[chico20854]

August 30, 1997

Nothing in canon for the day (that I'm using... GDW has the 5th Marine Division entering combat in Korea today; I have the 5th in action in Poland at this point). Unofficially,

3rd Brigade, 49th Armored Division (Texas National Guard) completes Rotation 97-10 at NTC-2 at the Yakima Training Center and, as the last brigade in the division to complete a NTC rotation following its retraining and re-equipment with the Abrams/Bradley weapons systems, the entire division is declared combat ready, nearly a year after mobilization.

The 11th Infantry Brigade is declared combat ready after completing Rotation 97-10 at JRTC-2 at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas and transferred by road to Tinker AFB, Oklahoma for immediate deployment to Korea.

The 22nd Motor-Rifle Division, relocated from central Alaska, takes advantage of the cover provided by the 99th Motor-Rifle Division to undertake a follow-up landing at Skagway, Alaska. The weak guard company there is quickly overrun and Soviet troops begin advancing east into British Columbia towards Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon Territory 110 miles away.

Army engineers complete construction of a secure storage facility in Glady, West Virginia, in an abandoned railroad tunnel and FEMA begins stocking it with food, weapons, generators, clothing, tents and other supplies.

Poor weather over much of the Korean Peninsula returns to the mountains of central North Korea, preventing Army and Air Force transport units from flying resupply missions to the encircled 23rd Infantry Division (Light). Special Operations aircraft have the ability to reach the isolated 23rd, but to its commander's frustration, are assigned to other missions. (Although widely criticized by the division's veterans in the years following the war, the few MC-141s, MC-130s, MH-53s and MH-60s in the theater are not able to transport even 10 percent of the tonnage of supplies the 23rd needs on a daily basis).

VII US Corps is subjected to multiple, repeated attacks from two Soviet armies - the veteran 8th Guards and the 1st Shock, a relatively fresh formation composed of some of the Red Army's finest parade divisions and other units from around Moscow. The battle, as the Americans retreat from the Ukrainian border, sees both sides slinging nuclear weapons at the other's rear areas as the front-line troops press close to each other to prevent the other side from using nukes on them.

The USS John F Kennedy and America conclude four days of strikes on the Italian and Greek air defenses over the Adriatic as F-14s of VF-33 escort a flight of six C-17s of the 20th Airlift Squadron into Tuzla Air Base, Jugoslavia carrying supplies and munitions for the 112th Tactical Fighter Wing (Pennsylvania Air National Guard).

A task force of fast transports leaves Gibraltar carrying munitions, vehicles and spares for the beleaguered Jugoslav and Romanian armies. Sixth Fleet task forces are stripped of escorts to protect the convoy, while the battleship Wisconsin surface action group prepares for a sortie into the Adriatic.

The Albanian Army reports that it has more or less completed its mobilization, having called up over a quarter million reservists to bring their forces up to full strength. The effects on the economy are, convieniently, not mentioned, especially since the Albanian economy has consistently been the worst in Europe.

The 487th Tactical Missile Wing fires 24 missiles into Ukraine; PVO missiles and interceptors shoot down seven while crossing the Black Sea, and three others are shot down over Ukraine. Two malfunction, and a dozen explode over central Ukraine, where the trains carrying the 341st (my 22nd Guards) Tank Division are en route to Romania.

The final supply route into Shiraz is cut when troops of the 1st (my 9th) Army's 145th and 147th Motor-Rifle Divisions link up south of the city, and the second siege of the city begins. The city's government, having experienced a prior siege, is relatively well prepared - food has been stockpiled and many non-essential civilians evacuated to the coast.

The Soviet Air Defense Force (the PVO) makes a concerted effort to intercept a R-5D Aurora hypersonic spyplane. After an agent in the US alerts Moscow of an Aurora carrier taking off, the PVO sets up an airborne ambush. A line of MiG-31 interceptors is established at 100km intervals over the Urals, cruising at 40,000 feet and loaded with experimental infra-red seeking AA-13 AAMs, while outside Moscow the remaining Su-47s of the 91st Fighter Regiment scramble. The effort is detected by the NSA's ELINT satellites, which alert the Aurora before it is launched. The alert prompts the execution of the pre-briefed alternative flight plan over Central Asia, exiting over western China and looping northward across the Pacific for recovery.

The Argentine submarine Salta returns to the Mar del Plata naval base and the commando team disembarks. The rebellious senior NCO is sent to the brig to await court martial.