[chico20854]

only one more update after this one... I'm posting faster than I can write!

V Corps in the Old South

V Corps returned from Europe to Mobile, Alabama. Composed of the 1st Infantry Brigade, 3rd Armored Brigade, 6th Infantry Brigade, 308th Civil Affairs Brigade and 7th Naval Construction Regiment, V Corps reinforced XIX Corps, nominally subordinate to 5th Army headquartered in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. In reality, XIX Corps was independent, as it had been over a year since the last patrols from XIX Corps and XIII Corps from Fort Sill had met. Nonetheless, 5th Army tried to maintain portions of a secure route along the Lower Mississippi River and contain the Civgov enclaves in Georgia, the Carolinas and Florida. Following their success against the Texian National Legion in 1999, XIX Corps fell back to the Mississippi River and east into Alabama. Accordingly, XIX Corps deployed roughly along the Interstate 65 corridor in central Alabama, linking the Gulf of Mexico with the Tennessee River. Connection to the Mississippi River was maintained by patrols and escorted convoys along Interstate 20 to Vicksburg, Mississippi. Upstream of Vicksburg, Milgov maintained outposts at Memphis (197th Infantry Brigade) and Cairo, Illinois (194th Armored Brigade). Marauders blocked the overland route from Memphis to the rest of 5th Army along Interstate 40, and reports trickled in during the spring of 2001 of a disciplined armed force operating in northern Arkansas.

A major impediment to travel along the Mississippi River was the effects of an unnamed hurricane that struck the Gulf Coast in August 1998. The combination of 150 mph winds and a 27-foot storm surge, accompanied by over 30 inches of rain and dozens of tornadoes wrecked havoc on the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf coasts. Following the devastation from nuclear strikes in the suburbs of New Orleans, on the capital city of Baton Rouge and refineries four other cities in Louisiana the storm was the final element in the breakdown of society along the central Gulf Coast. The cities of New Orleans, Gulfport and Biloxi were essentially destroyed, and the remnants of the local, state and federal governments, already broken by the nuclear exchange, were unable to provide any relief or reconstruction. The flooding of the Lower Mississippi River following the hurricane dug a new exit for the Mississippi River near Morgan City (which was wiped out by the storm), west of the pre-storm exit. Lake Pontchartrain flooded into the city of New Orleans, destroying most of it, and the change in the route of the Mississippi left the water by New Orleans' docks a stagnant backwater no longer connected to the Gulf of Mexico. Interstate 10, which ran along the Gulf Coast, was washed away in dozens of places and had miles of bridges and causeways destroyed. The offshore oil and gas infrastructure - rigs, platforms, pipelines and terminal facilities - were damaged. Repair could have come had there been workers, but the scope of the damage was so great and government support so feeble that the vital infrastructure, both onshore and offshore, was simply abandoned. The wave of refugees from communities along coastal Louisiana and Mississippi fleeing the storm, for which there was no warning due to the breakdown of the weather tracking and reporting system in the wake of the nuclear exchange, in most cases was too much for inland communities to withstand. Casualties from disease, starvation, crime and civil strife in the area were massive, and shortly after the storm much of the southern half of Louisiana and Mississippi was depopulated. The remnants of state government in Louisiana (always among the least competent in the US in peacetime) collapsed entirely, unable to deal with the chaos and demands imposed by nuclear strikes on the four largest cities, including the state capital, and the aftermath of the storm.

In the inland area of Mississippi islands of order remained around the Milgov cantonments at Camp Shelby (held by the XIX Corps HQ and two regiments of the Mississippi State Guard), Jackson (where the governor and remnants of the State Police were reinforced with troops from the 85th Infantry Division) and Vicksburg (held by the main body of the 85th Infantry Division and a force of SeeBees evacuated from Gulfport, operating under the banner of the 6th Naval Construction Regiment). The cantonments were under heavy pressure and unable to do more than maintain patrols along the major highways between each other. The backwoods and northern half of Mississippi saw nothing but privation, anarchy and despair, while northern Louisiana was slowly infiltrated by marauder bands, some of which pledged allegiance to the Texian National Legion or, it was later discovered, New America.

