On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[Homer]

Did the 55th SRW get some indicators of heightened risk? It seems interesting they disperse just before escalation to nuclear weapons. Was chemical release a trigger?

[chico20854]

July 8, 1997

Am Dangerous' joy at the reunion with her brother Dain turns to rage when she finally meets her brother. Dain is incoherent and barely able to move because of almost constant palsied convulsions. It later transpires that he had been overdosed with Thorazine, and other antipsychotic drugs to which he is unusually sensitive, during his brief stay in the sanatorium. Am tries to attack the doctor, but John Blackwood manages to restrain her.

Unofficially,

A high-level delegation from STAVKA flies to Byelorussia, delivering the news of nuclear release to Marshall Slepnev, commander of the Western TVD. Another delegation is dispatched to Chita in eastern Siberia, with instructions for Far Eastern TVD to use nuclear weapons to implement a wide-ranging effort to eliminate the Chinese Army in the field and destroy China's ability to resist.

American resistance on Shemya ends, with the Cobra Dane early warning radar going down in a cloud of smoke and dust as the Air Force security force destroys it to prevent the Soviets from gaining anything of intelligence value from it.

The Far Eastern TVD establishes the Aleutian Front to control the disparate military efforts at the eastern end of the USSR. The Front's 25th Corps commands the invasion of Alaska, while the 51st Army is coordinating the defense of the Kurile Islands and Sakhalin Island. 25th Corps establishes a logistical hub in Nome.

The 11th Airborne Division (less 3rd Brigade) is deployed by air to Eileson Air Force Base, Alaska and Ladd Army Airfield, Alaska, filling out the vehicle park with requisitioned civilian vehicles and trucks from the Air Force, and immediately entering action alongside other elements of X Corps, the headquarters newly arrived from Norway.

Private Randall Cutler's barracks candy sale business is busted when he is "ratted out" by a trainee in another platoon as well as by a member of his platoon chewing bubble gum during morning physical training. A search of his platoon's barracks reveals fourteen privates with candy or pornography in their lockers.

The 147th Field Artillery Brigade (South Dakota National Guard) is detached from 8th Army, assigned to reinforce South Korean troops battering their way into Pyongyang.

The austere airfield in the Karakum Desert in western China is complete, with a skeleton staff of 150 US Air Force Personnel. A series of KC-10 tanker aircraft begin flying in to the base, discharging thousands of gallons of aviation fuel in the base's fuel blivets.

In Germany several units, some recently arrived and others reconstructing after losses in Poland, are assigned to the newly arrived US XV Corps.

With nearly 90 percent of Polish territory liberated, the lead elements of the NATO forces reach the borders of the USSR. British and German troops batter back KGB border guards on the southern edge of the Kaliningrad oblast while V US Corps and VI German Korps’ units relieve the last of the fallschirmjäger companies along the Bug.

To the south, Panzergruppe Oberdorf and VII US Corps press 1st Shock Army’s T-90s back over the border into Ukraine west of Lvov. NATO airpower and ATACMS missiles are reaching deeper into Byelorussia and Ukraine, dismantling air defense sites, transportation hubs, airfields and communications facilities.

In the southeast, Soviet radio intelligence units locate the headquarters of the 227th Field Artillery Brigade (Florida National Guard) and direct a battalion of BM-27 rocket launchers to strike it with VX nerve gas. Unfortunately, the strike takes place during the commander’s nightly staff meeting, and the brigade commander, his principal staff officers and both battalion commanders are killed. The unit’s effectiveness and morale immediately deteriorate.

1st Brigade and the Division Support Command of the US 6th Infantry Division (Light) depart northern Norway for the Netherlands. The Norwegian 6th Division disperses its forces across northern Norway, providing a strong blocking force along the Soviet border, repairing damage and undertaking internal security patrols.

Pasdaran guerrillas in Esfahan, under direction of Sirjan Khorrasani, attack an isolated Soviet signal site outside the city. In a predawn raid, they overrun the outpost of the 145th Signal Regiment, capturing several automatic weapons and disrupting communications throughout the 45th (my 32nd) Army.

Helicopters from the Jarvis and Juno sink the Soviet Victor II-class submarine K-514 75 nm off Mombassa, Kenya.

[chico20854]

July 9, 1997

A momentous day...

The Red Army begins to use tactical nuclear weapons to stop German troops from advancing farther onto Soviet territory.

Unofficially,

At dawn a Mi-17 helicopter of the Soviet 65th Independent Transport Helicopter Regiment takes off from a facility outside Rechytsa, Byelorussia and flows at low level to the first battalion of the 231st Cannon Artillery Brigade. After landing, a KGB detachment brings a single 3BV3 152mm round to a 2S5 self-propelled gun. With Lieutenant-General Valeriy Khomenko, commander of the 7th Tank Army, watching, the gun’s crew loads the round and takes cover before pulling the lanyard. The round is fired and lands slightly more than 15 kilometers away, near the headquarters of the 228th Panzergrenadier Regiment. It explodes with the force of 2500 tons of TNT, destroying the regiment’s headquarters, ending the NATO offensive across Poland and taking the war to a new, deadlier, tragic level.

The Freedom-class cargo ship Charlotte Freedom is delivered in Portland, Oregon.

Patrols of the Native Canadian Ranger Regiment are authorized to expand their area of operations west into Siberia, and a company-equivalent is ordered to patrol the Alaskan Arctic coast.

Soviet troops engage troops of the 2nd Battalion, 130th Infantry, assigned to the 3rd Brigade, 47th Infantry Division, who are blocking passage up the Yukon River west of Galena, Alaska, site of an Air Force detachment. The Americans quickly call on the support of a flight of A-10s from the 18th Tactical Fighter Squadron, which scatter the Soviet hovercraft from the river. The proximity of Soviet troops forces the evacuation of the F-15s of detachment 1, 54th Tactical Fighter Squadron.

The fifteen members of Private Cutler's platoon caught with contraband are informed that they will be placed on extra duty for the remainder of their training cycle and that their overnight pass following graduation has been revoked. From lights out until 1 am the "dirty fifteen" are put to work scrubbing the walls and floors of their barracks.

In Ohio, the 221st Engineer Group (New York National Guard), assigned to assist civil authorities, completes conversion of the Wood County fairgrounds to a potential evacuation site. The work consisted of converting livestock barns to enclosed buildings with heating, winterizing utility lines and upgrading the restroom and cooking facilities. The group has nearly a dozen such projects underway, intended to rapidly create refugee housing for city dwellers.

F-16s of the 432nd Tactical Fighter Wing join Japanese F-15s in fending off a Soviet counter-attack that was attempting to strike at Misawa Air Base, a facility vital to the support of Operation Repo. The Soviets launched a coordinated air and missile strike, hitting the base with a pair of conventionally-armed SS-12 Scaleboard missiles and a submarine-launched SS-N-21 cruise missile. The air attack was less successful, the Soviets losing nine MiG-29s, 11 Su-24s and three MiG-27s. Three F-16s and two F-15s are lost in the action.

The American attack submarine Olympia enters the Arctic Ocean, having passed through the Bering Strait submerged.

In beseiged Warsaw, Captain Czarny's ZOMO riot police company is sent back on the line, this time defending the Towarowa train station, where a cat-and-mouse hunt for the enemy rages through the burned remains of hundreds of freight cars.

The 227th Field Artillery Brigade (Florida National Guard), its command staff gutted in a chemical strike the prior evening, is pulled from the lines, sent to Germany to rest and recover.

The remainder of the 6th Infantry Division (Light) begins to depart Norway.

In the Mediterranean, the American carriers John F Kennedy and America begin a series of anti-surface sweeps as intelligence indicates that the Greek and Italian navies are sortieing to push the Americans back.

Ashore in Turkey, the remanants of the NATO reinforcements delivered by the ill-fated convoy depart their marshalling areas, headed for the front facing their former Greek allies in Thrace. To the north, the Turkish 1st Army batters back a half-hearted attack by the Bulgarian Second Army.

A convoy containing the Australian 1st Brigade arrives in Bandar Abbas, Iran. The Australian unit will reinforce I MEF as it tries to break out of the Zagros Mountains into terrain more favorable to use of the brigade's tanks and APCs.

The damaged American frigate Bagley arrives in port in Mombassa, Kenya. A tug is dispatched to try to round up barges cast adrift from the sunken barge carrier Cape Farragut.

The Soviet Q-Ship (raider disguised as a freighter) in the Caribbean attacks the Kuwaiti-flag tanker Al-Tahreer, carrying a load of Venezuelan crude to the St. Croix refinery. The raider's guns set the massive ship ablaze and leave the area, with the crew adrift in lifeboats.

[JHart]

In the southeast, Soviet radio intelligence units locate the headquarters of the 227th Field Artillery Brigade (Florida National Guard) and direct a battalion of BM-27 rocket launchers to strike it with VX nerve gas. Unfortunately, the strike takes place during the commander’s nightly staff meeting, and the brigade commander, his principal staff officers and both battalion commanders are killed. The unit’s effectiveness and morale immediately deteriorate.

"F#@K IT, we're slinging nukes tomorrow comrades! What's a little nerve gas today?!"

[chico20854]

July 10, 1997

The Red Army begins to use tactical nukes against the rapidly advancing Chinese troops. The first target in the theatre is Harbin, China, recaptured just days before and a vital transportation hub.

Unofficially,

NATO struggles to respond to the Soviet tactical nuclear strike outside Brest. It takes a number of hours for confirmation of the strike to be received and verified and word passed up the chain of command to the North Atlantic Council and President Tanner. The next 12 hours are spent in consultation, shocked discussions and near-hysteria. The American Joint Chiefs pass word down, requesting SACEUR's proposed response. Existing plans for use of tactical nuclear weapons are largely useless - to the extent they are even up to date. They call for corps-level "packages" of dozens of weapons to be delivered in a "pulse" lasting 12-24 hours, largely on locations where Soviet doctrine, as interpreted by NATO planners, would indicate are likely to harbor Soviet artillery units, logisitcs sites and headquarters. Most of the plans, developed pre-war, contemplate defensive use on West German territory, and in the months of advance across East Germany and Poland, have not been kept up by overworked staffs. Theater-level plans for use of deep strike assets (F-111s, Pershing missiles, Ground Launched Cruise Missiles and theater-tasked submarine launched ballistic missiles) are also out of date, since many of the targets are occupied by NATO troops. Tanner refuses to authorize the execution of any of these plans, requesting instead a "proportionate" response of a single weapon similar in yield to be delivered on a target equivalent to the German brigade headquarters destroyed yesterday. Hours pass while the directive is passed down and Tanner consults with the other NATO heads of state.

The Soviet nuclear strike is highly classified within the Warsaw Pact. Within the Western TVD, front commanders are aware of the development but not most of their staff and subordinate Army commanders. Far Eastern TVD commanders in Manchuria likewise unaware of developments in Europe, and other TVD commanders know about the strikes. The Soviet propaganda machine continues to crank out material about the revanchist German threat and that the warmongering Americans are liable to release nuclear hellfire down on the peace loving USSR, who for decades publicly declared that the USSR had a "no first use" policy.

Upon receipt of the first NUKEFLASH message reporting the Soviet use of nuclear weapons, the commander of Strategic Air Command, at his own initiative and following long-standing plans, orders the immediate launch of the alert bomber force. Within 15 minutes approximately one fifth of America's strategic bomber force is airborne, refuelling from accompanying tankers to enable them to reach their assigned Emergency War Order targets. All leave is cancelled and all SAC personnel are ordered to return to base immediately.

The Minnesota Regiment, a state guard unit, raises a third battalion as a paper formation, composed of state law enforcement officers (state police, game wardens, prison guards and park rangers), so that they could be legally considered to be members of the military.

