[chico20854]

June 13, 1997

Nothing official for today!

As UK Lieutenant General Sir Robert Owens, head of the British delegation at the peace talks in New Delhi, gingerly rues the apparent setback in the status of the negotiations (which had at least acknowledged the need for some sort of negotiated change of status of territory in areas around the world), he is rudely interrupted by Colonel General Oleg Kolesnikov, who swears at the Brit and yells "Allowing you and the Yankees on the European Continent is enough of a concession from the USSR! Given your insolence, I cannot see why the communist world should continue to tolerate capitalist imperialism any longer!" before storming out. The peace talks have ended.

The Freedom-class cargo ship Cincinnati Freedom is delivered in Pascagoula, Mississippi and the container-barge carrier Lhasa Carrier is delivered in Mobile, Alabama.

The 347th Strategic Missile Squadron begins its deterrent patrols with MGM-134 Midgetman missiles on the vast Nellis AFB Range-Nevada Test Site complex, an area of over 6,000 square miles.

Colonel Oleg Tumanski's Spetsnaz team launches another attack, once again targeting a convoy of replacement troops on their way to the front. They ambush a pair of buses en route to RAF Brize Norton, killing 27 recruits and losing another one of their commandos.

Soviet commanders in Manchuria try to simultaneously hold their stretched line while identifying the Chinese main effort in various sectors; they are torn as to how to best deploy their megre reserves - en masse to smash a Chinese breakthrough, or piecemeal to prevent breakthroughs from occurring. Either way, they send increasingly desperate calls to Moscow for reinforcements and additional tanks, ammunition, helicopters and aircraft.

The OTK and WOW garrisons (internal security troops) of Kraków, faced with NATO mechanized troops, abandoned by the Warsaw Pact high command and having seen the destruction rained on Opole and Czestochowa, declare Kraków an open city and lay down their arms. General Beck, Third German Army commander, permits the OTK to retain their small arms and, under the close supervision of Free Polish Congress representatives, act as the police for the liberated city.

The bridgehead over the Wisla at Wyszograd is secured, permitting CG, II British Corps General Ramsay to put 28 Amphibious Engineer Regiment onto the bridgehead. Within hours they have M2D ferries in service, transporting 1st Infantry Brigade’s Chieftain tanks and the Warrior IFVs and Challengers of the 20th Armoured Brigade to the far shore. Pact resistance is light, with most Pact mechanized units still on the other shore of the Wisła, and the Western TVD’s reserve front, the 1st Byelorussian, only partially mobilized and largely positioned on Soviet territory.

The first M-1A2D tank is deployed to Europe. The tank, initially developed for export sale and to boost tank production beyond the ability of American industry to produce gas turbine engines and sophisticated composite armor, fits a diesel engine, a different fire control system (built using otherwise idle manufacturing capability) and an alternative armor system that offers protection comparable to early model M-1s from the early 1980s.

SACLANT, despite the losses his carrier force has sustained in the past week, approves the movement of the Coral Sea and her battle group into the Baltic, although limited to the area off the East German coast, where it is protected by the Danish archiplego and the minefields that were laid at the onset of the war and are still actively patrolled by the Danish Navy's submarines and patrol boats.

In Finland, the 10th Mountain Division's 3rd Brigade continues to grind its way forward against strong Finnish resistance. The division's advance is partly limited by the long supply lines, which limit how much ammunition can be brought forward. Elsewhere in the northern theater NATO's advance is slow at best.

American ground forces engage their Soviet counterparts in Romania for the first time, when the Weapons Platoon of B Co., 1st Battalion 142nd Infantry (Airborne) (Texas National Guard) fires a Tankbreaker missile at a T-74 of the 224th Tank Regiment, part of the 17th Guards Tank Division. The Soviets respond with artillery fire, which is ineffective thanks to the poor communications between the Soviet tankers and their supporting guns.

To the south, the situation of the Turkish 1st Army is becoming more desperate as Soviet, Bulgarian and Greek troops press from all sides. The Turkish command keeps feeding a steady stream of recalled reservists into the theater, but they are armed with small arms as the nation's war reserves of vehicles, heavy weapons and ammunition are rapidly being depleted.

The fighting in Bandar Abbas continues as the Marines and Gurkhas make slow progress, driving the hardened Soviet desantniki east through the city, building by building. The USS Salem has returned to the line, providing invaluable firepower, capable of eliminating a Soviet strongpoint with a single round.

In beseiged Shiraz, a armored task force of the IPA 3rd Armored Division makes a surprise breakout, cutting through the lines of the surrounding 45th (my 32nd) Army to wreak havoc in the Soviet rear before returning to the city.

MVD troops of the 141st Seperate Special Motorized Battalion (a specialized riot control unit) surround the garage occupied by striking truckers who are refusing to depart for the war zone. After being given an ultimatum, which about a dozen drivers accept and leave the facility, the troops storm it, using tear gas and truncheons to avoid damaging the trucks or repair facility. All the remaining strikers are arrested (four are killed in the scrum, one from a heart attack, one from the tear gas and two from the beating they received).