[chico20854]

May 28, 1997

Nothing in the canon for today!

A meeting of NATO heads of state begins with a briefing by SACEUR, General John Phelps, on the conditions from the Kola to Thrace. Overall, NATO is making steady progress across Poland, is preparing a renewed drive on Murmansk in the north and is, with some additional support, able to hold NATO territory in the Balkans. His J-2 (Intelligence officer) and the deputy director of the CIA give a joint briefing on the status of the Soviet war effort. Losses in Poland are heavy and other fronts are being starved of reinforcements and supplies as STAVKA scrambles to hold Polish territory. The fully mobilized Soviet economy is unable to replace the losses, and there is little indication that remaining Red Army units in the USSR can be made combat ready without further grave economic damage. Reports of internal disorder in the USSR are multiplying. Overall, NATO heads of state, pleased with the success of Advent Crown to date and confident of the outcome of the upcoming Reindeer II offensive on the Kola, see little reason to sue for peace. Accordingly, NATO demands for war termination are an immediate and permanent ceasefire, followed by withdrawal of Pact troops from Poland west of the Wisla, Romania, Bulgaria, China, the Kola Peninsula west of the Litsa and Iran, and free elections in Poland and Iran to determine the shape of future governments there.

XVI Corps headquarters is formed at Fort Hunter Liggett, California from the 63rd and 96th ARCOMs. Assigned to Sixth Army, the corps assumes responsibility for training support, oversight of the Oakland Port of Embarkation and support for civil authorities in security and disaster relief planning.

The Adjutant General of the State of Hawaii, Major General Kenneth O'Hara, reports to PACCOM that the combination of the 29th Infantry Brigade, 221st MP Brigade and Hawaii State Guard Brigade have established a tight security cordon around Hickam Air Force Base and other vital facilities in the 50th State.

The Guards Squadron, SAS is redeployed from Southeastern England to western England in response to the numerous Spetsnaz attacks there.

Belgian police arrest the manager of a small construction company in Liege for violating export controls and smuggling. The man apparently was arranging for the company's tanker truck to make a weekly crossing of a remote section of the German border, where it would meet a German truck and transfer over 3,000 liters of diesel, severely rationed in Germany as well as Belgium. The scheme netted over 300,000 Belgian francs for the manager each week.

Marshall Slepnev (Western TVD commander) commits one of his theatre reserve units, the 35th Guards Air Assault Brigade, inserting it deep into the NATO rear area. In the aftermath of a multi-regiment Frontal Aviation raid (with regiments sweeping across the Baltic, into Bavaria and over Silesia) the NATO interceptor force has largely returned to its home bases for refueling and rearming and NATO SAM batteries were reloading. At that point a force of over 100 transports roars over central Poland, disgorging the 35th Guards into the Oder Valley south of Swiebodzin, where ELINT units had identified a major NATO headquarters. On arrival, they overrun the headquarters (identified after the battle as the rear headquarters of First German Army) and then link up with remnants of cut-off Soviet and Polish formations and began raiding NATO supply routes, including the two roads and railroad line running east to Poznan and the road through Jielona Gora, one of the three MSRs supporting Third German Army. The elite troops in their BMD armored personnel carriers overwhelm the rear area security troops and American military police units, who are equipped with light armored cars and unarmored vehicles and short on anti-tank weapons.

In Northern Poland III US Corps resumes its advance, led by the freshly arrived 44th (my 20th) Armored Division. The advance is at a slower pace, the US Army having endured a bloody nose as a result of its headlong advance across the Polish countryside.

Reserve Front is now fully committed in north-central Poland, taking the sector between Baltic Front and the 1st Western Front.

Southwestern TVD's attacks in the Balkans continue, the Soviet forces using massed artillery fire to try to break Romanian resistance along the 800 km-long front line. Long Range Aviation's bombers return to the skies overhead, targeting the rail line between Brasov and Bucharest to islolate the region north of the Carpathians from the Danube plain. In Bulgaria, Soviet and Bulgarian forces take heavy losses as they try to grind down their Turkish opponents.

The British 27th Infantry Brigade maintains pressure on the Soviet 103rd Guards Air Assault Division. Even though the Soviet force outnumbers the British one by nearly three to one, the British formation is tied into Allied supply lines in Iran and receives regular "push packages" of fuel, food, water and ammunition from higher headquarters, while the Soviet force must scrounge for most of its supplies, relying on intermittent supply drops for ammunition and medical resupply.

The Sierra II-class attack submarine K-534 departs its hiding spot beneath a disused oil platform in the Persian Gulf for the last time, ordered to resume patrols in the Arabian Sea.

In the urban fighting in Khabarovsk, rebel troops succeed in preventing the loyal troops advancing from the west (the KGB 70th Border Guard Brigade) and the south (the MVD 65th Training Regiment) from linking up in the city center, although scattered loyalist detachments manage to break into the downtown MVD headquarters complex, defeating any plan to overrun it. The mutineers rejoice in their victory, but are aware that their ammunition supplies are dwindling. The lead regiment (the 190th) of the 173rd (my 192nd) Motor-Rifle Division detrains on the south edge of the city, rushed north along the Trans-Siberian Railroad to assist in putting down the mutiny.