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Old 03-21-2023, 03:37 PM
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chico20854 chico20854 is offline
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March 3, 1998

The Americans and their Iranian allies are not completely without concerns. Large marauder bands have formed during the winter. These bands are a mixed lot of guerrillas from all sides, refugees, deserters from various armies, and just plain bandits. Some of the bolder groups engage in firefights with U.S. and Iranian units. Many marauder bands openly claim control of areas and challenge the Iranian National Emergency Council's authority. U.S. and Iranian military units begin a series of search and destroy operations with the goal of clearing the Bushehr-Shiraz-Bandar Abbas triangle. The 9th ID and the 101st AAD participate in the operations, as do marines from I MEF in Bandar Abbas.

The 342nd (my 81st Guards) Motor-Rifle Division is withdrawn from Manchuria to help restore order and provide security in western Siberia. It is ordered to take up positions in the city of Novokuznetsk.

Unofficially,

Despite the near-total collapse of crude oil production as a result of EMP damage to the electrical grid, America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve remains over half full. The SPR had been run up in the months leading up to war, to a 120-day supply of crude, including the commissioning in early 1997 of the newest SPR sites at Irontown, Ohio and Lexington, Kentucky and the reactivation of the Sulphur Mines, Louisiana site. The damage inflicted on the nation by the Soviet nuclear strikes have disrupted the transport links (rail, barge and pipeline) to discharge the SPR, and with massive portions of American refining offline the 120-day supply could quite easily last for over twice that time.

The 11th Airborne Division has managed to force the Soviet defense of Fairbanks largely into the area surrounding the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus, with isolated pods of resistance scattered elsewhere throughout the city. Both forces are out of artillery, mortar and large caliber ammunition, missiles of all types and are rapidly running out of grenades and anti-tank rockets.

In occupied Breda, Netherlands, a patrol of the French 403e Régiment d'Artillerie (an air defense unit re-roled with internal security duties due to the lack of enemy air activity) is ambushed by unknown assailants. After 15 minutes a quick reaction force arrives to reinforce the survivors, but the unknown attackers slip away into the city.

The cruiser USS Virginia departs Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, Puerto Rico on a patrol of the central Atlantic.

The troops of the Hungarian 53rd Mechanized Rifle Brigade are sobered as their troop transports pick their way through the ruins of Ulan Ude, Siberia, after the city's rail infrastructure, industry and military headquarters were struck by American bombers in December. While they had become familiar with the devastation wrought by Soviet conventional munitions in China, the effects of the strategic nuclear warheads is of an order of magnitude greater. Worse, the American attack succeeded in damaging the vital rail junction between the Trans-Siberian and Trans-Mongolian Railroads, forcing the unit to have to partially dismount in the heart of the blast zone and manually repair the line. The silence is eerie and the soldiers are deathly afraid of the radiation; the engineers have an abundance of soldiers willing to work feverishly to speed the unit's departure from the radioactive zone.
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I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
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