On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[chico20854]

Originally Posted by Targan

Probably more efficient to make it a "On this week 25 years ago" thread from here on. Heroic effort so far. A very enjoyable read.

Thanks!

I've been really busy at the office lately - the biggest change in the primary responsibility of my jobin over 50 years and a lot of associated travel. Entertainingly, it has been past a lot of sites mentioned in this thread... one SAC base and about 6-10 refineries. A nice addition to the couple targets I pass on a more regular basis.

I'd like to try to keep it a daily update for the next couple weeks (once I get caught up). As far as conventional fighting I'd like to detail X Corps' counterattack out of Fairbanks, the collapse of the Allied defense in British Columbia and counterinsurgency operations in Iran as well as the re-emergence of anti-Soviet forces in Jugoslavia. Later this year there is the 1998 Pact South German offensive and its aftermath as well as the Mexican invasion of the US. (I have tried to assimilate the collective wisdom of the couple of threads here on the topic as well as the Mexican sourcebook that was done up a couple years back; spoiler - I'm not going to have the Mexicans nearly as beefy as described in that book). I'm thinking maybe in later March and April as well as the fall (and most of 1999 and the first half of 2000) a weekly update will work better.

[chico20854]

February 19, 1998

The 6th Marine Division, after a year-long training cycle culminating in a full-division live fire combined arms exercise, is declared operational and begins deploying to Korea.

Unofficially,

The Arctic troops of the 2nd Infantry Brigade (Arctic Recon)(Alaska National Guard) make slow progress moving cross-country over the frozen tundra south of Fairbanks while the remainder of X Corps continues its attacks on Soviet positions in the town. The weather clears enough for A-10s of the 18th Tactical Fighter Squadron to make an appearance overhead, clearing out a Soviet artillery battery that had concealed itself in a sawmill complex on the city's western edge.

Only two days after leaving their positions in Manchuria, the staff of the 1st Far Eastern Front notices that the Hungarian 53rd Mechanized Rifle Brigade is not responding to radio calls.

An A-6 Intruder aircraft from the USS Kennedy battle group, supported by two others configured as tankers, strikes the Soviet submarine support base at Patros, Greece, following receipt of rumors about a nuclear submarine being prepared for a patrol in the Mediterranean. The lone aircraft arrives over the Greco-Soviet base at low level at 4 am, successfully dropping its load of a single B61-8 345-kiloton nuclear bomb. Its all-female crew of LtJG Pamela Shore and LtCdr Susan Williams escape thanks to a retarding parachute, which allows the low-flying bomber to duck behind the low hills that surround the city before the bomb detonates. The blast wrecks the submarine tender Magomed Gadzhiev, the upper works of the submarines B-164 (Foxtrot-class), B-854 (also a Foxtrot-class), the Tang-class B-546 and the Whiskey-class S-231 and rolls the Victor II-class SSN K-371 over, flooding her through a hatch in the sail left open by the war-weary watchman.

[chico20854]

February 20, 1998

The replica USS Constitution arrives in the Cape Horn area, discharging cargo for Capetown and picking up several American servicemen to replace crewmen lost to malaria.

Unofficially,

X Corps' offensive in Fairbanks makes slow progress as American paratroops carefully blast Soviet troops out of individual buildings. The 11th Airborne Division has few armored vehicles and its supporting artillery batteries are short of ammunition. Adding to the difficulty of the operation is the fact that the battlefield is still occupied by friendly civilians, requiring precision fires against enemy targets rather than more indiscriminate use of area-effect munitions to clear entire sectors.

The final American fighter aircraft of the war is completed, a F-20 Tigershark built at the Beechcraft aviation plant in Wichita, Kansas. Originally intended for delivery to South Korea, the aircraft is instead flown to Dover AFB, Delaware, Air Force authorities hoping that it can be partially disassembled, loaded aboard a C-5 transport plane and delivered to the CENTCOM AOR.

The next round of attacks against the embattled 158th Motor-Rifle Division in Bosnia begins. The Jugoslav forces have moved a platoon of four T-34/85 tanks captured from the division's 151st Tank Regiment from Saarajevo to outside the division's headquarters in Zenica, where they begin to systematically enage the position's strongpoints with precision heavy fire.

[chico20854]

February 21, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

The 402nd Field Artillery Brigade gets in its first firefight, between one of the brigade’s platoons and the militia of the small town of Chillicothe, Texas. The soldiers retreat, leaving five dead behind.

The fighting in Fairbanks continues as the desperate troops of the Soviet 147th (my 261st) Motor-Rifle Division give up positions in the citys downtown, shifting the focus of resistance to the railroad yard and industrial area on the north side of the Chena River.

