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Old 10-28-2022, 02:41 PM
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October 24, 1997

Nothing in canon for the day!

The light frigate USS Kirkpatrick is delivered in Moss Point, Mississippi and manned by USCG personnel, and the tanker Marias is delivered in Baltimore.

In Northern Ireland the IRA begins forming more conventional military units, designating them according to geographic location. The initial units include the Derry Brigade, South Armagh Brigade, Fermanagh Brigade and three brigades in Belfast - the Falls Brigade, Short Strand Brigade and the Ardpyne Brigade. The IRA has had considerable success in asserting control in Derry and in rural areas adjoining the Republic; in Belfast intense battles rage between the Provos and the UDR and RUC, who are assisted (on a as-yet unofficial basis) by Unionist paramilitary bands. The US Navy, whose carrier Enterprise is in the midst of an extensive repair following battle damage off the Kola in the city's shipyard, restricts its personnel to the yard's territory, firmly defended by the ship's Marine detachment supplemented by contingents from the ship's 3300+-strong complement.

The Abraham Lincoln, the sole surviving operational and undamaged carrier in the US Pacific Fleet, returns to the waters off Petropavlovsk. Operating under EMCOM (Emissions Control, with all radar and radio emissions off) the carrier launches a predawn air raid which once again pounds the Soviet port after catching its air defense force off guard. After recovering its aircraft (three F/A-18s and an A-6 are lost) the carrier group turns tail and retreats to the vast empty spaces of the North Pacific.

The lead regiments of the 38th (my 27th Guards) Motor-Rifle Division reinforce the battered 1st Shock Army east of Wroclaw. The arrival of the hardened veterans of the Chinese campaign is an unpleasant shock to the troops of the American 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized), which are already under considerable pressure.

NATO forces in Poland continue to fall back, with the front line running from Koszalin on the Baltic coast, to the eastern outskirts of Poznan and Wroclaw to the Czech border.

Overcoming scattered and disorganized resistance, Soviet troops reach the Bosporus in Istanbul. Patrols are sent across to the Asian side, but Southern Front's logistic difficulties at the end of a very long supply line, prevent any further advance into Turkish territory. STAVKA concludes that the removal of Turkey from the war has effectively been achieved and redirects remaining scarce resources to more urgent fronts. (The decision also relieves the Soviet authorities from responsibility to administer the vast and populous nation).

Preparations hastily completed, the Dubai shipyard floods its largest drydock to accept the carrier USS Independence.

The 236th Rear Area Protection Division, in the Central Asian Military District, is struggling to secure the supply lines into eastern Iran against the array of bandits, nationalist or Islamic partisans, deserters and draft-dodgers and criminals that are roaming the border regions of the USSR. The importance of this effort is further driven home by the cutoff of the transportation routes between Transcaucasian Front and the Caucasus by Pegasus II, which is forcing more traffic through the vast, lightly populated area.
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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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