December 14, 1996
nothing official, but, unofficially:
photo
2nd Far Eastern Front releases the 14th High-Power Artillery Brigade to 36th Corps to help halt the Chinese 29th Group Army's attack.
Buried microphones along the DMZ in Korea indicate digging activity. South Korean troops intercept a nearly-complete tunnel leading under the DMZ and engage in a subterranean firefight while following it north. Engineers collapse the tunnel with explosives.
In the skies of central Europe, CENTAF begins a dedicated OCA (Offensive Counter Air) campaign - RAF Tornadoes commence highly successful low-level attacks on Pact air bases in Poland and Czechoslovakia, while USAF F-111s and F-117s make nightime PGM strikes on airbases, initially concentrating on runways, taxiways and repair facilities but soon shifting to Hardened Aircraft Shelters.
The advance party of X US Corps HQ (detached from US Army, Alaska) arrives in Trondheim, Norway. It will assume command of US Army forces in Norway, lightening the load of the NATO Northern Norway command.
The Czechoslovakian 51st Engineer Brigade is brought up to full strength and deployed to the Austrian border.
The Soviet 158th Reserve Motor-Rifle Division, in Moldova, is mobilized, receiving levies of local citizens, both untrained teens and discharged Red Army veterans. Bulgaria orders a general mobilization as well.
The US transport ship USNS Antares turns away from port of Antwerp, Belgium, diverting to Emden, Germany with its cargo of vehicles to avoid the Belgian longshoreman's strike.
The Soviet "Yankee-Notch class" submarine K-395 is sunk by American helicopters (the escort force of Convoy 107) northwest of Bermuda. The sub did not know it was being tracked until torpedoes were dropped, by which time it was too late to take evasive action.
A group known as the Dutch Red Army claims responsibility for the Nijemegen bus attack and pledges more attacks on "The Imperialist War Machine".
The German DAX stock market index drops another 25% as French investors and companies undertake a rapid disengagement from the German financial system and as German investors fret about the dwindling supplies of natural gas to fuel the German economy. (The USSR had halted the sale of gas to Germany in October and all of central and western Europe the day prior.)
A secret meeting of leaders of the Hells Angel outlaw biker gang is held at the group's annual Christmas Bash (a relatively tame one, with only 2 deaths and 75 arrests). Presidents of local chapters (many of which were veterans) agree to their so-called Plan Alpha, to rally in Northern California and Southeastern Ohio in event of a breakdown in US law & order.