[chico20854]

July 12, 1997

The siege of Shiraz is broken (unofficially) when the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines drive back the motor-riflemen of the 406th Guards Motor-Rifle Regiment, 71st Motor-Rifle Division from its positions closing the road into the city. The Marines are supported by strikes from A-4 Skyhawks of VMA-131.

Unofficially,

The GRU orders all surviving Spetsnaz units in NATO countries to make an all-out effort to attack NATO nuclear weapons storage sites. Likewise, the KGB activates its surviving agent networks and "associated organizations" (such as elements of the Irish IRA, the Dutch Red Army, the Japanese Red Army, the Red Army Faction in Germany, etc.) to disrupt the NATO deployment of nuclear weapons. Largely unprompted, the peace movement in Western Europe and North America leap into action, with protests in cities, on university campuses (although most schools are not in session) and outside military bases. The latter category of protests are broken up by civilian and military police, who will brook no disruption to the war effort.

Lech Walesa, president of the Free Polish Government, makes an urgent request to President Tanner that his government be consulted prior to use of nuclear weapons in the territory it has claimed. He explains that this is to prevent the destruction of locations and items that are of importance to Polish culture, and explains that his representatives are willing to provide locations of such sites so that "no nuke" zones can be established around them. Tanner agrees to consider the idea, but does so more to humor Walesa than to give it serious consideration, assured by CIA analysts that the Free Polish government is riddled with Warsaw Pact spies and any such zones would, if established, be used as safe havens for enemy units.

Soviet propaganda trumpets the news of the prior day's NATO nuclear use to all. Warsaw Pact media goes into overdrive, declaring that the Germans and Americans are brutal barbarians that have, in their desperation to salvage a victory from their inevitable defeat at the hands of the glorious Red Army, once again unleashed nuclear warfare on the peace-loving people of the world. (The fact that the USSR was the first to use a nuclear weapon is conveniently not brought up, and in the former USSR and Warsaw Pact states the population believed that NATO fired the first nuclear shot for many decades after the war.)

Private Randall Cutler and many of the other graduates of his basic training company board school busses for the trip a mile and a half down the road to his advanced individual training course, where they will be trained as light wheeled vehicle mechanics. They spend the afternoon doing paperwork and being introduced to their new drill sergeant.

The last of the SAC airborne bombers lands and begins recovery (post-flight maintenance, refueling, securing the weapons and debriefing the crew) before being turned around to return to alert status. SAC training units (the 329th Combat Crew Training Squadron and the 330th Combat Flight Instructor Squadron) stand down from their alert status and resume training flights, although non-essential flights in other SAC units are still grounded.

Massive protests surround RAF Greenham Common and other military bases in the UK. Demonstrators demand the immediate removal of American nuclear weapons from British territory and withdrawal of NATO forces from Poland in order to avert a nuclear war.

The Chinese retaliation for the Soviet nuclear strikes continues, with a massed launch of IRBMs on a variety of Soviet cities and military facilities. The attacks on population centers are defeated by an active and efficient ABM system (composed of handfuls of upgraded SA-5, SA-10 and SA-12 missile systems), but the naval bases of Vladivostok, Mys Shmidta, and Fokino are very heavily damaged.

Soviet forces continue the savage devastation of the Chinese military, with another 24 strikes on command posts, mechanized formations halted to refuel and masses of Chinese troops. Morale in the Chinese force begins to plummet and desertion becomes rampant; Chinese commanders need to keep their units together where the few experienced NCOs and officers can monitor the masses of near-panicked recruits, but to gather them in such a manner invites a Soviet nuclear strike.

Eight A-7Ds depart Travis AFB, California en route to Korea via Hawaii and Okinawa. They are accompanied by a pair of KC-767 tankers of the 203rd Air Refueling Squadron (Hawaii Air National Guard).

The Soviet response to the NATO nuclear attack on the 37th Guards Tank Division is swift, with another nuclear artillery strike on a NATO unit. This time the target is the American 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized), which has advanced to within 30 km of Lvov, Ukraine.

British troops clash with the paratroops of the 44th Guards Air Assault Division along the Polish-Lithuanian border. To the west, the German VII Korps crosses the border into Kaliningrad, facing the partially rebuilt 3rd Shock Army, while III German Korps continues its assault on Gdansk.

The battleship Iowa, set afire and without power after a Polish kamikaze strike, drifts into a minefield in the Danish straits and detonates a US-made Mk 52 mine, with 625 pounds of explosive, further adding to the ship's peril.

The day sees the first use of tactical nuclear weapons in the northern theatre, when a FROG-7 rocket from the 116th Motor-Rifle Division is used to blast a Norwegian defensive position along the Pasvik River, which forms the Soviet-Norwegian border.

In Romania, the Soviet 14th Guards Army resumes its offensive westward along the Danube plain. The lead 59th Guards Motor-Rifle Division advances 10 km in the first 24 hours, closing in on the oil center of Ploesti. The Army's commanders are told that they are to take the utmost care to avoid damage to the petroleum infrastructure, and that they will be held personally responsible for any damage done by their units.

In the Caribbean, the burning Kuwaiti tanker Al-Tahreer sinks under the stress of a hull weakened by days of fire. A Dutch patrol boat, dispatched from St. Maarten to investigate the suspicious freighter, is fired upon when it approaches what is in fact a Soviet raider. It calls for help, and within 30 minutes an aircraft from VOJ-202 has the raider under radar observation. It remains safely out of range of the raider's weapons for the four hours it takes for a strike from the Lexington to be organized, launched and arrive at the scene. The American trainers and light attack aircraft come in on the deck, rocketing, strafing and bombing the Soviet craft. It sinks shortly thereafter.