C Company, 2nd Battalion, 34th Infantry at Fort Jackson completes its training cycle at Fort Jackson and the privates clean and turn in their weapons and gear. Private Randolph Cutler and his compatriots spend the evening scrubbing walls.

photo
Widespread panic accompanies the outbreak of nuclear warfare in Europe and China. Roads leaving cities in the US and Western Europe are jammed with cars fleeing potential targets. Churches are packed with the frightened faithful intent on making their peace with the Lord before the man-made holocaust takes them to meet their maker. Stores are stripped bare of preserved food; civilian guns and ammunition, camping gear and many first aid supplies have been sold out for months.

Patrol Missile Hydrofoil Squadron One, composed of the six Pegasus-class missile patrol boats and the tender President Taft, departs its home station of Key West, Florida and begins its transit to Rota Spain prior to finally (after months of inaction and discussion) be committed to action in the Mediterranean. The deployment is also an admission that America has more serious concerns than containing a possible threat from Cuba.

Following the prior day's Soviet use of nuclear weapons, HM Government fully implements Operation Peripheral, with senior members of the Royal Family and the Government dispersing to a number of secret locations throughout southern England and the 11 Regional Seats of Government fully manned.

Elsewhere along the front in Poland, NATO troops continue to advance as the momentum of operations and "fog of war" keep driving the Allied offensive forward. The 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment (Ohio National Guard) reaches the Soviet border north of Przemyśl.

The independent brigades that had served under X Corps in Norway (the 103rd and 197th Field Artillery, 111th Air Defense and 111th Engineer) begin movement out of Northern Norway.

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The American carrier USS Saratoga, operating along the GIUK Gap in search of Soviet raiders breaking out into the North Atlantic, is damaged by a SS-N-19 cruise missile fired by the Soviet Oscar II-class SSGN K-410 after its escorts and close-in defenses defeated seven other missiles. It is forced to limp into the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for repairs.

A small convoy of ferries and freighters departs Stavanger, Norway, crossing the North Sea to Eemshaven, Netherlands with the vehicles and heavy equipment of the US 6th Infantry Division (Light). Overhead, five F-15Es of the 21st Tactical Fighter Squadron, the last of the 35th Tactical Fighter Wing's original 48, transit to Eindhoven, Netherlands to join the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing's mixed force of F-111s and F-15E strike aircraft.

Companies of the 71st Airborne Brigade held in reserve in Romania begin familiarization training with Jugoslav and Romanian AK-47 clones and PK and MG-42 light machineguns as the brigade command staff grows increasingly concerned with supply. The training will open the option to convert some units to small arms that America's Romanian and Jugoslav allies can provide support for.

I MEF and XVIII Airborne Corps in Iran make slow progress in Iran. Thanks to a series of small tankers and the benevolence of the Saudi government CENTCOM has no shortage of fuel, but ammunition, spare parts and replacement vehicles and troops are in short supply.

The Victory ship Wayne Victory completes discharge of deck cargo of telephone poles and begins unloading 8000 tons of bagged corn meal to the custody of Iran Nowin government, which dispenses it to local bakeries and 1st Iranian Army's logistics staff.

Eight A-7Ds of the 156th Tactical Fighter Group (Puerto Rico Air National Guard) depart Howard Air Force Base, Panama, retracing the flight path of their replacement AT-33Es to Beeville NAS, Texas prior to deploying to Korea.

The Pakistani counter-attack south of Lahore is decisively defeated and the Indian Army crosses the Pakistani border in strength along nearly its entire length. Intense air battles rage overhead as masses of obsolescent fighters on both sides try to defeat each other and avoid the handfuls of modern aircraft (Pakistani F-16s and Indian MiG-29s) that appear from time to time.

[chico20854]

Still working on the NATO response... hope to get caught up tomorrow!

[chico20854]

July 11, 1997

Nothing official for the day!

The North Atlantic Council (composed of NATO heads of state) approves a response to the Soviet nuclear strike at the end of a marathon session that concludes in the early morning hours. A single W82 155mm nuclear artillery shell is to be fired at a Soviet regimental headquarters in the Brest area. Intelligence assets (up to and including American photo reconnaissance satellites) are tasked with locating such a target while a heavily escorted C-130 cargo plane is loaded with the round in West Germany and it is flown forward to a firing battery. The effort comes together shortly before dusk when a M109A5 of the German 215th Panzer Artillery Battalion fires the round, hitting the 261st Tank Regiment's headquarters.

President Tanner orders SAC's airborne alert to be halted, fearing that the Soviets will interpret the mass of bombers loitering within minutes of Soviet airspace as an indication that the US intends a massive and immediate attack on the Soviet homeland and respond accordingly.

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

Private Cutler graduates basic training and is allowed four hours on post with his mother and girlfriend.

A wave of panic sweeps across the UK with many people fleeing the cities for the perceived safety of rural areas; throughout the country there is panic buying of food, bottled water, and other essential supplies.

A dozen Chinese H-6 bombers launch from Dingxin Air Base in the Gobi Desert, each loaded with a single 250 kt nuclear gravity bomb, headed for cities in Eastern Siberia and the Soviet Far East. Two bombers, flying independently, each head for Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Chita, Ulan Ude, Irkutsk and Kosmolosk-na-Amure. A GRU informant in the nearby town radios word of the mass takeoff and the 11th and 14th PVO Air Armies respond by placing their forces on the highest alert. Eleven of the Chinese bombers are intercepted and shot down, and one makes it's way to its target, the city of Ulan Ude. The bomber drops its munition on the junction of the Trans-Siberian and Trans-Mongolian railroads on the eastern edge of the city. Set for a ground burst, the fuze on the bomb fails to operate and the Soviets capture the munition intact from the 3-meter deep crater it causes on the edge of the railyard.

To counter the threat of Soviet missile submarines, which have largely dispersed from their home ports, the Joint Chiefs authorize Operation Profligate, the all-out hunt for Soviet boomers. Carrier and surface groups have their allocation of attack submarines cut to one each (if they still had one assigned) and all available attack submarines are tasked with seeking out Soviet boomers. The escort carriers are pulled from convoy duty; the USS Langley lands its remaining Harriers and is sent to the Norwegian Sea while the Franklin and a small escort force begin patrolling northwest of Hawaii, a known operating area for Soviet SSBNs.

The Luftwaffe 2nd Luftjaeger Regiment is relieved of convoy escort duties and ordered into the siege of Warsaw, where the unit’s flak guns with their high elevation are invaluable in striking targets in the seemingly endless rows of concrete high-rise apartment buildings on the city’s outskirts. The airmen perform well, although taking heavy casualties in the urban meat grinder.

West German polizie clear the vicinity of NATO nuclear weapon storage sites of civilians, using some of the recently recalled security troops to secure the areas from refugees from the battle zone, curious hikers and hunters and anyone without a legitimate reason to be in the area.

NATO troops all along the line in Poland, Byelorussia and Ukraine slow their advance as they adapt to a nuclear battlefield. Infantry begin to dig in deeper to take advantage of the protection offered by foxholes, artillery batteries increase their spacing between guns, logistics units harden their stockpiles and disperse their vehicles and gas masks, chemical protective garments and decontamination gear are dug out of rucksacks and readied for use.

STAVKA continues to feed additional units into the Western Front. The MVD's 16th Convoy Brigade in Lvov, which operates labor camps in the region as well as commanding a riot police battalion, is reinforced with more riot troops and prisoners on parole and assigned a sector facing German troops. The Lvov sector is further reinforced by two other MVD internal troop regiments, the 1st from Kiev and the 8th Training Regiment from Donetsk. In Byelorussia, the 1st Shock Army (from the Moscow area) is reinforced with the 65th Tank Division, a mobilization-only unit formed from the Ryazan Military Automobile School. The division's antiquated T-10 tanks and ISU-152 assault guns are employed in defensive fighting, mostly fighting from hidden ambush positions.

The Japanese landing force in the Kuriles masses outside the village of Yuzhno-Kurilsk, the largest settlement on the island of Kunashir, where the surviving defenders from the 484th Machinegun-Artillery Regiment have gathered. Scattered Soviet stragglers are on the loose elsewhere on the island, but do not present a challenge to Japanese control of the island. The first Japanese air force C-130 transport lands at the airport 10 miles southwest of the village.

The Soviet nuclear assault on the Chinese People's Liberation Army continues. Twenty devices are used, hitting infantry columns advancing towards Soviet lines, bridges and river crossings and command posts. Soviet troops, which had been retreating before the masses of Chinese infantry, halt and begin to hold ground in preparation for a counterattack.

South Korean and American mechanized units begin sending probing patrols northward beyond Pyongyang as additional South Korean infantry units arrive to take over the reduction of the North Korean capital. In the east the last defenders of the city of Hamhung are blasted out of the ruins of a block of apartments by a joint force of American marines and South Korean soldiers.

Troops of I MEF's 1st Marine Division link up with soldiers of XVIII Airborne Corps' 3rd Battalion, 47th Infantry (9th Infantry Division) in the town of Firuzaba. The link-up is made easier by the Army unit's use of LAV-25s, which the marines recognize as friendly.

Workers in the shipyard in Leningrad finally are able to begin cutting away sections of steel plate from the hulk of the incomplete battlecruiser Rossiya for transfer to Nikolaev, where the plate will be used to repair the helicopter carrier Leningrad. In Nikolaev, while awaiting the plate's arrival, shipyard workers (diverted from working on the USSR's second nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Orel) have put Leningrad's turbines back together (one was successfully replaced, the other was reinstalled despite being worn out), replaced one of the ship's diesel generators and reinstalled the SA-N-3 missile launchers. They also closed up the ship's sonar dome following removal of the obsolescent original system, forgoing the planned upgrade to a more modern model.

A salvage tug arrives at the burning Kuwaiti tanker Al-Tahreer in the Caribbean, but is unable to take her under tow. A HU-25 Falcon of squadron VOJ-202 overflies the Soviet Q-ship. When the radioed answers to the Coast Guard aircraft's queries seem overly suspicious the plane calls for a surface ship to conduct a boarding.

[chico20854]

July 12, 1997

The siege of Shiraz is broken (unofficially) when the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines drive back the motor-riflemen of the 406th Guards Motor-Rifle Regiment, 71st Motor-Rifle Division from its positions closing the road into the city. The Marines are supported by strikes from A-4 Skyhawks of VMA-131.

Unofficially,

The GRU orders all surviving Spetsnaz units in NATO countries to make an all-out effort to attack NATO nuclear weapons storage sites. Likewise, the KGB activates its surviving agent networks and "associated organizations" (such as elements of the Irish IRA, the Dutch Red Army, the Japanese Red Army, the Red Army Faction in Germany, etc.) to disrupt the NATO deployment of nuclear weapons. Largely unprompted, the peace movement in Western Europe and North America leap into action, with protests in cities, on university campuses (although most schools are not in session) and outside military bases. The latter category of protests are broken up by civilian and military police, who will brook no disruption to the war effort.

Lech Walesa, president of the Free Polish Government, makes an urgent request to President Tanner that his government be consulted prior to use of nuclear weapons in the territory it has claimed. He explains that this is to prevent the destruction of locations and items that are of importance to Polish culture, and explains that his representatives are willing to provide locations of such sites so that "no nuke" zones can be established around them. Tanner agrees to consider the idea, but does so more to humor Walesa than to give it serious consideration, assured by CIA analysts that the Free Polish government is riddled with Warsaw Pact spies and any such zones would, if established, be used as safe havens for enemy units.

