Bay and the under-construction replenishment ship Conecuh as well as an unnamed Freedom-class freighter.

The Mexican command issues a strongly-worded directive to the commander of Brigade Nogales, urging him to continue his brigade's forward progress towards Tucson, progress that has been largely halted since the initial days of the invasion. The brigade commander replies with a request for reinforcements for his isolated command, noting the presence of the 111th Military Intelligence Brigade to his east and the reports from his scouts (and criminal gang allies) of a coherent defense of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base on the city's southern limits.

The Battle of El Paso drags on, with inconclusive fighting raging throughout the day. To the west of the city, Mexican trucks are replenishing the Torres Motorized Cavalry Brigade, reinforced with cavalry regiments from Brigade Durango and Brigade Torreon, while the Chihuahua Brigade brings its troops together for an assault on Holloman Air Force Base. The brigade's concentration means that the long supply line back along the unit's route of advance is secured solely by allied civilian gangs, who are more often than not more interested in pillaging than patrolling for American infiltrators or counterattacks.

2nd Mexican Army forces the commander of the San Antonio garrison to decide whether to abandon the city, its military bases (including the large Medina Regional Security Operations Center ELINT station) and population, or to subject it to a costly siege. His calls for assistance to the commanders of the nearby 46th Infantry Division and 95th Training Division are rebuffed by those generals, who plead that their troops are overwhelmed by their ongoing civil relief and rear area security duties and noting that what ammunition and fuel they can spare have already been sent to the city.

The First Regiment of Thirds (which will soon become known as the "Big Bad One") is raised in Florida as part of the City of St. Petersburg Militia. On the other side of the state, the commander of the Jacksonville-Mayport Naval Base and Naval Air Station has formed the sailors from the bases as well as the crews of the various ships and squadrons stranded in the area into a relatively efficient fighting force. The city fathers have by this time requested extensive assistance from the Navy; the action of the naval force has allowed the Jacksonville area to remain an island of stability in the general chaos that is post-nuclear Florida.

All of the 1048th Assault Gun Regiment's vehicles have been disabled, although four of them continue to harbor crewmen that continue to resist. Two of the ISU's main guns are still functional, forcing the surrounding Marines to avoid their limited arcs of fire. The surviving Soviets are effective in covering the blind spots of the other vehicles, and over 40 Marines have been lost in close-in anti-tank actions to neutralize them.

SOOCCENT (Special Operations Command Central, CENTCOM's special operations headquarters) reaches an agreement with XVIII Airborne Corps to allow special operations troops to use the newly established airborne school at Ad Damman, Saudi Arabia. SOCCCENT agrees to provide a small training cadre to establish a HALO course at the school, supplementing the school's basic parachutist, jumpmaster and pathfinder courses.

Pathfinder
 

Somehow, I think pathfinder might be the most practical application of the school. Mass tacs are probably a thing of the past given aircraft availability and fuel, but ensuring aerial delivery of high priority supplies and equipment, establishing HLZs and DZs, controlling the few remaining attack helos and medevacs, or ensuring the safety of loads slung under the precious remaining rotary wing aircraft are probably all valid skills.

OTL many maneuver companies and troops have the 92Y30 supply sergeant billet coded for the F7 (Pathfinder) ASI. A fact which has frustrated many a “high-speed” LT badgehunter who wanted to go to “Badgefinder” rather than focus on being good at LT’ing as they see the flatliner, tabless supply sergeant earn his pathfinder torch!

June 24, 1998

With Greek troops remaining in Macedonia and beginning the process of annexation, the Albanians withdraw from the temporary alliance between the two nations. Albanian units are directed to cease cooperation with adjacent Greek units.

photo
The Soviet Division Cuba begins movement out of Cuba on Mexican transports. (Unofficially) The hastily-assembled Mexican fleet is insufficient to haul the entire force, so the Soviets press some of the various friendly vessels in port into service, including the Bulgarian freighter A.B. Buzko, which arrived in Cuba in March, the Polish bulker Orlęta Lviv and the Greek Paraguay Express, which sought shelter in Cuban waters when Greece entered the war against NATO in June, 1997. Most of the tanks (export-model T-72 originally intended for the USSR's Caribbean allies, never delivered when war broke out, the Soviets planning to return them home for Red Army use but never confident in their ability to move them securely) are loaded aboard the Soviet Ro/Ro ship Skulptor Golubkina.

Unofficially,

The G-3, Operations officer, for the Joint Chiefs reports his staff's preliminary assessment of the request for nuclear strike options to halt the Mexican invasion. First, political guidance is needed as to the type of targets to be considered - population centers, military bases, command and control facilities, transport hubs, industrial facilities, or something else, as well as the levels of damage assurance and tolerance for civilian casualties. The Joint Strategic Planning Staff was destroyed in the attack on SAC Headquarters in Nebraska in November, and the mobile small staff that survived does not have target information for Mexico, so a reconnaissance effort will be needed. Soviet strikes and the subsequent months of disorder has severely disrupted communications with remaining units equipped with nuclear weapons; while many have been concentrated in "safe" havens, those havens are not necessarily located alongside the delivery systems. Coordination with the G-4 (Logistics) and G-6 (Communications) staffs will be required to develop implementation plans.

In addition to considering nuclear options, the Joint Chiefs attempt to identify additional conventional forces that can be sent to the fight in the Southwest. Noting the impressive performance of the Marine recruits in San Diego, the ongoing resistance offered by the School Brigade at Fort Bliss and the heroic stand of the cadets of the Marine Military Academy in Harlingen, Texas as well as the general breakdown of conscription in CONUS, they condsider it appropriate to convert training formations to combat units. Consequently, they direct the Army Chief of Staff to proceed with converting the many training brigades and divisions in the US (10 divisions and over a dozen brigades) to combat formations.

The fighting in San Diego drags on for another day, although resistance in the burning naval base is beginning to crumble as ammunition and food supplies dwindle and losses mount. The Mexican 1st Mechanized Brigade makes an assault on the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, advancing under the cover of the urban sprawl to within a quarter mile of the Marines' perimeter. Advance patrols from the Mexican 2nd Army and US 63 (my XVI) Corps are independently scouting conditions in the urban waste of Los Angeles and Orange Counties; the Mexican patrols cooperating with the Los Amigos motorcycle gang.

Brigade Chichuahhua's movement out of the Sacramento Mountains to the town of Alamogordo and the adjacent Holloman Air Force Base is delayed by a salvo of MLRS rockets which rips through its leading formations. This is the first time the Mexican unit has come under enemy artillery fire, and it is a sign that they are within range of the 2nd Battalion, 4th Field Artillery, which is covering the 214th Field Artillery Brigade's retreat from the area. (The formation had been operating at White Sands Missile Range since early in 1997). There is no sign of the American artillery beyond the smoke trails in the sky overhead, the brigade commander wisely deciding to keep his vulnerable command at at least stand-off range. The brigade's other battalion, the 3rd Battalion, 9th Artillery, is concurrently on the road north, headed for the relatively safe haven of Canon Air Force Base 250 miles away with its 36 Pershing II intermediate-range missiles.

The School Brigade in Fort Bliss withdraws back north across the parade ground, now a torn-up field of craters and debris, taking cover in the ruined buildings on the northern perimeter, where fighting positions have been created for the brigade's anti-aircraft guns. The open area presents an excellent killing ground for any Mexican frontal attacks; Brigade Ciudad Juarez has begun shifting troops east to attack the post cantonment area through the airfield on the east end. On the northern outskirts of town a patrol from the Torres Motorized Cavalry Brigade captures a small group of stragglers from the Texas 9th State Guard Brigade, which has been smashed over the last few weeks' fighting. The group contains the unit commander, a 68-year old colonel (who incidentally had left the Army in 1971 as a 1st Lieutenant after a combat tour with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Vietnam).

The Mexican 4th Army in Texas continues its relentless advance as the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment crosses Interstate 10 and has Highway 281 north of San Antonio under fire, leaving Interstate 35 as the only major road out of the city. To the east the Coastal Column begins bypassing the ruins of Corpus Christi to the west, with the 2nd Mechanized Brigade capturing Chase Field Naval Air Station following a day and a half long battle against the base security detachment, a battle in which all surviving aircraft were either flown off or burned by he defenders.

The Boeing Skyfoxes of the 198th Tactical Fighter Squadron return to the skies over southern Mexico once again, striking the gas processing facilities at Reforma on the Yucatan. Taking advantage of Mexico's complete lack of air defenses, the counterinsurgency aircraft are able to attack a target usually allocated to advanced medium bombers or fighter-bombers; the strike disables 40 percent of Mexico's remaining natural gas production.

X German Korps, guarding the Rhine frontier near Heidelberg, and XII German Korps, stationed along the Rhine northwest of Frankfurt, are ordered onto the lines south of Frankfurt.

Behind Soviet/North Korean lines, supplies are pushed forward to front-line units, while many Soviet divisions begin to call in more dispersed detachments that have been spread out through the country maintaining order, concentrating near the front lines.

June 25, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

After an overnight session discussing options, a dialogue usually held by the nation's highest political leaders, the Joint Chiefs respond to their G-3's request for orders. Having ended debate with "Let the historians 50 or 100 years from now debate whether or not this is the right decision. We don't have the conventional forces to stop the invasion. Nonetheless, this effort will be to halt offensive operations, not kill millions of Mexicans. We've got to live with these people after the Recovery, after all." GEN Cummings, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, directs that American nuclear forces are to strike the headquarters of the Mexican Ministry of Defense in Mexico City and the logistic/transportation hubs in northern Mexico that are supporting the invasion. The minimal possible yields required to neutralize the targets are to be used, minimizing civilian casaulties and, hopefully, fallout over American territory. Cummings realizes that the transport hubs are relatively "hard" targets, likely requiring fallout-creating ground bursts, but decides that the tradeoff is one that must unfortunately be made.

