June 11, 1997
In a move to bolster security within the US, the Army assigns several units local security and food distribution duties. the 184th Transportation Brigade (Mississippi National Guard) is assigned responsibility for security and distribution of foodstuffs in Military Regions II and III (Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware), while the 228th Signal Brigade (South Carolina National Guard) is assigned local security duties around Fort Meade, Maryland and the 194th Armored Brigade at Fort Knox, Kentucky is assigned disaster relief and security missions in Tennessee and Kentucky.
Unofficially,
The new head of the Soviet delegation to the peace talks arrives in New Delhi. His identity shocks the rest of the delegation, for Colonel General Oleg Kolesnikov has a reputation within the Red Army as a hothead, and the West had previously called for him to face war crimes charges for the conduct of his command in China in 1995 and 1996.
The British Prime Minister reaches out to his Australian counterpart to encourage Australia to consider increasing its troop commitment to the war waging around the world. He notes that Australia's sole ground combat force in action is approximately one half of the 28th ANZUK Brigade and that in 1942, when Australia had a much smaller economy and population, the nation raised 11 infantry and three armored divisions.
The Freedom ship Austin Freedom is delivered in Galveston, Texas.
Headquarters, XV Corps is activated from the 81st and 121st ARCOMs at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, Lieutenant General Richard Davis commanding.
The US Army Training and Doctrine Command, as part of the effort to assist civil authorities, tasks subordinate units with developing plans to suspend training and provide civil relief and security duties, using the assigned student body, teaching cadre and administrative and support staff in the event of an emergency.
The first four production MGM-134 Midgetman missiles are flown to Nellis AFB, Nevada and mated to the 347th Strategic Missile Squadron's Hard Mobile Launchers.
The 105th Engineer Group (Combat) (North Carolina National Guard) is detached from the Charleston Port of Embarkation and assigned to provide engineering support to FEMA as the nation reacts to the threat of nuclear war.
The third day of the Chinese PLA's offensive in Manchuria sees Soviet lines wavering. Group Army (equivalent to Western Corps in size) commanders commit their mobile forces to exploit breakthroughs, and their Soviet counterparts respond in kind. The resulting armor battles rival in scale to those fought in Kursk in the Second World War, the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and those being fought in central Poland every day.
In Korea, the North Korean command exhorts its citizens and soldiers to defend every centimeter of the homeland from the barbarian warmongers that wish to re-colonize the nation. The allied airborne force in the Panmunjon village comes under furious attack from troops occupying bunkers and fighting positions along the prewar border.
Third German Army continues its offensive out of Silesia, after pausing for four days to allow the formation, exhausted and with its supplies depleted after the battles for Czestochowa and Katowice, to rest and recover. The pause allowed the remnants of the Polish Second Army to retreat down the Wisła valley in good order.
The Danish government completes stocking a third underground strategic cache, at the Mønsted limestone mines (supposedly the world's largest, which had been in operation for over 1000 years before ending commercial production in 1978).
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At dawn 2nd Squadron, 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment enters Góra Kalwaria on the western bank of the Wisla. The commander of the Polish 1st WOW Brigade (an Internal Troops command), Colonel Janusz Malinowski, declares for the Free Polish Congress and admits the American unit under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James Malinowski, his second cousin. American and German troops pour across the three bridges in the town, advancing north and east on the far side.
The surrounded American force in Sodankylä, Finland digs in, awaiting relief, while the 10th Mountain Division brings its heaviest brigade, the 3rd, forward along the highway, slowly driving the Finnish light troops back off the road.
Throughout the theater, Northwestern TVD carries out a series of coordinated counterstrikes to disrupt the NATO offensive’s logistics. The Spetsnaz team outside Kirkenes attacks the harbormaster’s home and the dormitory used by contract stevedores; the loss slows the port’s throughput by 40 percent. The jetty at Liinakhamari further east is subjected to a mortar attack, which briefly disrupts operations and diverts a company of combat troops from the front in a futile hunt for the attackers. The Tana bridge area is hit by a Scud missile that disperses a persistent chemical agent that temporarily closes the area to traffic, reducing the resistance faced by the razvedchiki in the raid that follows.
Northern Fleet assigns a diesel submarine to patrol off Kirkenes, successfully sinking two arriving transports carrying supplies to sustain the offensive before being sunk by an American ASW helicopter.
A patrol from the KGB’s 82nd Border Guard Brigade ambushes a supply convoy moving ammunition forward to the US 6th division. The attack destroys nearly 40 percent of the division artillery’s reserve supply, and soon the American unit’s guns are ordered to limit offensive fire support, prioritizing the remaining stocks for defensive fires.
With his amphibious fleet in flames, little prospect of support from Strike Fleet Atlantic and the landing troops ashore only barely hanging on, General Frisvold orders the landing force outside Murmansk to withdraw.
The American aircraft carrier Coral Sea, operating in the North Sea, finds that the front line in Poland is moving ever farther away from its position. The commander requests permission to move the carrier south, closer to the action.
The first companies of the 71st Airborne Brigade (Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas and Texas National Guards)'s 1st Battalion, 142nd Infantry (Texas National Guard) arrive at Turnisor Air Base in the mountains of Transylvania.
Transcaucasian Front commander Suryakin calls on the commanders of the 34th and 73rd Air Armies (his aviation commands) to see what they can do to assist the beleaguered 103rd Guards Air Assault Division. The aviators explain that their organic fleet of transport aircraft is small, and that to deliver significant quantities of supplies he needs to appeal to Moscow, which controls the airlift fleet. His operations officer suggests an offensive along the front line in the Zagros to divert Allied support from the effort to eliminate the isolated airborne division.
A flight of six F-20s and an accompanying 747 tanker depart Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia bound for Iran. The fighters will replace some of those lost by the Iranian Air Force in the past few months.