[chico20854]

March 22, 1997

Nothing in the canon today!

The Soviet delegation delivers the position it received from Moscow - that a ceasefire absent a long-term agreement is an attempt to give the Allies more time to move troops into position for renewed attacks and, therefore, cannot be accepted.

The 31st Armored Brigde (Alabama National Guard), completes Rotation 97-6 at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California and is declared combat ready.

The 205th Infantry Brigade (Light) (US Army Reserve) completes Rotation 97-6 at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana and is declared combat ready. Its troops and equipment are immediately moved to England AFB, Louisiana and loaded onto waiting aircraft for transit to Europe, where the remainder of its parent division (the 43rd Infantry) is assembling before being committed to action.

The Spetsnaz team under Col. Mikhail Tumanski has completed its fortification of its safehouse and launches another raid, this one striking the torpedo plant in Neston, near Liverpool. The team temporarily overwhelms the security force and starts a fire in the assembly building. They quickly retreat before the authorities arrive; the fire brigade extinguishes the fire but production will be halted for some time to repair the damage.

Chinese troops continue to make slow progress against increasingly panicked and desperate Soviet defenders. Pact reinforcements find themselves thrown into the gap of units that have been overrun, often with minimal logistic support and at times even without any communications with nearby friendly units or their own higher headquarters. Allied and Chinese aircraft are largely successful in intercepting the few remaining Soviet aircraft before they reach the front line, leaving isolated low-level helicopter attacks as the sole air support Soviet troops receive.

Polish Air Defense Force commanders, at the insistence of the Warsaw Pact high command, have reactivated four anti-aircraft artillery regiments (each with six 100mm and two 57mm batteries), 12 independent batteries armed with 57mm guns and 53 batteries of 37mm guns. The regiments are assigned to defend Warsaw, Poznan, Gdansk and Wrocław; the batteries are dispersed to airfields and missile sites. Additionally, excess personnel (of which there were many following the force's grievous losses in the air) had been equipped with lighter anti-aircraft artillery (23mm and smaller). This mass of guns, it is hoped, will compensate for the dwindling supply of surface-to-air missiles and NATO superiority in electronic warfare. In any case, the hundreds of guns will make Allied attacks on Polish airfields costly indeed.

The Soviet raiders in the Pacific have largely eluded Allied search forces and dispersed into the expanses of the Central Pacific. While it is considered desirable to sink Allied and neutral shipping, Soviet Pacific Fleet commanders are pleased with the diversion of Allied resources to the hunt, lessening pressure on their embattled forces and ports.

The personnel of the XI US Corps headquarters are flown to Amsterdam onboard American and Dutch airliners.

The Iranian 43rd Tactical Fighter Training Squadron flies its first operational sorties with its F-20 fighters, flying top cover for F-4 fighter-bombers attacking Soviet artillery batteries south of Kashan. They succeed in downing a pair of MiG-23s, losing one pilot and aircraft.

The American attack submarine Sea Devil intercepts the Venezuelan tanker Che Guevara en route to Angola and sinks her with two Mark-101 torpedoes.