One of the 40th Infantry Division's observation posts in the Hollywood Hills, taking advantage of the disappearance of smog over the Los Angeles area with the death of LA's automobile culture, observes the green fields of the Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach in the vast field of ruins that was LA. The observation is relayed up the chain of command and the division's Aviation Brigade is tasked to dispatch a patrol to examine it. The main body of the division's 2nd Brigade departs Camp Roberts, headed south, behind a screen established by the 1st Squadron, 18th Cavalry (-). To the east, the 1st Brigade, 4th Armored Division has sent another battalion (the 3rd Battalion, 51st Infantry) to the front, bolstering the flank security as 89th (my II) Corps prepares for an armored counterattack to drive Brigade Mexicali back from the Imperial Valley.

It is an inauspicious day for the American defense of the Southwest, with the collapse of resistance at the San Diego Naval Base and the evacuation of key assets from San Antonio as the commander of Lackland Air Force Base prepares to surrender his command to the Mexican 4th Army. Fires rage at the Merida Annex as the intelligence operators destroy their sensitive signals intelligence equipment and burn years worth of records, while their supply specialists hurriedly rush to issue them all uniforms grabbed from Lackland's Air Force basic training barracks, allowing the intelligence specialists to blend in with the new recruits. Meanwhile, the commanders of the major military hospitals in the city, which have been an island of calm and comfort for some of the most severely wounded survivors of battlefields around the world, address their staffs and prepare them for the oncoming reality of life under Mexican occupation, offering them the opportunity to abandon their patients and evacuate; few do.

To the north, the commanders of Army units that have seemingly done their level best to avoid preparing for the upcoming battle are rattled out of their stupor by the impending fall of San Antonio. The 46th Infantry Division dispatches six companies, from six separate battalions, to the south to contain the oncoming Coastal Column; the division's heavy weapons and armored vehicles were sent to Europe as replacements earlier in the year and the division has not been able to replace its B Companies, which were sent overseas as replacements in the fall as well. The 95th Training Division at Fort Hood forms a reaction regiment, formed around the three battalions of trained tanker privates that graduated training earlier in the year but remained assigned to the division after transportation system breakdown stranded them at the base; the privates are assigned tank commanders from among the division's drill sergeants and recovering wounded located on and near the base. The formation tries to wrangle enough fuel to try platoon and company-level manuevers in the hodgepoddge of training tanks the division maintains as part of its mission to turn out replacement tank drivers and loaders.

The bad news for the American defenders of the Southwest continues, with the Chihuahua Brigade overrunning Holloman Air Force Base in central New Mexico. With news of the base's capture the Torres Motorized Cavalry Brigade launches its portion of 3rd Army's double envelopment of the Fort Bliss garrison, striking north along Interstate 25 through uncoordinated Texas State Guard roadblocks.

The diversion of troops and supplies from rear areas in Germany to the front creates opportunities for many of the armed bands roaming the country's interior to intensify their ravaging of the country. Along the northern portion of the former Inner-German Border, 5th Squad and its allied group 5th Squadron begin establishing semi-permanent control of rural areas.

Unloading of the sail training ship Statsraad Lehmkuh in Bergen, Norway has been completed and the ship is moved to the shipyard for minor repairs following its long voyage to South America and back.

The carrier USS John F. Kennedy, damaged by a mine off the Greek coast, limps into Marsaxlokk Bay on the southeastern end of the island of Malta, accompanied by its escorts. The local authorities object to the entry of combatant warships into their neutral port - legally they are obligated to intern the ships and their crews for the duration of the conflict if they remain beyond 24 hours, and international law (the Hague Convention of 1907) limits combatant vessels to three in any single port, while the Kennedy is accompanied by three escorts and the oiler USNS Lenthal. The carrier's commander is claiming the right to refuge while repairing the ship to a seaworthy state, and offers to order some of his escorts to sail to Valetta, the capital, to comply with the limitation on vessel numbers.

3rd and 4th Marine Aircraft Wings, operating from a number of fields in and around Bandar Abbas along with a rear reserve base at Al Minhad Air Base in the UAE, is able to maintain its aircraft better than nearly any other combatant air formation in the world thanks to the support it receives from the advanced maintenance detachment on board the aviation maintenance ship SS Curtiss, a US government-owned, civilian manned freighter outfitted with a large helipad and extensive containerized workshops and spare parts stores. The converted merchantman is semi-permanently moored in Bandar Abbas, servicing helicopters onboard while a detachment ashore overhauls fixed-wing aircraft at Havadarya airport, adjacent to the port.

The 27th (my 90th) Tank Division, loaded on a series of six steam-powered trains, reaches the Volga River at Zelenodolsk, where the railroad troops have repaired one of the two spans of the bridge which was destroyed by an American B-2 bomber in December. The division's locomotives are replenished with additional coal from semi-abandoned river barges tied up nearby, giving them enough fuel to continue their journey west.

That's all I've got for a little while, folks. Family in town for the next week or so, I'll be back around late next week.

I was remiss in not crediting Matt Wiser and Webstral for the General Cummings quote. Thanks Guys!!!

June 26, 1998

Following nearly two months of assembly, company and battalion-level training and delays in transportation, 19 Infantry Brigade is deployed from England to Germany.

Matagorda Island air base, a small facility in coastal Texas used to support training flights and coastal zone patrols, is abandoned. The base is stripped and blown up, leaving nothing remaining but the charred frameworks of empty Quonset huts and hangars and a badly cratered runway.

Unofficially,

A series of orders are issued from Colorado Springs to implement the Joint Chiefs' directive to prepare for nuclear strikes on Mexican targets. One of the first units to move are the National Guard Green Berets of the 19th Special Forces Group's designated Direct Action B-Team, who load onto an Army National Guard C-27 transport for infiltration behind Mexican lines south of the Rio Grande. Likewise, the cadre of the Military Freefall School at Yuma Proving Ground and a detachment from the USAF Special Operations Center at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico are dropped behind Mexican lines, into Baja California and central Mexico, respectively. All three detachments are tasked with identifying the routes used by Mexican logistics truck convoys and where they are loading from. The paratroops all jump with motorcycles and FAVs to provide rapid cross-country mobility.

Mexican forces largely spend the day absorbing the previous day's captures and attempting to establish secure lines to prevent the escape of thousands of American military personnel who are attempting to escape Mexican captivity as well as manage the streams of refugees fleeing to American-held territory.

The B Team from the 8th SF Group in Chiapas, southern Mexico, has begun to arm the men of several small indigenous villages, preparing them to take up arms against the remnants of local authorities. To the south, at Cato Sano air base in Honduras, aviation fuel supplies are dwindling, with what remains allocated to supply drops to support the Green Berets; the 198th Tactical Fighter Squadron is largely grounded pending delivery of more fuel.

The 47th Infantry Division falls back through British Columbia, following several days of strong Soviet pressure and intelligence reports that the Soviets may have recently received additional tactical nuclear weapons. The American division is accompanied by Canadian territorial troops.

Fighting rages in Heidelberg, Germany as a combined force of German border guards (both former East and West German), the East German reservists of the 219th Motor-Rifle Division and a mixed bag of American rear area support troops rallies to blunt the latest assault by the Soviet 41st Army, which has driven back the Danish Expeditionary Force before turning west, squeezing out the waning Italian 3rd Corps.

The Maltese authorities back down, faced with the firepower of the Kennedy battle group. The government, already straining to support its population, has no desire for American gunboats to be less than a kilometer from its seat of power. The carrier commander has offered to allow Maltese authorities to examine the condition of his ship, verifying its need for repairs; unfortunately the harbor has only a small boatyard to service the town's fishing fleet and there is no shipyard in the nation capable of drydocking the massive carrier. Maltese officials are eager to speed the Americans' departure, unable to support the needs of the thousands of sailors aboard.

A skirmish breaks out between Albanian troops of the 24th Division and the Greek IX Infantry Division jointly occupying the Suvenir ammunition plant in western Macedonia; the erstwhile allies had been sharing the plant's output as well as jointly operating the nearby hydropower plant that keeps the machinery going.

The airborne school operated by XVIII Airborne Corps accepts its first non-U.S. Army troops. The class starting today has two British students and an Iranian student as well as a trio of Marines headed for 4th Marine Division's Force Reconnaissance detachment.

Updates and the Mexican invasion
 

More great updates per usual.

Do you envision between isolated ranchers and armed civilians (even post TDM) that the Mexican Army is slowly bleeding to death as it marches further into Texas and the Southwest even before it encounters the remnants of the US Army?

With regard to New America do you think the New America cells would remain inert, come out fighting or quietly disperse as much of their cached supplies to the US military and live again to fight another day elsewhere?

Knowing New America's ideology I would envision New American enclaves coming out in the open for an apocalyptic (pun intended) bloody last stand against the Mexican invasion.

What say the group?

June 27, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

A patrol from the 40th Infantry Division's 1st Squadron, 18th Cavalry, detached from the main body of the squadron, reaches the outer perimeter of the Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach. After a few tense moments as both armed formations verify each other's status, contact is made and within an hour word is relayed to 63rd (my XVI) Corps Headquarters that several companies worth of heavily armed and trained teens from the California 10th Cadet Brigade are intact and loyal.

Further south, Brigade Ensenada, which has sustained nearly 50 percent losses so far in the Battle of San Diego, regroups before joining 1st Mechanized Brigade in attacking the dug-in Marines of the Recruit Training Depot. The Marines receive much-needed assistance from a daring low-level night flight by a pair of CH-53E heavy-lift helicopters of HMT-302, which brings in food, ammunition (including several cases of 40mm grenades, the first the defenders have received to date), medical supplies and two under-slung LAV-25s with full loads of fuel and ammunition. They evacuate the wounded as they depart; the flights are a huge boost to morale.

The at-least theoretical encirclement of the Fort Bliss garrison is completed with the linkup of forward elements of the Torres Motorized Cavalry Brigade's 9th Motorized Cavalry Regiment and the Chihuahua Brigade's 76th Infantry Regiment at the top of San Augustin Pass east of the town of Las Cruces, New Mexico. (The encirclement is theoretical because Brigade Chihuahua has left only two of its infantry regiments spread out over the 440-mile route of its advance to secure its supply line and occupy the vast area it has traversed.) Brigade Chihuahua's drive west to link up with the Torres Brigade has allowed the 214th Field Artillery Brigade and the remnants of the Holloman Air Force Base garrison to withdraw northward unopposed; the 214th's Pershing missiles arriving safely at Canon Air Force Base in Clovis, New Mexico safely today. In El Paso, Brigade Torreon has reached full strength with the arrival of its final regiment from the Mexican interior; Brigade Durango still has a single regiment on the way.

