[chico20854]

August 4, 1997

The German 10th Panzer Division, hastily transferred from Poland, enters action in Bavaria. The hardened veterans attack the Italian Ariete Armored Division outside Augsburg.

The U.S. 2nd Infantry Division, in central North Korea south of the Yalu, is cut off from the rest of VI (my IX) Corps by the unexpected attack and is temporarily subordinated to the Chinese 28th (my 5th Mountain) Army.

Unofficially,

Another Soviet Spetsnaz team is intercepted and eliminated by the native troops of the Canadian Native Rangers, this one approaching the massive Nanisivik zinc mine on Baffin Island.

The USS Midway battle group withdraws from the Gulf of Alaska, retiring to Bremerton, Washington as the air wing is badly depleted, the Midway's magazines nearly empty and the aged carrier in dire need of refit despite being in service for only eight months.

X Corps continues to resist the Soviet advance in Alaska, slowly being pushed back in heavy fighting.

HMS Eskimo, commissioned in July, begins its first voyage, escorting a resupply convoy to the Persian Gulf.

HQ, UK Land Forces implements Operation Mornington, the reinforcement of BAOR from the strategic reserve. British forces from Northern Ireland and further personnel from Territorial Army units are moved to Germany to fill in the ranks depleted by casualties, placing the bulk of the counter insurgency work in Ireland with the local Ulster Defense Regiment units (which are heavily biased towards the Protestants due to recruitment).

A joint team from the FDA-run National Center for Toxicological Research in Pine Bluff, Arkansas and the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center at Fort Detrick, Maryland is dispatched to China to investigate the Soviet use of biological and anti-crop weapons.

In Poland and western Ukraine the front remains largely static, despite the near-daily use of artillery-fired or short-range missiles armed with tactical nuclear weapons. NATO and Soviet forces trade the weapons in nearly a one-for-one manner.

One of the tow lines on the battleship Iowa parts when the tugs try to speed the tow up to 4 knots. The salvage effort is halted for six hours while a new line is secured.

Another NATO sortie in the eastern Baltic leads to another clash with the Soviet Baltic fleet. This one is less conclusive but succeeds in turning back the Soviet convoy headed for Kaliningrad as well as forcing the Soviet Baltic Fleet to rally more escorts for future missions. (This results in roughly half as many convoys, each stronger, but overloads the damaged recipient ports as well as being delayed while forming).

The Pinerolo Infantry Brigade (Mechanized) begins moving down the coast from Naples to link up with the San Marco regiment.

A convoy carrying supplies up the hill to the Italian Forza Dalmatia headquarters in Ljubljana Castle is attacked by Slovenian Territorial Defense guerrillas. They fade away into the woods before the guard force can respond.

The Sierra-class SSN K-534 returns to the Arabian Sea south of Oman after a long period in the southern Indian Ocean, where it received replacement torpedoes and a handful of SS-N-21 cruise missiles. It announces its return by putting a trio of torpedoes into the side of the supertanker Protea Guardian.

POWs captured when the Soviets captured Shemya in Alaska arrive in MVD-run prison camps in the Soviet Far East, assigned to the custody of the 92nd Convoy Division, which operates camps from Vladivostok to Sakhalin to the Alaskan border.