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Old 04-18-2022, 02:55 PM
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chico20854 chico20854 is offline
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April 16, 1997

In Boston, an enterprising reporter gets an anonymous source to do a live interview. The woman details how the area refineries had been instructed by the federal government to crack all processable crude into the highest possible proportions of naval light fuel oil and aviation fuels for shipment overseas. The result is that reserves of heating oil and civilian fuels (which were to be replenished by the supplies on the Universe Carolina) are now very short. The area is moving into summer, and the heating oil shortage will not be severe, but the sudden shortage of automotive gasoline and diesel fuel causes considerable unrest. While the rest of the nation can drive where it wanted, New England feel discriminated against. Conditions remain fairly calm everywhere but Boston.

Convoy 214 arrives in Ulsan, Korea, carrying troops and equipment of the 45th Infantry Division.

The fire at the Dwory State Chemical Works near Oswiecim results in a cloud of deadly fumes from the destruction that kills or drives off much of the region's original population and kills much of the local wildlife.

Unofficially,

The tanker Salomonie is delivered in Baltimore, Maryland and put into naval service as the USNS Salomonie, T-AOT-206.

XXIII Corps Headquarters is activated at Fort Snelling, Minnesota from the the 86th and 88th ARCOMs.

In Poland, troops of the German VII Korps make progress along the junction between the 1st Polish Army and 2nd Guards Tank Army, which is facing the Germans to its northwest and the British to its southwest. The Pact troops fall back, leaving the town of Chojna to be captured by the 27th Panzer Division.

Advent Storm deep strike aircraft return to the Pokoj Steel Works in Bytom, Poland. Polish anti-aircraft guns down a pair of British Tornado strike aircraft from No. 16 Squadron.

Operation Sandstorm continues in Libya. Ashore in Tripoli, American marines of the 8th Marine Expeditionary Brigade make a concentrated push to the leadership compound on the southwest side of the city, bypassing most of the city's urban area. The M1s of the accompanying C Company, 2nd Tank Battalion quickly blast holes in the compound's formidable defenses, fiercely defended by fanatical loyalists. Helicopters bring in more troops, and Harriers operating from the assault ships offshore (and naval gunfire by escorting destroyers) help the advance. By dusk the surface and buildings of Colonel Qaddafi's palace has been overrun, but the leader and many of his most loyal lieutenants have slipped away into an extensive tunnel network that stretches underneath the teeming city. Offshore, the American sub Hyman G Rickover hits a mine after inserting a SEAL team in the Gulf of Sidra. The sub is forced to head to NS Rota, Spain for repairs. The escorting attack submarine USS Batfish is sunk by a Libyan patrol boat in the Gulf of Sidra.

The 180th Motor-Rifle Division enters the lines in central Bulgaria, facing Turkish troops in the rugged Balkan Mountains.

The helicopters of the 9th Infantry Division's Aviation Brigade conduct their first post-voyage shakedown check flights.

Soviet Naval Aviation Tu-22Ms and Frontal Aviation MiG-27s attack one of the two drydocks in Middle East capable of docking an aircraft carrier. The raid on the Arab Ship Repair Yard in Bahrain is successful in destroying the gates, flooding the dock (with a mine-damaged tanker inside it, which flooded as well, preventing the fire which started aboard from spreading ashore).

An artillery duel erupts along the Indian-Pakistani border in Kashmir. A Pakistani round strikes an Indian command post, killing a colonel, three of his staff officers and 14 soldiers.

The Soviet destroyer Vol'nyy, in the South China Sea, is ordered to attack Allied shipping located by the Tu-95 the previously day. The captain is given the number of enemy ships (12), their plotted location, course and speed but is pointedly NOT told that five of the dozen ships are escorts. Capitan Second Rank Frolov waits until sunset to begin his aged ship's high-speed approach to the ANZAC-escorted convoy, pressing his chief engineer to squeeze every know of speed from the 40-year old turbines. Cranking an impressive 31 knots (sending up a long cloud of dense black smoke), the Soviet destroyer closes on the Allied task force. An alert watchman aboard HMNZS Canterbury sees the smoke cloud and a SH-2G Seasprite helicopter is launched to investigate. The helo's radar immediately locates the Soviet destroyer and the contact information is shared amongst the escorts. The convoy commander orders an immediate missile attack, and within five minutes four Harpoon missiles are in flight, while flight deck crews scramble to fit anti-ship missiles to the frigates' helicopters. That proves unneccessary, as the ship-launched missiles are enough to tear the aged Soviet destroyer apart. The helicopters instead are launched to rescue survivors. Four of the eight destroyers that broke out of Petropavlovsk on March 10 are still at large.
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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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