[chico20854]

September 23, 1997

Nothing in canon for today.

American authorities complete the stocking of another reserve stockpile, this one located in San Francisco's abandoned Fort Mason railroad tunnel. This is the city's second stockpile, following the covert positioning of thousands of tons of food, fuel and supplies on Alcatraz Island. These urban stockpiles are controversial within FEMA, who fear that they will be quickly discovered and looted by desperate residents.

South Korean troops from the 21st Infantry Division launch a midnight counterattack on the Soviet 30th Army, kicked off with a 20kt W-33 8-inch round fired from the USS Des Moines on the headquarters of the 266th Motor-Rifle Division's 430th Motor-Rifle Regiment, which had overextended itself in the prior day's assault on the city. The disorganized Soviet troops fall back in to their starting positions by dawn.

The US VII Corps commits its carefully husbanded reserve battalions to the defense of Neustadt an der Donau, while the German territorial command releases the 63rd Security Regiment (which had been relieved a week earlier by VII Corps) to once again bolster the defense of Ingolstadt. Soviet forces in the town gain almost 200 meters of territory in the day's fighting, while to the north the 15th Guards Tank Division is hampered by orders to leave the massive refinery complex intact and the fierce defense offered by the US 36th Infantry Division.

More generally, Pact forces in Europe begin to feel the bite from the severing of rail lines from the USSR. It has now been a week since Operation Barnyard Tiger severed the rail lines from the USSR and Soviet forces have largely expended the supplies they had on hand and that had already crossed the Nema-Bug-Dneister Rivers. Units that have not crossed the Wisla are ordered to remain in place, freeing fuel for other units and giving NATO forces temporary but well-needed breathing room.

A R-5D hypersonic spy plane, Airframe #4, is lost when one of the airplane's booster rockets detonates on ignition.

The German containership Herm Kiepe arrives in the small German port of Brunsbüttel, at the mouth of the Elbe and western end of the Kiel Canal. The ship's master is reluctant to risk the ship's safety by bringing her into a larger port.

The Indo-Pakistani War takes on more and more of an early 20th century character as both sides' armor and aviation assets are attrited away. Their main arms suppliers, the UK and USSR (for India) and China and the US (for Pakistan) have no munitions to spare for their clients and their domestic industries are by no means able to make up for the prodigious consumption of the fighting forces.