Soviet propaganda trumpets the news of the prior day's NATO nuclear use to all. Warsaw Pact media goes into overdrive, declaring that the Germans and Americans are brutal barbarians that have, in their desperation to salvage a victory from their inevitable defeat at the hands of the glorious Red Army, once again unleashed nuclear warfare on the peace-loving people of the world. (The fact that the USSR was the first to use a nuclear weapon is conveniently not brought up, and in the former USSR and Warsaw Pact states the population believed that NATO fired the first nuclear shot for many decades after the war.)

Private Randall Cutler and many of the other graduates of his basic training company board school busses for the trip a mile and a half down the road to his advanced individual training course, where they will be trained as light wheeled vehicle mechanics. They spend the afternoon doing paperwork and being introduced to their new drill sergeant.

The last of the SAC airborne bombers lands and begins recovery (post-flight maintenance, refueling, securing the weapons and debriefing the crew) before being turned around to return to alert status. SAC training units (the 329th Combat Crew Training Squadron and the 330th Combat Flight Instructor Squadron) stand down from their alert status and resume training flights, although non-essential flights in other SAC units are still grounded.

Massive protests surround RAF Greenham Common and other military bases in the UK. Demonstrators demand the immediate removal of American nuclear weapons from British territory and withdrawal of NATO forces from Poland in order to avert a nuclear war.

The Chinese retaliation for the Soviet nuclear strikes continues, with a massed launch of IRBMs on a variety of Soviet cities and military facilities. The attacks on population centers are defeated by an active and efficient ABM system (composed of handfuls of upgraded SA-5, SA-10 and SA-12 missile systems), but the naval bases of Vladivostok, Mys Shmidta, and Fokino are very heavily damaged.

Soviet forces continue the savage devastation of the Chinese military, with another 24 strikes on command posts, mechanized formations halted to refuel and masses of Chinese troops. Morale in the Chinese force begins to plummet and desertion becomes rampant; Chinese commanders need to keep their units together where the few experienced NCOs and officers can monitor the masses of near-panicked recruits, but to gather them in such a manner invites a Soviet nuclear strike.

Eight A-7Ds depart Travis AFB, California en route to Korea via Hawaii and Okinawa. They are accompanied by a pair of KC-767 tankers of the 203rd Air Refueling Squadron (Hawaii Air National Guard).

The Soviet response to the NATO nuclear attack on the 37th Guards Tank Division is swift, with another nuclear artillery strike on a NATO unit. This time the target is the American 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized), which has advanced to within 30 km of Lvov, Ukraine.

British troops clash with the paratroops of the 44th Guards Air Assault Division along the Polish-Lithuanian border. To the west, the German VII Korps crosses the border into Kaliningrad, facing the partially rebuilt 3rd Shock Army, while III German Korps continues its assault on Gdansk.

The battleship Iowa, set afire and without power after a Polish kamikaze strike, drifts into a minefield in the Danish straits and detonates a US-made Mk 52 mine, with 625 pounds of explosive, further adding to the ship's peril.

The day sees the first use of tactical nuclear weapons in the northern theatre, when a FROG-7 rocket from the 116th Motor-Rifle Division is used to blast a Norwegian defensive position along the Pasvik River, which forms the Soviet-Norwegian border.

In Romania, the Soviet 14th Guards Army resumes its offensive westward along the Danube plain. The lead 59th Guards Motor-Rifle Division advances 10 km in the first 24 hours, closing in on the oil center of Ploesti. The Army's commanders are told that they are to take the utmost care to avoid damage to the petroleum infrastructure, and that they will be held personally responsible for any damage done by their units.

In the Caribbean, the burning Kuwaiti tanker Al-Tahreer sinks under the stress of a hull weakened by days of fire. A Dutch patrol boat, dispatched from St. Maarten to investigate the suspicious freighter, is fired upon when it approaches what is in fact a Soviet raider. It calls for help, and within 30 minutes an aircraft from VOJ-202 has the raider under radar observation. It remains safely out of range of the raider's weapons for the four hours it takes for a strike from the Lexington to be organized, launched and arrive at the scene. The American trainers and light attack aircraft come in on the deck, rocketing, strafing and bombing the Soviet craft. It sinks shortly thereafter.

[chico20854]

July 13, 1997

The deployment of the 46th Infantry Division to Europe, delayed due to shipping shortages until this time, is further delayed by the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe.

The drug charges against Dain Dangerous are dropped.

Unofficially,

General Secretary Sauronski refuses to take President Tanner's call.

Hyped up over the (almost entirely imaginary) threat from "Marxist infiltrators from Mexico", the Texas civilian militias along the border begin more aggressive patrolling.

A second day of protests outside RAF Greenham Common. Demonstrators block all entrances to the base, hindering the resupply of cruise missile flights that are dispersed throughout the countryside.

Colonel Tumanski's Spetsnaz team returns to three GLCM launch sites in Berkshire that they had located in February, establishing a hidden observation post monitoring each. To their east, another Spetsnaz team launches an attack on the weapons storage area at RAF Upper Heyford, initiated with a truck bomb to blast through the perimeter fences. The attack is repulsed when the WSA's guard force ties down the Soviet sabateurs long enough for a pair of Peacekeeper Armored Cars from the 620th Security Police Squadron to arrive. One of the armored cars is destroyed by a RPG-18, but the other is able to employ its machineguns to pin down the attackers while more reinforcements arrive. Two commandos surrender, while the rest of the team is wiped out.

Far Eastern TVD retaliates against China for the nuclear attacks on Vladivostok and other naval bases. SS-20 mobile IRBMs from the 53rd Missile Army strike the PLA Navy's sole boomer base at Jianggezhuang, the Jiuquan and Xichang Satellite Launch Centers, the entrance to the Yuquanshan Mountain underground command center and the headquarters of the PLA's ICBM brigades. (There are hundreds of launch sites and dozens of underground missile and warhead storage facilities, too many for the Soviets to hit).

Internally displaced persons (mostly refugees from the fall and winter's fighting in East Germany and along the Czech border) begin moving away from locations that might be targets for Soviet nuclear weapons - air bases, the Mainz Army Depot, fixed military headquarters (even though the commands based there moved to alternative and field sites long ago), munitions plants and air defense sites, joined by some locals who, despite living near such targets for many years, decide that the risk is no longer worth it. The flow of people inhibits military traffic in West Germany, especially the trickle of units into Bavaria to resist the oncoming Italian-Pact force.

Italian troops advancing from the south link up with troops of the Hungarian 25th "Klapka György" Tank Brigade on the outskirts of Graz, Austria. The Austian government, from its wartime command post in St Johann im Pongau, calls for assistance from NATO to halt the Warsaw Pact onslaught.

The battle for Warsaw continues as the British 107th Infantry Brigade pushes south in intense fighting and the American 40th Infantry Division (California National Guard) launches an attack out of the ruins of the international airport. Captain Czarny's ZOMO troops are still locked in fierce combat in the Towarowa train station - they have captured and been driven out of a signal shed three times over the prior week, losing 40 men in the process.

NATO Air Forces on the Central Front drop the first nuclear bomb of the war, striking a SS-21 missile battery of the 458th Missile Brigade with a .5 kiloton B-61 bomb as it prepared to launch.

NATO forces in Northern Norway respond to the prior day's Soviet nuclear attack on the Norwegian-Soviet border. A F-16 from the 35th Tactical Fighter Wing drops a 60 kt B-61 bomb on the Kola Highway's Litsa River crossing.

The Soviet Ministry of Medium Machine building orders truck manufacturing plants (as well as a wide variety of other factories supporting the war effort) to implement industrial civil defense measures. Some manufacturing is moved to underground facilities and workers and their families are dispersed to a number of associated facilities, including resorts and rest camps, usually located within 100 km of the plant. During peacetime these provided recreation and vacation opportunities for workers; in wartime they serve as housing for employees and their families. The workers commute daily via train to the plant; if the plant is struck the workers on duty will potentially be lost but the off-duty workers and families will be safely outside the blast zone.

US Navy ship repair experts arrive in Mombassa, Kenya to evaluate the condition of the frigate Bagley.

The USS Independence battle group, in the Arabian Sea, resumes attacks on the isolated Soviet airborne force in Chah Bahar.

The US 9th Infantry Division (Motorized) shifts north as the 45th (my 32nd) Army begins a rapid retreat from the Shiraz area, pursued by the American 1st Marine Division, reinforced with the Australian 1st Brigade.

The final six A-7s of the 156th Tactical Fighter Group (Puerto Rico Air National Guard) depart Howard Air Force Base, Panama, also returning to Texas for redeployment overseas.

[chico20854]

July 14, 1997

photo
The Jugoslav 5th Army launches an attack against northeast Italy in an attempt to support its NATO Allies (and recapture territory lost earlier in the century).

The Native Canadian Ranger Regiment enters combat, providing invaluable aid to the beleaguered American 47th Infantry Divisision. (Unofficially,) Nevertheless, the Soviet 25th Corps continues to make progress as it advances eastward. During the brief twilight, Soviet transports drop the lead regiment of the 13th Guards Airborne Division (the 115th Guards) on the western coast of the Kenai Peninsula, threatening the seaward approaches to Anchorage. The detachments of the 2nd Infantry Brigade (Arctic) in the area immediately respond, but they are overwhelmed by the veteran Soviet paratroops.

Unofficially,

Violence breaks out on the edges of protests outside RAF Greenham Common, with fires and scuffles with police. USAF commanders dispatch helicopters and truck convoys from other bases to sustain dispersed missile launch units, while Territorial Army units deploy to the countryside to try to secure GLCM operating areas.

Eight A-7Ds arrive at Kimhae Air Base in Korea, bringing the 127th Tactical Fighter Wing (Michigan Air National Guard) back up to full strength. The aircraft had been serving in Panama before being transferred to Korea.

The Soviet nuclear attacks on China continue, with strategic bombers following up on targets that surived the previous day's attacks as well as artillery and SSM-delivered strikes on troop concentrations.

The Chinese Army high command commits sixteen infantry divisions, many still in the process of forming, to the front and others from the strategic reserve.

The Soviet 28th Army in Vietnam begins an offensive into southern China, blasting Chinese border defenses with a trio of nuclear rounds to allow it to advance northeast along the rail line and road to Nanning.

NATO militaries on the continent scramble to secure their rear areas in the face of increased Soviet special operations and terrorist attacks. The Luftwaffe requests the return of security units serving in Poland, which is refused (some are deeply engaged in the battle for Warsaw while others are fighting the same sort of partisan and special operations battles), being offered territorial security units (many of which are assigned to guard empty depots and assembly areas that have been vacant for months) to help push the security perimeters of air bases farther away from the security fences. Anti-terrorist units (GSG-9 in Germany, the SAS in the UK and the Dutch Royal Marines) intensify their operations, striking suspected hideouts even though the intelligence leading to them may not withstand future legal scrutiny.

NATO troops at the front are forced to adjust to another aspect of tactical nuclear warfare - the near dissapearance of nearly all tactical air support as CENTAF concentrates on the ability to wage a tactical nuclear war. All nuclear-assigned units (over half of the fighter-bombers) cease conventional sorties, instead generating the maximum number of possible nuclear-armed aircraft from their depleted and battered fleets. Non-nuclear fighters are tasked to support tactical nuclear strikes, flying escort missions, suppressing Pact air defenses, flying diversionary sorties or carrying camera pods for post-strike analysis or locating targets. Tanker resources are cut back dramatically, held for support of SAC bombers or nuclear strikes. The nuclear-tasked fighter-bomber and attack fleets are dispersed to other NATO airbases (in the UK, RAF Sculthorpe, Lakenheath, Fairford, Mildenhall, Weathersfeld, St. Mawgan and Machihanish all host nuclear-armed American aircraft), and nuclear depth charges are issued to American P-3 and British Nimrod patrol planes.

