View Single Post
  #478  
Old 04-06-2023, 03:50 PM
chico20854's Avatar
chico20854 chico20854 is offline
Your Friendly 92Y20!
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Washington, DC area
Posts: 1,826
Default

March 28, 1998

The 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment has completed its reorganization. The battered unit, which lost most of its original vehicles to Soviet commerce raiders in the opening months of the war, fought the Polish campaign with one normally-equipped squadron (the 2nd) and two equipped with a motley assortment of civilian vehicles and light armored vehicles taken from USAF airfield defense units. The losses in Poland forced another reorganization, this time to a single composite squadron under the command of Lt. Colonel Dwight Bergstrom. The unit was largely equipped with M750 (Commando V-350) and Peacekeeper armored cars.

With conditions in Norway quiet, the marines of the Dutch 1st Commando Group commandeer the freighter Eemsgracht from Trondheim and set sail for home.

Unofficially,

The roadblock established by the 2nd Battalion, 511th Infantry on the highway between Fairbanks and Anchorage is subjected to a well-coordinated attack from Soviet troops assaulting from both directions - the 110th Guards Motor-Rifle Division from the south and the 147th (my 261st) Motor-Rifle Division from the north. The inexperienced American company commander heeds his first sergeant's advice and the paratroopers fall back to the high ground to the east, leaving mines and booby traps among the abandoned Soviet trucks they captured the prior day. While taking Soviet fire as they retreat, the enemy does not pursue, allowing the American force to keep the road under long-range fire.

Morale among the Marines of the 30th Regiment aboard the resupply convoy to AFRICOM drops. The Marines have been aboard the collection of aged amphibious ships and civilian freighters for over 40 days without any shore leave (their commanders were afraid of desertion in the weeks they were anchored off Norfolk) and the fresh food has run out. Due to the dire condition at home, the fleet was stocked with large quantities of corn meal, canned vegetables and pork and cheese powder; the shipboard cooks (some of whom are 18-year old draftees that were never trained to be cooks and had never helped their mothers in the kitchen!) have expended their creativity with the limited list of items, forcing the troops to eat endless amounts of pork enchiladas and tacos. The Marines are permitted (and, in fact, encouraged) to supplement their megre rations with fish they catch during the few hours each day they are not training above or below decks.

Chaos reigns in the countryside outside the battered Siberian city of Irkutsk as bands of deserters from the 143rd Motor-Rifle Division (which disintegrated the prior summer) clash with bandits from the former 195th Motor-Rifle Division, which mutinied in October.
__________________
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...
Reply With Quote