The Hungarian 53rd Mechanized Rifle Brgade is able to requisition sufficient railroad rolling stock to load all of its troops and heavy equipment; the commander authorizes the outfitting of several cars with anti-aircraft weapons, armored vehicles and armor to allow the formation (probably to be split into three separate units) to fight its way through opposition.

The attacks against the 158th Motor-Rifle Division expand in scope, with Jugoslav partisan fighters (coordinating with US Green Berets of the 6th Special Forces Group) surrounding all of the division's outposts along the valley of the Bosna River.

The Bulgarian freighter A.B. Buzko, with a partial load of grain and iron ore aboard, arrives in the Greek port of Patros, only to discover that it has been hit by an American nuclear bomber. The ship's captain, unable to reach Bulgarian naval command (the headquarters bunker was struck in the fall and alternate facilities have gone offline in the chaos of post-nuclear Bulgaria), heads back to sea, instructing his radio officer to try to reach any Warsaw Pact naval headquarters.

[chico20854]

February 22, 1998

Another day with nothing in canon. Unofficially,

The fighting continues in Fairbanks, Alaska as the 11th Airborne Division attempts an assault crossing of the frozen-ovver Chena River. With artillery and mortar ammunition running low, the paratroops are forced to cross with little supporting fire and suffer heavy casaulties from Soviet machinegun fire.

Throughout the front lines of 4th and 7th US and 1st, 2nd and 3rd German Armies, engineer troops, having largely constructed nearly adequate winter quarters for troops, are diverted to hardening defensive positions along the front lines as commanders realize that there will be no NATO offensive anytime soon; strong defensive positions allow a longer front line to be held with fewer troops.

The 61st Training Motor-Rifle Division in remote Ashkabad, Turkmenistan (just north of the Iranian border) graduates its last class of trainees. There are too few local civilians to draft (doing so would collapse the local collective and state farms), so the unit dispatches the new trainees to the fighting in Iran and maintains a local garrison dedicated to protection of local order.

[chico20854]

February 23, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

In Alaska, the fighting in downtown Fairbanks continues as American airborne troops attempt to gain a foothold on the north bank of the Chena River and National Guard troops of the 1st and 2nd Arctic Recon Brigades close in on Highway 2, the sole road leaving the city to the west. Troops of the 1st Brigade move slowly and carefully as they advance around the forested slopes of Ester Dome, the mountain that dominates the city's skyline, slowed by temperatures of -50 F.

Pact forces in Poland are slowly rebuilding their logistic structure after the havoc wreaked by NATO occupying forces and nuclear and conventional strikes. A major challenge is the change of railroad gauge along the Polish-Soviet border; the pre-existing change of gauge stations were thoroughly destroyed by NATO engineers before they evacuated the area in August. The Linia Hutniczo-Siarkowa (Metallurgy-Sulphur Line), a Russian-gauge line that reaches nearly 250 miles into eastern Silesia, is the highest priority, although Soviet engineers are unsure of their ability to repair the Wisla bridge at Kolonia, whose western abutments were destroyed by an American atomic demolition munition. The Soviets urge the Polish Communist Party to rally manpower - military, POW, civilian, refugee - to manually unload the few train cars that are arriving from the USSR for further transport to the front.

In the Ionian Sea, the Bulgarian freighter A.B. Buzko makes radio contact with another friendly ship, the Soviet Ignatius Sergeev, which is in the Black Sea. The Soviet captain reports that he has been ordered to Cuba with a cargo of foodstuffs for the isolated Soviet garrison there, but is unsure of being able to pass through the Bosporus. The two captains make a pact - the Bulgarian ship will deliver its cargo of grain to Cuba while the Soviet ship diverts to Bulgaria; both leaders reckon that in these desperate situations that the arrangement makes some lvel of sense.

Party officials in the Tver region north of Moscow, faced with rapidly diminishing food supplies and ever more refugees from Moscow, decide to demonstrate their commitment to the war effort by sweeping the refugee camps for men of military age. The local MVD quickly rounds up nearly 500 men (and some young women in their late teens and 20s) and loads them onto railcars, dispatching them to the front in Europe as reinforcements.

[chico20854]

February 24, 1998

Another day where canon is silent! Unofficially,

The 402nd Field Artillery Brigade returns to Chillicothe, Texas in mass. The brigade deploys two companies of infantry, which overrun the town, burn it to the ground and execute all males between the ages of 14 and 70.

In Canada, the Quebecois force on the eastern front continues its offensive, delayed to allow time for reinforcement and training. Using a hodgepodge fleet of fishing and recreational boats as well as three ferries pressed into service, they make an amphibious landing that quickly overwhelms the loyalist force along the Labrador-Quebec border and cuts the coast road between the border guard force and the main base at Goose Bay.

