[chico20854]

June 27, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

A patrol from the 40th Infantry Division's 1st Squadron, 18th Cavalry, detached from the main body of the squadron, reaches the outer perimeter of the Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach. After a few tense moments as both armed formations verify each other's status, contact is made and within an hour word is relayed to 63rd (my XVI) Corps Headquarters that several companies worth of heavily armed and trained teens from the California 10th Cadet Brigade are intact and loyal.

Further south, Brigade Ensenada, which has sustained nearly 50 percent losses so far in the Battle of San Diego, regroups before joining 1st Mechanized Brigade in attacking the dug-in Marines of the Recruit Training Depot. The Marines receive much-needed assistance from a daring low-level night flight by a pair of CH-53E heavy-lift helicopters of HMT-302, which brings in food, ammunition (including several cases of 40mm grenades, the first the defenders have received to date), medical supplies and two under-slung LAV-25s with full loads of fuel and ammunition. They evacuate the wounded as they depart; the flights are a huge boost to morale.

The at-least theoretical encirclement of the Fort Bliss garrison is completed with the linkup of forward elements of the Torres Motorized Cavalry Brigade's 9th Motorized Cavalry Regiment and the Chihuahua Brigade's 76th Infantry Regiment at the top of San Augustin Pass east of the town of Las Cruces, New Mexico. (The encirclement is theoretical because Brigade Chihuahua has left only two of its infantry regiments spread out over the 440-mile route of its advance to secure its supply line and occupy the vast area it has traversed.) Brigade Chihuahua's drive west to link up with the Torres Brigade has allowed the 214th Field Artillery Brigade and the remnants of the Holloman Air Force Base garrison to withdraw northward unopposed; the 214th's Pershing missiles arriving safely at Canon Air Force Base in Clovis, New Mexico safely today. In El Paso, Brigade Torreon has reached full strength with the arrival of its final regiment from the Mexican interior; Brigade Durango still has a single regiment on the way.

The first battalion (6-112 Armor) of the 49th Armored Division loads its vehicles aboard ten open deck barges in the Mississippi River in Quincy, Illinois. The remainder of 3rd Brigade and Division headquarters are en route, while 2nd Brigade is headed for Evansville, Indiana and 1st Brigade is to load at La Crosse, Wisconsin.

In its first actions against now-veteran Mexican troops, the companies of the 46th Infantry Division dispatched to halt the Mexican invasion are roughly handled, unexpectedly being thrown back by the firepower and deft maneuvering of Brigade Matamoros and the 2nd Mechanized Brigade. Three of the companies disintegrate under the pressure of Mexican follow-on attacks.

RainbowSix reports that Major Nikita Drozdov, a highly trained KGB officer who speaks fluent English who was covertly inserted into the UK in late 1996 under the code name Kyril and initially based in East Anglia, makes his way to Leicester using the alias Jim Ross.

Fighting in Northern Ireland flares up, as the IRA and Irish Army launch their long-planned summer offensive. Initial attacks out of Catholic enclaves in Londonderry and Belfast are rebuffed by strong Loyalist and British Army defenses.

Heavier NATO reinforcements, in the form of the V US Corps and VI German Korps, which contain the remains of armored divisions and the complement of corps-level engineer, artillery and other supporting formations and which have spent the preceding months absorbing what few replacements that had arrived and rebuilding, are fully engaged. V Corps’ 28th Infantry Division establishes a series of strong blocking positions along the roads northwest of Schweinfurt which VII US Corps passes through.

Fighting in occupied Macedonia spreads throughout the zone jointly occupied by Greek and Albanian troops. The fighting is confused, with no front lines, numerous armed bands of Jugoslav deserters, partisans and armed civilians and both occupying armies' positions intermixed, with small isolated positions along major supply routes, in towns and key villages, and in power plants and industrial facilities.