Prior to the arrival of V Corps, XIX Corps was slowly withering away. The anarchy in the pinewoods of Mississippi and Louisiana meant that food was scarce, replacements (obtained entirely by drafting the young from refugee camps or at roadblocks and checkpoints) meager and material support from Milgov non-existent. A sense of hopelessness began to settle in among the Army troops (the Marine Brigade in Mobile exhibited extremely high levels of motivation), and desertion began to become a problem. Despite these difficulties, XIX Corps had several valuable assets. First, there was limited electrical service in Alabama from the Farley nuclear power plant near Dothan (just a few miles from Fort Rucker and guarded by its troops), the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant west of Huntsville (secured by troops of the 59th Ordnance Brigade) and the Guntersville Dam, also near Huntsville. Experts from the 59th used power generated by the dam's turbines to restart Browns Ferry reactor one, which had been offline since 1985 and had its control systems disassembled, shielding it from EMP. Technicians were painstakingly rewiring the control systems of the other two reactors at Browns Ferry. Meanwhile, the Farley plant had restarted in the summer of 1999 with the assistance of technicians and engineers from military units throughout southern Alabama. Another valuable asset XIX Corps had was control of Fort McClellan and the adjacent Anniston Army Depot. Anniston was one of the Army's major armored vehicle overhaul and repair facilities as well as its primary storehouse for excess and obsolete small arms, so XIX Corps retained control of over 2 million rifles, pistols, submachineguns and machineguns. In addition, the fields of Anniston were filled with battle-damaged tanks, artillery and APCs. Gradually, XIX Corps was able to coax some of the former repair workers from Aniston to return to work in a makeshift facility that combined tools and equipment from several of the abandoned and fought-over shops on the post. While there was no supply of new spare parts, the fields of damaged armored vehicles provided an endless supply of spare parts. It was a painstaking process, but by the time V Corps returned from Europe the workers of Anniston had managed to get a dozen tanks, a handful of SP guns and 20 APCs operational. Ammunition and fuel for the armored vehicles was short, but the psychological advantage of operable, massed heavy armor was not to be easily dismissed.

The final asset XIX Corps had was control of the city of Mobile, Alabama. The city remained intact despite the hurricanes that had ripped apart the Gulf Coast to its east and west. A major industrial area and general-purpose port, Mobile hosted an oil refinery (74,000 barrels per day), two major shipyards, a plastic plant and miles of docks and wharves. The city was garrisoned by troops from the 2nd Marine "Raider" Brigade, a composite unit formed from Marine Corps garrison troops from stations, bases and posts around the southeast and equipped from the USMC war reserve stockpile at Albany, Georgia. Also present in Mobile was a sizeable naval fleet centered on the USS Lexington and elements of her battle group. The Lexington was recommissioned shortly after the outbreak of war to train additional naval aviators, but following the breakout of Soviet raiders into the Atlantic and Caribbean she was pressed into service to patrol the Caribbean with a scratch air wing, mostly composed of A-4 aircraft and instructors that had been training Chinese pilots. After several successful raider hunts she suffered an engineering casualty and was towed to Mobile for repairs. The repairs were never completed following the TDM, as the repair required replacement parts from one of Lexington's museum ship sisters. Lexington's escorts were placed on convoy escort duty, while her crew manned the museum ship USS Alabama's 16-inch guns to protect the city and served ashore in a variety of relief and reconstruction tasks.

