[chico20854]

September 14, 1997

The first two battalions of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, supported by a single company of M551 Sheridan light tanks, are flown into Nairobi and go straight into battle, attacking the Zambian/Mozambique brigade that has cut the railway between Mombasa and Nairobi.

Unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship Trenton Freedom is delivered in Beaumont, Texas and the DuPage Freedom in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Black Sunday - the Soviets retaliate against RAF Germany for its strikes on targets in northeastern Poland and Byelorussia. All of RAF Germany's main bases - Gütersloh, Laarbruch, Brüggen and Wildenrath - are obliterated by nuclear attacks. Some aircraft escape, returning to the UK or landing at other Allied air bases. Some Tornados of 9 Squadron had been operating from roads for sometime and escape the carnage. The Harrier Wing, still operating 'in the field' also escapes, although some of its support units didn't make it out of Poland. The remaining Typhoons of 65 Squadron are operating as close-protection for the AWACS fleet operating now from the UK. However the picture for the RAF on the continent is overwhelmingly bleak, the 2 ATAF logistics tail has been destroyed, its spare crew are dead as are its vital maintenance staff. With the exception of the Harriers RAF Germany has ceased to exist.

The (formerly East-) German 23rd Missile Brigade fires its last Scud missile, striking a road junction southwest of Baranovichi, Byelorussia with a high explosive warhead weighing nearly a ton.

The German 5th Panzer Division, fighting east of Warsaw, is running low on supplies and in danger of being overmatched by the Soviet 7th Tank Army; it falls back to within 10 km of the city limits.

Soviet commanders seek to replicate the success of the strike on the USS Tarawa amphibious group. They do so in the Baltic, striking the Kearsage amphibious group. The nuclear strike on the group catches the flagship, the transports Shreveport, Gunston Hall, Minneapolis Freedom and LCPL Roy M. Wheat and the frigates Stark and Ainsworth.

The Bulgarian Army, depleted as it is by months of combat, disposes its forces in three directions. The 1st Army, which has been in action on the western end of the Turkish front opposite Erdine, is withdrawn from that front as the Turkish Army is driven back, transferred west to the Sofia area for a brief period of refit. The 2nd Army remains in action against the Turks as part of the Southern Front alongside its Soviet allies, while the 3rd Army takes advantage of the Romanian's weakness to undertake an assault crossing of the Danube southwest of Bucharest.

In Romania, the 6th Guards Tank Army has broken out onto the southwestern corner of the Transylvania Plateau, linking up with the Hungarian 3rd Corps, which has chased Romanian forces back from the north.

Italian troops in northwestern Jugoslavia reach the outskirts of Zagreb, where the Italian commander declares the establishment of a nationalist Croatian government independent of Jugoslavia, headed by a prominent (but disgraced) Croatian nationalist exilee.

In Pristina, Kosovo ethnic-Albanian students are hunted down by roving bands of Serbian militiamen, who are suspicious of their loyalty to the Jugoslav state and desire for weapons from the Territorial Defense militia.

40th Army receives badly needed reinforcements, the 209th Motor-Rifle Division. The 209th, a mobilization-only unit from from the Turkestan Military District has been assisting KGB Border Guards in containing the wave of smugglers and mujaheddin crossing the Pamir River into the USSR from Iran. The division's commanding general, V.S. Kholopov, born to a Kirghiz mother and a devoted Communist as well as a practicing Muslim, is an inspired leader and the unit's outstanding performance convinced Transcaucasian Front to send the unit to the front in Iran.

The 1st Marine Division arrives in the town of Shahr-e Babak, 60 miles from the outer positions of I MEF at the Bandar Abbas perimeter.