[chico20854]

March 23, 1997

Yet another day with nothing in the canon! Unofficially,

The British and Soviet delegations in New Dehli repeat their earlier positions from the last round of peace talks. The Soviets want a return to prewar German borders, transfer of all Manchuria to the USSR, annexation of captured territory in Iran to Azerbaijan, "regime change" in Romania, arrest of the Polish Government in Exile and their transfer to Poland for "Proletarian Justice" and neutral, demilitarized South Korea and Germany, accompanied by crippling reparations from Germany and a withdrawal of American troops and nuclear weapons from Europe and East Asia. NATO offers a permament ceasefire, followed by withdrawal of Allied and Pact troops from Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, China, the Kola Peninsula and Iran, and free elections in Poland and Iran to determine the shape of future governments there.

At a ceremony in Philadelphia, the heavy cruiser Salem is recommissioned after over 37 years in mothballs and a nearly year-long reactivation and modernization. The refit fitted new radar, communications and electronic warfare equipment, removed the remaining 3-inch guns, added four Phalanx CIWS anti-missile systems, four Harpoon missile launchers and support for SH-2 and SH-60 helicopters. The ship was also outfitted for female crewmembers, over 150 of whom join the ship's complement.

First Far Eastern Front launches a desperate effort to halt the Chinese offensive. All available artillery and aircraft are thrown into a massive chemical attack along the length and breadth of the Chinese salients, with the 13th Guards Airborne Division dropped on top of the 24th Group Army headquarters. Front-line motor-rifle units are ordered to retreat to alternative fighting positions to the rear, bringing the Chinese infantry out to seize the abandoned positions (and opening them to chemical attack). The Soviets pay a heavy price for this effort, losing dozens of transport aircraft and helicopters, artillery batteries and attack aircraft.

Similar to their Polish opponents, troops of the British RAF Regiment, charged with defending British airbases in Germany, press a pair of partially destroyed captured Soviet ZSU-23-4 anti-aircraft guns and numbers of captured 12.7mm and 14.5mm machineguns into service to defend RAF Gutersloh and other forward airbases.

3 Commando Brigade and 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade have landed most of their troops and many supplies in Teriberka, east of Murmansk and are preparing to break out from their beachead.

No. 35 Squadron, RAF follows its compatriots of No. 21 Squadron in deploying Jaguar attack bombers to Thumrait, Oman.

The first R-5D Aurora hypersonic spy plane mission overflies the USSR from west to east, passing over the Pletesk space center, industrial facilities in western Siberia and the Urals, ICBM fields and mobile missile garrisons in eastern Siberia and traffic on the Baikal-Amur Mainline railroad before splashing down off the coast of southern California.

All Soviet military personnel in Cuba have moved to the Mariel enclave, which the news media promptly nicknames "Guantanamo II". Cuban authorities arrange for the continued movement of Soviet equipment and supplies to the enclave from elsewhere on the island. The USSR, unhappy with the decision but with its plate full in many other areas, limits its response to cutting off economic aid to Cuba. (The practical effect of that was minimal, since Soviet commerce with Cuba was cut off by the war).

The Soviet raider Buliny passes into the Indian Ocean south of the Cape of Good Hope, hoping to continue the rampage of allied and neutral shipping and further diluting NATO naval power.

Two of the Soviet destroyers that broke out of Petropavlovsk earlier in the month rendevous and speed towards the isolated American outpost of Midway, scene of the turning point of the war in the Pacific in 1942. The destroyers work over the airfield with their 100mm guns.