[chico20854]

July 24, 1997

Following the prior days advances, the US 1st Marine Division captures Yadz and the airfields in the area, driving the 40th Army into the desert to the north.

The Federal Reserve Bank moves 80 tons of gold from its facility in Manhattan to Long Island for safekeeping.

The German 10th Panzer Division is pulled from the Warsaw perimeter, ordered to rapidly redeploy to Bavaria to help stop the Italian invasion.

Unofficially,

A fourth R-5D hypersonic spy plane is delivered from Palmdale, California.

There is another "incident" on the Mexican border where civilians open fire on Mexican immigrants.

Soviet troops in Alaska continue to make slow progress; the American defense line at the base of the Seward Peninsula crumbles away as supplies run low and Soviet hovercraft interdict surface traffic along the Yukon River.
The 11th Airborne Division, which has only a single battalion of Second World War artillery, receives a high-priority airlift of eight M-101 105mm howitzers, part of the contingent of guns retreived from Argentina in the spring.

SACEUR, respecting the North Atlantic Council's guidance to limit use of tactical nuclear weapons to a level directly proportional to that of the USSR, yet needing to augment the ability of his nearly overstretched forces, authorizes widespread deployment of chemical weapons. Heavily escorted convoys soon leave storage sites in western Germany and the Netherlands, mostly heading to nearby air bases where select USAF C-130 squadrons have aircraft waiting.

In the air over Bavaria Allied interceptors continue their battles against the Aeronautica Militare, the Italian Air Force, whose Tornado bombers have wreaked havoc in their dashes over the Alps to strike outnumbered NATO formations. The arrival of the RAF's No. 618 Squadron, with its remaining six Typhoons, American F-22s of the 32nd Tactical Fighter Squadron and RAF Tornado F.3 fighters from No. 23 Squadron, turned the tide in the air, as the AM's 1960s-era F-104Ss are outmatched by the top-of-the-line NATO fighters.

Austrian resistance in the Danube Valley breaks after sustaining days of concentrated Warsaw Pact attacks. The remnants of the 1st PanzerGrenadier Division retreat west to try to augment the defense of Linz, guarded by reservists, while many of the territorials that survived the Pact attacks begin guerilla fighting or head for the safety of the hills and mountains, where Italian and Pact troops dare not go.

SACEUR orders the evacuation of all remaining tactical nuclear weapons from weapon storage sites in Bavaria; some are (by a series of highly classified airlift flights) transferred to Turkey to augment the several dozen B-61 bombs already at four Turkish air bases.

The Soviets strike the American 28th Infantry Division (Pennsylvania National Guard) with a tactical nuclear weapon, a 152mm round that destroys the 28th Signal Battalion's Node Center Switch, one of the links between the tactical radio system and the division- and corps-level Mobile Subscriber Equipment field telephone system. Within two hours the division has activated its backup switch, but the strike leaves the division's troops shaken.

The Italian Army forms a new Corps-level command to oversee the war against Jugoslavia. The command is called Forza Dalmatia and it takes over the units holding the line in the northeast.

XVIII Airborne Corps in Iran makes striking progress as Soviet resistance falters; 45th (my 32nd) Army is capable only of defending Esfahan from IPA attacks while 7th Army is tied down trying to contain the Allied mechanized attack towards Ahvaz; other Soviet formations are withdrawing as quickly as they can.