The first battalion (6-112 Armor) of the 49th Armored Division loads its vehicles aboard ten open deck barges in the Mississippi River in Quincy, Illinois. The remainder of 3rd Brigade and Division headquarters are en route, while 2nd Brigade is headed for Evansville, Indiana and 1st Brigade is to load at La Crosse, Wisconsin.

In its first actions against now-veteran Mexican troops, the companies of the 46th Infantry Division dispatched to halt the Mexican invasion are roughly handled, unexpectedly being thrown back by the firepower and deft maneuvering of Brigade Matamoros and the 2nd Mechanized Brigade. Three of the companies disintegrate under the pressure of Mexican follow-on attacks.

RainbowSix reports that Major Nikita Drozdov, a highly trained KGB officer who speaks fluent English who was covertly inserted into the UK in late 1996 under the code name Kyril and initially based in East Anglia, makes his way to Leicester using the alias Jim Ross.

Fighting in Northern Ireland flares up, as the IRA and Irish Army launch their long-planned summer offensive. Initial attacks out of Catholic enclaves in Londonderry and Belfast are rebuffed by strong Loyalist and British Army defenses.

Heavier NATO reinforcements, in the form of the V US Corps and VI German Korps, which contain the remains of armored divisions and the complement of corps-level engineer, artillery and other supporting formations and which have spent the preceding months absorbing what few replacements that had arrived and rebuilding, are fully engaged. V Corps’ 28th Infantry Division establishes a series of strong blocking positions along the roads northwest of Schweinfurt which VII US Corps passes through.

Fighting in occupied Macedonia spreads throughout the zone jointly occupied by Greek and Albanian troops. The fighting is confused, with no front lines, numerous armed bands of Jugoslav deserters, partisans and armed civilians and both occupying armies' positions intermixed, with small isolated positions along major supply routes, in towns and key villages, and in power plants and industrial facilities.

Thanks! I'm glad that folks are enjoying this. I wish I had enough time to get caught up but I don't want to rush things and leave the detail out!

I can see the civilian opposition to the Mexican occupiers being more opportunistic than systematic. Isolated supply trucks, small groups of soldiers away from their garrisons and such are probably at risk, but few extended families have the firepower to face off against anything more than a squad or at most a platoon of troops. Even given the prevalence of AR-15s in Texas in the 1990s (much lower than today but not absent) a Mexican Army unit with G-3s and light machineguns would outgun armed civilians even before the company mortars get involved.

I'm not sure about New America cells. They're supposed to remain hidden until ordered to go active; I envision them in the southwest being remote ranches, mines and so on, with the occasional small town completely under their control. These sorts of facilities, combined with the low density of Mexican forces, could very well go unnoticed by the invaders and unwittingly bypassed; I can't see NA forces jumping into action to help government forces. (A cynical NA leader may in fact see the Mexican invasion as a bonus, weakening government forces and making the inevitable NA takeover easier!)

To start with yes. But eventually "WOLVERINES!". Well to be more locally appropriate but far less intimidating maybe "ARMADILLOS!" :)

June 28, 1998

Another day with nothing in canon. Unofficially,

The Governor of California, having received word of the 10th California Cadet Brigade's status, and exercising his authority as commander of the California State Guard, demands that the unit not be committed to action against the invading Mexican Army, on account of the young age of its members. (Over 80 percent of the unit is under the age of 20). The 63 (my XVI) Corps commander counters with a commitment to use the formation for rear area security, protecting the corps' vulnerable supply convoys and routes through the ruins of Los Angeles.

In San Diego, the surrounded Marines come under renewed attack from the combined forces of Brigade Ensenada, Brigade Hermosilla and the 1st Mechanized Brigade, whose AMX-13 light tanks, protected by infantry teams, are used as assault guns to reduce Marine strongpoints with well-aimed 90mm fire.

Armored battles rage in southern California as 80 (my II) Corps launches its counterattack. The combined 177th Armored Brigade and 1st Brigade, 4th Armored Division sweep south, overrunning the pickets of Mexicali Brigade, which are woefully lacking in anti-tank weaponry. Simultaneously, the 108th Armored Cavalry Regiment and 223rd Armored Regiment drive west from Yuma Proving Ground, with the 223rd (the Yuma NTC OPFOR) launching a frontal attack along Interstate 10 to tie down LaPaz Brigade while the cavalry undertakes a sweeping flanking maneuver through the desert to the north.

With Mexican forces bypassing Fort Bliss, the commander of the School Brigade orders preparations for a withdrawal to the northeast, across the vast Dona Ana range complex and into southeastern New Mexico. A convoy of private cars and trucks is organized to move the dependents and civilian employees who remain sheltered on the base, which will be escorted by troops in HMMWVs while the main body of the brigade will travel in tactical vehicles. One battalion-sized task force will lead, prepared to punch its way through any Mexican blocking positions. A second battalion-sized group, commanded by the staff of the 6th Battalion, 56th Air Defense Artillery, will serve as the rear guard, while the brigade support troops and headquarters will travel in the center of the formation, which will be spread out over a nearly 15-mile length of desert.

The 200 sailors assigned to the 2nd Tennessee State Guard Regiment have been fully integrated into the force as its 6th Battalion. They are well armed, with an array of obsolescent but fully functional small arms and a well-equipped heavy weapons company, with 18 90mm recoilless rifles and 36 M1919 light machineguns. The force is assigned to secure the Mississippi River crossings; reinforcements if the battalion needs it are identified as the Regiment's Rapid Response Force, a company-sized unit of former SWAT officers led by a one-legged retired US Army tank commander, Colonel Harlan Wilson. That unit is assigned a quartet of modernized M20 armored cars formerly assigned to the State Police.

In Quincy, Illinois, commanders from the 6th Battalion, 112th Armor begin constructing defensive works aboard the barges that will carry 3rd Brigade and Division Headquarters, 49th Armored Division to Oklahoma.

The first ships carrying the Soviet forces from Cuba arrive in the eastern Mexican port of Altamira. Upon unloading, the troops are moved to a nearby (formerly American-owned) ranch for training. For while the unit is in theory a combat-ready Red Army division, is is actually composed of three separate detachments - the 7th Specialized Motor-Rifle Brigade (a reinforced motor-rifle regiment with a tank battalion, a BMP battalion, two BTR battalions, an artillery battalion as well as air defense, rocket artillery, engineer and recon companies), a contingent of over 3,000 military personnel (mostly officers and long-service NCOs and warrant officers) from all branches of service that had been assigned as advisors to the Cuban military, and finally over 5,000 Soviet civilians who were living in Cuba and who are being ejected along with their military brethren. Before being committed to action, Major General Femerov wants time to forge this collection of men into a capable fighting force. It is blessed with a nearly full complement of armored vehicles and heavy weapons which had been in Cuba, originally intended for the USSR's Caribbean allies (Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela).

Fighting for Heidelberg, Germany rages as Soviet forces attempt to drive the NATO defenders out. German troops are defending the heavily built up Old Town and castle, with artillery observers on the Konigstuhl mountain on the east side of town, while American defenders are rushing to complete hardening of positions in Patton Kaserne on the west side of town.

The 1048th Assault Gun Regiment has been nearly entirely eliminated. Patient work by a detachment from the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines has set all the hulks of disabled Soviet assault guns ablaze, and continued resistance has largely stopped. A handful of stragglers remain dug in, resisting calls for their surrender and fighting on despite lack of food and water.

The nuclear missile cruiser USS Virginia has scoured many hundreds of miles of empty Southern Pacific waters in search of enemy shipping but turned up nothing as it approaches the Galapagos Islands.

The newly-formed 138th Motor-Rifle Division departs the training grounds on the outskirts of the town of Borisov, Byelorussia, a key transportation point on the Moscow-Minsk railroad line, and relieves the MVD, police and Party officials of responsibility for the town.

June 29, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

A series of confused actions break out in the ruins of Los Angeles and Orange County, California as 63 (my XVI) Corps begins moving into the metro area in force, encountering Mexican troops of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment and allied criminal and biker gangs. Neither side has the troop density to secure the area and supplies and communications on both sides are poor.

To the east, 89 (my II) Corps' coordinated attacks are making progress, with Mexican forces falling back before the massed American armor. Unfortunately, the American formations are short of infantry, leaving many isolated groups of Mexican stragglers in the American rear. American commanders are pleased with their success, but ammunition and fuel supplies are rapidly dwindling.

In San Diego, Mexican troops have broken onto the eastern end of the Marine base, fighting through several administrative and barracks structures on the east end of the base. The elite paratroops who landed at Miramar Naval Air Station on the first day of the invasion are sitting out the fight, as are the Mexican marines; both high-quality formations instead moving north along the coast against scattered opposition while clearing the coastal axis for further use.

The School Brigade begins its breakout from surrounded Fort Bliss, heading out over unpaved range roads out of the cantonment area. The column, a mix of tactical, civilian and commercial-type vehicles, moves at an aggravating 7 miles per hour, creating a massive dust cloud that causes drivers to repeatedly jam on their brakes after losing sight of the vehicle ahead of them. The rearguard 6th Battalion, 56th Air Defense Artillery, holds off a probe by troops of Brigade Torreon.

Further east in Texas, 4th Mexican Army's western force resumes its advance after sweeping through San Antonio. Finding the SIGINT station at Merida ablaze, the Mexican forces make a modest attempt to segregate the station's staff from the trainees in the mass of POWs, but they are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of military personnel that they are suddenly responsible for. Numerous escapes occur as the American troops slip away past the overwhelmed Mexican guards; The 4th Army commander is willing to delegate administration of the city and the POWs to his allied criminal and biker gangs, allowing his troops to continue their drive north.