Lead elements of the Italian 4th Alpini Army Corps begin the second phase of their offensive, advancing north out of Innsbruk and reaching the German border by nightfall.

The Indo-Pakistani war continues as Indian infantry batter their way through deep Pakistani defense lines. The Pakistani Army has long prepared for another Indian attack, fortifying the banks of the irrigation canals along the border and laying minefields that are over a mile deep along most of the front. Urged on by jingoistic politicians, Indian commanders resort to techniques last seen in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, sending masses of poorly trained infantry under artillery cover to cross the obstacle belt in hopes of reaching the enemy trenches. The casaulties are equally horrendous as those suffered in the 1980s as the Pakistanis' pillboxes offer sufficient protection from artillery for machinegunners to mow down attackers, and the few locations where Indian troops capture Pakistani positions are quickly recaptured by mechanized reaction forces.

[chico20854]

July 15, 1997

The Federal government begins to implement the preliminary steps towards city evacuation plans in Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts.

Unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship New Orleans Freedom is delivered in Beaumont, Texas.

President Tanner authorizes SAC to implement it's command-wide dispersal plan, spreading bombers and tankers to over a dozen other bases (mostly USAF but a handful of Army and Navy installations), making it more difficult for the USSR to destroy a significant portion of America's bomber force on the ground.

In the final major Soviet airborne attack of the war, the 13th Guards' 301st Guards Airborne Regiment is dropped at the base of the Kenai Peninsula, isolating the area and placing Soviet forces only 50 miles from Anchorage. American fighter planes from Elmendorf AFB tear through the Soviet transport fleet (already much depleted from costly landings from Norway to Iran) as it turns for home.

A massive show of police force occurs outside RAF Greenham Common. While civil and MoD police clear protestors from gates onto the base, RAF Regiment and USAF Security Police patrol the perimeter, apprehending a handful of protestors who cross the fence onto the base.

In Operation Wonton, F-111s of 27th Tactical Fighter Wing attack the major railyards near Kimchaek, North Korean, delaying North Korean reinforcements and hitting NKPA positions near Kimchaek, North Korea in preparation for a USMC amphibious landing.

On the Kuriles, Soviet resistance on Kunashir has collapsed, but the remainder of the 18th Machinegun-Artillery Division on the adjacent island of Iturup launch a fierce (non-nuclear) counterattack against the Japanese landing force. US and Japanese aircraft hammer the remaining radar and SAM umbrella emplacements on and near the island, while heavy rainfall prevents close air support.

The leader of the Dutch Red Army, Bert Kroner, is killed in an early morning raid by marines of the Special Assistance Unit.

Along the front, as both armies engage in more nuclear attacks, a struggle of reconnaissance begins. Political leaders on both sides demand useful employment of the relatively low-yield weapons. Due to those weapon's nature, accurate targeting is vital - a 1 kt warhead is lethal against tanks within 90 meters; smaller artillery-fired rounds with yields below .25 kt even shorter distances. Yet both sides' reconnaissance assets have been depleted by the months of combat across East Germany and Poland. Human intelligence - special forces, long-range infiltration teams, friendly partisans - provide invaluable eyes-on location information, but are reliant on secure communications and have to be able to evacuate the target area before the strike. NATO deep-look assets (satellite, JSTARS and TR-1 electronic surveillance aircraft as well as tactical intelligence platforms such as the EH-60) have been worn down by the months of constant operation, but are more numerous than the Soviet ELINT fleet, which has been savaged. The Soviets enjoy an advantage in humint, with millions of loyal communists in Poland and NATO unable to conceal their operations from the local civilian population and with insufficient troops to hunt for hidden radio transmitters. The Soviets are also able to exploit the passive portion of their vast radio-electronic force (their active jammers and spoofing assets having been destroyed months earlier), using radio direction-finding to locate NATO units behind the lines. Both sides, however, face the challenge of identifying targets from the flow of electronic data - is a transmission from an artillery fire direction center or a field hospital? is the unit that set up in the woods a headquarters or a maintenance unit? The challenge of locating and identifying targets, transmitting that information to a headquarters (in an environment with disruptions to electronic communications due to EMP), making a decision to strike it, deploying a weapon to a firing unit and having the round fired before the target has moved to another location is quite formidable, and in the first week of the nuclear exchange it proves nearly insurmountable.

In this environment, conventional operations still prove effective, as demonstrated when the British 4th Armoured Division masses its tanks against the 44th Guards Airborne Division, driving the paratroops back from Kapsukas, Lithuania and cutting the Minsk-Kaliningrad rail line.

Italian troops cross into southern Germany, capturing the German alpine resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, peacetime headquarters of the Bundeswehr 1st Gebirsjaeger Division, fighting for Torun, Poland at this time.

The evacuation of the four German fallschirjaeger brigades, battered in drops along the Soviet border, is halted. The need for infantry is so high, and the threat of infiltrators so high, that the elite paratroops are assigned to augment the jaeger battalions of German panzer and panzergrenadier divisions, one battalion assigned to each heavy brigade, ostensibly assigned to secure rear areas and rough terrain while the 9th Luftlande Artillery Battalion is sent to add to the artillery park outside Warsaw, where its 105mm howitzers add little to the overall effort.

The lead elements of the 10th Mountain Division depart Norway in a priority airlift to Germany as SACEUR demands experienced mountain troops to fight the Italian troops descending from the Alps.

Detachment 1, 495th Tactical Fighter Squadron deploys six of its remaining F-111Fs to Moron Air Base, Spain from RAF Lakenheath.

The Turkish Army activates three armored brigades (the 20th at Burdur, the 95th at Etimesgut, Ankara and the 172nd at Şereflikoçhisar) to try to stop the rapidly evolving Pact offensive in Bulgaria. The brigades combine newly arrived American M-60A4 tanks with a mix of recalled reservists (many in their 30s) and partially trained recruits, led by NCOs and officers recovering from wounds and others culled from training and headquarters establishments.

The US 9th Infantry Division (Motorized) in Iran is shifted north and west, following the linkup with US Marines and IPA troops outside Shiraz. The Soviet 45th (my 32nd) Army begins withdrawing from the area around Shiraz as the IPA 3rd Armored Division launches an attack on the Soviet lines outside the city.

[chico20854]

July 16, 1997

Nothing in canon for the day!

Strategic Air Command units begin their dispersals. Among the movements are the 1st ACCS deploys to its dispersal site of Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ; 2nd ACCS deploys to Clinton County Airport, Ohio and detachment of the 43rd Air Refueling Squadron moves to McChord AFB, Washington. Each of the detachments include security, support and maintenance teams; whether there are nuclear weapons stored at facilities on those bases is highly classified (although most do not have adequate secure sites for them).

The Federal Emergency Management Agency orders its Special Materials Program to complete stocking and sealing of strategic reserve stockpiles across the nation. Preliminary city evacuation plan implementation is expanded to the Pacific Northwest and the Washington, DC area.

Protests continue at RAF Greenham Common in response to the prior day's police show of force. Additional thousands of people arrive, all demanding withdrawal of American nuclear weapons that are making the UK a target.

A Spetsnaz team attacks the American communications facility at High Wycombe, which plays a key role in maintaining communications with NATO nuclear assets.

The USS Midway battle group, hunting raiders in the South Pacific, is ordered north at flank speed to reinforce the war effort in Alaska.

NATO responds to the dual Soviet strikes on the 14th with two attacks, a W79 "neutron bomb" fired by a M110 eight-inch howitzer of the American 41st Field Artillery Brigade at 5th Guards Tank Army’s 306th Cannon Artillery Brigade and a Lance missiles fired by the Geman ArtillerieKommando 2 at an ammunition dump that is supplying 2nd Guards Tank Army.

Civilian contractors complete the rail line to Gora Kalwaria south of Warsaw and connect it to the bridge across the Wisla. The line is able to support much of the needs of Operational Group Warsaw and the German First Army, but further progress drops off quickly as workers quit and head west lest they become targets for a Soviet warhead.

Soviet air defense troops fire a SA-5 anti-aircraft missile with a 25 kt warhead at an American SR-71 reconnaissance plane approaching the Soviet border at high speed and 75,000 feet, downing the aircraft. It is the first SR-71 combat loss in over 28 years of operations.

Patrol Missile Hydrofoil Squadron One arrives in Gibraltar, completing its transatlantic transit. It requires a few days in port before commencing operations.

The Jugoslav attack into Italy has cut off land access to Trieste as mechanized troops of the 14th Corps reach the outskirts of Udine.

Pasdaran guerrillas in Esfahan blow up a car bomb outside local KGB headquarters, killing 13 border guards and disrupting operations for days.

While sailing southwest of Puerto Rico, the aged aircraft carrier Lexington suffers an engineering casualty and lays motionless in the water. She is soon taken under tow by one of her escorts, the destroyer John Hancock.

[chico20854]

July 17, 1997

Nothing in the canon for the day. Unofficially,

The trial of the members of the Boston Megapunk band Terminal Illness related to the July 4 riot begins despite the defense's requests for more time to review the evidence, interview witnesses and otherwise prepare a coherent defense.

A female lieutenant colonel at Fort Monroe, Virginia, comes forward alleging that she was forced into a physical relationship by the (former) commanding general of the Army Training and Doctrine Command, who was relieved of command in June after multiple scandals.

Given the deteriorating situation in Europe, the decision is made to immediately deploy the 5th Marine Division, regardless of its training status.

The Army takes a different approach, dispatching individual squads and platoons from the 46th Infantry Division to Europe as replacements, to be "plugged in" to units at the front.

In the early morning hours, three protestors climb the fence onto RAF Greenham Common. They are intercepted by a USAF Peacekeeper armored car of the 501st Security Police Squadron; a jittery young airman opens fire with the turret-mounted twin MAG machineguns, killing two of the three and wounding the last protestor. By noon thousands of protestors are at the base's main gate, firing fireworks and lobbing molotov cocktails. RAF Regiment and USAF Security Police open fire as the crowd is on the verge of overrunning the gate. By sundown over twenty protestors are dead.

Mobile elements of the 18th Machinegun-Artillery Division on Iturup in the Kuriles (the mobile battalion of the 650th Regiment and the T-72s of the 110th Independent Tank Battalion) launch another counterattack on the Japanese troops, who have the garrison town and island's "capital" of Kurilsk surrounded. The T-72s succeed in breaking through the Japanese lines, but do so without their supporting infantry and are soon hunted down individually and defeated in detail.

The Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine B-33 sinks the small American freighter Sunmar Sky in the Aleutians as it approached the port of Dutch Harbor. The sinking of the ship within sight of the town is sufficient to scare shipping companies from dispatching any further vessels to the islands, forcing the support of the population and the 172nd Infantry Brigade to come by air and military shipping.

The Dutch Red Army announces a new leader, his deputy Jacob Ketelaar.

The first Danish reinforcements (from the 2nd Jutland Regimental Combat Team) arrive at the front in Bavaria; their deployment had been delayed by a shortage of transportation assets. The Danes are thrown into action immediately, clashing with Italian troops of the Tridentina Alpine Brigade 50 km southwest of Munich. To their east, German territorial troops are ejected from the German garrison outside Bad Tolz, but the the Italian troops are halted by fierce resistance a few miles north when they attempt to overrun the peacetime headquarters of 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group. The rear detachment, mostly composed of administrative troops with a handful of Green Berets, manages to hold two battalions of Alpini at bay for 12 hours before being driven out of the flaming ruins of Flint Kaserne.

The Soviets fire two more tactical nuclear rounds at NATO troops in Ukraine, halting the advance towards Lvov.

