June 27, 1997
The 3rd (I have the 4th) Marine Division departs Bandar Abbas, heading north into the Zagros Mountains towards Shiraz to break the siege of that city.
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(Unofficially, A Soviet RORSAT satellite overflies the Mediterranean and the locates the NATO convoy. Soviet naval authorities relay the convoy's location to Athens.) Light fleet elements of the Greek navy savage the NATO convoy in the night and escape relatively unharmed.
Unofficially,
McDonnell Douglas places a second JDAM production line in St. Charles, Missouri into service, increasing production of the precision-guided munition to 260 kits a day. Ten of those kits are the classified NV (Nuclear Variant), supplied to Strategic Air Command, the Navy and USAF Europe for use with B-61 nuclear bombs.
A New Mexico State Guard patrol locates the remains of a suspected Soviet spetsnaz team in the remote mountains of south-central New Mexico. Temperatures in prior days have exceeded 100 F. The corpses carry silenced AK-74s, demolition gear, encrypted communications gear but the canteens are empty.
The Department of Defense Contract Adjudication Board makes a preliminary recommendation that Boeing be paid $150 million for the requisitioning of its Skyfox subsidiary, $1 million for each of the 120 aircraft, $25 million for the conversion and $5 million for the spare parts and components. The company and the government will continue to discuss a more accurate valuation but the award goes a long way to calming nerves frayed by the Air Force's actions.
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British forces rush towards the Soviet border, facing weakening Soviet resistance. The US 4th Infantry Division, assigned to V Corps, encounters troops of the 120th Guards Motor-Rifle Division, an element of 7th Tank Army of the 1st Byelorussian Front, the first element of that Front to see action.
Panzergruppe Oberdorf strikes northeast, preventing 1st Guards Tank Army from reinforcing the defense of Lublin, and the formation’s 6th Panzergrenadier Division takes over occupation duties from VI German Korps.
US Marines and German troops advance further into the town of Hel on the Baltic Coast following the Marine's landing a few days prior. The battleship Iowa is brought forward into the Baltic to lend its big gun's firepower to the effort, despite the misgivings of SACLANT, who has granted OPCON to CINCBALTAP.
The 329th Engineer Group (US Army Reserve)'s battalions have been farmed out to US XXIII Corps and British forces fighting their way into Warsaw, taking heavy casaulties in the urban fight.
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The Norwegian theatre is relatively quiet, as 18th Army advances through the devastated territory abandoned by NATO and as the US 10th Mountain Division retreats into Swedish territory. The Soviet ambassador to Stockholm lodges a protest, but the Swedish foreign minister points out the presence of Soviet troops in adjacent Finland as an example of combatants not respecting the boundaries of neutral Nordic states.
The Liberian-flag bulk carrier Orient Sunray, carrying a load of grain, strikes a drifting mine as it approaches Port Harcourt, Nigeria and floods. While tugs reach the ship and manage to pull it aground within sight of land, the cargo is ruined by the influx of seawater and the ship is ultimately abandoned.
American and Korean troops leapfrog deeper into North Korea as that despotic regime struggles to maintain order and regain initiative. South Korean mechnanized forces (built around the VII ROK Corps) are committed to exploit the collapse of the North Korean defenses along the DMZ, pushing rapidly but cautiously northward along the main road to Pyongyang as US and ROK Marines drive eastward from the coast.
In Iran, XVIII Airborne Corps makes slow progress through the difficult terrain, while to the south the Marines of I MEF are capturing more ground as Soviet resistance at the end of such extended supply lines fades.