[chico20854]

September 19, 1997

The 184th Transportation Brigade is redesignated an infantry brigade and assigned assigned responsibility for security and distribution of foodstuffs in Federal Region III (Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware).

Unofficially,

Colonel Tumanksi's spetsnaz team relocates to a new safe house, an abandoned farmhouse in eastern Hertfordshire. They make the move in a stolen van, which is abandoned on the outskirts of Hertford.

Soviet and North Korean forces subject the city of Hamhung to a furious artillery barrage, hoping to reduce the number of Allied defenders. Persistent chemical agents and nuclear weapons are not used, lest the city's remaining industry and other resources be destroyed.

With Warsaw relieved, the Polish military begins to try to reorganize the battered defenders of Warsaw. The wounded are evacuated from the various makeshift facilities under the city, while combat forces are categorized into various classes, ranging from reassign as replacement to return to support duties. One wounded riot policeman, Captain Czarny, is dispatched to his hometown of Polutsk to recover from his wounds.

In Bavaria the battle for control of Ingolstadt intensifies as the remainder of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment arrives, supported by the guns of the 210th Field Artillery Brigade, relieving the battered German territorial garrison. They face the full weight of the 18th Guards Motor-Rifle Division, reinforced with 21st Army's 211th Guards Artillery Brigade, which launch a renewed assault at dusk. The Allied force holds off the Soviet attack, assisted by the timely intervention of a flight of A-10s from the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing.

In south-central Poland Soviet troops, celebrating crossing the Wisla after hard fighting driving NATO from the outskirts of Lvov, liberate a wine cellar in the town of Sandomierz. The celebration (as many do) gets out of hand, and by midnight a fire has broken out in the historic Sandomierz Castle, heavily damaging the historic structure. The Polish civil defense and fire forces respond and extinguish the fire, saving part of the structure.

The defense of Zagreb against attacking Italian forces disintegrates as increasing numbers of troops desert or go over to the Italian side, convinced by psy-ops efforts to join the nationalist cause in fighting for an independent Croatia.

The Italian San Marino marine brigade captures the Croatian port of Rijeka; the defending 13th Corps disintegrates as Jugoslavia seems to be disintegrating; the most aggressively commanded brigade had been lured out of the city to pursue a retreating Italian carabinieri force, an Italian feint to draw the Jugoslav mechanized force into open ground where Italian artillery and airpower could tear it apart.

Operation Golden Fleece - the 29th US Infantry Division (Maryland and Virginia National Guard) and detachment from the 4th Marine Division lands near Aden, South Yemen, supported by the guns of the USS Salem, and quickly captures the international airport, while 3rd Brigade's 1/175th Infantry parachutes on the nearby Al Anad airbase, fighting off fierce counterattacks from Yemeni and Soviet airmen and South Yemeni Army troops. The attack is the 29th's second amphibious assault, having been one of the lead divisions on Omaha Beach in 1944.

The Indian offensive in the south, which has cost over 25,000 casualties, begins to make progress. The Indian high command orders its expansion to the Kashmir sector.