[chico20854]

May 14, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day.

In Yukon, a GRU technical team arrives at the Canadian Security Establishment (the Canadian counterpart to the National Security Agency) ELINT station outside Whitehorse. The team had been stationed on Shemya Island, Alaska to evaluate the various monitoring devices the US had operated there; they see some of the same equipment and are overall amazed at the relative sophistication of the electronics compared to the much more privative in use by the GRU.

The 7th Panzer Division’s headquarters is located by a Spetsnaz team from the 18th Spetsnaz Brigade, infiltrated at the onset of the offensive. The Soviet commandos relay the position to the 442nd Missile Brigade, which, in a rare feat of efficiency, has a SS-21 missile en route within 90 minutes. The nuclear-tipped missile scores a near-hit, landing within the headquarters' perimeter fence, destroying the German facility and the command staff. The nuclear attack is followed shortly thereafter with an intense but short artillery barrage, expending the last of 41st Army's chemical weapons, which is then followed by a mass assault by two of the Army's motor-rifle divisions. By nightfall, the German positions have been overrun, and scattered survivors break out northward.

The Soviet 41st Army repeats its dawn attack on the town of Erbach an der Donau, achieving the same result (no territory captured, several vehicles lost to defensive fire).

The Soviet Kilo-class submarine B-888, operating in the English Channel after sinking the British frigate HMS Achilles in April, is running low on torpedoes, fuel and stores. Not having sighted any Allied shipping in several days (partly due to the lack of traffic, partly due to persistent fog), the boat's commander decides to have his weapons officer deploy the remaining mines aboard (including conversion of all but one of the remaining torps to mines) before turning for home. Given the dire conditions on the Kola, he aims for the Baltic Fleet submarine base at Paldiski, Estonia.

The Marines of the 4th Marine Division have their first clash with Marine deserters, a band that calls itself the Junkyard Dawgs. The Dawgs are composed of members of a motor-transport unit that was cut off and destroyed while running supplies to the isolated 1st Marine Division in the fall; they have spent the last several months making their way south, living off the land and what they can plunder from local civilians, but find the prospect of returning to military discipline unattractive.

After a month in transit, the 106th Motor-Rifle (my 232nd Rear Area Protection) Division has reached the border of Austria and Hungary. It has expended all of its food and fuel, and made it across Hungary mostly by begging/extorting supplies from local authorities, who determine that it is better to provide the division what it needs to move on than deny it and have the unit remain where they are.

In the south Atlantic, the damaged Akula-class submarine K-154 meets up with the Sierra-class K-231 after both boats have escaped the destruction of the Soviet South Atlantic fishing fleet. K-154 transfers stocks of frozen fish to the other boat as their captains agree to strike out for Maputo, Mozambique, hoping that they will receive a friendly reception there.