June 16, 1998
As the struggle in Germany consumes more and more troops and supplies, Italian and Hungarian formations in the Balkans are starved of replacements, and the Pact high command issues calls for excess troops from the region to be transferred to the fighting in Germany.
Major General Helmut Korell, commander of the 1st Panzer Division, assumes de-facto command of II German Korps.
Unofficially,
The US Army puts a formal command structure in place in the Southwest, with 89th (my II )Corps headquarters (located east of Los Angeles coordinating disaster relief duties) taking command of units at Fort Irwin and Yuma Proving Ground as well as other US military ground forces in the area and 63rd (my XVI) Corps, in the Bay area, ordered to move south along with troops from Forts Ord and Hunter Liggett and Camp Roberts to operate along the coast. In Texas, 90th (my XIII) and 122nd (my XIX) Corps are assigned to command the scratch forces opposing the Mexican 4th Army.
SOUTHCOM issues orders for diversionary strikes on Mexico via Guatemala. A B-team from the 8th Special Forces Group departs its base at Soto Cano air base in Honduras, en route to Chiapas, Mexico to "stir up some trouble" and divert Mexican forces from the American front. SOUTHCOM also dispatches attack aircraft to Soto Cano, six AT-33E Boeing Skyfoxes, for a strike on Mexican territory.
The 868th Tactical Missile Training Squadron arrives at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, with all 48 GLCM missiles intact and mission ready.
The Mexican high command empowers a new coordinator for the logistics effort supporting the war - the former chief logistics officer of a large American retailer, now (like most worldwide retailing) out of business. The new coordinator quickly seizes on the possibilities of using the vast fleet of commercial long-haul trucks and drivers, used to regularly crossing the border. Orders are quickly issued to mobilize the drivers and their vehicles to establish a relay from railheads in Hermosillo, Chihuahua City, Monterrey and Matamoros.
The 177th Armored Brigade departs Fort Irwin, California to halt the Mexican invasion. The brigade's VISMOD (Visually Modified) M551 Sheridans have, in many cases, been returned to combat-capable status, although the supply of Shillelagh missiles and main gun ammunition is short. Thankfully, however, the issues the Sheridan experienced in combat in Vietnam with the gun's recoil disabling the missile's guidance electronics, have been long resolved, allowing the system to be somewhat effective. (Commanders consider the Sheridan more than adequate to deal with the Mexican Army's armor). The 1st Brigade, 4th Armored Division will follow the 177th when the tank transporters return from moving the 177th to the vicinity of the desert town of Yucca Valley.
Mexican Marines land on South Padre Island and begin advancing on the Queen Isabela Causeway to the mainland, detaching a company of troops to assault the Coast Guard station and lighthouse at Brazos Santiago.
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The evacuation of San Diego continues as a force of Marine trainees and their drill instructors attempt to break through the Mexican lines to link up with the ad-hoc Marine force defending Camp Pendleton. The attempt is thwarted by elite Mexican paratroops and marines who exploit their superior firepower to keep the American force from advancing. Mexican Marines land on Coronado Island and begin driving north, pushing back the defending Marines and sailors; the Mexican naval task force beats a rapid retreat lest it be engaged by the superior American fleet departing the harbor.
The Mexican 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment has advanced along Interstate 15 to Temecula, part of the Inland Empire and considered the outer edge of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
The first evacuation vessels arrive at Port Hueneme, California; the harbor master directs the smaller craft to the nearby yacht marina to keep berth space open for larger vessels.
In Yuma, Arizona, the 108th Armored Cavalry Regiment headquarters issues an order for the unit's troops, scattered over 100 miles of territory protecting evacuee camps, distributing food and assisting local law enforcement, to abandon those duties and rally at the NTC-3 for combat actions.
In the vast stretches of empty desert between Yuma, Arizona and El Paso, Texas, the invading Mexican forces remain immobile for a second day as supplies of food, water and fuel run low. Mexican Army scavenging parties roam El Paso in search of food and fuel; commanders and NCOs have to exert strict control over their troops to prevent the parties from becoming looters.
The Chihuahua Brigade departs the town of Pecos, Texas, advancing against minimal resistance up the west bank of the Pecos River towards Artesia, New Mexico, reaching the state line at sundown.
American resistance in the Brownsville area is crumbling as the remaining sailors of the USS Makin Island begin to surrender, their ammunition, food, water and will to fight exhausted and Mexican marines cross to Port Isabel from South Padre Island. To their west, the 2nd Mechanized Brigade's AMX-13 light tanks and the massed artillery of 4th Mexican Army pound the campus of the Marine Military Academy into dust, destroying many of the defensive positions with direct fire while lighting the buildings afire. In central Texas, the lead patrols of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment clash with mobile American detachments, primarily HMMWVs mounting machineguns and Mk-19 grenade launchers, while the Monclova Brigade troops secure the shotgun factory in Eagle Pass, taking many of the guns for their own use and sending thousands of others south to equip newly forming units.
The 2nd Regiment, Tennessee State Guard is reinforced with federal resources - 200 sailors previously assigned to the Memphis Naval Air Station as well as a complement of small arms (M1 Garands, M3 greaseguns, M1911 pistols and M1919 Browning machineguns), 90mm recoilless rifles and ammunition, which arrive by truck from the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama. The Regiment is tasked to assemble excess fuel trucks (with fuel rationing in effect, not a difficult task) at the Memphis Refinery, which has received a shipment of five barge-loads of crude oil from Oklahoma to process.
Specialist Cutler and several dozen other prisoners arrive at a work site along the railroad in the hills of eastern Czechoslovakia. They are shaved, hosed off, fed a meal of thin stew and introduced to the camp commandant and his staff, then ushered to an equipment shed, which has been converted to housing for the prisoner labor force. At dusk the shift of workers that has been toiling all day arrives, a motley collection of prisoners from all over NATO, exhausted from a hard day's labor. The new arrivals discover that they are going to be put to work restoring the rail line between Czechoslovakia and Poland, which was damaged by NATO conventional bombing as well as an American nuclear strike which left a massive crater in the railbed.
A firefight breaks out in Bamberg between Hungarian troops and a KGB Border Guard "rear area security detachment" that passes through town, seeking to "conduct an inspection of the American Army base." When the KGB troops are denied access (yet can see consumer goods being loaded onto a truck in the caserne) tensions rise, and for 30 minutes it is an intense battle between Pact allies.
In the area between Heidelberg and Frankfurt, American and German support troops and hastily drafted civilians are hurriedly evacuating maintenance and medical facilities which have supported the war effort to date, unsure of the ability of German troops to hold back the Pact offensive which has already captured thousands of square kilometers of southern Germany.