The 101st Air Assault Division begins a series of air assaults into the Zagros mountains. 1st Brigade captures the town of Lordegan.

US Navy experts declare that the damage to the frigate Bagley is so severe that it cannot be repaired in any shipyard in the region and that there is great risk in towing the ship back to the US for repair.

As the Lexington is under tow to the nearest drydock able to take her (at Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Puerto Rico), orders are received to instead take her to Mobile, Alabama, where it will be easier to transport repair parts to a shipyard. The carrier's helicopters and what fixed-wing aircraft that can make it off the deck without catapults and wind over the deck take off, landing at Roosevelt Roads before returning to the East Coast for reassignment pending Lady Lex's return to service.

[chico20854]

July 18, 1997

Nothing in canon for today. Unofficially,

Private Randall Cutler learns that AIT is vastly different from basic training when the senior platoon in his company is granted an overnight pass, starting at the end of the training day on Saturday. The lone drill sergeant on duty in the company area is indifferent to whether the junior privates are in uniform or civilian clothes, fornicating or not, let alone drinking sodas and eating candy. Cutler's dream of a barracks business empire collapses without an environment of scarcity to drive demand.

The 108th Armored Cavalry Regiment is formed at Fort Bliss, Texas, taking in some of the rear detachment troops of the 3rd ACR, which deployed from the base in the fall. The regiment begins filling up with graduates of the base's basic training battalions and replacements from throughout the continental US. Equipment is scarce, with a single cavalry troop of Cadillac-Gage Stingray light tanks and two battalions of M113 APCs. The regiment's air defense battery is brought to full strenth nearly instantaneously, however, by raiding the base's Air Defense Center and School for excess soldiers and equipment.

In the predawn hours a force of police and military units overrun the "Peace Camp" outside RAF Greenham Common. Hundreds of protestors are arrested, carried off in busses, as the government declares the area within one kilometer of the base a restricted area. A notable development is that over 75 percent of the civilian police are armed with firearms.

The US 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade launches another amphibious attack on the east coast of North Korea. Alongside South Korean marines of the 6th Marine Brigade, they land outside the industrial and port city of Kimchaek, defended by a mix of Patriotic Red Guards and remnants of several North Korean Army divisions. The heavy cruiser Des Moines provides heavy fire support, and aircraft from the carriers Nimitz and Abraham Lincoln fly overhead, clashing nearly continuously with the remnants of the Soviet 23rd Air Defense Corps from Vladivostok, a little over 200 miles to the northeast.

The American battleship Wisconsin and her surface action group locate a Soviet reinforcement convoy headed to Alaska and promptly engages it. The result is a bloodbath for the Soviets, as the few escorts (mostly aged corvettes and frigates) are quickly dispatched with anti-ship missiles fired by the American ships and their helicopters, leaving the transports at the mercy of the group's guns. The Soviet convoy scatters into the fog and Aleutian islands, but each ship is eventually located by the battlewagon's helicopters or supporting aircraft (from VP-90 near Anchorage and 407 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force from CFB Comox) and dealt with.

Jacob Ketelaar, the new leader of the Dutch Red Army, is killed by Dutch marines in a predawn raid. His term as leader lasted nearly 19 hours.

British troops fire their first tactical nuclear round, hitting a forming mass of Soviet artillery in Lithuania as the NATO forces along the Polish-Lithuanian border struggle to maintain control of the territory they have captured in the past weeks.

In Warsaw, Captain Czarny's ZOMO troops are pulled from the front line, assigned to guard a food stockpile in the basement of the Czapski Palace. The light duty allows him and his exhausted and depleted command to rest and absorb new members, staff from the Ministry of Interior staff who have been shanghied into the fight.

Italian troops in Bavaria continue their advance towards Munich, overrunning the BND (West German intelligence agency) ELINT station at Alpina. To their east, Czech and Soviet troops blast their way through the second of Austria's blocking positions between Vienna and the German frontier, west of St. Polten.

The destroyer Coontz, damaged in the second Teriberka withdrawal and by Spetsnaz attack in drydock in Philadelphia, returns to sea. Its place in the drydock is taken by the damaged carrier Saratoga.

The 101st's assaults in Iran continue with a dawn landing at Sharh-e-Kord, on the eastern edge of the Zagros Mountains. By sunset the town's airport is being improved by American combat engineers to enable it to support the division's helicopters. The Soviet 1st (my 9th) Army opposing them splits, with the 147th Motor-Rifle Division falling back to the east to defend Esfahan and the rest of the Army moving north.

[chico20854]

More tomorrow....

[chico20854]

July 19, 1997

Nothing official for today! Unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship Tucson Freedom is delivered in Portland, Oregon.

Jury selection concludes in the Terminal Illness riot trial.

Strategic Reserve Stockpile SRS-17374-2, located in the Appalachians in Pennsylvania, is sealed up by the contractor and the workers flown back home to Southern California. Strategic Reserve Stockpile SRS-17374-2, underneath St. Paul, Minnesota, is closed, and the soldiers of the 105th Engineer Group and 30th Engineer Brigade (both North Carolina National Guard) are urged to complete the secret projects they are working on as well.

The Soviet assault on China continues, with a Scud missile striking Songyuan as one of the freshly raised divisions is detraining from its journey to the front. In a further affront, specially modified Tu-16 Badger bombers of the 1339th Heavy Bomber Regiment fly a "ferry mission" to Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam (where engineers have repaired the runway after the Allied attack in January). As they overfly southern China, they drop to low level and use spray dispensers to spread fungal spores over rice paddies, infecting the fields with rice blast. The USS Olympia passes under the North Pole and begins hunting for Soviet SSBNs under the polar ice cap. It is transferred from the Pacific Fleet to the Atlantic Fleet.

The Luftwaffe's Flugkörpergeschwader 1 (1st Missile Wing) evacuates its quick reaction alert (QRA) site at Bodelsberg in Bavaria as Italian troops fan out across Bavaria. The heavily escorted convoy moves northwest, occupying an empty Bundeswehr ammunition dump at Riedlingen some 120 km away.

SACEUR orders a halt to the advance into the USSR; units are to engage in local attacks only to straighten the front line.

Italian troops clash again with territorial troops on the outskirts of Munich as the Luftwaffe and BND rush to evacuate assets amid a flood of panicked refugees fleeing the fighting.

In Austria, Hungarian and Italian troops clear the foothills west of Graz of Austrian territorial troops and decide not to continue the advance into the high alpine regions.

The final battalions of the US 10th Mountain Division arrive at the Stuttgart International Airport as the unit's first battalions take up defensive positions west of Munich.

In the first use of nuclear weapons at sea, a SH-60F from the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (the only American carrier operational in the Atlantic Ocean at the time) drops a B-57 depth charge on a Soviet submarine detected approaching the battle group. The 10-kiloton device detonates at a depth of 150 feet, crushing the target (while also disrupting the battle group's sonar picture for hours due to turbulence in the waters, and the destroyer Peterson's sensitive fixed AN/SQS-53 sonar array is damaged by the intensity of the blast). While postwar records do not identify which submarine was hit, there were three boats that were at sea at the time that were not heard from after that time - the Victor III-class K-502, the Alfa-class K-463 and the Kilo-class B-466.

Udine falls to Jugoslav troops as the garrison and civilian population of Trieste are frantically evacuated by sea; Jugoslav commanders are happy to let the evacuation occur, harassed by light naval elements, permitting higher quality JNA units to move west.

As support troops rush to establish secure lines of communications and coordinate with allied IPA troops, 3rd Brigade, 101st Air Assault Division makes another leap north, capturing the town of Chadegan.

The Pakistani line south of Lahore finally begins to crumble after days upon days of Indian human-wave attacks.

[chico20854]

July 20, 1997

Nothing in canon for today! Unofficially,

A civilian militiaman west of Del Rio, Texas shoots two Mexican immigrants, killing one of them, a 17-year old from Oaxaca in southern Mexico.

A KC-135R tanker of the 92nd Aerial Refueling Squadron, call sign "Elephant 11", operating in heavy overcast over the Pacific accidentally collides with a Soviet Tu-16N Badger tanker performing the same mission. Although Elephant 11 is heavily damaged the crew manages to return to Boeing-King County AP, while the Tu-16N crashes attempting to land at Shemya, Alaska; thus making Elephant 11 and her crew the first and only tanker crew with a confirmed air-to-air kill.

Around the Western world the panicked and hurried evacuations of urban areas has largely halted as it becomes apparent that the nuclear exchange, after a week and a half, has not escalated to the strategic level that many had feared. Many people return to their homes and jobs in urban and suburban areas, although with a better idea of what is required to evacuate and what awaits them. Many who are able to remain in rural areas away from likely nuclear targets do so; the summer school break allow smany families to remain at their vacation homes.

The Royal Navy commissions another corvette, HMS Eskimo. Like its sister HMS Ashanti, the ship was under construction for the Malaysian Navy at the outbreak of the war, but the Royal Navy took over the contract and had the ship finished.

The main body of the Soviet force on Iturup in the Kuriles surrenders. The remaining defenders of the island - a platoon of security troops at the remote Vetrovoye air base - flee aboard an An-26 transport to Sakhalin Island.

The secret American airfield in the Karakum Desert - nicknamed Shangri-La by the airmen stationed there - now has nearly a million gallons of fuel and a stock of spare parts and conventional munitions (flares, chaff and the like) and is placed in a semi-caretaker status, with approximately 50 support and security personnel present.

NATO scrambles to assemble a coherent defense of Bavaria as Italian troops reach the city limits of Munich. The US Army Fourth Army, a pre-war Army responsible for mobilization of reserve component units from the Midwest, Rocky Mountain and Northern Plains states that had eployed to Europe in May to control units in the rear area, is assigned overall command of Allied efforts. The US XX Corps takes command of the US 6th and 10th Infantry Divisions as well as a handful of engineer, artillery and MP units, mostly redeployed from Norway, while the Dutch I Corps joins the German 15th Jaeger Division (the former VI Home Defense Command) and the Danes. The German effort adds in the more militarized elements of the Bavarian police - the Bavarian Border Police and the State Police's rapid-response force. More substantial reinforcements come in the way of I British Corps, which begins moving its heavy divisions south from positions further north on the Czech border.

To the east, additional Soviet troops (the 47th Motor-Rifle Brigade from Ufa in the Urals, the 16th Artillery Division from northwest of Moscow and the 96th MRD, a category C division from Kazan) arrive at the front. The tactical nuclear exhange continued with the first use of a nuclear-armed ATACMS missile, aimed at the 1st Guards Tank Army headquarters' communications center, identified by a US Army EH-60 ELINT helicopter.

Allied naval forces in the Mediterranean step up operations against the Italians, Greeks and their Soviet allies. NATO shipping has been cut off in the eastern Mediterranean between the still-closed Suez Canal and Italian domination of the Sicilian Channel. American hydrofoils accompany an amphibious task force eastward from Gibraltar while the USS John F Kennedy and America battle groups, low on munitions, begin a series of aggressive anti-surface sweeps from their operating area off the Egyptian coast.

The first battalions of the 5th Marine Division begin loading aboard ships in the Hampton Roads area. The roads in the area are crowded with military convoys as trucks begin moving the M60A4 tanks, M113s and M109s of the 46th ID's 36th Armored Brigade to piers from their staging areas at Fort Eustis; the vehicles are being shipped to Europe, where they will be parcelled out to replace losses in National Guard divisions.