The 53rd Hungarian Brigade completes the outfitting of several railcars as gun platforms, with armor to protect against shrapnel and light small arms fire (sufficient to stop an AK-47 bullet, but not a PK machinegun or heavier). It begins loading aboard the trains; most of the troops are housed in boxcars or aboard a suburban commuter train; the brigade's engineers drain the fuel from several damaged locomotives and an underground fuel tank into a tank car placed at the center of the formation. Simultaneously, the unit mechanics strip the local railroad maintenance shop of tools and spares that may be needed. The local authorities are powerless to object, the town (Naushki in eastern Siberia) being overrun with heavily armed Hungarians, nearly all of whom are unable to speak Russian and interteract with the local civilians.

The new destroyer USS Howard, which was commissioned in Maine in September and entered a period of training before entering active service, finally completes its shakedown training and enters port at Mayport, Florida for minor refit and resupply prior to commencing active service.

Third US Army directs its sole subordinate MP brigade, the 16th, to coordinate with the paramilitary Iranian National Security Force, on efforts to secure the supply lines between ports on the Persian Gulf and forward positions in the Zagros Mountains. The MPs are provided the remnant of the Australian Expeditionary Brigade (reorganized into two nearly-full strength battalions and a robust headquarters and support element) to deal with the most heavily armed bandits and deserter groups.

[chico20854]

February 25, 1998

Nothing official today!

Six A-37 light attack jets which have been reactivated from retirement for transfer to Colombia are requisitioned while awaiting arrival of Colombian pilots at Columbus AFB, Mississippi. The base commander authorizes the release of pilots and a single crew chief for each aircraft and sufficient fuel for each aircraft to fly to Chambers Field at Norfolk Naval Station, Virginia.

The commander of the 2nd Far Eastern Front reluctantly orders the dispatch of the veteran 27th (my 90th Guards) Tank Division to to the western front.

The crew of the destroyer USS Howard is distressed when it discovers the dire conditions ashore in northeastern Florida. The naval base is crowded with shattered survivors of the nuclear attacks on the Atlantic Fleet's other southern bases - Charleston, Kings Bay and Norfolk - both human and floating. The base is held by a heavy security force, holding off masses of desperate refugees fleeing the chaos elsewhere in the state.

In Lithuania, a platoon from the MVD's 357th Convoy Regiment is dispatched to deal with the insubordinate occupier of Trakai Castle, Colonel Česlovas Skrebys. The detachment, survivors of the desperate drive to evict American and British troops from the republic, is but 17 men strong, with a pair of worn out GAZ-66 trucks and a single Second World War-era SG-43 machinegun.

[chico20854]

February 26, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

Quebecois forces in Labrador advance northwest and inland, heading for the NATO air base at Goose Bay. They are largely unopposed.

In Alaska, the Soviet defending force has been largely pushed out of the industrial area north of downtown Fairbanks, shifting the focus of Soviet resistance to the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where the remannts of the 147th (my 261st ) Motor-Rifle Divison's reconniassance battalion and anti-aircraft regiment have fortified the school buildings and cleared resupply and reinforcement routes through the campus' steam tunnel system.

The 199th Infantry Brigade arrives at the Korean port of Ulsan, one of the few remaining South Korean ports. It begins its transit to the III MEF area of operations.

The USS Howard's supply officer is crestfallen when she discovers (and verifies) that there is no fuel available at the Mayport, Florida naval base (or further inland, in Jacksonville) to enable the ship to depart. There also is little ammunition available to arm the ship, with some rounds for the ship's guns and torpedoes for its torpedo tubes and helicopters (a single SH-2G Seasprite rather than the two SH-60s she is designed for). The ship's complement is pressed into service as a security force ashore, despite the captain's insistence that his warship needs desperately to get into action at sea.

SEALS from SEAL Team 4 severely damage the Italian tanker Norvegia G at anchor off Bizerte. The ship's double hull would defeat most demolition charges, forcing the commandos to attach the charges to blow out the propeller shaft seals & and ignite a fire in the accomodation block. The ship and its escort, the corvette Sfinge, had been positioned to transport the cargo from the local refinery that the US has just loaded aboard the USNS Paul Buck. An attempt to attach limpet mines to the Sfinge is thwarted by alert sentries aboard the ship.

The MVD detachment sent to Trakia, Lithuania to force Colonel Skrebys to comply with the orders of Party authorities (and eliminate him if he refuses) scouts out the town, noting that defensive works have been thrown up, manned by armed defenders. Recalling earlier reports that Skrebys had armored personnel carriers, the detachment commander calls for additional forces before launching his attack.

