[chico20854]

July 25, 1997

In Iran, the 101st Air Assault Division launches another predawn air assault, this one against the city of Qom, less than 90 miles south of Tehran and considerer a holy city by Shia Muslims. The assault catches the Soviets off guard, and by dusk the 9th Infantry Division, displaying its remarkable mobility, has pushed its advanced battalions to link up with the 101st. The entire effort is screened by the attack helicopters of the 6th ACCB, which break up a Soviet counterattack before it is even launched.

The Turkish 33rd Infantry Division is assigned to IV (my VI) Corps for internal administrative duties in the city of Zonguldak on the Black Sea coast east of Istanbul. (Unofficially) The division has taken heavy losses over the past several months in action in Bulgaria. Its place on the front lines is taken by the 39th Infantry Brigade and 5th Armored Brigade, both of which have been held in reserve to respond to any Greek landing along the Aegean coast.

Additionally, and unofficially,

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

The aircraft carrier Lexington arrives in Mobile, Alabama, where barge-mounted cranes remove the remaining fixed-wing aircraft.

The judge in the Terminal Illness riot trial orders the defense to wrap up its case, citing the desire of many of the jurors to evacuate the city as rumors swirl of expanding nuclear war.

Outside Anchorage, Soviet troops of the 13th Guards Air Assault Division sink the US Coast Guard patrol boat Roanoke Island, which is operating close to shore, supporting defenders from the 47th Infantry Division with its twin 25mm autocannons.

In North Korea, Allied forces, led by the American 163rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, force their way across the Chongchon River 40 miles north of Pyongyang, entering the rough terrain between that river and the Yalu. The People's Liberation Army is less than 50 miles away, making slow progress while the rest of its units in Manchuria disintegrate under repeated Soviet tactical nuclear attacks. (The Far Eastern TVD is using, on average, eight warheads a day, striking units as small as battalions as well as logistic and communications sites, airfields and headquarters.)

The USS Midway's air wing appears in the skies over the Cook Inlet in Alaska; thanks to local residents' efforts to pass word from behind the lines the attack aircraft are able to accurately hit the 13th Guards Air Assault Division's main supply dump, severely limiting the division's ability to continue its advance on Anchorage.

American troops make the first use of chemical weapons on the central front when a battery of M109 howitzers from VII Corps conduct an "artillery raid" in Ukraine. The battery rushes forward, halting less than a half mile behind the front line positions held by the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment and fire 32 M110 mustard gas rounds (four rounds per gun) at a railroad siding a little over 18 km away. (The railroad siding is being used by the 1st Shock Army to unload ammunition; the use of a persistent blister agent assures that the site will be rendered unusable for several weeks). The guns "shoot and scoot" - departing the front line immediately after firing to evade Soviet counterbattery fire.

Italian troops reach the center of Munich, pausing to snap photos of themselves with the Glockenspeil on the town hall in the Marienplatz. German territorial troops had been ordered to withdraw rather than have the historic city center be destroyed in urban fighting. The Luftwaffe evacuates the last of its troops, aircraft and supplies from the Erding airbase outside the city, joining those evacuated from the Lechfeld air base a few days before at Baden-Soellingen, a Canadian air base in southwestern Germany that the RCAF has only been using as a support facility, its remaining F/A-18s in action far to the east over Poland and the USSR.

XX US Corps halts the Italian advance to the west along the base of the Alps, holding the line of the Iller River, which forms the western border of Bavaria.

The Austrian defense of Linz collapses and the government evacuates, along with all available Bundesheer forces, to German territory, pursued by Czech and Soviet troops. Along the front in Poland and the western USSR the front remains largely static as both sides try to regroup, resupply their exhausted forces and dig in to protect themselves from a possible tactical nuclear strike.

US Navy and Air Force aircraft (operating from Turkish bases) try to blast clear a corridor through the few Bulgarian air defenses, opening a transit route into Romania and Jugslavia. The route is only useable by military transports flying under escort at medium altitude (out of the range of Bulgarian anti-aircraft guns), but it allows the resumption of regular resupply of the 71st Airborne Brigade and support of embattled Jugoslavia and Romania.

The final elements of the 5th Marine Division complete loading at Little Creek, Virginia and set sail as part of Convoy 158, which also carries the equipment of the 36th Armored Brigade (to be parceled out as loss replacements upon arrival in Germany) and what replacement vehicles and munitions that can be scraped together from around the US.

The first shipment of steel plate from the burned-out battlecruiser Rossiya arrives in Nikolaev for installation aboard the helicopter carrier Leningrad.