A massive tank battle breaks out on the plains north of Shiraz, Iran as the advance of the Iranian 3rd Armored Division and the 1st Australian Brigade is countered by the 45th (my 32nd) Army, which commits the 69th and 15th (my 78th) Tank Divisions to hit the Allied force in the flank. The lead Soviet regiments slice behind the lead Iranian brigades, cutting them off, but are in turn attacked in their southern flank by the Iranian division's reserve brigade while the Australian brigade swings to face the lead Soviet regiments. As dusk falls the desert is a vast, confused battle, covererd in smoke from burning vehicles and dust kicked up by tracks, gunfire and artillery.

To the north, lead battalions of the 9th Infantry Division (Motorized) push beyond the positions siezed by the 101st Air Assault Division, continuing XVIII Airborne Corps' drive northward.

US Navy leaders in Washington place the damaged frigate Bagley as number 3 on a list of damaged vessels to be returned to the US via heavy lift ship, anticipated for mid-October.

[chico20854]

July 21, 1997

On Grenada, a group of Constables, assisted by retired SGM Dan Rojos and a few other retired American NCOs, surround the hideout of the Bunny Woolsey gang, a particularly brutal and ruthless gang. The gang is wiped out in the subsequent firefight, although the group's leader, the notorious criminal psychopath Bunny Woolsey, is not identified among the dead.

2nd Squadron, 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment, detached to V Corps to provide additional screening for the Warsaw perimeter, is struck by a tactical nuclear weapon while at an assembly point for resupply and refit, nearly annihilating the unit.

Unofficially,

The prosecutor in the Terminal Illness-Boston Common riot trial presents hours of footage of rioting; the defense's objection that none of the footage shows the defendants is overruled.

The US Congress repeals the assault weapons ban of 1994, allowing civilians to once again purchase new military-style semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity magazines. The actual impact of the repeal is minimal, since nearly all small arms production is devoted to the war effort.

Allied progress in North Korea slows as units run low on supplies. The limited road network is in poor condition and it (like the ports) suffered from months of Allied air attacks. The main road and rail lines in the west run through Pyongyang, which is still the object of intenst fighting as the South Korean IX Corps (composed of four reserve infantry divisions) and XI Corps (with three additional reserve divisions) push back the fanatical defenders, who believe (despite non-stop South Korean psyops broadcasts) that they are defending the Kim family.

Reconaissance units of II British Corps cross the Neman River in Byelorussia, skirting the eastern half of the city of Grodno, seeking a weak point in Soviet lines, which consist almost entirely of KGB Border Guards. As Scimitars and Scorpions of the 13th/18th Royal Hussars move east, they run into the T-80s of the newly arrived 96th MRD and quickly retreat back across the river, where the Chieftains of The Royal Hussars (Prince of Wales Own) offer heavier covering fire.

In Warsaw, Panzergruppe Oberdorff intensifies its attacks along the eastern edge of the city. The force, mostly composed of British and German troops (including two former East German NVA divisions), makes progress, with the 5th Panzer Divison's recon battalion slipping a patrol into the Praga neoghborhood, where they can observe the Wisla River and the flow of Pact defenders into the southeastern area of the perimeter.

The fighting in Bavaria continues as the Italian 4th Alpini Corps, facing increasing numbers of NATO troops to its north and west, tries to both sustain its drive into Munich and form a cohesive front line.

In Austria, the combined Czech-Soviet force (the Soviet 21st Army and the Czech 2nd Army) batters against the final Austrian defensive line, east of Linz as Hungarian troops shift west. Hungarian internal troops, poorly trained and equipped (but all that are available), attempt to establish control over the city of Vienna, abandoned by the government on the first day of the Pact invasion and passed through by Pact troops advancing from Slovakia and Hungary.

The Soviet 2nd Guards Artillery Division is withdrawn from the Kola Peninsula to the Leningrad area.

The Jugoslav advance in northeastern Italy is halted when advancing troops reach the fortified banks of the Tagliemento River, fiercely defended by Italian reservists occupying bunkers, dug-in tank turrets and pillboxes covering minefields.

The Battle of the Valley continues in central Iran as the Allied advance is halted by the Soviet 40th and 45th (my 32nd) Armies and tanks run amok in a vast cauldron of tanks, guns, dust and smoke. The clouds over the battle prevent visual identifcation of tanks, neutralizing the Allied airpower advantage. The Allied effort is reinforced by the commitment of the US 48th Infantry Brigade (Mechanized) (Georgia National Guard), whose M1A1 tanks possess the theater's best thermal sights. On the other end of the spectrum, the Soviet 69th Tanks Division (a mobilization-only unit) commits two regiments of Second World War-era T-34/85 tanks. The ancient relics perform surprisingly well, able to inflict significant damage on enemy tansk with flank and rear shots, which the confused nature of the battle permits.

Elsewhere in Iran, the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment (Light) and Iranian 18th Armored Division finally begin to capture ground from the 7th Army, which is increasingly starved of supplies as the situation elsewhere deteriorates.

[chico20854]

July 22, 1997

The British 6th Division is assigned to the Chinese 31st (my 3rd Group) Army in northwestern North Korea.

Unofficially,

The family of the 17-year old killed on the Mexican border appears on Mexican national TV. The grieving mother cries out "My son only wanted to go to America to work, so we could have money to eat. But this Yanqui shot him like a dog!"

Colonel Tumanski's stakeout of the GLCM deployment locations bears fruit, when an advanced party of C Flight, 11th Tactical Missile Squadron moves into one of the locations he had identified in February. Within an hour a convoy of 22 vehicles arrives, including four of the GLCM launchers, each loaded with four nuclear-tipped missiles. Tumanski's observation team calls for reinforcements, which arrive two hours later, by which time the Air Force Security Police have hardened their perimeter with barbed wire and claymore mines. The commandos attack anyhow, and while losing six of their ten remaining men, the Spetsnaz team succeeds in destroying one of the launchers (and the missiles aboard it) before having to flee the area.

Given the increasing scope of Soviet nuclear warfare, the Japanese War Cabinet decides to postpone the proposed Phase Two and Phase Three of their campaign to regain the Kuriles and southern Sakhalin Island.

The Italian Army diverts troops of 5th Corps - the Pozzuolo di Friuli Armored Brigade and the Gorizia Mechanized Brigade - from the Austrian front to contain the Jugoslav advance in the northeast.

The guns of the 17th Artillery Division, released from STAVKA reserve, fire their first shots from west of Lutsk, Ukraine as 1st Guards Tank Army launches a counterattack against Panzergruppe Oberdorf as that formation pauses inside Soviet borders.

NATO responds to the nuclear attack on the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment with a pair of artillery-fired munitions fired at the elite 120th Guards Motor-Rifle Division, which was massing to counterattack near Brest. The strikes hit the division's main command post and the control center for its 1045th Guards Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment, leaving it vulnerable to the next several hours of relentless (conventional) air attacks which savage the division’s gathering masses of armor.

The LSK (former East German Air Force) disbands in JG-3 (Jagdgruppe 3, fighter group), its sole remaining MiG-29 unit, as its stocks of spare parts for the aircraft have been expended and cannibalization has run its course. The remaining pilots are dispersed to other NATO air force training courses as instructors in Warsaw Pact tactics while much of the ground staff are reassigned to other roles; the least qualified (or useful) end up escorting convoys in Poland or defending airfields.

The US Navy releases SEAL Team Four to Sixth Fleet. It is flown to Rota, Spain via priority airlift.

The 112th Tactical Fighter Wing (Pennsylvania Air National Guard) in Tuzla, Jugoslavia receives a reinforcement flight of six A-7Ds, formerly from the 156th Tactical Fighter Group (Puerto Rico Air National Guard) in Panama. They are delivered by a roundabout route that ultimately included a daring low-level night flight over the Adriatic Sea.

The evacuation of Trieste is halted, and Jugoslav commanders discover that the evacuation fleet brought in reinforcements, the elite San Marco Marine Regiment.

The Victory ship Wayne Victory is fully unloaded in Bandar Abbas, departs to Muscat, Oman.

The Battle of the Valley concludes as the exhausted combatants pause to replenish diminshed stocks of fuel and ammunition. Allied forces retain control of the battlefield, while the 32nd Army's tank divisions retreat to the northwest and 40th Army, the main body of which had withdrawn northward during the battle, falls back to the airport complex of Yadz. The mobilization-only 69th Tank Division, reduced to one third strength and largely equipped with T-34s, is forced to rally on the northwest edge of the battlefield, within sight on Allied scouts. As the afternoon turns to evening a mighty artillery and aerial barrage is released on the well dispersed division, covering the hapless division with cluster bomb and ICM bomblets and laying FASCAM minefields throughout the division's area. Behind the cover of the barrage the 1st Marine Division resumes the northward drive that the battle had paused, using superior night-fighting equipment to continue the advance through the night.

The Pakistani Army commits one of its "strike" corps, the Second, (composed of mechanized units with a higher proportion of professional troops and better equipment) to try to halt the Indian advance. The attempt is less than successful, as the attacking Indian infantry (like the Chinese in 1996) simply disperse away from the armor, closing in behind them.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by chico20854

July 22, 1997

NATO responds to the nuclear attack on the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment with a pair of artillery-fired munitions fired at the elite 120th Guards Motor-Rifle Division, which was massing to counterattack near Brest. The strikes hit the division's main command post and the control center for its 1045th Guards Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment, leaving it vulnerable to the next several hours of relentless (conventional) air attacks which savage the division’s gathering masses of armor.

Just a point of interest: The Artillery gunners call nuclear artillery rounds "golden bullets" due to the color of the fuze sections. They otherwise look like standard shells except for the labeling.

[cawest]

with the battle of the Valley over. i could see first Iranian support units and then Allied supply people looking for parts or to see if they can recover combat units of all types. i could see an INF being okay with a t-34 with a recovered quad 14.7 or 23mm also maybe something like a t-100s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34_v...0-latrun-2.jpg

[chico20854]

July 23, 1997

Nothing official for the day! Unofficially,

The former commanding general of the Army Training and Doctrine Command, relieved of command in June after multiple scandals, is charged with dereliction of duty and conduct unbecoming an officer.

The prosecution in the Terminal Illness riot trial rests.

As the Chinese government struggles to retain some semblance of control over its rapidly disintegrating army, it decides to do what it can to throw the Soviet advance off guard. Seeing that the only area that Chinese forces are not in retreat is the force in North Korea, it commits the 15th Airborne Army (consisting of three lightly equipped but well-trained airborne divisions) to action in the growing Chinese bridgehead across the Yalu.

The USS Midway arrives in the Gulf of Alaska, and almost immediately its S-3s detect a submarine contact about 350 miles west of Juneau. The report is relayed to the attack submarine USS Baton Rouge, attached to the battlegroup, and the USS Houston, hunting in the region. Both attack submarines head for the contact area and the Houston intercepts a Soviet Delta III-class nuclear missile boat, and after several hours of a game of cat and mouse, succeeds in putting a torpedo in her. The Baton Rouge, in turn, encounters a suspected Akula-class attack submarine, and also succeeds in at least damaging it with a torpedo. The Baton Rouge is damaged in turn by a torpedo intercepting a towed decoy at close range, forcing her to disengage and head home. Post-war, the Delta III is identified as the K-44, which was severely damaged but made it back to Fokino, and the Akula is identified as the K-322, which was apparently sunk by the Baton Rouge, as it made no further contact.

In western Ukraine, 1st Guards Tank Army's attack makes modest progress as Panzergruppe Oberdorff, deprived of the paratroopers of the 27th FallshirmJaeger Brigade and worn out by months of nearly continuous combat, nearly runs out of momentum. The dispersed frontage and long cable runs between antennas and command posts required to minimize damage from Soviet tactical nuclear weapons require more soldiers to secure. Resupply is problematic at this distance, with ammunition from America traveling across the Atlantic, through German or Dutch ports, onto battered rail lines through war-damaged East Germany and Poland to a field ammunition facility on the east bank of the Wisła before being loaded onto trucks for the journey across eastern Poland and to a corps-level supply dump just over the Ukrainian border. Once there, the anxious ordnance troops are eager to get the rounds forward, afraid that a large stock of munitions will present a juicy target for Soviet attackers of many flavors.

