[chico20854]

August 18, 1997

The Zambian volunteer brigade in Kenya manages to cut the railroad between the cities of Nairobi and Mombasa but they are then stopped cold by Kenyan Army forces redeploying from positions near the Somali border, leaving its defense to Kenyan Police Reserve forces alone.

Unofficially,

Ten of the Soviet POWs beaten by members of the Texas State Guard are released from the base hospital at Sheppard AFB, Texas; two others remain in the critical care ward. The guardsmen are taken into custody by Texas Rangers and transporter to jail, while Red Cross monitors travel to the area to conduct an investigation.

The BBC announces that over 50 percent of those that fled British cities for the countryside have returned home.

Following frenzied military-political-diplomatic discussions, the arrested Japanese officers are released to their national authorities and flown home on a JASDF C-130.

STAVKA orders Far Eastern TVD, as a result of the changing strategic situation, to release 13th Army for service in the West. As Chinese resistance in central China wanes, 1st Far Eastern Front is gaining more ground every day, recapturing all the territory lost in the Chinese summer offensive and taking tens of thousands of prisoners. Soviet troops have a hard time distinguishing between PLA soldiers who have discarded their uniforms for civilian clothes, Chinese partisans and anti-Soviet guerrillas and genuine civilians; in such an environment all are treated as POWs. Like the Allied coalition in Iraq in 1991, however, the numbers of prisoners swamp the ability of the Army to handle them, and long lines of dejected men are simply directed to walk north.

Fierce battles rage in the forests of northeastern Poland and Lithuania as the commander of the 23rd Army turns the elite paratroops of the 106th Guards Air Assault Division loose on the troopers of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Over the next 36 hours countless small firefights erupt as platoons and companies clash in the rough terrain; the veteran cavalrymen have armored vehicles and superior firepower to call upon, while the dismounted desantniki are able to take advantage of terrain that the American vehicles cannot traverse.

To the south, 3rd Guards Tank Army's grinding advance continues, incurring shockingly high casaulties. Western TVD is receiving multiple train-loads of replacement troops each day - some are recalled reservists with varying levels of retained skills, others are teenagers or Central Asians who have little experience and add little to unit's combat capability. Nonetheless, the end result at the end of the day is the same - massive casaulties and little to show for it.

In the Kaliningrad sector, the 3rd Shock Army, which has been in fierce combat nearly nonstop since October, is awarded the Guards title in recognition of its valaint service. Each of the army's divisions started the war as Guards divisions, but various Army-level units are also awarded the title.

As operations in Sicily wind down (internal security duties are being split between the Iberian airborne troops and a NATO-supported Italian police force/militia), the 173rd Airborne Brigade is assigned to act as a raiding force in the eastern Mediterrranean. The headquarters and support elements are transferred to Cairo West Air Base in Egypt, with the 4th Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery securing the base alongside US and Egyptian air force security personnel. The 3rd Battalion (Airborne), 325th Infantry is based at the facility but is tasked with raiding isolated Greek outposts; the 2nd Battalion (Airborne), 501st Infantry remains in Sicily at the Comiso Air Base to strike Italian targets while the 3rd Battalion (Airborne), 501st Infantry is flown to Akhisar Air Base, Turkey to assist in that nation's defense.

Sigurimi (Secret Police) agents take the former Albanian defense minister out of the secret prison cell in Tirana and drive him to a remote abandoned farmhouse south of the capital. Over 12 hours they beat him nearly to death before loading him once again into a car. They drive him to an out of the way mountain road, then pull over and shoot him 14 times. His body is buried in an unmarked grave.

Another strike occurs in the Soviet war economy, when workers at the Kommunarsk Steel Plant in Ukraine put down their tools and march in protest at raised output demands, long hours, growing shortages and falling wages.
A firefight breaks out between a section from the 4th Battalion, The Kings Own Border Regiment and Argentine commandos 5 miles west of Fitzroy settlement on East Falkland.