The Mexican "Coastal Column" accelerates its drive against the widely dispersed and under-equipped American 46th Infantry Division. The Mexican command sends its infantry regiments (each roughly equivalent to an American light infantry battalion although lacking anti-tank firepower) on multiple parallel roads, seeking out American positions. When one is found, the entire regiment concentrates its firepower on the Americans, who are often in squad or platoon strength. The speed of advance is faster than the overwhelmed American command can respond to, and by nightfall another roughly eight companies of Americans have been defeated and the front line moved 12 miles north, skirting the western edge of the ruins of the Houston Metroplex.

The American deep reconnaissance teams in the Mexican rear have traced the flow of supply trucks back to railheads in Mexico, the overtaxed Mexican rail operator unable as yet to extend service into captured American territory. When news of this is relayed back to Colorado Springs, nuclear planners, using relatively rudimentary maps of the Mexican rail network, focus on four key junctions in the Mexican rail network that can isolate the border region from the rest of Mexico. Urgent orders are issued for detailed radar reconnaissance to be performed of the sites; a E-8 JSTARS aircraft at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma is readied for flight.

The Mexican Ministry of Defense issues orders for units in Mexico to stand up additional infantry regiments, calling on the tens of thousands of partially-trained draftees released into the reserves in prior years; the new regiments will allow additional forces to be fed into the fighting in Texas and California.

Daily gains by Pact forces advancing in southern Germany are measured in hundreds of meters rather than kilometers. Pact forces have depleted their initial stockpiles and are not able to obtain food and fuel from the areas they have overrun. The Soviet effort does not have enough fuel or trucks to replenish units in action. Meanwhile, NATO resistance has stiffened.

In Heidelberg, having lost several hundred men for only nominal gains, the Soviet commander of the 41st Army orders his motor-rifle troops (the 30th Guards Motor-Rifle Division) to maintain the pressure on the city's defenders while directing his armored reserve - the battered 62nd Tank Division - to bypass the town to the west, attempting to "thread the needle" between Heidelberg and the ruined city of Mannheim to the northwest, with the Army's remnant 1318th Independent Air Assault Regiment (down to six weak companies) attempting to infiltrate in advance to locate a suitable crossing point over the Neckar River.

The Iranian Air Force continues its attempts to liberate its country by weakening the enemy forces occupying its territory. While the remaining attack helicopters (a few dozen pre-revolutionary AH-1 Cobras that were rebuilt in the US and Israel from 1994-6, bringing them nearly on par with the US Army and USMC's AH-1V King Cobras) are dedicated to supporting the ongoing counter-marauder operations, the fixed-wing fighter-bomber fleet is striking Soviet targets behind the front lines. An example of this is the day's mission package, which sees an early-morning sortie by F-20s of the 42nd Tactical Fighter Squadron with reconnaissance pods to verify targets located the prior day. The flights last less than 45 minutes, at low altitude, and the aircraft are met on the taxiway by a jeep, ready to rush the onboard film to waiting intelligence analysts. (The Iranians are not equipped with the latest real-time recon pods). A quick review concludes that the target, a battery of ML-20 152mm howitzers of 32nd Army's 400th Gun Artillery Brigade, are still in place and the waiting flight of F-4Es of the 61st Tactical Fighter Squadron takes off. Top cover is provided by a pair of F-15s from the American 1st Tactical Fighter Wing, with command coordinated by Iranian officers operating from a hardened bunker under Shiraz International Airport. The F-4s, flying at low level through the Zagros Mountains, attract scattered small-arms fire as they approach the target area, popping up to 1000 feet for weapons delivery. The artillery battery, located some 15 km behind the front line, is defended by the 32nd Army's depleted 272nd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade; the defenders light up a single SA-11 launcher's radars and fire three missiles, all that the ready battery has remaining. (The battery was alerted by the earlier F-20 overflight to the possibility that the Iranians might be back.) One of the missiles peppers the trailing Phantom with shrapnel, and it continues on the attack run trailing smoke rather than peel off and be vulnerable to being picked off separately; the other two missiles miss. The F-4s blanket the battery (down to three guns from its prewar four) with 96 500-lb bombs, set for a mix of impact and airburst; the blast and shrapnel from the dozens of bombs thoroughly demolish the howitzers, their prime movers, crews and much of the ammunition dumped at the battery. The return flight is uneventful, and upon landing the damaged Phantom is assessed as likely needing several months of repair in the conditions of 1998 Iran.

June 30, 1998

The 106th Guards Air Assault Division arrives in the Ryazan area for reconstruction from the remaining elements of the Airborne center there. (Unofficially) It ends up absorbing not only the center's remaining personnel but also a number of local militias and MVD troops. It also dispatches a detachment to scavenge the site of the Kubinka Armor Museum, which yields a hodgepodge of aged and unique armor, a mixed blessing given the burden it places on the unit's mechanics.

Unofficially,

The destroyer USS John Paul Jones (DDG-32), which reactivated in November after over a decade in reserve, appears off the coast of San Diego. Its missile launchers are empty, but the ship boasts over 450 rounds of ammunition for its pair of 5-inch guns, many of which are expended over the next few hours as experienced ANGLICO spotter teams ashore direct the destroyer's fire on Mexican positions. This fire forces the Mexican force to avoid the open ground along the base's southern and western edges.

The Marine Corps belatedly organizes the cadre and miscellaneous staff at its base at Twentynine Palms as an ad-hoc force composed of two infantry battalions and a LAV-25 scout company and places the command, designated Task Force Devil Dog, at the disposal of the 89 (my II) Corps commander. That corps' attack is beginning to slow as the meagre stockpiles of fuel in California are increasingly depleted by the movement of 63 (my XVI) and 89 (my II) Corps.

The School Brigade's overland movement out of Fort Bliss continues, with the rearguard 5th Battalion, 56th Air Defense Artillery slipping out of the cantonment area in the early morning hours, leaving a massive inferno behind as the few remaining undamaged buildings are torched to deny them to the enemy. The column is forced to halt mid-morning as the temperature rises and the many civilian-type vehicles begin to suffer from the relentless dust and rough tank trails; the halt gives the column time to clear filters, refuel and distribute water to the passengers.

To the west, the Torres Motorized Cavalry Regiment (releasing the cavalry regiments of the Torreon and Durango Brigades back to their parent commands to pursue the School Brigade) begins advancing on the next strategic target, New Mexico's largest city, Albuquerque. The Mexican armored cars advance up Interstate 25, staying on the western bank of the Rio Grande.

4th Army's drive up the Interstate 35 corridor resumes, with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment reaching the perimeter fence of Bergstrom Air Force Base and the capital city of Austin, which the Governor and his bodyguard of Texas Rangers has fled for the safety of, initially, Waco. To its east, Brigade Saltillo is engaged in fierce combat with the 2nd Texas Brigade at Camp Swift; the relatively fresh Mexican troops have greater amounts of ammunition as well as more heavy weapons (particularly mortars) which give them the advantage. The 91st Training Division dispatches its reaction regiment to Austin to try to slow the Mexican advance, while directing its remaining trainees to preparing defenses for Fort Hood.

A E-8 JSTARS of the 968th Airborne Warning and Control Training Squadron, one of two training aircraft remaining in the US, flies an operational sortie over Mexico, its radar system mapping a number of targets throughout the central part of the country. It is escorted on the mission by a pair of F-16s of the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing to ensure that the Mexican Air Force's F-5 fleet, believed to be neutralized over a week prior, does not interfere with the vital mission. When the JSTARS crosses back into American territory the radar map information is relayed to the Joint Chiefs as well as several Air Force bases in the region. Upon receipt, the data is pored over by mission planners and by midnight orders are being issued.

The 47th Infantry Division, fighting alone in British Columbia, tries to hobble together a defense of the vital transportation hub of Prince George. The isolated division commander fears that Soviet troops advancing overland from the port of Prince Rupert will sever his escape route as his troops undertake a fighting withdrawal against Soviet troops that are pushing south from the Yukon.

The pace of the Pact advance in southern Germany is limited by logistic challenges and poor communications and motivation - Soviet, Czech and Italian troops are aware of the strategic goal of the campaign but are reluctant to be killed in a war that it is very clear has been lost by all sides. Isolated NATO positions are taking days or weeks to reduce, since there is insufficient ammunition (or troops) to overrun them, resorting to sieges to defeat the defenders.

The defense of Heidelberg holds, despite appalling conditions for everyone (soldiers on both sides and civilians which have not fled) in the city. Fires rage, the streets are choked with debris and trash as well as running with a disease-ridden ooze of oil, sewage and who knows what. Supplies for the defenders are running low, with hastily drafted civilian porters and NATO headquarters troops daring to cross the Neckar River carrying duffel bags stuffed with a somewhat standard allocation of ammunition (including a handful of pre-loaded magazines), water and rations. Soviet troops make minimal gains in the day's fighting.

July 1, 1998

With North Korean People's Army support, the Soviet 194th Motor Rifle Division, reinforced by the 203rd Air Assault Brigade, crosses the DMZ and forges south.

Unofficially,

effects
American bombers and missiles fan out in the early morning hours, carrying out the Joint Chief's orders to use nuclear weapons to slow or halt the Mexican invasion. A B-1B from the 337th Bomb Squadron takes off from its dispersal base (Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma), heading for Mexico City with a pair of B-61 bombs aboard. As it crosses the border over Big Bend National Park at low level and Mach 1, the 214th Field Artillery Brigade, evacuated from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico to Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico launches a pair of Pershing II Intermediate-Range missiles at the railyards at Los Mochis and Torreon. Meanwhile, F-16s from the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing head for the Mexican cities of Saltillo and Monterrey, to strike railyards hubs near those cities. The B-1B arrives over Mexico City after the rail strikes have occurred, striking the Ministry of Defense building with one of the bombs. The bomb is set for 0.3 kT, enough to flatten the building but not enough to start a firestorm or create massive damage on Mexico's largest city. The Pershing II and F-16 strikes, all ground bursts, are higher yield in order to ensure the destruction of the railyards. (The steel rails, heavily anchored and only centimeters above the ground, are particularly resistant to blast and thermal damage; a ground burst vaporizing the rails as it forms a crater is the surest way to ensure destruction.)