As a result of the operable port facility and potential for both success (if reinforced) or collapse (if not reinforced), JCS made the decision to bring the reformed V Corps back from Europe to Mobile. The troops of V Corps could restore order to the backwoods of Mississippi, secure additional industrial facilities and power plants in northern Alabama, and most importantly, work to restore a viable waterborne transportation route to and from the Mississippi River (and, by extension, the Midwest and Great Plains). The armored vehicles recovered from Anniston and a detachment of helicopters from Fort Rucker (grounded following the TDM for want of fuel) were assigned to VII Corps, which came ashore and trained in the Mobile vicinity for several weeks before moving on to Texas (detailed below). XIX Corps' eastern border with Civgov was relatively stable, so upon arrival V Corps moved north and west to restore order and a connection to the Mississippi River. The 6th Infantry Brigade moved to Camp Shelby, Mississippi to reinforce XIX Corps headquarters and free one of the State Guard regiments to patrol the highways to the west of Hattiesburg leading to Natchez. The 6th also patrolled south and southwest towards the gulf coast. The 3rd Armored Brigade moved further northwest, to Greenville, Mississippi, to establish patrols on both sides of the river and set the stage for spring planting in the fertile agricultural land of the Mississippi River bottomlands.

The 1st Infantry Brigade drew the toughest mission - to move by barge and boat up the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway - a barge canal that connected the Tennessee River to the Gulf of Mexico - restoring the dams along the way, and establish a headquarters in Tupelo, Mississippi to begin restoring order to northeastern Mississippi. Opening of the waterway (popularly known as the Tenn-Tom) would provide a route to move barges (carrying grain, coal, oil or other bulk commodities) to and from the Ohio, Missouri and Upper Mississippi river basins, restoring the waterborne transportation route that was lost when the Mississippi River changed course. In this movement, the 1st was providing security for troops from the 7th Naval Construction Regiment, who performed the heavy construction and repair on the waterway's facilities. In addition, the 1st Infantry Brigade was able to perform a vital duty - relieving the beleaguered 14th Security Police Squadron and other airmen of Columbus Air Force Base. Columbus, home of the 14th Flying Training Wing, had not only its normally assigned T-37 and T-38 trainer aircraft, but also a mix of training and tactical aircraft from along the Gulf Coast who had fled there to avoid hurricanes. Most importantly for Milgov, however, it hosted a cell of four B-52G bombers and their attendant KC-135 tankers, dispersed from Barksdale AFB, with a full complement of nuclear-tipped air launched cruise missiles and nuclear gravity bombs, awaiting restoration of reliable communications from national command authorities as to their next mission. Knowing the bomber's importance to the nation, the base commander hoarded the facility's stock of JP-8, with over 500,000 gallons on hand - enough for the BUFFs to fly two round-trip missions to Moscow. From the beginning of 1998 until the arrival of the 1st Infantry Brigade, the 14th Flying Training Wing ceased all operations not related to either producing food and other necessities or securing the B-52s and their cargo. Fortunately, the base's perimeter was only probed a handful of times by passing marauder bands - the locals knew better than to approach the base and its nervous and trigger-happy defenders. The colonel commanding the base, seeing his dream of retirement finally coming true (command of the wing and base had traditionally been a final pre-retirement assignment for colonels who would never become generals), was bitterly disappointed to discover that the 1st Infantry Brigade did not have direct contact with the JCS and, that when the Joint Chiefs learned of the bombers and their cargo of weapons (and mass of fuel) they ordered the bombers to remain in place until further orders were issued.

1st Infantry Brigade's advance to Tupelo was a slow and difficult journey. Six of the dams along the Tenn-Tom had been damaged and needed the locks rebuilt, a task that took almost six weeks per dam. (Work proceeded simultaneously, so that the process took a little over five months). The brigade's logistic support moved by barge (escorted by armed tugs and small craft), limiting the range of the infantry operating shoreside. Resistance was surprisingly heavy, coming from the odd New America cell, right-wing extremist gangs (armed remnants of the KKK) and desperate farmers who were afraid that the reestablished government wanted nothing more than to confiscate their meager crops. Upon arrival at Tupelo, the brigade was forced to lay siege to the town to depose a local warlord and Elvis impersonator named Elvis The Second or "The Second King" (Tupelo was the birthplace of Elvis Presley) and his criminal militia, the Sons of the State Line Mob. The town fell after six weeks of deprivation for the civilian population, although State Line sympathizers maintained a low-level resistance movement in the area for years afterwards. The population of Tupelo was overwhelmingly hostile to the Army, requiring 1st Brigade to impose a curfew and actively patrol the town. In encounters between the criminals and the Army, the battle-hardened European veterans routinely defeated the criminals with minimal loss, but the soldiers were limited in their ability to pursue the fleeing gangsters by low numbers and a dearth of vehicles and fuel for them and further expansion of Milgov control was slowed by the lack of friendly troops to perform security missions for travel on the highways, requiring the infantrymen to carry out patrols rather than expand into adjacent counties.