In central Poland, German troops of I Korps (the 1st GebirgsJaeger Division, the 5th Grenzjaeger Division and 3rd Panzer Division) make another attempt to eliminate the Torun Pocket, which holds significant portions of the Polish 4th Army and Soviet 4th Guards TankArmy and 22nd Army.

The Danish 2nd Zeeland Mechanized Brigade enters in action in Bavaria, arriving in the city of Augsburg just moments before troops of the Italian Tridentina Alpine Brigade. The Danes are able to feed companies into the battle piecemeal, keeping the more lightly equipped Italians off-balance.

American troops in the battle for Warsaw continue their slow slogging drive into the city. Troops of the 1st Battalion, 160th Infantry (part of the 40th Infantry Division) drive the Polish defenders of the former Fort Służew, a still heavily protected remnant of the city's 19th century defenses and prewar home of the highest ranking generals in the Polish Army.

As trains arrive in Pushkin, a suburb of Leningrad, carrying elements of the 2nd Guards Artillery Division, those guns that are serviceable and the most experienced troops are diverted to a holding area. Within hours they are loaded back onto railcars and begin the short journey through the Baltic Republics to the Polish border, transferred to the 149th Guards Artillery Division, which has suffered from months in action.

The Jugoslav army's 14th Engineer Regiment supports an assault crossing of the Tagliemento River by infantry of the 228th Motorized Infantry Brigade. The attack, at dusk, is broken up by Italian MLRS rocket fire, which disrupts the marshalling area on the east bank of the river, while Italian light attack aircraft (the G.91s of the 32nd Stormo) suppress the guns of the Jugoslav 14th Artillery Regiment, aiming at the muzzle flashes in the darkness.

The Victory ship Wayne Victory arrives in Muscat, Oman, empty.

Pasdaran irregulars attack the isolated and immobilized remnants of the 69th Tank Division, seeking out survivors as well as useful intelligence (such as the 32nd Army code book found on the body of a T-34 tank battalion commander the prior day). The Pasdaran, ironically, suffer nearly as many casualties from the unexploded ordnance and artillery-laid minefields laid by friendly forces as they do from the scattered and shell-shocked remnants of the Soviet division.

The Marines of the 1st Marine Division capture the heights to the south and west of Yadz, driving back exhausted soldiers of the Soviet 40th Army (veterans of the mountain fighting in Afghanistan). From their perches they are able to direct accurate artillery fire and airstrikes on the defenders. (Their air support is especially effective as their supporting squadrons make use of recently recaptured airstrips nearby as well as the spacious Shiraz International Airport).

US Navy leaders divide the crew of the damaged frigate Bagley in Mombasa, Kenya to various duties while awaiting the arrival of a heavy lift ship. Some are assigned to provide local security for the ship and adjacent support activities, some to serve as advisors to the Kenyan Navy while others are flown to other war zones to serve as replacements aboard other ships.

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by Homer

Was chemical release a trigger?

You have to remember that the US considered chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons to all be "weapons of mass destruction."


Officially the U.S. no longer had chemical or biological weapons, so the use of any of these two weapons would trigger a response by nuclear weapons.

[Homer]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

You have to remember that the US considered chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons to all be "weapons of mass destruction."


Officially the U.S. no longer had chemical or biological weapons, so the use of any of these two weapons would trigger a response by nuclear weapons.

True, if CWC implementation was followed through, the weapons would be at Johnston Atoll, PB arsenal or elsewhere for destruction. Not sure if the CWC process went down the same way in T2K- could easily see it not happening.

That said, my question was more related to the 55th SRW dispersing earlier than the remainder of the strategic force. Its assets have a pre and post attack C2 and targeting role. I was curious about the the trigger for their dispersal considering it happened in CONUS in advance of the initiation of nuclear warfare and separate of other assets dispersing. Since pact CW use did not trigger a US/NATO nuclear response I wondered if it increased the readiness posture of US strategic forces or if the dispersal was just coincidence.

[chico20854]

July 24, 1997

Following the prior days advances, the US 1st Marine Division captures Yadz and the airfields in the area, driving the 40th Army into the desert to the north.

The Federal Reserve Bank moves 80 tons of gold from its facility in Manhattan to Long Island for safekeeping.

The German 10th Panzer Division is pulled from the Warsaw perimeter, ordered to rapidly redeploy to Bavaria to help stop the Italian invasion.

Unofficially,

A fourth R-5D hypersonic spy plane is delivered from Palmdale, California.

There is another "incident" on the Mexican border where civilians open fire on Mexican immigrants.

Soviet troops in Alaska continue to make slow progress; the American defense line at the base of the Seward Peninsula crumbles away as supplies run low and Soviet hovercraft interdict surface traffic along the Yukon River.
The 11th Airborne Division, which has only a single battalion of Second World War artillery, receives a high-priority airlift of eight M-101 105mm howitzers, part of the contingent of guns retreived from Argentina in the spring.

SACEUR, respecting the North Atlantic Council's guidance to limit use of tactical nuclear weapons to a level directly proportional to that of the USSR, yet needing to augment the ability of his nearly overstretched forces, authorizes widespread deployment of chemical weapons. Heavily escorted convoys soon leave storage sites in western Germany and the Netherlands, mostly heading to nearby air bases where select USAF C-130 squadrons have aircraft waiting.

In the air over Bavaria Allied interceptors continue their battles against the Aeronautica Militare, the Italian Air Force, whose Tornado bombers have wreaked havoc in their dashes over the Alps to strike outnumbered NATO formations. The arrival of the RAF's No. 618 Squadron, with its remaining six Typhoons, American F-22s of the 32nd Tactical Fighter Squadron and RAF Tornado F.3 fighters from No. 23 Squadron, turned the tide in the air, as the AM's 1960s-era F-104Ss are outmatched by the top-of-the-line NATO fighters.

Austrian resistance in the Danube Valley breaks after sustaining days of concentrated Warsaw Pact attacks. The remnants of the 1st PanzerGrenadier Division retreat west to try to augment the defense of Linz, guarded by reservists, while many of the territorials that survived the Pact attacks begin guerilla fighting or head for the safety of the hills and mountains, where Italian and Pact troops dare not go.

SACEUR orders the evacuation of all remaining tactical nuclear weapons from weapon storage sites in Bavaria; some are (by a series of highly classified airlift flights) transferred to Turkey to augment the several dozen B-61 bombs already at four Turkish air bases.

The Soviets strike the American 28th Infantry Division (Pennsylvania National Guard) with a tactical nuclear weapon, a 152mm round that destroys the 28th Signal Battalion's Node Center Switch, one of the links between the tactical radio system and the division- and corps-level Mobile Subscriber Equipment field telephone system. Within two hours the division has activated its backup switch, but the strike leaves the division's troops shaken.

The Italian Army forms a new Corps-level command to oversee the war against Jugoslavia. The command is called Forza Dalmatia and it takes over the units holding the line in the northeast.

XVIII Airborne Corps in Iran makes striking progress as Soviet resistance falters; 45th (my 32nd) Army is capable only of defending Esfahan from IPA attacks while 7th Army is tied down trying to contain the Allied mechanized attack towards Ahvaz; other Soviet formations are withdrawing as quickly as they can.

[chico20854]

July 25, 1997

In Iran, the 101st Air Assault Division launches another predawn air assault, this one against the city of Qom, less than 90 miles south of Tehran and considerer a holy city by Shia Muslims. The assault catches the Soviets off guard, and by dusk the 9th Infantry Division, displaying its remarkable mobility, has pushed its advanced battalions to link up with the 101st. The entire effort is screened by the attack helicopters of the 6th ACCB, which break up a Soviet counterattack before it is even launched.

The Turkish 33rd Infantry Division is assigned to IV (my VI) Corps for internal administrative duties in the city of Zonguldak on the Black Sea coast east of Istanbul. (Unofficially) The division has taken heavy losses over the past several months in action in Bulgaria. Its place on the front lines is taken by the 39th Infantry Brigade and 5th Armored Brigade, both of which have been held in reserve to respond to any Greek landing along the Aegean coast.

Additionally, and unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship Shreveport Freedom is delivered in Beaumont, Texas.

The aircraft carrier Lexington arrives in Mobile, Alabama, where barge-mounted cranes remove the remaining fixed-wing aircraft.

The judge in the Terminal Illness riot trial orders the defense to wrap up its case, citing the desire of many of the jurors to evacuate the city as rumors swirl of expanding nuclear war.

Outside Anchorage, Soviet troops of the 13th Guards Air Assault Division sink the US Coast Guard patrol boat Roanoke Island, which is operating close to shore, supporting defenders from the 47th Infantry Division with its twin 25mm autocannons.

In North Korea, Allied forces, led by the American 163rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, force their way across the Chongchon River 40 miles north of Pyongyang, entering the rough terrain between that river and the Yalu. The People's Liberation Army is less than 50 miles away, making slow progress while the rest of its units in Manchuria disintegrate under repeated Soviet tactical nuclear attacks. (The Far Eastern TVD is using, on average, eight warheads a day, striking units as small as battalions as well as logistic and communications sites, airfields and headquarters.)

The USS Midway's air wing appears in the skies over the Cook Inlet in Alaska; thanks to local residents' efforts to pass word from behind the lines the attack aircraft are able to accurately hit the 13th Guards Air Assault Division's main supply dump, severely limiting the division's ability to continue its advance on Anchorage.

American troops make the first use of chemical weapons on the central front when a battery of M109 howitzers from VII Corps conduct an "artillery raid" in Ukraine. The battery rushes forward, halting less than a half mile behind the front line positions held by the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment and fire 32 M110 mustard gas rounds (four rounds per gun) at a railroad siding a little over 18 km away. (The railroad siding is being used by the 1st Shock Army to unload ammunition; the use of a persistent blister agent assures that the site will be rendered unusable for several weeks). The guns "shoot and scoot" - departing the front line immediately after firing to evade Soviet counterbattery fire.

Italian troops reach the center of Munich, pausing to snap photos of themselves with the Glockenspeil on the town hall in the Marienplatz. German territorial troops had been ordered to withdraw rather than have the historic city center be destroyed in urban fighting. The Luftwaffe evacuates the last of its troops, aircraft and supplies from the Erding airbase outside the city, joining those evacuated from the Lechfeld air base a few days before at Baden-Soellingen, a Canadian air base in southwestern Germany that the RCAF has only been using as a support facility, its remaining F/A-18s in action far to the east over Poland and the USSR.

XX US Corps halts the Italian advance to the west along the base of the Alps, holding the line of the Iller River, which forms the western border of Bavaria.

The Austrian defense of Linz collapses and the government evacuates, along with all available Bundesheer forces, to German territory, pursued by Czech and Soviet troops. Along the front in Poland and the western USSR the front remains largely static as both sides try to regroup, resupply their exhausted forces and dig in to protect themselves from a possible tactical nuclear strike.

US Navy and Air Force aircraft (operating from Turkish bases) try to blast clear a corridor through the few Bulgarian air defenses, opening a transit route into Romania and Jugslavia. The route is only useable by military transports flying under escort at medium altitude (out of the range of Bulgarian anti-aircraft guns), but it allows the resumption of regular resupply of the 71st Airborne Brigade and support of embattled Jugoslavia and Romania.