The Mexican Navy's Pacific Fleet sorties from its forward base in Ensenada, ordered to drive off the American destroyer USS John Paul Jones and interdict the San Diego battle zone. The Mexican task force is built around two Second World War-era American destroyers, which have been meticulously maintained but are running low on fuel.

The final surviving member of the 1048th Assault Gun Regiment's ill-fated raid into II MEF's rear area in northwestern Poland is finally killed by US Marines as he shelters in a dugout underneath his disabled ISU-152 assault gun.

July 2, 1998

Allied airstrikes slow the Soviet advance across the battle-scarred ground south of the DMZ (fought over 18 months prior) as ROK and American mechanized forces are quickly marshalled into place to respond.

Unofficially,

The nuclear strikes on Mexico City and key railroad bottlenecks has an immediate effect on the Mexican war effort. Central control over the actions of the three engaged armies disintegrates following the destruction of the Ministry of National Defense headquarters, and 1st Army, responsible for rear area operations in most of Mexico, is forced to shift emphasis from generating additional forces and supplies for the war to the north to maintaining order among a desperate, scared and unstable populace. The Presidential Guard Brigade is deployed to secure other government buildings (and, unofficially, neighborhoods populated by rich and powerful regime members and supporters), while the Military Police Brigade and Engineer Brigade try to provide disaster relief and maintain order.

There is little immediate effect on the armies fighting to the north, as there are still a few days of supplies already in the pipeline north of the strikes, and except for a few senior officers the fighting troops are wholly unaware of the strikes to their south, so poor is communication with the center.

The Joint Chiefs are grimly satisfied with the execution of the strikes and issue orders for the special operations teams which provided spotting and bomb damage assessment for the strikes to withdraw, remaining undetected if possible.

The fallout from the surface bursts begins to fall closer to the border, although of lower radiation intensity.

An old-fashioned naval battle rages off the California Coast as the Mexican Pacific fleet engages the American destroyer USS John Paul Jones (DDG-32), the newest vessel in the engagement at 40 years of age. The gun battle favors the Mexicans, whose World War Two-vintage destroyers feature a total of eight 5-inch manually fed guns facing the American's two semi-automatic 5-inch guns and a magazine depleted by days of shore bombardment in San Diego. Both opponents' fire control systems are equally dated, and the crews of about equal ability (the American crew a mix of inexperienced draftees and seasoned veterans, the Mexicans well-trained pre-war regulars). The Mexican flotilla splits into two parallel columns sailing north, one to the seaward side of John Paul Jones' track and one in between the American ship and the shore. The maneuver forces the American ship to concentrate the fire of its forward, unobstructed turret, on one enemy ship, the inshore Quezacoatl, while zig-zagging to allow the rear turret to fire at the seaward Netzahuacoyotl without presenting the a broadside opportunity. After a few minutes of back-and-forth gunfire the range drops to six nautical miles and both sides rapidly begin registering hits. Quezacoatl is the first one to fall out of battle, its bridge perforated by shrapnel and its aged steam plant offline. John Paul Jones' steam plant is the next to fail from battle damage, and as it glides to a halt the damaged Netzahuacoyotl unleashes another eight rounds, leaving the American ship ablaze. The damaged Netzahuacoyotl breaks off the engagement and turns south, heading to Ensenada for urgently needed repairs, leaving the sailors of both floundering ships to make their way ashore on their own. By sundown both destroyers have slipped below the waves, with moderate loss of life from both crews.

Some of the American sailors land in Mexican-controlled territory and begin a cat-and-mouse effort to evade patrols, while a dozen or so manage to come ashore into territory still held by the embattled marines, who once again repulse a fierce Mexican attack. LCpl Steven Barker, one of the defending recruits who has already been recognized for his coolness under fire and bravery, destroys one of 1st Mechanized Brigade's AMX-13 light tanks with a well-placed shot from his M203 grenade launcher.

Farther up the coast of California, the forward detachment of the 196th Infantry Brigade, advancing into Anaheim from the high ground south of City of Industry, catches a resupply column supporting the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment unawares, capturing the unit's supply of food, fuel and water for the day as well as crippling future resupply capability. The 2nd Brigade, 40th Infantry Division has relieved the 10th California Cadet Brigade, whose largely teenaged soldiers have been evacuated to secure the Interstate 5 corridor leading north to the vital Bakersfield refinery complex, source of 6th Army's fuel.

2nd Battalion, 56th Air Defense Artillery, which has assumed the lead of the School Brigade's column, encounters the first enemy troops in the unit's breakout drive, an isolated squad from Brigade Chihuahua in the small mountain community of Piñon, New Mexico. The Mexicans are surrounded and surrender without a fight.

In southern Arizona, Brigade Nogales, which has been sitting nearly immobile for weeks, increases its patrolling, trying to determine if the 111th Military Intelligence Brigade at Fort Huachuca and the defense force at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson are still strong forces that the isolated brigade cannot overcome.

While still struggling to deal with the capture of San Antonio, the Mexican 4th Army closes its forces on Austin. The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment sweeps across Bergstrom Air Force Base, although too late to capture any intact aircraft or significant supplies; the defenders burned many of the buildings before evacuating. The division-sized Coastal Column is bypassing the ruins of Houston, sweeping aside penny packets of infantry dispatched in an ineffective effort by the 46th Infantry Division's command to halt the Mexican invasion while still maintaining tight control of the oilfields, ranches and farms and refugee camps of East Texas.

In southeastern Nebraska the winter wheat harvest begins. Military forces are deployed in what force can be spared to protect the tankers bringing fuel to the agricultural areas and to guard the harvest as it is brought in. Many grain depots on the rail lines double as garrisons for the troops that are dedicated to ensuring that this vital source of food for the nation is secure; the harvest continues through the month.

In the refugee camps west of Pittsburgh, a charismatic leader is making the rounds, raising an army of disaffected evacuees from Ohio to "seize the stocks of food that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is holding back from us and our suffering armies."

X German Korps and XII German Korps are heavily engaged on the front lines south of Frankfurt and the meatgrinder battle for Heidelberg. While composed of West German territorials, border guards (both former East and West German) and East German reservists, these additional trained and motivated troops stiffen the NATO defense.

Maltese authorities raise another ineffective demand for the USS John F Kennedy battle group to move on. The American admiral in charge of the flotilla refuses, citing the damage to his flagship (while ignoring the inability of any shipyard in Malta to repair it to a sufficiently seaworthy condition; the small boatyard in Marsaxlokk is sufficient solely to support the town's fishing fleet).

July 3, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

The fighting in San Diego continues, although not to the advantage of the encircled Marines. The heroic pilots of the CH-53Es from HMT-302 return overnight, brining in additional supplies of ammunition, water and food and evacuating over 50 wounded Marines, but one of the huge helicopters is shot down by Mexican machinegun fire while taking off on the return flight, crashing on the Recruit Depot's northern perimeter, which is already behind the Mexican front line. With the squadron already displaced from its home station at MCAS Tustin by the advance of Mexican paratroops, forcing it to operate from Port Hueneme, the squadron commander prohibits further resupply flights during clear nights. In the encircled garrison, Mexican troops of Brigade Hermosillo advance into the northeastern portion of the base, reaching the wide Belleau Wood Avenue after overrunning a maze of burning supply and service buildings.

Reinforced with the infantry of Task Force Devil Dog and additional fuel supplies, 89 (my II) Corps resumes its assault in the Imperial Valley, driving Brigade Mexicali back to the cover of the shattered and abandoned city of Palm Springs. To the east, the other pincer of the corps offensive sees success, with the 108th Armored Cavalry Regiment cutting off Brigade La Paz along Interstate 8 west of Yuma, Arizona; the Mexican command begins to infiltrate its troops back across the border to avoid encirclement and elimination.

The Torres Motorized Cavalry Brigade's advance up the Interstate 25 corridor is halted south of the town of Truth or Consequences by dug-in troops who are (comparatively) well-equipped with anti-tank weapons and aggressively employed HMMWVs equipped with Mk-19 grenade launchers and machineguns. Brigade Ciudad Juarez and Brigade Torreon resume their advance, with the depleted Brigade Ciudad Juarez trailing the retreating School Brigade and Brigade Torreon headed east into the vastness of West Texas.

Confused fighting rages in Austin, Texas, with an ad-hoc American defense force (composed of armed civilians, troops from Fort Hood, stragglers from San Antonio and other battles to the south and Air Force personnel displaced from Bergstrom Air Force Base) tangling in yet more urban fighting against Mexican troops, who are growing increasingly desperate in their attempt to capture ground and supplies as word begins to trickle forward that the feeble trickle of supplies from home is going to be disrupted.

HQ, 4th Armored Division is disbanded. Each of the division's brigades become independent, reporting to their respective Corps headquarters (1st Brigade - 89 (my II) Corps in California, 2nd Brigade - VIII Corps in the Pacific Northwest and 3rd Brigade to 90 (my XIII) Corps in Texas).

In the American Midwest, the withdrawal of the first battalions of the 49th Armored Division for movement to the front has caused a wave of unrest, as local authorities are unable to provide the resources and stability the troops did and as various armed groups decide to take advantage of the rapidly developing security vacuum.

ROK mechanized troops and an American armor-heavy task force built around the 163rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (Montana National Guard) are in position to strike the flank of the Soviet force south of the DMZ. The 194th (my 67th) Motor-Rifle Division, in the lead, is depending on the 203rd (my 14th) Air Assault Brigade (reinforced with North Korean stragglers integrated into the elite paratroop force) to protect the exposed sides of the salient created by the attacking force. Morning fog provides partial protection from allied airpower.