Further to the west, the 3rd Armored Brigade faced less resistance. The Mississippi Delta, one of the richest farming areas in North America, had suffered severely following the nuclear exchange. The flood control system along the Mississippi River had deteriorated, and the damage from the resultant flooding had not been repaired. The agricultural economy had changed in the decades after the Second World War, with ever more large corporate farmers replacing the small landholdings and sharecropping that had dominated since the Civil War. Mechanized farming required less labor, and the Mississippi Delta suffered from a steady decrease in population. When the supply of petroleum, spare parts and fertilizer stopped food production, like elsewhere, collapsed. The poor and mostly black local population extended their traditional hospitality to refugees from the cities and Gulf Coast, but the refugees were totally unfamiliar with farming, leaving food production to those older locals who remembered the old ways of farming. Many refugees starved in the first years following the nuclear exchange, and the farmers were under constant pressure from bandits that roamed the roads and rivers. By the time Milgov troops arrived the surviving population was much depleted and very willing to support Milgov in its attempt to restore order. To protect the farmers from raids by desperate refugees and bandits, roads were patrolled and an organized food distribution system was established. Milgov civil affairs troops worked with local leaders to restore functioning local government and to organize the surviving refugees into labor, security and transport units to augment the 3rd Armored. While electrical power was not restored (the local plants relied on natural gas or coal from outside the state) life in the Mississippi Delta improved substantially in the spring and summer of 2001. Of vital importance was the repair of the levees along the Mississippi, a task led by SeeBees of the 27th Naval Mobile Construction Battalion and augmented by the combined labor of locals, refugees and soldiers. While the 3rd Armored had arrived in Greenville after the planting of the spring crop, the community organization, levee repair and increase in security set the stage for the Mississippi Delta to perform as the breadbasket of the southeast in 2002.

With the cooperation of the local population, the 3rd Armored Brigade was able to quickly eliminate the majority of marauder bands operating in the counties surrounding Greenville. The Brigade's reconnaissance troop began to send long-range patrols out to the north and west, establishing sporadic contact with the 197th Infantry Brigade at Memphis and with the Milgov-friendly Arkansas state government in Little Rock. Covert long-range patrols scouted as far west as Texarkana and the ruins of Shreveport, locating the outer pickets of the Texian Legion in the woods of East Texas. The majority of the brigade's patrolling efforts, however, were concentrated on establishing a Milgov presence along the major roads leading to the other Milgov cantonments in Memphis, Tupelo, Jackson and Vicksburg, gradually fanning farther from the main road and rail lines as banditry was driven deeper into the forests of northern Mississippi.

