[chico20854]

April 20, 1997

The Iran Nowin government withdraws from Esfahan to Shiraz. The Iranian Crown Jewels are to follow as soon as a safe location for them can be prepared for them in Shiraz.

Unofficially,

The Freedom ship Philadelphia Freedom is delivered in Galveston, Texas.

30th Infantry Brigade, 36th Infantry Division (North Carolina National Guard) completes Rotation 97-6 at NTC-3 at the Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona and is declared combat ready.

Headquarters, XXIII Corps arrives at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas for a pre-deployment command post exercise.

Colonel Tumanski's spetsnaz team launches another attack, this one on a column of coaches carrying reinforcements to RAF Brize Norton, where they were to be flown to battlefields around the world. 28 soldiers are killed and 32 more wounded.

NATO's deep strike aircraft take a night off to allow the crews (air and ground) to rest and recover from two weeks of high intensity operations.

Survivors of the 7th Guards Air Assault Division, mauled in the fighting in Norway and the Kola, are reorganized into a single regimental battle group in the barracks in Petrozavodsk, near Leningrad. The demands of the war are such that only a few dozen replacements have arrived, and only a trio of BMD-3 armored fighting vehicles; the rest of the VDV's replacement system is replacing losses suffered by the 13th and 76th GAADs and bringing the 103rd, 104th and 105th GAADs to 110 percent strength for the assault on Iran.

The Tango-class submarine B-489 attacks a small convoy between the Cape Verde Islands and Senegal. The commander does not realize that it is a French convoy. Luckily, the escorts (the frigates Prairial and Jean Moulin) have limited anti-submarine capabilities and the the sub manages to slip away after sinking the freighter Ursula Delmas.

Task Force 61 returns to Gibraltar. Sixth Fleet's carriers call at the nearby Naval Station Rota, which has not seen such a mass of warships in many decades. The ships refuel, replenish and make minor repairs.

Convoy 132 arrives in Europe, carrying the equipment and vehicles of the 32nd Infantry Brigade (Mechanized) (Wisconsin National Guard), several support units (such as truck companies, water purification detachments and field hospitals) as well as large amounts of ammunition. The escort commander turns his flagship, the nuclear missile cruiser USS Virginia, east to support the offensive into Poland.

The USS Independence battle steams west, to be positioned to support Ethiopian rebels operating in the Red Sea.