The final elements of the 5th Marine Division complete loading at Little Creek, Virginia and set sail as part of Convoy 158, which also carries the equipment of the 36th Armored Brigade (to be parceled out as loss replacements upon arrival in Germany) and what replacement vehicles and munitions that can be scraped together from around the US.

The first shipment of steel plate from the burned-out battlecruiser Rossiya arrives in Nikolaev for installation aboard the helicopter carrier Leningrad.

[chico20854]

July 26, 1997

Nothing official for today. Unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship St. Louis Freedom is delivered in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

3rd Brigade, 11th Airborne Division completes JRTC-2 Rotation 97-9, is declared combat ready and immediately loaded onboard aircraft for transfer to the front in Alaska alongside the remainder of the division.

The commander of Long-Range Aviation and the Minister of Agriculture proudly report to the Politburo that they have now sprayed over 25,000 hectares of Chinese rice fields with rice blast spores, ensuring that any harvest in southern China will be poor.

The Soviet 28th Army's 50th Guards Motor-Rifle Division enters the city of Nanning in southeastern China after a Tu-22M Backfire drops a TN-1000 30kt bomb on the defenders outside the city. The roads in all directions are flooded with refugees fleeing it and other cities nearby.

The German government endorses efforts already underway by the Land (state) governments of Saarland, Rheinland-Pfalz, Burden-Wurttemberg and Nordhein-Westfalen to establish refugee housing facilities west of the Rhine River to host the numerous internally displaced people that are flowing west to avoid the fighting. The move frees some federal facilities - barracks and empty depots, among others - for use to house refugees, as well as providing funding and more support from the German Red Cross.

The Italian Army, facing increasing NATO resistance, begins routing additional mechanized forces into Germany, through the overloaded mountain passes as well as the more circuitous route through Vienna and up the Danube Valley. Hungarian troops of the 1st Corps remain in Austria, securing Pact supply lines and launching raids into areas where Austrian stay-behind units are still active.

The Soviets hit the the airbase at Biała Podlaska, with its 10,000-foot runway and adjacent rail line and highways with a nuclear-tipped SS-21 missile, disrupting the vital logistic hub for the central sector of the NATO front.

The commander of the Soviet 23rd Army, appalled at the materiel condition of the newly-arrived mobilization-only 73rd Tank Division (half the requisite number of tanks (all worn-out T-54s), a third the required number of APCs and heavy mortars instead of howitzers, with only one battalion of D-1 howitzers left over from World War Two) brings it up to full strength by raiding the stockpile of the 233rd Rear Area Protection Division, seizing its T-34s, and stripping the MVD’s 347th Guard Regiment of its best men and APCs so the 73rd will have a nearly full complement of motor-rifle troops. Even so equipped, the army commander keeps the formation in reserve, only using it for the initial exploitation of any breakthroughs lest it encounter counterattacking modern NATO armor.

Danish mine warfare forces clear a path to the burned-out hulk of the USS Iowa. A salvage party is landed on the bow from a helicopter; they quickly establish that the battleship had detonated two mines while adrift. The stern of the ship has been burnt out from the fires that followed Polish kamikaze attack, so it appears that towing the massive ship from the bow will be most feasible. That will, however, require additional mine clearing to create room to turn the ship around.

Convoy 158 is joined by three Freedom ships - the Austin, Birmingham and Oklahoma - which have departed Philadelphia loaded with munitions and vehicles newly produced by American war industries.

The Victory ship Wayne Victory begins loading a cargo of aluminum ingots in Muscat, Oman.

XVIII Airborne Corps and CENTCOM support units scramble to keep up with the combat units which have advanced 350 miles in a month and are fighting on a front line that stretches over 1000 miles through harsh desert and mountains in a war-torn country thousands of miles from home. Meanwhile, the combat units' effectiveness is gradually diminishing, as replacements are slow to arrive and the rapid advance drive the soldiers to exhaustion.

Soviet naval architects in Nikolaev are confounded, trying to figure out how to graft the steel that arrived from Leningrad the prior day onto the hull of a different ship. The battlecruiser's steel is thicker, of a different alloy and already bent to conform to the original ship's hull form. (One complains privately to a peer that "only in the Soviet Union would the leadership make such a ridiculous decision!").

The Boeing Skyfox light attack jets make their combat debut (at least in American employment) in Colombia as yet another town - Ábrego, in the east - is under threat of being overrun by a mixed force of Marxist guerillas, Venezuelan Army troops and Cuban advisors. The aircraft performs admirably, using a mix of gun pods, napalm tanks and cluster bombs to disrupt the attack.

[chico20854]

July 27, 1997

After weeks of battering the Soviet 7th Army, the US 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) captures Ahvaz.

Unofficially,

A patrol of the Canadian Native Ranger Regiment intercepts a Spetsnaz group near the Iqaluit air base on Baffin Island in the northeastern Canadian Arctic. The Soviet group is eliminated in the subsequent firefight, when the native group calls in reinforcements, including a strike by the F-16s stationed at the base.

Despite the setbacks, the 13th Guards Air Assault Division (reinforced with a battalion group of survivors from the 130th Air Assault Brigade) and the 1st Arctic Mechanized Brigade break through the last substantial defense line outside Anchorage, held by a force of the 172nd Infantry Brigade, 2nd Infantry Brigade (Arctic Recon) and 47th Infantry Division.

The American supply ship USS Sacramento, rushing at 25 knots from the nuclear aircraft carrier strike group to the logistic support fleet orbiting in the eastern Sea of Japan passes over the Soviet submarine Kilo-class B-486 lurking submerged at 250 feet. The Soviet commander takes the opportunity, shooting two wake-homing torpedoes at the speeding oiler. One is distracted by the ship's Nixie decoy but the other one hits, bursting the seals around the propeller shafts. The onrushing water floods the ship's engine room and extinguishes the boilers, and a UH-46 replenishment helicopter, being moved into the ship's hangar, is tossed on its side by the shock and bursts into flame. With the power out, efforts to save the vessel fail and it slips beneath the waves.

The last of the fresh Danish units, the 1st Zeeland Mechanized Brigade, arrives at the front in Bavaria after a hasty transfer from northwestern Poland. It joins its sister Danish formation in the defense of Augsburg.

A R-5D Aurora hypersonic spy plane, aircraft #2, explodes over the Norwegian Sea, likely as a result of a catastrophic fuel system failure.

A major naval action erupts in the eastern Baltic as a force of NATO (East and West German, Norwegian and Danish) patrol boats intercept a Soviet reinforcement convoy headed from Leningrad to beleaguered Kaliningrad. Under jamming cover provided by a pair of American B-52s of the 379th Bomb Wing, the fast attack craft blast past the escorting missile boats and corvettes, launch a volley of missiles at the convoy flagship (the cruiser Admiral Zozulya) and rake the transports with gun, missile and torpedo fire. They escape with the loss of only two boats - the former East German Hans Coppi and the West German Dachs.

In the Mediterranean, the US carrier task force (Task Force 60) turns its attentions to Italy, striking the Lecce-Galatina, Casale and Grattaglie air bases. Meanwhile, the F-111s of the 495th Tactical Fighter Squadron strike the Italian Decimomannu Air Force Base in Sardinia. The Italian Air Force leadership is forced to pull squadrons from the German theater to defend the south of the country, leaving its forces in Bavaria vulnerable to attack from Allied airpower there.

To further disrupt Allied efforts, the Soviets launch an attack on eastern Turkey, driving on the city of Kars. The 42nd Corps, reinforced by KGB border guard units, cross the border at three points - from Akhaltsikhe in Georgia, across the Armenian border from Leninabad on a broad front, and along the highway from Tabriz, Iran. The Turks are caught off guard, the understrength border guard units fighting fiercely but outgunned by fresh Soviet troops. Nearly all Turkish air support is devoted to the fighting in the west, largely leaving the USAF units (the depleted 149th Tactical Fighter Group, down to 11 F-16As) to oppose the Soviet attack.

Pakistan, desperate to halt the flood of Indian infantry and prevent the breakthrough near Lahore from becoming a massive gap in its front line, commits several battalions of its paramilitary Frontier Constabulary, hastily relocated from the northwestern portion of the country.

[ToughOmbres]

Do you think by now in the conflict Portugal's Mechanized Brigade which was IRL earmarked for NATO would have entered combat or been retained in Portugal?

[chico20854]

July 28, 1997

The Soviet counteroffensive in Poland begins with the Battle of Brest where the 1st German Army is hit by the 3rd Guards and 8th Guards (my 30th Guards) Tank Divisions.

GRU and Spetsnaz teams penetrate American lines in Iran. They locate and attack US 3rd Army Headquarters, killing General Barbaneri, his chief of staff, and the commander of the 3rd Army. The raiders are all captured or killed, but in one stroke, CENTCOM and the 3rd Army are left leaderless as the Soviets begin their counteroffensive.

Unofficially,

Lead elements of the 3rd Brigade, 11th Airborne Division arrive at Ladd Army Airfield, Alaska. Their arrival is too late to halt the retreat of X Corps' northern grouping, which is withdrawing towards Fairbanks under pressure from the Soviet 25th Corps, and in the south the defense of Anchorage collapses. The Air Force evacuates Elmendorf Air Force Base and X Corps orders remaining Army units to evacuate in two directions. The 172nd Infantry Brigade and 47th Infantry Division are ordered to retreat east, defending the approaches to the Canadian border, while the 2nd Infantry Brigade (Arctic Recon) withdraws northeast to Fort Greely.

NATO counters the Soviet nuclear attack on the 26th against the logistics hub of Biała Podlaska with a nuclear ATACMS strike against the rail junction of Kovel, where six important rail lines converge (many of which are feeding reinforcements and supplies into the region). The Soviets use a tactical nuclear round to blast a hole in the German defense line outside Brest, but discover that the scientists are right - the 2.5 kt 152mm artillery round destroys only two platoons of tanks, thanks to the hardened nature of the vehicles and the emplacements that combat engineers have dug them in to.

In Warsaw, NATO forces continue to press towards the city center against fierce resistance. British and German troops have reached the Prage neighborhood, and artillery forward observers have visual sighting of the Wisla River, enabling artillery attacks on the fleet of small boats that have supplanted the bridges (which are exposed to random NATO interdiction fire) as the major means of transport across the river. East German VOPO (riot police loyal to Communism) troops begin public executions of those suspected of hoarding food, deserting the city's defense forces, or even expressing views critical of the (absent) Polish or Pact leadership.

F-111Fs of the 495th Tactical Fighter Squadron strike the Italian naval base at La Maddalena, Sardinia. The 8th Marine Expeditionary Brigade embarks aboard additional amphibious shipping - the assault carriers Iwo Jima, Wasp and Saipan and their groups - in Gibraltar and Rota, Spain.

The Italian Fotza Dalmatia, reinforced with the Mantova Mechanized Brigade, diverted from occupation duty in Austria, launches a major counterattack to drive the Jugoslav forces out of northeastern Italy.

Soviet forces (the 19th Motor-Rifle Division) break through Turkish defenses north of Kars, Turkey but are unable to advance rapidly due to nearly continuous ambushes by small detachments of Turkish mountain troops. To their east, the other Soviet division, the 42nd Motor-Rifle (a training unit hastily committed to action), reinforced with the 39th KGB Border Guard Brigade and generous artillery support, attacks the Turkish 14th Mechanized Brigade’s sector. The line of Turkish defensive outposts along the broder is obliterated by massed heavy artillery fire and the 14th's deployment to the field is disrupted by vehicles that would not start and crews that have not trained together. By the end of the day the 42nd has advanced over 10 miles into Turkey, blessed with more favorable terrain than the division to the north.