Northwest of the fierce fighting for Heidelberg, the Soviet 62nd Tank Division (still badly depleted from its fighting in Erbach an der Donau in May and June despite an influx of T-34s and Uzbek teenagers) reaches the banks of the Neckar River on the outskirts of the ruined city of Mannheim. An aggressive young officer leads a team of dismounted motor-riflemen across the river, capturing the abutments of a partially-collapsed railroad bridge; by dusk division engineers are hastily reinforcing it to support heavy traffic.

The Hungarian 53rd Mechanized Brigade, slowly moving through eastern Siberia as it tries to make its way back home, has reached the town of Kemorovo. It has taken nearly a month to gather the fuel to move the formation a little over 300 miles, fighting occasional skirmishes against armed bands (and some local authorities that object to the Hungarians' passage).

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.

July 5, 1998

(Unofficially) As another day of clear weather presents the pilots of attack aircraft with picture-perfect targeting opportunities, the Soviet drive across the DMZ falls apart. ROK infantry launch a counterattack out of Yungjiu while Allied armor slices through the Soviet rear, sweeping aside the resistance of the remaining Soviet paratroops of the 203rd (my 14th) Air Assault Brigade. (Officially) The Allied armored/mechanized force savagely mauls the enemy formations and forces them back across the border. It will prove to be the last major Soviet-led offensive of the war in Korea.

Unofficially,

The final transports arrive in the Mexican port of Altamira carrying troops and supplies for the Soviet Division Cuba. The crews of Soviet ships in the ragtag flotilla are drafted into service with the division, Major General Femorov accepting the risk that the experienced sailors he needs to continue his journey back home may be lost in combat, so desperate is the need for men for Division Cuba. Most of the Mexican vessels are abandoned as well, but the third-country ships (including the Bulgarian A.B. Buzko, the Polish Orlęta Lviv and the Greek Paraguay Express) begin scrounging fuel to return to sea rather than be stranded in Mexico. The Mexican naval authorities do what they can, securing some poorly refined crude that can be burned in the Bulgarian steamship's boilers.

Harold Thomas, leader of the refugee army forming west of Pittsburgh, tests out his force, which to date has been indifferently armed with whatever weapons individuals brought along with them. Thomas sets his sights on an isolated military facility - an Army Reserve regional vehicle maintenance center on Neville Island in the middle of the Ohio River downstream of downtown Pittsburgh. Since the deployment of the units the facility supported in peacetime, its staff (composed of civilian workers and soldiers medically disqualified from deployment) was reassigned to perform repair duties on seriously damaged vehicles evacuated to the US from combat zones around the world; the base was assigned as a repair center for M-750 armored cars and M35-series 2 1/2-ton trucks. He leads his ragtag force of desperate refugees (that many would characterize as marauders) in a multi-prong attack on the base, which straddles the middle of the long, narrow island and has been supported by river traffic since the nuclear strikes in November and December. As human waves of lightly-armed men assault from the landside, an "elite" force of Thomas' most loyal fighters crosses the river from the north bank in small boats. Fierce close-in fighting ensues, in which the Army personnel are overwhelmed. Thomas' group captures three operable M-750s and a dozen trucks as well as a healthy stockpile of parts, tools and damaged vehicles; the bodies of the expert mechanics needed to employ them, however, are scattered all around the plant, reducing the value of the prize. The armored cars have very little ammunition, and the biggest prize is the contents of the base's arms room, with three dozen M16s and five M60 machineguns as well as the machineguns for the M750s and the small arms wielded by the late employees.

A pre-dawn Mexican attack on the Marines in San Diego is partially successful; little ground is captured but the Marines lose several dozen men and expend increasingly scarce ammunition repelling the assault. The weather is too clear for any risky resupply flights to be flown.

89 (my II) Corps to the east is immobilized while awaiting additional fuel tankers to arrive; the force's Marines of Task Force Devil Dog ambush a Mexican patrol attempting to infiltrate behind the corps' lines through the broiling-hot Joshua Tree National Park.

In New Mexico and West Texas a strange calm reigns, with the retreating School Brigade, short on supplies and reliant on increasingly breakdown-prone civilian vehicles, attempting to make its way to friendly territory without a major clash with their Mexican opponents, who are equally reluctant to fight, given their poor supply situation and extreme dispersal.

Fighting in eastern Texas is increasingly confused as Mexican Army and allied criminal and biker gangs contest control of Austin; an informal force of snipers (all US Marine Corps veterans) ensconce themselves on the Texas Tower's 27th-floor observation deck, dominating the campus with accurate rifle fire. The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment bypasses the city once again, passing through the city's eastern suburbs and looping west to block Interstate 35 once again. North of Houston, the Mexican Coastal Column is gradually spreading out, with individual regiments advancing north and east nearly independently, overrunning equally dispersed detachments of the ill-fated 46th Infantry Division.

In British Columbia, the 47th Infantry Division comes under coordinated attack by the 13th Guards Air Assault Division from the north and the 114th (my 202nd) Motor-Rifle Division from the west. While short of ammunition and fuel, the American infantry and their Canadian allies turn back the assault.

The 34th (my 14th) Tank Division, a category C unit that saw much action earlier in the war in China and Turkey, is shifted from occupation duty in Thrace under 14th Army's command to 5th Guards Army in Romania, where it is assigned to secure the Ukrainian-Romanian border west of the ruins of Odessa, keeping the two-way flow of supplies and petroleum with Romania secure.

Outside the northwestern Russian town of Volkhov, a group of three deserters from the 115th Guards Motor-Rifle Division take over an isolated farmhouse, taking the residents (an elderly couple and their teenage granddaughter) hostage, forcing them to cook for them as they rest and steal what few valuables the locals possess. The couple's 12-year old grandson, who was out hunting when the deserters arrived, notices that something is wrong and hides in the woods to observe. Seeing the armed deserter, the boy flees to town and alerts the local MVD security troops.

July 6, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

A fierce battle erupts in Duluth, Minnesota between a semi-official militia (led by a former sheriff's deputy, his family and a group of younger members of the town's VFW post) and a group of desperate refugees from the Twin Cities that have been sheltering at the nearby Jay Cooke State Park, who are trying to seize control of a grain elevator in the town's port. The storage facility contains nearly 3.5 million bushels of grain harvested late in 1997 that has been stranded in the port by the frozen Lake Superior and the breakdown in transportation. The refugees assault is repelled, but the militia has sustained heavy losses in the defense.

After two weeks of training, the first Mexican Army independent Voluntarios companies are declared combat ready. Ten companies are dispatched to each army operating in American territory under command of junior officers, many seconded from the Rural Guard force. Privately, many surviving senior officers in Mexico City figure they are sending the barely trained soldiers, most of whom were civilians less than three weeks ago, to their death if they were to face US Army troops. Unbeknownst to them, however, a group of generals within the Ministry of Defense have coordinated with senior PRI politicians, who see the Voluntarios as a useful way to reduce the population of impoverished people that would otherwise threaten instability under the pressures of economic collapse and American nuclear attack.

The transport USS Frederick is dispatched from Port Hueneme back to the San Diego area carrying supplies and another LAV-25. It is escorted by the light frigate USS Joyce and the Coast Guard cutter Chase, detached from the USS Oriskany group in San Francisco Bay.

In the San Diego fighting, the Marine's last remaining armored vehicle, a LAV-25 brought in by helicopter, is destroyed when one of 1st Mechanized Brigade's remaining ten AMX-13s catches it dashing from cover to cover, ripping it apart with a 90mm high explosive round. Mexican troops have established a foothold in the recruit training area, having crossed under cover of darkness and smoke. The Marines launch a furious counterattack but, low on ammunition, are unable to drive them out; they reluctantly resort to lighting the barracks the Mexicans have seized partial control of on fire, withdrawing the remaining friendly troops and using the previously meticulously maintained landscape in between as a kill zone.

A patrol from the battle-scarred New Mexico Military Institute links up with a scouting party from the withdrawing School Brigade west of Artesia. The cadets inform the Army unit that the nearby town (and its supplies of food and fuel from nearby oil wells) is held by two companies of Brigade Chihuahua's 35th Infantry Regiment and informal Mexican auxiliary troops and allied gangsters.

Fighting continues to rage in Austin, with the Mexican advance essentially halted by American resistance, disorganized as it is.

Troops of the 62nd Tank Division are able to break out of their bridgehead on the north side of the Neckar River in the ruins of Mannheim; the division's engineers restore the shattered railroad bridge enough for the unit's T-34s and T-55s to cross over as the division's troops race north. 1st Southwestern Front gives the formation priority of supply, ordering the rest of the front's troops to keep up pressure on NATO troops elsewhere along the line.

Allied troops in South Korea sweep the area evacuated by retreating North Korean and Soviet troops, hoping to identify any booby traps left behind, salvage weapons and ammunition and ensure that no stragglers, deserters or stay-behind parties are operating in the area.

A squad of MVD troops from the Volkhov garrison surround the farmhouse outside town that has been taken over by a group of three deserters from the 115th Guards Motor-Rifle Division. The squad leader calls for them to come out; one does so and is arrested but his two compatriots refuse, holding three civilians hostage.

July 7, 1998

Canon is silent on the day. Unofficially,

Fighting is now widespread throughout the Los Angeles basin; while there are no defined front lines Mexican forces have overrun the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station and are carefully navigating the less-heavily-damaged corridor between the Torrance and Carson refinery nuclear strikes.

After a hard overnight's steam, the small American task force of the USS Frederick, the USS Joyce and the USCG Chase arrive off of San Diego. The Chase's helicopter is able to drop a sling load of ammunition and food in an open area between burning Marine barracks before briefly hovering to pick up five wounded Marines. It takes heavy Mexican fire as it departs over the international airport. Despite this, it returns to the area an hour later, accompanied by another HH-65 from the Joyce. This mission brings in more food and water as well as three corpsmen from the ships who volunteer to remain ashore assisting the wounded. The helicopters once again take heavy fire, forcing the commander of the Frederic to delay beaching his LST or landing boats until after dark.

In eastern California, 89 (my II) Corps is still immobilized by lack of fuel; water supplies for the troops in the 120+ degree heat are also a vital logistical concern. Brigade LaPaz has almost completely withdrawn from American territory, shifting west to come to the aid of Brigade Mexicali.

