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Old 09-21-2022, 04:05 PM
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chico20854 chico20854 is offline
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September 5, 1997

With the UK completely committed in Europe, the Middle East and China, Kenya appeals to the US to commit substantial forces to aid them in their fight against the various invading forces and seaborne commerce raiders. The US government, although already deeply mired in Europe and facing the specter of all out nuclear war on the horizon, decides that Kenya was too valuable an ally to lose, especially as its naval and air bases are considered essential for defending the convoys bringing supplies to the RDF and vitally needed oil to the US. The President directs the Joint Chiefs to divert units currently tasked as reinforcements for the RDF to Kenya, with the first units to be air deployed immediately.

Unofficially,

The Governor of New York places his militia forces (the New York Guard, the New York Naval Militia and the Veteran Corps of Artillery) on alert for possible civil and security duties as the nuclear conflict continues around the world.

At Great Lakes Naval Station, Illinois, Rodney Cutler is one of 250 graduates from his recruit training company. Cutler receives orders for Brownsville, Texas, where he will be assigned to the pre-commissioning unit for the amphibious assault ship Makin Island, which is currently a mass of steel over 500 feet long and seven stories high sitting in a dusty bayou bank.

Despite hours of debate in the House of Commons and heated opposition, the Conscription Bill is passed (by a narrow margin) in the early morning hours.

The 23rd Infantry Division, surrounded in the mountains of North Korea, is attacked at dusk from all sides after another day of intense artillery bombardment. The attack is led by waves of dismounted infantry, largely the remnants of North Korean army and militia units forced into service under the guns of their so-called Soviet allies. The American infantry largely defeat the attack, although one battalion, the 1st Battalion, 46th Infantry, is destroyed when North Korean infiltrators overrun its headquarters and a night of fierce, uncoordinated actions in the dark lead to three of the companies being overrun, with the loss of over 350 men. The night's action depletes the division's ammunition supplies; while successful, the 23rd has expended so much ammunition that another attack of that scale will exhaust the supplies, rendering the division's mortars and machineguns worthless.

VI German Korps, vulnerable to being cut off by Soviet tank armies, withdraws from Lublin, setting the central city afire before departing. The main body of the American XI Corps reaches the Wisla at Tarnobrzeg as the evacuation of rear area units picks up pace. To its north VII US Corps begins withdrawing across the Wisla at Sandomierz, under the air defense umbrella provided by the 69th Air Defense Artillery Brigade. Panzergruppe Oberdorff moves northwest, trying to prevent the 1st Guards Tank Army from cutting off the German force evacuating Lublin; the 5th Infantry Division's artillery contributes to this by striking the lead Soviet tank regiment's headquarters (located by a hovering EH-60 ELINT helicopter) with a prompt tactical nuclear strike.

The German freighter Herm Kiepe is delivered in Hamburg. It sails immediately to Canada to load munitions and containerized grain, the crew of the 13,000-ton ship eager to clear the port, a potential target for Soviet missiles and bombs.

The USAF 102nd Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron withdraws from Trapani Birgi Air Base in Sicily, returning to its prior base in Gibraltar.

Italian, Hungarian and Soviet troops along the northern Jugoslav border receive increased allocations of fuel and munitions, part of the windfall from the collapse of the Chinese front, while commanders gather at a resort on Lake Balaton to discuss the next steps in the Balkan theater.

Fifth Fleet receives reassurances from the owners of the giant drydock in Dubai that they are nearing completion of the repairs to the supertanker Starlight Gigant, damaged by a Soviet anti-ship missile in June, and that the drydock will then be available for repairs to the damaged USS Independence. The American carrier is anchored in Muscat, Oman with torpedo damage, and the dock in Dubai is the only undamaged one in the region able to accomodate the carrier. (The large dock in Bahrain was damaged by Soviet missiles in April).

In Iran, the 48th Infantry Brigade continues its spoiling attack against the 108th Motor-Rifle Division, forcing the commitment of the Soviet 285th Tank Regiment's T-74s to seal off a break in the front line between the 177th and 181st MRRs.

To the north, the Soviet 4th Army pressures the Iranian I Corps, trying to drive a wedge between XVIII Airborne Corps' dual centers, at Bandar-e-Khomeyni and Bushehr; the US 24th Infantry Division is tied down by a probe launched by the 7th Army. In both these actions, the absence of the 6th ACCB, rebuilding in Saudi Arabia, is keenly felt as the depleted 9th Air Force struggles to maintain air defense, provide close air support and interdict Soviet supply lines over such a vast theater at the end of such a long supply line, with only a fraction of the aircraft it was supposed to have available.
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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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