[chico20854]

October 6, 1997

7th Guards Army renews its attacks against the 24th Infantry Division in the Bandar-e Khomeyni area. The Soviet 45th Army (my 32nd Army) debouches from the passes in the Zagros Mountains and attacks the positions of the 101st and 9th Divisions at Bushehr and Ganaveh. The Soviet 1st and 40th Armies have the US I Amphibious Corps (I have it as I MEF) pinned down at Bandar Abbas.

Unofficially

FEMA contractors complete the conversion of another facility - the Madera Speedway in Madera, California - to evacuee housing, taking advantage of the power, water and traffic handling already on the site.

The Guardian newspaper in the UK runs a story detailing how the draft papers of wealthy and influential families' sons had "gone missing". The article causes great anger from families whose sons reported for their mandatory military service.

The local military commander of the city of Xiangfan in central China declares himself the city's overlord and protector. The locality has suffered relatively lightly - its car plant (converted to military production) was destroyed by Soviet strategic bombers in the winter of 1995-6, sparing the city from a nuclear attack. The local population welcomes the declaration, with its implicit promise that the general will restore order and be able to coordinate the delivery of food, water and house the refugees flooding into the region from the north.

The commander, 3rd Fleet in Japan sets a November 8 trial date for the former commander of the battleship Missouri.

Faced with dwindling reserves and relentless attacks from the 1st Byelorussian Front's combined three tank armies seeking to exploit the boundary between V and XXIII US Corps, the commander of NORTHAG, over the objections of the Polish Free Congress, authorizes the creation of a tactical nuclear barrier along the Warta west of Lodz. After coordinated planning between both corps' operations cells and consultation with meteorologists, engineer and artillery units of both corps execute over a dozen nuclear strikes. The explosions, all ground bursts, are arrayed so that their blast radii overlap, creating a continuous line of blown-down trees, cratered or burned ground and intense radiation on the far shore of the river, hopefully impassable to Pact troops on foot or in unprotected vehicles. The blasts also create vast amounts of radioactive fallout which blows north, reinforcing the intensity of the radiation along the barrier line. The river valley is overwatched by mechanized detachments prepared to deal with armored vehicles attempting to cross the blast zone and approaching the river.

The USS Virginia hunter-killer group, operating as a team with P-3s from Keflavik and Goose Bay, establishes contact with a suspected Soviet SSBN and begins to hunt it. Over the next 16 hours they lose and re-establish fleeting contact six times.

Unable to stop the rout of its troops, the Turkish High Command directs all available reserves (mostly training formations and recently raised infantry units filled by recalled reservists and nervous teens) to the western edge of the Istanbul metro area, where there is an attempt to construct a defensive line at Catalca. That location, which succeeded in halting a similar Bulgarian drive in 1912, is a point where the isthmus is only 40 kilometers wide, much of which is bisected by lakes and waterways, forming a naturally strong defensive position. Military Police are stationed at the crossings to direct retreating soldiers seeking shelter from the battlefields in Thrace to positions along the nascent defensive line.

The survivors of the 341st (my 22nd Guards) Tank Division are formed into a single composite regiment, the 302nd Guards Tank Regiment, with 44 T-72s and a smattering of other armored vehicles salvaged from the ruins of the division’s trains. The unit begins drills in the local area in preparation for a continuation of its movement to the front in the Balkans.