[Homer]

Originally Posted by chico20854

February 24, 1998
The 402nd Field Artillery Brigade returns to Chillicothe, Texas in mass. The brigade deploys two companies of infantry, which overrun the town, burn it to the ground and execute all males…

Well, that escalated quickly. Can’t wait to see how the rest of the area reacts when word gets around…

Originally Posted by Homer

Well, that escalated quickly. Can’t wait to see how the rest of the area reacts when word gets around…

Won't even make the papers in El Paso (or in this case, Wichita Falls)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBJbqV3IROM

[chico20854]

February 27, 1998

Nothing official for the day!

As word of the Chillicothe Massacre spreads, active resistance to the 402nd Field Artillery Brigade from the local population stops, allowing the unit to provide a trickle of supplies to XIII Corps headquarters and the Milgov capital throughout 1998 and 1999.

West of Fairbanks, the 1st and 2nd Infantry Brigades (Arctic Recon)(Alaska National Guard) link up, cutting the sole remaining land route out of the city. The battered guardsmen, however, are suffering greatly from exposure and a dreadful shortage of food, ammunition and shelter.

In Krakow, the disease outbreak among the refugee population has killed thousands and spread to the city's population. Losses among medical professionals are high, and the situation is made worse by the general lack of food and heating fuel. In central Germany, the last French-supported convoys arrive with cargo from US Air Force bases in the occupied zone; the evacuation of Army bases will take some time longer.

The American tanker USNS Paul Buck arrives in Bremerhaven, Germany, loaded down with a load of Tunisian diesel fuel. The ship's cargo is fed into the NEPS (Northern European Pipeline System) for transfer further south; as much as Allied naval commanders want the fuel to return their ships to sea and Army commanders are eager to restore the mobility of armored formations, the vast majority of the ship's 237,000-barrel cargo will be used to move food reserves to the desperate German population and allow operational repositioning of battered units into reserve positions where they can rebuild.

The MVD detachment sent to Trakai, Lithuania receives word that it will receive air and artillery support for its attempt to drive the renegade Colonel Skrebys and his followers from the town's castle. The riot policemen, overjoyed at the news, take up positions in nearby woods while awaiting word of how to contact the promised support.

[chico20854]

February 28, 1998

French and Belgian civil servants have resolved the major issues regarding the unification of the two nations; Belgian territories will be treated as additional departments of France, as will (eventually) the occupied areas of the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Germany. Belgian officials will be transferred to Paris, and some ministries (Transport and Solidarity and Health) will relocate to Brussels, a co-capital that the unified legislature will meet in at least four months a year. The French franc will be legal tender in both nations, and Belgian francs will be converted over at a favorable exchange ratio.

The first of three two-aircraft flights of A-37 Dragonfly attack planes arrives in Norfolk, Virginia. The planes are prepared for shipboard transport and towed to the nearby pier.

Polish units begin experimenting with distilling alcohol from edible grains and waste vegetable material for fuel, since Polish oil production is minimal (especially given the devastation inflicted by the prior year’s campaigns) and the Warsaw Pact command has placed Polish units low on the priority list for provision of fuel and other resources from the trickle that arrives from the USSR.

Outside Trakai, Lithuania, the MVD troops wait for further information from higher headquarters on what support it will receive and how to communicate with it. As the morning turns to afternoon, the troops become increasingly disheartened as no contact is made. Shortly after 3 p.m., a pair of Su-25 attack planes from the 76th Guards Shturmovik Regiment fly overhead, releasing a volley of S-8 80mm rockets at the castle; 20 minutes later a lone Su-17 fighter-bomber overflies the town and drops a pair of 200-kg iron bombs. Both strikes are made with no prior coordination (the MVD troops do not have the proper radios) and have little effect other than alerting the defenses of the town. The annoyed commander orders his troops to rally and attack the town nonetheless, taking the lead. They are advancing across open ground towards the town when the artillery support arrives, a volley of long-range 180mm gun fire (from the mobilization-only 70th Artillery Division's 438th Cannon Artillery Regiment), which tears the attacking force to shreds. The attack, obviously, fails, and the three survivors are captured by the town's defense force. Two agree to join it, and the third is hanged from the castle's battlement at dusk.

[Homer]

Good stuff, you’re really fleshing out what’s a pretty sparse period WRT cannon resources.

I guess the MVD just learned that friendly fire isn’t!

[chico20854]

March 1, 1998

The 28th Infantry Division (Pennsylvania National Guard) is withdrawn from the lines to reorganize and refit after suffering heavy casulties from enemy conventional and nuclear attacks in the withdrawal across Poland.

Unofficially,

The second and third flights of A-37s are arrive in Norfolk and are prepped for ocean transit as the first two (and its pilot and crew chief) are loaded aboard the American ro/ro ship El Moro, part of an overdue resupply convoy for AFRICOM.