In the south, the 6th Infantry Brigade established its headquarters at Camp Shelby and began to expand the area under Milgov's control. With the backing of the 6th's regulars, the guardsmen of the Mississippi 2nd State Guard Regiment became more aggressive in their patrols, clearing Interstate 59 north and east to Meridian. The 6th, meanwhile, sent task forces west and south to establish clear lines of communications with Natchez and the Gulf Coast, respectively. In this effort they were hindered by the massive damage inflicted by the hurricane of August 1998. Downed trees blocked many of the roads and power and telephone lines were likewise downed by the storm. Efforts were initially made to transport the downed trees to sawmills for use as lumber for the reconstruction effort, but it was quickly discovered that less precious fuel was consumed if fresh timber from near the sawmill was used, rather than moving heavy logs miles on scarce heavy trucks. The fuel shortage slowed tree clearing considerably as gangs of troops and civilian volunteers (in reality, press-ganged civilians from the refugee camps in and around Camp Shelby) manually cleared roads with axe, saw and flame. By the end of the summer of 2001, troops of the 6th had reached the Gulf Coast at Gulfport and were within 20 miles of Natchez, having cleared major stretches of Interstate 59 and U.S. Routes 49, 84 and 98. During this period the troops also restored order to the areas between these roads, resulting in effective Milgov control of the entire state south and west of Jackson and Hattiesburg. With assistance of the engineer battalion of the 2nd Raider Brigade from Mobile the 6th was able to open the port of Gulfport. The cranes, warehouses, power and water supplies had been destroyed, but the harbor was cleared to a depth of 36 feet (after the removal of a wrecked Liberian freighter) - deep enough to dock any naval ship up to cruiser size or a 250,000-barrel tanker. Within a week, Milgov deployed the destroyer tender USS Yellowstone to Gulfport to provide berthing, electrical power, drinking water and machine shop support to troops ashore. The Yellowstone also brought along a crew of approximately 500 sailors from Task Force 34 ships tied up in Mobile Bay. These sailors, like their brethren around the world, soon found themselves engaged in relief and reconstruction tasks ashore.

By Christmas, 2001 V Corps was able to report to the JCS that the states of Alabama and Mississippi were mostly under Milgov control. Civilian travel along the main highways was once again safe, the Tenn-Tom waterway had been reopened and begun moving barges (under escort) through to the Mississippi and Tennessee rivers. The Mississippi State Guard had been trained and equipped so that they could assume responsibility for internal security. This left V Corps' 3rd Armored Brigade, 6th Infantry Brigade and all but one battalion of the 1st Infantry Brigade available to move across Louisiana and engage the Texian Legion in the spring of 2002.

For V Corps, an economic long-term goal, which demanded restoration of natural gas production (and renovation of the gas distribution network), was the reopening of Alabama's steel mills - the mini-mills in Birmingham, Decatur and Tuscaloosa, and the integrated steel mill at Gadsden, with the ability to turn out over four million tons of steel a year. The restoration of natural gas production would also allow electrical service to be restored through all areas of the region. Fortunately, the mouth of Mobile Bay was a productive gas field before the nuclear exchange. In late 2001, a team of petroleum engineers and rig operating personnel were flown into Mobile from CENTCOM (via a long airbridge operated by the 53rd Aerial Port Squadron) to bring the gas field back online. The drill rig Cecil Brown, laid up in Mobile Bay during the war, had been reactivated in the Mobile shipyards, and by February 2002 there was a trickle of natural gas flowing ashore. It would be another six months until the pipelines to Tuscaloosa were repaired and another year of repair, retraining and organization until the first of the steel mills began production. Throughout 2002 and 2003 the electricity in Alabama and eastern Mississippi came back on for a few hours each day, demonstrating to the civilian population that Milgov was bringing American life closer to normal.

In the fall of 2001 XIX Corps and V Corps faced a new problem - the growing threat presented by New America from both east and west. August saw New America defeat the self-proclaimed "Sea Lord of Jacksonville", and in September New America sympathizers in the 108th Infantry Division and 35th Engineer carried out a coup d'etat, delivering most of Georgia and the Carolinas to New America, leaving the extremist organization in control of the eastern seaboard from south of Norfolk to the Florida panhandle and the interior areas from the coast to deep into the Appalachians. While the rare encounters between Civgov and Milgov troops in eastern Alabama had been tense but peaceful, New America patrols uniformly clashed with Milgov patrols and began to raid forward outposts of XIX Corps. In the west, numerous reconnaissance teams attached to the 197th Infantry Brigade from Memphis disappeared in northern Arkansas before a team composed of European veterans identified a major New America cell in the Ozarks. The New America threat was one that could not be addressed solely by V and XIX Corps - the guidance of the JCS was needed to coordinate Milgov operations. In the meantime, V Corps' mission was to link up overland with VII Corps.