[chico20854]

March 5, 1998

The 40th Training Division, formed from the remnants of the 40th Infantry Division that took heavy losses during the fighting in Poland, is relieved of disaster relief, security and reconstruction duties in Oregon, and placed under command of the newly-activated 63rd US (my II) Corps and moves south by road to California

The survivors of the Dutch 103rd Reconnaissance Battalion move to the town of Zutphen.

Unofficially,

The last contingent of ships from the laid-up merchant fleets in the North Sea completes the shut-down process, loading aboard the (former East-)German corvette Prenzlau and oilfield supply ship Merk Dragon.

In the heavily-damaged German naval base of Wilhelmshaven, the German naval command has concentrated its remaining assets, a motley collection of ships and craft and exhausted sailors and shore staff.

The anti-bandit sweeps in Iran yield their first success when a patrol from the 9th Infantry Division's 3rd Battalion, 47th Infantry stumbles on a remote fortified hamlet that has been terrorized by a band of Red Army deserters (mostly Georgians and Armenians, who resented the dominance of Russian and Ukrainian troops in their units). The deserters succeed in destroying the lead HMMWV gun truck, but the rest of the patrol retreats and calls in reinforcements. Unlike the MVD's experience in Lithuania, the support is well coordinated, with a AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter dispatched to provide overhead cover for the reinforced company team that responds, as well as fires from a composite battery of 105mm and 155mm howitzers from a nearby firebase. The American attack is quick, fierce and successful, with the desert band being wiped out and only seven American casualties (including the three lost in the HMMWV).

Noting the difficulty Soviet occupying forces are experiencing in maintaining control with the limited numbers of troops and supplies they have, the Italian 5 Corps along the Sava River basin begins forming formal collaborator units as auxiliaries to the overstretched Italian occupation force. Taking advantage of the desperation of individuals as well as centuries of conflict between the various ethnic and religious groups, the call to take up arms (and receive weapons and food) receives an enthusiastic response. The Italians establish the “independent” puppet states of Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia from the remnants of the former Jugoslav republics, granting Montenegro to Serbia and splitting Bosnia-Herzegovina between Serbia and Croatia. Each of the satellite states establishes an army, usually a co-opted local militia or band of armed nationalist fanatics, which receive limited logistic support from the overstretched Italians. Ironically, much of that support consists of transfers of abandoned Soviet equipment as well as stocks of Jugoslav weapons that had been captured by the Italians during their conquest of Jugoslavia. The newly-formed forces are called the Croatian Nationalist Army (CNA), the Liberated Slovenian Armed Forces (LSAF) and the Serbian National Army (SNA).