Quebecois forces arrive at the NATO air base at Goose Bay, Labrador, where they are confronted by a composite defensive force made up of troops from around European NATO, mostly administrative, maintenance and logistic support staff of the NATO air training detachment at the base. The overextended Quebeckers do not have the firepower to immediately attack the base, and instead try a bluff, demanding the base's immediate surrender. The Canadian base commander and the somewhat befuddled German Luftwaffe Oberst (Colonel), the senior non-Canadian officer, reject the demand out of hand.

Attacks on the beseiged outposts of the 158th Motor-Rifle Division in central Jugoslavia continue. As supplies of ammunition and fuel dwindle, demoralized soldiers at some isolated outposts begin to surrender; others just slip away from their positions at night, casting aside their uniforms and joining the growing numbers of desperate armed men wandering Eastern Europe.

A French tanker lingers in the port of Bizerte, Tunisia, awaiting the opportunity to purchase the output of the refinery ashore. Rumors abound about the loss of the Italian Norvegia G, the possibility of collusion between the Americans and the French to deny the valuable resource to the Italians, and even about the quantities of gold aboard the French ship, which is quite ostentatiously armed and crawling with dangerous-looked armed men.

Pro-NATO guerrillas overwhelm the guards of a stalled Soviet supply truck 25 km northwest of the city of Isfahan. The truck yields food, ammunition, and most valuable, a pair of SA-14 shoulder-launched SAMs.

MVD authorities in Lithuania disavoy any further responsibility for suppression of the renegade Colonel Skrebys in Trakai, declaring that they have made a valiant attempt but ultimately it is the Army's responsibility to maintain the discipline of its own officers, of which Colonel Skrebys is one.

[chico20854]

March 2, 1998

The sailors aboard the Soviet ballistic missile submarine Barrikada begin to count the days until they can abandon their patrol and return home after a nine-month patrol. (Unofficially, they are nervous about the fate of their families but exhausted by the strain on endless months of combat patrol as the last of the fresh(ish) food received from a supply ship a month ago has been depleted, forcing them to subsist on canned and preserved food.)

The remnants of the Jugoslav and Romanian high commands begin to reform units to oppose the Soviet occupation forces. The forces are structured to live off the land.

Unofficially,

As news breaks of the governing arrangements of the newly forming Franco-Belgian Union, Dutch speakers and diehard Belgian nationalists in northern and central Belgium begin protests, with isolated outbreaks of violence. Within hours, heavily armed gendarmes (both French and Belgian, but uniformly French-speaking) in armored riot control vehicles arrive to break up the protests. Recriminations reverberate for years, with the authorities claiming that they quelled dangerous violence before it could spread and others claiming that the French-speaking population, capitulating to French interests, violently suppressed opposition to the deal, which was never put to a referendum.

The food provided by American authorities to civilians (and soldiers) has changed over the past several months as American food processing plants remain shuttered by lack of electrical power. Frozen food was the first to disappear, followed by refrigerated (in warmer areas) as fuel and electricity grew more scarce. By early in the year, much of the preserved food being distributed was canned, with the vast majority of specialized ready-to-eat and dehydrated foods reserved for military use. What remains to be distributed are fruit and grains that have been in storage, locally produced food and, increasingly, foods preserved using older methods, such as smoking, pickling and salting.

US troops at the front lines along the Czechoslovakian front are pleasantly surprised when they are issued French RCIR rations. They are most impressed with the small bottles of wine that each contains, and the menu items are exotic to troops that have begun to miss the much-dreaded MRE pork patties, ham slices and chicken-a-la-king. They (relatively) feast on salmon and rice, Basque chicken and hare pate.

In northeastern Victoria, Australia, the small town of Glenrowan is raided by a "bushranger" (rural bandit/rebel). Wearing a homemade steel helmet and multiple bulletproof vest, the charming raider claims his name is Ned Kelly before he and his friends vanish into the countryside.

[chico20854]

March 3, 1998

The Americans and their Iranian allies are not completely without concerns. Large marauder bands have formed during the winter. These bands are a mixed lot of guerrillas from all sides, refugees, deserters from various armies, and just plain bandits. Some of the bolder groups engage in firefights with U.S. and Iranian units. Many marauder bands openly claim control of areas and challenge the Iranian National Emergency Council's authority. U.S. and Iranian military units begin a series of search and destroy operations with the goal of clearing the Bushehr-Shiraz-Bandar Abbas triangle. The 9th ID and the 101st AAD participate in the operations, as do marines from I MEF in Bandar Abbas.

The 342nd (my 81st Guards) Motor-Rifle Division is withdrawn from Manchuria to help restore order and provide security in western Siberia. It is ordered to take up positions in the city of Novokuznetsk.