Brigade Chihuahua's garrison in Artesia, New Mexico is crushed by a predawn American attack. The cadets of the New Mexico Military Institute attack the town from the north, while three battalions of the School Brigade (the 2nd, 3rd and 6th Battalions, 56th Air Defense Artillery), reinforced with the veteran gunners of the Air Defense School, attack from the south, east and west, respectively. The 300 or so Mexican defenders last less than 45 minutes before the Americans have restored control of the town.

The Mexican Coastal Column's effort in eastern Texas has proven spectacularly successful, with the 46th Infantry Division disintegrating under relentless, widely dispersed attacks. The success comes at the cost of the gradual dissolution of the Mexican force, as it spreads out over an ever-increasing area in pursuit of fleeing American troops and resources.

The Soviet assault on Prince George, British Columbia, defended by the 47th Infantry Division and remnants of the Canadian 39th Brigade, resumes. This time, the Soviets launch numerous dismounted infantry assaults, forcing the 47th to commit its reserves. With Allied troops and reserves suitably tied up, the Soviet hammer blow falls, with the 114th (my 202nd) Motor-Rifle Division dispatching its 414th Tank Regiment, down to 32 T-55s accompanied by a half-dozen BTR-50s and several dozen riflemen clinging to the turret sides, cross-country to cut the defenders off from the south.

Soviet tanks and troops rush north through the Dead Zone north of Mannheim, opposed only by scattered detachments of German territorials, reaching Darmstadt by sundown. The commander of SOUTHAG orders NATO troops south of the Main (mostly in the Heidelberg area) to evacuate behind that barrier, taking advantage of the rough terrain to the east of the Dead Zone.

The Bulgarian freighter A.B. Buzko departs the Mexican port of Altamira; having received decent treatment while in Cuba and low on fuel, the ship's captain decides to head to the port of Cienfuegos on Cuba's southern coast.

In the early morning hours, the teenage girl held hostage by a pair of deserters outside Volkhov, Russia emerges from the farmhouse, escorted by one of the men. A MVD sniper shoots at the deserter, killing him with one shot, and the girl flees. The remaining desperado remains in the cabin, killing the elderly couple inside before the MVD troopers can rush in and overwhelm him. The troops execute him on the spot.

July 8, 1998

The replica USS Constitution departs the Azores, its crew swelled with the addition of American servicemen (some Navy and Air Force personnel effectively abandoned there, others that escaped Eastern Europe, in an incredible saga, in Greek fishing boats). The ship is also carrying paying passengers, 40 French school girls and their teacher.

Unofficially,

Division Cuba begins the process of expanding from a motor-rifle brigade to a division. An census is performed of the military advisors and civilian technicians evacuated alongside the 7th Motor-Rifle Brigade to assess their skills and rank (if any), while the brigade commander sits down with General Femerov to discuss his subordinate commanders. A process is identified - to the extent that the advisor pool can supply qualified officers (such as motor-rifle colonels and lieutenant colonels), it will be relied on to provide leaders for the expanded unit. (The basic plan is to take the existing motor-rifle brigade and increase the size of each element - the BMP battalion, for example, will become a BMP regiment; if a suitable colonel cannot be identified the existing battalion commander will become the regimental commander, while if experienced majors or lieutenant colonels cannot be tasked to serve as battalion commanders some or all of the company commanders will be promoted to major and given the job. This evaluation is carried out division-wide.) Advisors and civilian technicians that can be assigned staff or support jobs are assigned appropriately, while the rest (such as many of the sailors from the transport fleet) are handed over to the 7th Brigade's sergeants to be trained up as motor-riflemen, tank drivers or artillery privates.

While fighting in Los Angeles continues to be intense, the troops of 63 (my XVI) Corps are gradually finding themselves outnumbered by the ever-increasing numbers of Mexican forces, while the daily deliveries of ammunition are growing smaller. While the MPs of the 221st MP Brigade and the teens of the 10th California Cadet Brigade are attempting to secure the rear area, the corps' supply columns are coming under more frequent attack.

The appearance of Soviet armor in the 47th Infantry Division's rear causes considerable distress, especially since it has been months since the war-weary National Guard division received a resupply of anti-tank weapons. Many squads are down to just a single LAW and the division's cavalry squadron, the 1st Squadron, 194th Cavalry, which has been set up as the division's anti-tank reserve, has eight TOW missiles remaining, the last ATGMs in the entire 47th. (The Canadians, composed of reserve units, are equally devoid of anti-tank weapons). The commanding general radios to Fort Lewis seeking any assistance that can be provided; in the interim the Allied troops hunker down and prepare for a siege of Prince George.

Under cover of a smokescreen laid by its escorts, the American LST USS Frederick makes a run for shore in San Diego with a load of vitally needed supplies. The attempt goes disastrously wrong, with Mexican troops ashore taking the ship's bridge under fire, inflicting massive losses on the command crew. The ship broaches, turned parallel to the beach by the waves, which then rock the ship back and forth, digging its hull into the sand. The sand kicked up by the transport's props as the chief engineer desperately tries to free the ship gets sucked into the engine's cooling water intakes, forcing the propulsion system to be cut back lest the filters clog. As the tide comes in the ship remains stuck and it takes more and more enemy fire, despite the efforts of the hovering escorts to support it.

In Duluth, Minnesota the refugees make a second assault on the downtown port's grain elevator; this time the assault force advances behind the cover of a mass of children and teenagers from the refugee camp established at the nearby state park campground. The remaining defenders are reluctant to open fire on the children, allowing the armed and desperate men seeking shelter among them to advance to within striking range. The teens, worked into a frenzy by the deceptive teachings of the camp leaders, savagely beat the remaining militiamen to death as they overrun the grain elevator.

The NATO defenders of Heidelberg try to slip away in the fog of the early morning hours, crossing the few remaining bridges before the opposing Soviets realize they are leaving.

In the Balkans, the reforming Jugoslav Army has in many cases swept Soviet occupation forces out of the mountains of Bosnia, reaching the banks of the Sava River, where they pause to distribute the vast quantities of captured and abandoned Soviet kit and integrate reinforcements. Their opponents in the various puppet armed forces are trying equally hard to increase their strength.

July 9, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

Under the protection of the 36th Engineer Group (Construction) and using power from a half dozen hydropower plants in the region, one reactor of the Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant in eastern Tennessee is restarted. The power is carefully rationed to support food and war production and further support reconstruction efforts.

In British Columbia, the 47th Infantry Division receives partial salvation from the sky. The generals calls for help have been answered with a single sortie of a F-111A from the 366th Tactical Fighter Wing's 4007th Combat Crew Training Squadron, flying from Mountain Home Air Force Base, Montana. The bomber drops a single B61 tactical nuclear bomb on the Soviet tank regiment, disrupting its command and control as well as destroying several tanks and unprotected personnel. (The attack is widely considered the only NATO nuclear attack on Canadian territory.) The American division commander, who had no prior notice of the incoming strike, orders an immediate withdrawal, unfortunately through the fallout plume of the nuclear strike. The Soviet troops to the north and west launch an immediate attack, and the withdrawal becomes a rout, with disorganized columns of American troops streaming south, with scattered Soviet detachments in pursuit.

The Army in the United States is making progress in its rushed effort to convert training divisions to light infantry divisions. While in theory there could be a uniform process, in reality it is much more complicated. Each division, composed of basic, advanced and one-station (combined) training battalions, has a unique mix of specialties it instructs - the 70th Division turns out infantry recruits, while the 76th trains combat engineers and the 85th cavalry scouts and tankers, with appropriate allocations of training equipment and appropriate instructors. Transforming an infantry training battalion to an infantry battalion is comparatively simple, but converting an engineering training battalion to an artillery one (and finding any quantity of artillery for it to operate) is a much more complicated effort. Nevertheless, so dire is the situation that officers throughout the Army's embattled training command are putting in long hours planning and executing the conversions.

The 63 (my XVI) Corps commander takes the drastic step of limiting resupply convoys south of the Hollywood Hills to nighttime only, so intense are the ongoing attacks on them in prior days. American troops begin to retreat northward through Los Angeles County, abandoning their remaining positions south of Interstate 105, which hopefully can serve as a wide dead zone that can be covered by automatic weapons fire.

A single CH-53E flight makes it into San Diego in the early morning hours, dropping off water, 5.56mm ammo, grenades and canned food; it is to prove the last resupply flight into the embattled garrison. The surrounded Marines also attempt to salvage the supplies from the beached USS Frederick, but the open ground between the garrison's remaining territory and the beach is too dangerous to cross. The ship's crew and the Marines mutually reinforce each other but unable to establish a secure link. Brigade Ensenada has managed to expand its positions within the depot's central recruit training area, with fighting devolving into hand-to-hand struggles at ultra-short range.

The drive of the Torres Motorized Cavalry Brigade north along Interstate 25 towards Albuquerque has effectively come to a halt, the Mexican artillery out of ammunition and the entire force short of spare parts, fuel and ammunition needed to maneuver around the US Air Force blocking force at Truth or Consequences. The Mexican commander, well aware of the existence of the massive nuclear weapon stockpile at Albuquerque's Kirtland Air Force Base, is reluctant to exert too much pressure on the defenders lest they decide to separate him into his constituent atoms.

A group of 18 bikers from the Ataúdos biker gang, offered a reward of five kilos of marijuana seized from the Austin Police Department evidence room, storm the University of Texas Tower, killing the Marine veteran snipers that have held up Mexican control of the capital city. (One of the ex-Marines is thrown over the parapet to her death).

The veteran 20th Tank Division locates and exploits a gap in the NATO line along the Main River near Frankfurt and, in one of the war’s last river crossing operations, throws troops across.

