[chico20854]

July 15, 1997

The Federal government begins to implement the preliminary steps towards city evacuation plans in Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts.

Unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship New Orleans Freedom is delivered in Beaumont, Texas.

President Tanner authorizes SAC to implement it's command-wide dispersal plan, spreading bombers and tankers to over a dozen other bases (mostly USAF but a handful of Army and Navy installations), making it more difficult for the USSR to destroy a significant portion of America's bomber force on the ground.

In the final major Soviet airborne attack of the war, the 13th Guards' 301st Guards Airborne Regiment is dropped at the base of the Kenai Peninsula, isolating the area and placing Soviet forces only 50 miles from Anchorage. American fighter planes from Elmendorf AFB tear through the Soviet transport fleet (already much depleted from costly landings from Norway to Iran) as it turns for home.

A massive show of police force occurs outside RAF Greenham Common. While civil and MoD police clear protestors from gates onto the base, RAF Regiment and USAF Security Police patrol the perimeter, apprehending a handful of protestors who cross the fence onto the base.

In Operation Wonton, F-111s of 27th Tactical Fighter Wing attack the major railyards near Kimchaek, North Korean, delaying North Korean reinforcements and hitting NKPA positions near Kimchaek, North Korea in preparation for a USMC amphibious landing.

On the Kuriles, Soviet resistance on Kunashir has collapsed, but the remainder of the 18th Machinegun-Artillery Division on the adjacent island of Iturup launch a fierce (non-nuclear) counterattack against the Japanese landing force. US and Japanese aircraft hammer the remaining radar and SAM umbrella emplacements on and near the island, while heavy rainfall prevents close air support.

The leader of the Dutch Red Army, Bert Kroner, is killed in an early morning raid by marines of the Special Assistance Unit.

Along the front, as both armies engage in more nuclear attacks, a struggle of reconnaissance begins. Political leaders on both sides demand useful employment of the relatively low-yield weapons. Due to those weapon's nature, accurate targeting is vital - a 1 kt warhead is lethal against tanks within 90 meters; smaller artillery-fired rounds with yields below .25 kt even shorter distances. Yet both sides' reconnaissance assets have been depleted by the months of combat across East Germany and Poland. Human intelligence - special forces, long-range infiltration teams, friendly partisans - provide invaluable eyes-on location information, but are reliant on secure communications and have to be able to evacuate the target area before the strike. NATO deep-look assets (satellite, JSTARS and TR-1 electronic surveillance aircraft as well as tactical intelligence platforms such as the EH-60) have been worn down by the months of constant operation, but are more numerous than the Soviet ELINT fleet, which has been savaged. The Soviets enjoy an advantage in humint, with millions of loyal communists in Poland and NATO unable to conceal their operations from the local civilian population and with insufficient troops to hunt for hidden radio transmitters. The Soviets are also able to exploit the passive portion of their vast radio-electronic force (their active jammers and spoofing assets having been destroyed months earlier), using radio direction-finding to locate NATO units behind the lines. Both sides, however, face the challenge of identifying targets from the flow of electronic data - is a transmission from an artillery fire direction center or a field hospital? is the unit that set up in the woods a headquarters or a maintenance unit? The challenge of locating and identifying targets, transmitting that information to a headquarters (in an environment with disruptions to electronic communications due to EMP), making a decision to strike it, deploying a weapon to a firing unit and having the round fired before the target has moved to another location is quite formidable, and in the first week of the nuclear exchange it proves nearly insurmountable.

In this environment, conventional operations still prove effective, as demonstrated when the British 4th Armoured Division masses its tanks against the 44th Guards Airborne Division, driving the paratroops back from Kapsukas, Lithuania and cutting the Minsk-Kaliningrad rail line.

Italian troops cross into southern Germany, capturing the German alpine resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, peacetime headquarters of the Bundeswehr 1st Gebirsjaeger Division, fighting for Torun, Poland at this time.

The evacuation of the four German fallschirjaeger brigades, battered in drops along the Soviet border, is halted. The need for infantry is so high, and the threat of infiltrators so high, that the elite paratroops are assigned to augment the jaeger battalions of German panzer and panzergrenadier divisions, one battalion assigned to each heavy brigade, ostensibly assigned to secure rear areas and rough terrain while the 9th Luftlande Artillery Battalion is sent to add to the artillery park outside Warsaw, where its 105mm howitzers add little to the overall effort.

The lead elements of the 10th Mountain Division depart Norway in a priority airlift to Germany as SACEUR demands experienced mountain troops to fight the Italian troops descending from the Alps.

Detachment 1, 495th Tactical Fighter Squadron deploys six of its remaining F-111Fs to Moron Air Base, Spain from RAF Lakenheath.

The Turkish Army activates three armored brigades (the 20th at Burdur, the 95th at Etimesgut, Ankara and the 172nd at Şereflikoçhisar) to try to stop the rapidly evolving Pact offensive in Bulgaria. The brigades combine newly arrived American M-60A4 tanks with a mix of recalled reservists (many in their 30s) and partially trained recruits, led by NCOs and officers recovering from wounds and others culled from training and headquarters establishments.

The US 9th Infantry Division (Motorized) in Iran is shifted north and west, following the linkup with US Marines and IPA troops outside Shiraz. The Soviet 45th (my 32nd) Army begins withdrawing from the area around Shiraz as the IPA 3rd Armored Division launches an attack on the Soviet lines outside the city.