Unofficially,

Despite the near-total collapse of crude oil production as a result of EMP damage to the electrical grid, America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve remains over half full. The SPR had been run up in the months leading up to war, to a 120-day supply of crude, including the commissioning in early 1997 of the newest SPR sites at Irontown, Ohio and Lexington, Kentucky and the reactivation of the Sulphur Mines, Louisiana site. The damage inflicted on the nation by the Soviet nuclear strikes have disrupted the transport links (rail, barge and pipeline) to discharge the SPR, and with massive portions of American refining offline the 120-day supply could quite easily last for over twice that time.

The 11th Airborne Division has managed to force the Soviet defense of Fairbanks largely into the area surrounding the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus, with isolated pods of resistance scattered elsewhere throughout the city. Both forces are out of artillery, mortar and large caliber ammunition, missiles of all types and are rapidly running out of grenades and anti-tank rockets.

In occupied Breda, Netherlands, a patrol of the French 403e Régiment d'Artillerie (an air defense unit re-roled with internal security duties due to the lack of enemy air activity) is ambushed by unknown assailants. After 15 minutes a quick reaction force arrives to reinforce the survivors, but the unknown attackers slip away into the city.

The cruiser USS Virginia departs Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, Puerto Rico on a patrol of the central Atlantic.

The troops of the Hungarian 53rd Mechanized Rifle Brigade are sobered as their troop transports pick their way through the ruins of Ulan Ude, Siberia, after the city's rail infrastructure, industry and military headquarters were struck by American bombers in December. While they had become familiar with the devastation wrought by Soviet conventional munitions in China, the effects of the strategic nuclear warheads is of an order of magnitude greater. Worse, the American attack succeeded in damaging the vital rail junction between the Trans-Siberian and Trans-Mongolian Railroads, forcing the unit to have to partially dismount in the heart of the blast zone and manually repair the line. The silence is eerie and the soldiers are deathly afraid of the radiation; the engineers have an abundance of soldiers willing to work feverishly to speed the unit's departure from the radioactive zone.

[chico20854]

March 4, 1998

Heavy rains ravage Kenya wreaking havoc on both civilians and the military forces on both sides as floods devastate the country, washing out roads and temporarily cutting the rail lines.

Unofficially,

The 2nd Platoon, 221st Ordnance Company (a unit of 21st TAACOM) in central Germany completes an update of a Peacekeeper Armored Car that arrived on the last convoy of reinforcements; the vehicle had previously been used for airfield security. The update includes applying camouflage paint, an engine overhaul and substitution of a M2 Browning .50-caliber machinegun for the captured Soviet DShK machinegun that had been added to the vehicle in Poland.

In fighting in Alaska, the paratroopers of the 11th Airborne Division are reinforced by combat engineers of the 109th Engineer Group (Combat) (South Dakota National Guard), whose expertise in demolitions and destroying obstacles are expected to help in overcoming the dug-in Soviet troops on the University of Alaska campus. Elsewhere in the city, the gunners and ammo handlers of the 197th Field Artillery Brigade begin clearing isolated pockets of enemy resistance, acting as dismounted infantry after their howitzers shot off their last rounds.

Dutch troops infiltrated into the occupied zone launch another guerrilla attack on the occupiers, ambushing a supply convoy headed for the Eindhoven garrison.

[chico20854]

March 5, 1998

The 40th Training Division, formed from the remnants of the 40th Infantry Division that took heavy losses during the fighting in Poland, is relieved of disaster relief, security and reconstruction duties in Oregon, and placed under command of the newly-activated 63rd US (my II) Corps and moves south by road to California

The survivors of the Dutch 103rd Reconnaissance Battalion move to the town of Zutphen.

Unofficially,

The last contingent of ships from the laid-up merchant fleets in the North Sea completes the shut-down process, loading aboard the (former East-)German corvette Prenzlau and oilfield supply ship Merk Dragon.

In the heavily-damaged German naval base of Wilhelmshaven, the German naval command has concentrated its remaining assets, a motley collection of ships and craft and exhausted sailors and shore staff.

The anti-bandit sweeps in Iran yield their first success when a patrol from the 9th Infantry Division's 3rd Battalion, 47th Infantry stumbles on a remote fortified hamlet that has been terrorized by a band of Red Army deserters (mostly Georgians and Armenians, who resented the dominance of Russian and Ukrainian troops in their units). The deserters succeed in destroying the lead HMMWV gun truck, but the rest of the patrol retreats and calls in reinforcements. Unlike the MVD's experience in Lithuania, the support is well coordinated, with a AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter dispatched to provide overhead cover for the reinforced company team that responds, as well as fires from a composite battery of 105mm and 155mm howitzers from a nearby firebase. The American attack is quick, fierce and successful, with the desert band being wiped out and only seven American casualties (including the three lost in the HMMWV).

