[chico20854]

November 21, 1997

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

The helicopter repair and maintenance center in Corpus Christi, Texas completesits first conversion of a US Navy TH-57 training helicopter into a OH-58 battlefield observation model for service at the front. The conversion was relatively minor, fitting additional avionics and weapons mounts, replacing the windscreen with a flat model as well as a coating of IR and radar-absorbent paint and a general update of aged components. A C-5 Galaxy awaits at the Naval Air Station to fly the "new" aircraft to Iran.

The American attack submarine USS Olympia arrives in Holy Loch, Scotland after a patrol that took it from Pearl Harbor, under the North Pole and into the Barents Sea.

The KGB team in the Dover area splits up into teams of one or two members, dispersing across the UK to begin tracking developments in wartime Britain.

Deep in the Chinese interior, the 292nd Motor-Rifle Division continues its advance on foot. In the month since it abandoned its vehicles (which were out of gas) the unit has advanced another 450 kilometers.

The freighter Kansas Freedom reaches Diego Garcia, carrying a load of JP-5 fuel, food and other essentials. The staff on the island begin storing the cargo discharged by the ship's cranes.

An A-team from the 20th Special Forces Group (National Guard) locates the Soviet 5th Pontoon Engineer Regiment's bivouac area and the growing equipment park containing much of the remaining tactical bridging equipment from Pact units throughout Poland. The team radios the find in to the group headquarters, which dispatches a Green Light Atomic Demolitions Munition team to the area. The strike team arrives shortly before dawn and, covered by the men of the first team, emplace it in between the tent sites and motor pool. The subsequent blast effectively wipes out the massed equipment and the specialist troops, severely limiting Western TVD's ability to ferry anything other than an assault echelon across the Oder.

The American light frigate USS Marchand begins its first operational voyage, an anti-submarine sweep of the approaches to Norfolk, Virginia.

The 234th Rear Area Protection Division, a unit composed of Romanian-speaking Moldovan reservists that performed well in quelling resistance to the Soviet 14th Army's occupation of southeastern Romania, is assigned to 26th Army and transferred to Jugoslavia.

The nuclear exchange continues in the Persian Gulf region, with USAF F-15Es taking a break from air defense to block the road junction south of Mashdad, Iran, where roads from Turkmenistan and Afghanistan join and continue to Tehran. Thanks to the efforts of the 82nd Airborne Division the road is one of the main routes for Transcaucasian Front to obtain supplies.