[chico20854]

May 12, 1997

The canon is silent on today. Unofficially,

The container-barge carrier Macau Carrier is delivered in Quincy, Massachusetts. The craft, while civilian manned, is assigned to the US Navy's Military Sealift Command to support amphibious operations since it is designed to deploy barges from its open stern.

2nd Brigade, 50th Armored Division (New Jersey National Guard) completes Rotation 97-7 at NTC-3 at the Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona and is declared combat ready.

1st Battalion, The Royal Welch Fusiliers departs Northern Ireland for the UK, again in preparation for service in Poland.

Colonel Oleg Tumanski's spetsnaz team in the UK attempts a raid on the RAF airbase at Coltishall in Norfolk, England, home of the Jaguar attack aircraft force. Unfortunately, most of the Jaguars are deployed to Germany or Oman, leaving behind a robust security force composed of RAF Regiment "Rock Apes" and augmentees from the base's command, administrative and support staff. The team succeeds in blowing a hole in the perimeter fencing, but loses the first three men though the gap to well-placed machinegun fire. The remaining members of the team retreat, leaving the dead men in the breach.

Because the B-52’s arsenal does not include antiradar missiles, USAF planners use the brute-force approach. Nine B-52s from the 320th Bomb Wing conduct near-simultaneous cluster-bomb attacks against three major North Korean radar facilities defending the western approaches to Pyongyang. The explosions from 88,000 orange-sized bomblets shredded and silence each site.

The Dutch 2nd Marine Combat Group launches another raid on the Dutch Red Army, killing another six terrorists.

German panzergrenadiers of the First German Army arrive on the outskirts of Poznań, where resistance is fierce. The garrison of the city consists of officer cadets from the Armored Forces School, OTK, WOW, ORMO and ZOMO militia and many of the fixed elements of the Polish Army’s support structure as well as the remnants of the 9th Mechanized Division, reinforced with BMP-2s fresh off the production line at the factory next to the airport on the western edge of the city. Overhead, Chorzow's military industry is targeted by NATO airpower.

The 1169th Engineer Group (Combat) (Alabama National Guard) is declared operational in Germany and is initially attached to 7th Army, assigned to improve the infrastructure needed to sustain the NATO advance into Poland.

In the Balkans, the Turkish V Corps pauses to regroup, transferring the battered 8th Infantry Division to a reserve position to rebuild. On the other side of the line, the Soviet 58th Army pauses to reorganize, while the Bulgarian high command rushes construction units to restore the road and rail lines that the invading Turks had overrun.

The 101st Air Assault Division establishes a continuous, somewhat secure ground route between the shores of the Gulf and its forward brigade in Ardakan. The division's patrols are mopping up the last remnants of the 105th Guards Air Assault Division and their Tudeh allies, and the division's mobility and position northwest of Shiraz present a threat to the Soviet troops closing on the Iranian capital.

All along the front, Transcaucasian Front launches attacks to try to secure ground before XVIII Airborne Corps can consolidate its positions and link up with their IPA allies.

The 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment (Light) begins screening operations, sending mounted patrols out north from Khorramshahr to secure the approaches to the northern Persian Gulf.

Convoy 140 continues its transit of the North Atlantic. The USS Enterprise carrier battle group appears on the horizon to the south of the convoy, while the Saratoga battle group sails ahead to the northeast and the Dwight D Eisenhower battle group, steaming at 25 knots, gains on the convoy from the southwest.