Noting the difficulty Soviet occupying forces are experiencing in maintaining control with the limited numbers of troops and supplies they have, the Italian 5 Corps along the Sava River basin begins forming formal collaborator units as auxiliaries to the overstretched Italian occupation force. Taking advantage of the desperation of individuals as well as centuries of conflict between the various ethnic and religious groups, the call to take up arms (and receive weapons and food) receives an enthusiastic response. The Italians establish the “independent” puppet states of Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia from the remnants of the former Jugoslav republics, granting Montenegro to Serbia and splitting Bosnia-Herzegovina between Serbia and Croatia. Each of the satellite states establishes an army, usually a co-opted local militia or band of armed nationalist fanatics, which receive limited logistic support from the overstretched Italians. Ironically, much of that support consists of transfers of abandoned Soviet equipment as well as stocks of Jugoslav weapons that had been captured by the Italians during their conquest of Jugoslavia. The newly-formed forces are called the Croatian Nationalist Army (CNA), the Liberated Slovenian Armed Forces (LSAF) and the Serbian National Army (SNA).

[chico20854]

March 6, 1998

American and Kenyan military and civilian personnel do their best to distribute relief supplies and food to the flood-affected areas but over 350,000 Kenyans starve before food can reach them.

Unofficially,

Troops of the 36th Engineer Group (Construction) restore power from the first of six hydropower plants between Knoxville and Chattanooga. (The colonel in command of the group had incurred the wrath of the Tennessee Valley Authority in early November when he took the plants offline and shielded their transformers underground). On the other side of the nation, troops of the 115th Engineer Group are forced to abandon their attempt to restore the control system of the Grand Coulee Dam, America's largest hydropower plant, as it becomes apparent that the system has been irreparably damaged by the Soviet high-altitude EMP during the Thanksgiving Day Massacre and that there is no way American industry can produce a new system.

The commander of the 28th Infantry Division (Pennsylvania National Guard) makes the difficult call about which subordinate units to deactivate. He makes his judgements on a variety of factors - seniority and combat history (recent and historical) of various battalions, their condition and current strength, the likelihood of receiving replacement troops and equipment (high for some sort of replacements for infantry battalions, low for the armor and artillery battalions) and the strength of their surviving command staff. Each of the division's brigades deactivates one battalion, and the divisional support command and other divisional units (Air Defense Artillery and Military Intelligence battalions and MP and Chemical companies) deactivate one third of their force, on average.

The nuclear-powered cruiser USS Virginia arrives off Freeport, Bahamas as it searches for Soviet raiders rumored to be sheltering in the region.

The Italian corvette Sfinge departs Bizerte, Tunisia; US Naval Intelligence agents note its departure but are unable to track it once it disappears over the horizon.

In Brownsville, Texas, BMSA (Boatswains Mate Apprentice) Rodney Cutler, assigned to a refugee camp that is overflowing with refugees from both sides of the nearby border with Mexico, is caught taking liberties with an underage female, offering her food from his slim rations. The girl's father is enraged when he catches the startled sailor, and the panicked Cutler shoots the father with his assigned Ruger P-85 pistol. The gunshot and subsequent hubbub draws an increasingly large crowd and Cutler loudly exclaims that he was ambushed by the family, who wanted to steal his food and weapon. The situation continues to escalate, not helped by the lack of Spanish-speakers in Cutler's command staff, and soon the camp's naval detachment is facing a full-scale riot. Cutler is badly beaten but manages to extract himself, and the camp is locked down as the naval guard force deploys lethal force. 48 refugees are killed in the gunfire and over a dozen other sailors are hurt,

[chico20854]

March 7, 1998

President Munson begins to show signs of strain as the challenges facing the nation multiply and resources continue to diminish. Communication is growing increasingly difficult as emergency equipment begins to fail after months of heavy use and fuel tanks of even the longest-lived post-strike emergency facilities run dry.

The 16th Marine Regiment, the remnant of the 6th Marine Division, engages Soviet troops along the new front line in Korea.

The Dutch 103rd Recon Battalion begins to incorporate local police and militia units into itself, to maintain its strength and centralize control.

In Iran, the 101st Air Assault Division is reunited for the first time in months with the return of its aviation elements from Saudi Arabia. With the return of its aircraft, the Screaming Eagles form up at Bushehr and take part in the clearing operations in the Bushehr-Shiras-Bandar Abbas triangle. The division's unmatched mobility allows it to undertake highly effective search and destroy missions, able to insert blocking forces behind armed bands that are fleeing other Allied forces.

[chico20854]

March 8, 1998

Alberta closes its borders to protect itself from marauders who are after the province's petroleum resources. Brigadier General Parker, the senior Canadian Army officer in Alberta, names himself Prime Minister of Alberta and establishes a capital at Bowden, where the refinery complex has not been completely destroyed, and a trickle of refined petroleum products enables the local government to retain a measure of autonomy. Alberta's self-isolation severs the supply lines from eastern Canada to British Columbia and has a crippling effect on the Canadian Army units fighting the Soviets in British Columbia and the Yukon Territory.

