[chico20854]

January 24, 1998

Nothing official for the day.

Congress, surviving members of which have been gathered at the Greenbriar Resort in western Virginia, has still failed to reach a quorum. The Speaker, watching the supplies at the luxury complex rapidly depleting and members drift away to attend to their districts, declares the House of Representatives adjourned. The Senate follows a few hours later, and America's elected representatives begin to disperse into the chaos outside the gates. A lucky few members are able to convince Capitol Police officers to accompany them, their firepower being traded for the priority access to food that the member presumably exercises.

17th Air Force headquarters in Germany is rapidly coming to the conclusion that there are few remaining air bases available to use. Several bases were overrun by Soviet and Italian troops in Bavaria, Bitburg, Sembach and several others (as well as all of RAF Germany's) were struck by Soviet nuclear weapons and most of the remaining USAF bases in Germany were west of the Rhine and are now lost to the French. The remaining Ground-Launch Cruise Missile fleet (from the squadrons based in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands) have been assembled in the woods and hills north of Frankfurt being rapidly occupied by US Army support units, and the day sees the first of several C-130 flights, escorted by armed USAF F-16s, carrying remaining B61 nuclear bombs out of American and Luftwaffe bases in the occupied zone.

The 254th Motor-Rifle Division, a veteran prewar Category A division that started the war stationed in Hungary before participating in the Romanian and Austrian-Bavarian campaigns, is brought forward from a reserve position in Austria, assigned to reinforce 21st Army in northwestern Austria.

The California City Freedom, on its maiden voyage using a scratch crew (the ship was delivered in early December), arrives in Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island to load cargo from surviving military production in New England. Three new UH-60 helicopters are flown aboard from the Sikorski plant in Connecticut, three containers containing nearly 800 Stinger missiles are loaded along with several dozen containers with complete engines and spares for F/A-18s and A-10s from a plant outside Boston. Other ammunition loaded aboard includes several containers of small arms ammunition in Pact-standard calibers (7.62x39, 7.62x54, 12.7x108 and 14.5x114mm) manufactured in Connecticut under contract to the Chinese Army. The largest prize is loaded aboard the vehicle deck, eight LAV-25s (also originally ordered by the Chinese and produced at the reactivated GM plant at Framingham) as well as an inoperable M-47 tank salvaged from a VFW post in Rhode Island. A cargo that will help the tanks already in Europe remain operating, two dozen complete M-1 tank engines and several containers of parts, has also been assembled from the plant in Connecticut, which continued producing the engines faster than the remaining tank plant (in Detroit) could install them in new tanks. Finally, a wide array of small arms from New England's arms makers are loaded aboard.