[chico20854]

December 18, 1997

A New America scouting team scouts the ruins of Blytheville Air Force Base, Arkansas but turns back due to high levels of radiation.

After a brief power struggle, a former longshoreman and small-time hood named Max Graciano assumes control of New York's Harbor Pirates.

Unofficially,

After receiving word from CIA briefers that a Syrian tanker was recently sighted entering the Bosphorus, President Munson authorizes nuclear strikes on Syrian targets. Communications cannot be established with Sixth Fleet or the NATO air base at Incirlik in Turkey from the bunker he is sheltering in (which has less robust equipment than Mount Weather), so the order is executed with a strike by a Trident I SLBM from the USS Henry L Stimson, patrolling west of Spain. The seven MIRVs which function (one fails) strike the refineries at Homs and Baniyas (one warhead each) and the ports and Soviet naval bases at Latakia (two warheads) and Tartus (three).

SAC's systematic dismantlement of the Soviet ICBM force continues with a B-52H sortie over the Arctic. The bomber launches 14 ALCM missiles at the 14th Missile Division at Yoshkar Ola in the Mari El Republic of Russia. Three hours later a dozen of the missiles explode (two failed in flight), destroying the control sites for the division's SS-13 missiles, the division command post and the garrisons for its road-mobile SS-25 ICBMs.

The refineries at Rosemount and St. Paul Park, Minnesota are hit by MIRVs from a SLBM and destroyed.

The small convoy of the destroyer USS Morton, Houston Freedom and Westerbrook arrives off Honolulu, Hawaii. The destroyer pulls into Pearl Harbor for refuelling, while the freighters proceed to the commercial harbor to discharge cargo.

In western East Germany, III Corps' 21st Air Cavalry Combat Brigade is reorganized, taking the remnants of 3rd ACR's aviation squadron and consolidating into a single composite battalion, with attack, lift and assault companies (alongside the usual headquarters and support organizations). Due to the unit's shrunken size, there is an excess of support troops; the Corps G-1 (personnel officer) offers them to other units in the corps. Most are reassigned, although a few (mostly specialized helicopter and avionics technicians) are not needed in the corps, and they are offered to US Army Europe for reassignment.

A clash breaks out in western Siberia when the 156th (my 190th) Motor-Rifle Division, which revolted while on occupation duty in China, is confronted by the riot troopers of the MVD's 180th Separate Motorized Battalion in the Altai Mountains. The MVD troops make skillful use of their few anti-tank weapons (mostly RPG-7s, with a handful of aged AT-3 Sagger ATGMs) in blocking the rebel's progress, but are forced to give way when the full weight of the rebel artillery is brought to bear. Retreating on foot, most of the MVD troops are rounded up by the rebels and offered the choice of execution or joining the 190th in refusing certain death that would result from continuing to follow orders from "Moscow".