[chico20854]

January 27, 1998

In Pennsylvania, state officials have tried to control the refugee situation but it has grown beyond the resources available. State government relocation authorities, working under the direction of federal relocation boards and officials, abandon the plans laid out by Washington bureaucrats months or years before. In the far northwestern corner of the state, Erie finds itself as a last stop for refugees from points west and south trying to enter New York. The population swells beyond anything the local authorities can cope with.

Unofficially,

In Canada, the remaining authorities implement a similar effort to activate military forces to support internal security and recovery efforts. The Canadian Army Reserve, which has been forming, training and providing replacement troops, sections and platoons to the Active force throughout the war, is now called upon to form troop units on its own. (This process had already commenced in July in British Columbia and Yukon in July, following the Soviet invasion of Alaska). Flush with draftees in the midst of their training, and with transport links to the fighting forces in Europe down, reserve units around the federation are able to, in general, stand up an at least nominal battalion of troops. In some areas older Cadets, retirees, veterans and RCMP officers are pressed into service. A more pressing problem is equipment, for while small arms (either current issue C7s or older C1 (FALs)) and individual equipment are plentiful enough, the Reserve's stocks of armored vehicles, mortars and artillery have been largely depleted by 13 months of war, sent overseas as replacements for combat losses on the Centraal Front or in Norway, or sent west to equip the forces facing the Soviets in northwestern British Columbia. Units in Ontaria and the Maritimes are allocated to augment the meagre Active forces in the region in suppression of the Quebec uprising, those in the west to facing the Soviets and those on the prairie to securing food and fuel as well as preserving a modicum of order in their local areas.

Dutch troops infiltrated into the French occupation zone ambush a lone Peugot P4 light vehicle racing to make it back to its fortified garrison before nightfall. The ambush is successful, and the bullet-ridden wreakage holds the body of the commander of the 158e Compagnie du Génie (158th Engineer Company).

Pro-NATO guerrillas in Esfahan machinegun a truck carrying Soviet soldiers on their way back to the front after a period of rest in the city.

The 279th Motor-Rifle Division, a mobilization-only "shadow" division formed from excess staff and obsolete equipment maintained by the elite 4th Guards Tank Division, is called up in Naro-Fominsk to help with relief and security efforts in the remains of the capital 70 km to the northeast. The division is fully manned from the masses of refugees that have fled the city and generously staffed with officers displaced from their jobs at ministries, institutes and schools. Like most late mobilizing divisions, equipment is scarce (four battalions of tanks, three of APCs) and obsolescent (T-55s, BTR-60s, BM-14s and 37mm AA guns). The unit is commonly considered the last Red Army division mobilized in the war (although local military district commanders ordered the 281st Motor-Rifle Divison into service nearly a year later, that action was not approved by the Red Army high command).