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Old 12-16-2021, 01:37 PM
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chico20854 chico20854 is offline
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December 16, 1996

nothing official today, but unofficially:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gains 7% following the prior day's conventional cruise missile attack on RAF bases in the UK. Investors are optimistic that the war will remain conventional and that the challenges facing the German war economy (struggling between the callup of a significant portion of the working-age male population, war damage and the cutoff of Soviet natural gas supplies) will present growth opportunities for American companies.

A shipment of M40 106mm recoilless rifles and several hundred rounds of training ammunition are reported missing in transit between the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama and Camp Blanding, Florida.

Soviet troops of the 28th Army and their Vietnamese allies launch an assault on the Chinese-Vietnamese border. While ostensibly a drive on Kunming, the tank-heavy Soviet force is ill-suited for the steep terrain and STAVKA is content with the offensive tying down Chinese troops and presenting the PLA command with war on multiple fronts.

ROK troops in central Korea engage in firefights with unknown assailants, suspected to be North Korean commandos.

The Czechoslovakian 4th Tank Division is deployed to the Czech-East German border, held in reserve to exploit a Pact breakthrough (that never came).

The Soviet 107th MRD is orderd into the field in Latvia and northern Lithuania to counter American green berets and the Baltic nationalists that they had armed, equipped and advised.

The 485th Tactical Missile Wing officially activates its headquarters at Butzweilerhof Air Base in Germany; its GLCM cruise missiles were all evacuated from their peacetime base at Florennes, Belgium.

F-16s of the 119th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, 177th Fighter Interceptor Wing shoot down four Long-Range Aviation Tu-22M Backfire bombers that attempted a trans-polar strike on the fighter's home base of Thule, Greenland. To their east, F-16s of the 465th Tactical Fighter Squadron intercepted a flight of Su-24s over the Norwegian Sea, shooting down four of the attackers.

X Corps HQ (FWD) takes command of US Army troops in Norway.

The US carrier Forrestal is severaly damaged by a Soviet combined-arms strike while operating in a "bastion" in Vestfjord off the Norwegian Sea. Damage control teams struggle to contain fires lit by multiple missile strikes. Meanwhile, the Aegis cruiser USS San Jacinto is struck by multiple submarine-launched SS-N-7 Sizzler anti-radar missiles; the damaged cruiser is towed south for repair.

The 252nd MRD is formed in Nikolaev, Ukraine by discharge of nearly completely trained students of the 92nd Guards Training Motor-Rifle Division.
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I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
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