The masters of the mass of miscellaneous NATO naval and merchant vessels gathered in Loch Ewe, Scotland hold a conference to determine what their next steps should be. The supply of fuel in the fuel depot ashore, which had been refilled in the weeks and months following the Battle of the Norwegian Sea, has been largely depleted, burned by the generators keeping life aboard the ships possible. The local population ashore, in one of the most remote areas of the Scottish Highlands (who were only connected by road to the rest of the UK during the Second World War), is too small to produce nearly enough food to support the sailors on the ships. The decision is reached to dispense the remaining fuel to naval combatants that are still seaworthy, reserving a portion for some of the merchantmen, which will transport the crews back home, at least one ship for each of the NATO nations and others to transport citizens of neutral countries (the many Filipinos, for example) home

July 10, 1998

In the Battle in Pittsburgh, Washington Militia control of the southern portion of the city is challenged when a powerful and heavily armed marauder force under Harold Thomas crosses the Monongahela from downtown Pittsburgh on the Liberty, Smithfield, and Fort Pitt bridges. They are temporarily held up by automatic weapons fire from the heights across the river but manage at last to reach the cover of the Fort Pitt and Liberty Tunnels under Mount Washington and emerge on the south side of that steep-sloped ridge. From there, they are able to climb the slopes of Mount Washington and trap the militia defenders against the nearly vertical bluffs above the river. In a heroic stand, the outnumbered Washington Militia, under the command of former Marine Major Jason Fairbanks, hold the vastly superior enemy forces at bay into the night.

Unofficially,

The Soviet pursuit of the retreating American 47th Infantry Division falters as the supply of fuel dries up. The first contingents of the 47th Infantry Division cross the border back into American territory shortly before midnight.

The Mexican 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment disrupts the 63 (my XVI) Corps defense of LA when it appears in the San Gabriel Valley, having passed through Pomona largely unopposed. The American commander hastily redeploys the 221st Military Police Brigade to throw up a defensive line, but the MPs are short of heavy weapons and the move leaves supply convoys dangerously exposed to attack by the numerous groups of armed irregulars operating in the confused and crowded rear area. The move causes the 6th Army command, operating from a forward headquarters in Bakersfield, to divert more scarce resources away from 89 (my II) Corps to the southeast, which is secure in its positions around Palm Springs and have the eastern column of 2nd Mexican Army contained.

With the capture of the dominating Texas Tower in Austin, the Mexican attackers begin to gain the upper hand in the fighting for Texas' capital city. The Coastal Column, which is now approaching Tyler in northeast Texas, is losing focus and slowing dramatically as the flow of supplies from the rear has ceased, cut off by American nuclear strikes on the rail network and eaten up by the distance from the border.

The 8th Special Forces Group in Chiapas undertakes its first direct action mission alongside its indigenous allies. The American-led guerilla force attacks an outpost of Brigade Tapachula, a force that has already been battered by American airstrikes. The detachment also establishes a pair of observation posts along the Guatemalan border, watching for truck traffic crossing into Mexico carrying vitally needed fuel from Guatemala's refinery, one of the few remaining in operation in this area of the world.

8th Tank Army has been fed into the line south of Frankfurt, allowing 41st Army’s remaining forces to pursue the retreating NATO troops from Heidelberg. 8th Tank Army's 523rd Pontoon Battalion deploys ferries, transporting the T-86s and BMPs of the 20th Tank Division's 76th Guards Tank Regiment to reinforce the dismounted motor riflemen that crossed the prior day. The border guards of the German 4th GrenzJaeger Division, lacking anti-tank weapons, break and run. The Soviets pursue, but the ferries are unable to bring more than a trickle of armored vehicles across at a time. Attempts to have the BMPs and BTRs swim across are halted after it is discovered that most vehicles have damage that defeated their watertight integrity and that watertight seals in their hulls have become brittle with age. By dark most of the division’s 70 tanks and 4500 soldiers have crossed the river, leaving the artillery regiment, rear services and most of the soft-skinned vehicles on the south bank.

July 11, 1998

In Pittsburgh, a relief column from the Route 70 bridge arrives and hits the marauders from behind. The marauder forces are crushed on the south flank of Mount Washington and Thomas himself is killed. Perhaps one in ten of the attackers manage to escape back across the river, and the power of the marauder bands in Allegheny County is temporarily broken.

Unofficially,

The first five companies of Voluntarios arrive in the rear areas of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Armies. The generals are somewhat baffled what to do with the poorly trained and equipped troops. 2nd Army, having taken heavy losses in the Battle of San Diego, sends them to the front to fill out the battered Brigade Ensenada and 1st Mechanized Brigade while 3rd Army assigns its contingent to secure the ruins of El Paso and patrol the vulnerable Interstate 25 supply line that the Torres Motorized Cavalry Brigade is dependent on. 4th Army uses them to patrol its vast rear area, home to a hostile and heavily armed civilian population.

The 63 (my XVI) Corps position in Los Angeles is in a precarious state as Mexican troops sweep in from the northwest, as the armored cavalry seeks weak points in the 221st MP Brigade's thinly-spread hasty defense. Mexican paratroops and marines and allied irregular armed groups press forward against positions held by the 40th Infantry Division (-), driving the last American defenders north of Interstate 10.

In San Diego, the defending Marines, who are growing increasingly short of ammunition, are unable to prevent Mexican troops from crossing the Recruit Depot's hallowed Parade Deck, being driven out of many of the buildings that overlook the large open space.

The School Brigade and its local allies, the (reduced but now battle-hardened) cadets and cadre of the New Mexico Military Institute, are still located in the town of Artesia, New Mexico following their successful attack on the isolated Mexican garrison there. The Army formation expended the last of its fuel reaching the city and many of the civilian and commercial vehicles that made the trek from Fort Bliss have been nearly destroyed by the rough conditions. The brigade commander is able to make contact with higher headquarters after nearly a month without a reliable radio link; his maintainers are working with the town's mechanics to determine what vehicles can be repaired for further travel, which should be cannibalized and what vehicles in town can be requisitioned for further service. In the latter effort, the priorities are for ruggedness and off-road capability, diesel power and commonality of parts within the fleet. While the local Permian Basin is continuing to produce a trickle of oil, there are no refining facilities, so the town works with the brigade's troops to establish a crude distillation tower, which can boil crude and separate it into very rough approximations of gasoline, diesel, kerosene and fuel oil.

In the early morning hours, reinforcing German troops from VI Korps take up positions surrounding the Soviet 20th Tank Division's positions north of the Main River, containing the bridgehead south of the A66 autobahn. At dawn a flight of German PAH-1 attack helicopters from the 1st Army Aviation Command, using the unit’s last remain stocks of fuel and HOT missiles, attacks the Soviet crossing site, sinking all of the 523rd's PMP and GSP ferries. The helicopters then call in an artillery strike on the marshalling area on the south bank and the egress points on the north shore, which use the last of the 4th PanzerGrenadier Division’s stockpile of FASCAM munitions as well as significant amounts of high explosive; the strikes have the effect of cutting the forces on the north shore off from the south.

The Bulgarian freighter A.B. Buzko arrives in Cienfuegos, Cuba after transporting Soviet troops of Division Cuba to Mexico.

July 12, 1998

Nothing official for today. Unofficially,

The inhabitants of the refugee camp at Duluth's Jay Cook State Park, Minnesota, having gained control of a grain elevator containing nearly 3.5 million bushels of grain are dismayed when the "leadership council" of the camp declares that it is assuming essentially dictatorial control of the camp and city, using the combination of the weapons captured from the town militia and the ability to grant or withhold food as their means of control.

As conditions grow increasingly desperate in the San Diego Marine perimeter, the two remaining naval combatants offshore, the light frigate USS Joyce and the Coast Guard cutter Chase, which have nearly expended their entire onboard ammunition supplies providing support, use the last of their aviation fuel supplies to fly a series of evacuation flights, bringing out the wounded, even those that would be considered lightly wounded and still fit for action. The flights bring out approximately 150 men. By sundown, the Marines have been pushed into a single building, the Recruit Training Regiment headquarters building, Lejeune Hall.

Fighting swirls throughout Los Angeles as 63 (my XVI) Corps' front line is reduced to a series of independent isolated positions unable to control territory beyond range of their guns. Patrols come under attack from an array of Mexican units, allied gangs and various bandit groups, all intent on looting the wealth of America's biggest city. In Texas, the city of Austin is similarly engulfed in widespread citywide fighting, with no front line as it becomes increasingly difficult to discriminate between attacking American (and allied) forces and fighting for plunder. North of the city, the Mexicans approach Fort Hood, which is defended by the 95th Training Division.

US Air Force security troops, reinforced with local armed civilians, attempt to dislodge the Mexican Torres Motorized Cavalry Brigade from its positions outside Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. The attempt fails when the Mexicans deploy mobile reserves to reinforce the threatened sector; the American troops lack fire support heavier than 81mm mortars and Mk-19 grenade launchers.

Two new Soviet divisions arrive at the front in Germany - the 122nd (my 66th Guards Training) Motor-Rifle (assigned to 41st Army) and the 106th (my 232nd) Motor-Rifle (assigned to 16th Army). Despite this, Soviet forces remain short on infantry.

21st Army, on the former East German-Czechoslovakian border, reinforces the efforts of its Czech allies to the west, launching an attack with the Category A 102nd Guards (my 254th) Motor-Rifle Division against the American XV Corps. The attack hits the outer defensive line of the 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized), the Soviet tanks forced to halt their advance and provide fire support to engineers called forward to clear lanes through the defensive minefields; the T-80s too valuable to be used as improvised mine-clearing vehicles.

The Panamanian bulk carrier Seaway Ace, sailing to France with a cargo of Argentinian grain, is sunk by a torpedo from the Soviet Victor III-class nuclear attack submarine 60 Let Shefstva VLKSM.

Italian recovery crews are nearly finished in their efforts to restore operation of the Sonico hydropower plant north of Verona.

In Jugoslavia, the JSA’s engineering cadre (long-service prewar engineer officers and professional NCOs) of Group Vrbas have been able to locate sufficient equipment from the confused masses of abandoned vehicles and organize enough troops to repair a damaged bridge over the Sava at Bosanska Gradiška. The Group's infantry, who crossed over by raft in prior days, drive off the small garrison of the Italian-allied Croatian Nationalist Army