Unofficially,

The Mexican government makes a formal protest about the death of its citizens in the Brownsville, Texas camp riot.

Dutch guerrillas in the town of Maastrich fire bomb the French gendarme station in the Mariaberg district, killing five of the occupiers.

Soviet, Hungarian and Czech authorities succeed in completing a continuous rail route between Uzhgorod, Ukraine and Munich, Germany, traversing Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria. The route uses several sections of local track to avoid areas of the mainline that were damaged by NATO airstrikes, and the route is dependent on a POW camp at the Czechoslovakian-Soviet border for labor to manually transfer cargo from broad Russian-gague cars to standard-gauge ones.

Jugoslav rebel troops break through the defenses of the Zenica steel mill, headquarters of the 158th Motor-Rifle Division, which they have been attacking for several weeks. While some Soviet troops head into the catacombs winding underneath the plant to continue the fight, most of them (including the division commander) surrender. The commander of the division's northernmost and strongest motor-rifle regiment, the 549th, assumes theoretical command of the division's remaining outposts, all of which are surrounded by hostile troops and are largely out of communication

While few Soviet replacements are arriving at the front, those that do are most frequently mostly or completely untrained. The few older recruits (most recalled reservists to date have been in their 20s, but desperate authorities are dispatching men as old as 55 to the front, often as a means to reduce the number of mouths to feed in their local area) retain memories of their decades-ago military service. The younger ones, including women in their 20s and teenaged boys as young as 16, have had paramilitary training as part of their schooling but require training in their units.

[chico20854]

March 9, 1998

The return of the 101st Air Assault Division's helicopters to action in Iran presents an opportunity for the 6th Air Cavalry Combat Brigade to once again withdraw to Saudi Arabia for rest and long-overdue maintenance.

The 25th Infantry Division (Light) is reformed in Korea with fewer than 1000 surviving personnel. The "Tropical Lightning" Division had been hit by six Soviet tactical nuclear weapons in October before being overrun.

Unofficially,

As fuel supplies, food and spares dwindle, the staff of the Gulfwind oilfield off Brownsville, Texas begin shutting the platforms, subsea installations and pipelines down. They take care to ensure that the facilities are prepared as possible to survive the harshest weather the Gulf of Mexico can inflict (all offshore facilities have a long-standing hurricane plan) and hopefully last an extended period of abandonment. Similar activities are underway in dozens of other oil fields between the Mexican border and Mobile, Alabama.

In Fairbanks, Alaska, fierce combat continues along the eastern end of the University of Alaska campus as the Soviet defenders fight with a ferocity their forefathers in Stalingrad would have been proud of.

Recognizing the excellent performance of its service as part of 21st Army in southern Germany in the 1997 campaign, the commander of the Western TVD raises the 48th Motor Rifle Division to a Guards unit.

Also in southern Germany, military authorities, working alongside the Austrian government in exile, gather stragglers and isolated units of the Austrian Bundesheer together into a single, unified formation. The combined force is given the title of the Bundesheer's only prewar division, the 1st Panzergrenadier, and assigned to the German IV Korps in southern Germany. The Austrians retain a roughly regiment-sized force to guard the remaining government in the extreme western province of Vorarlberg, nestled between Lake Constance and Switzerland and unconquered by the overstretched Italians.

[chico20854]

March 10, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

As the transportation system breaks down in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, the first food riots break out in the camps holding recently arrived Mexican refugees. The 3rd Texas Regiment, a state defense force unit formed from part of the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets, is sent in to restore order; its troops are met with gunfire from the heavily armed Mexican gangs which are attempting to assert control in the camps.

As the fighting in Fairbanks continues, the commander of the 147th (my 261st) Motor-Rifle Division makes the decision to preserve his command rather than commit his men to further slaughter as American paratroops and combat engineers blast them out of the tunnels and shattered buildings of the University of Alaska campus. Preparations are begun for a breakout.

With food stocks aboard dwindling, the master of the Danish containership Susan Mae, anchored in Long Island Sound, sends a team ashore to obtain supplies.

The USS Virginia departs Bahamian waters after taking aboard a dozen shipwrecked American sailors, both Navy and civilian Merchant Marines.

[chico20854]

March 11, 1998

Another day when canon is silent. Unofficially,

Quebecois forces, who have been stalled outside the NATO air base in Goose Bay, Labrador, finally launch their attack on the post. The defenders beat back the attack, taking and inflicting heavy losses.

In Fairbanks, the remaining troops of the 147th (my 261st) Motor-Rifle Division launch a daring and fierce attack on the screening force the 11th Airborne Division threw up along the western end of the University of Alaska campus, which had been a (relatively) quiet sector. They break through the paratroops and in a matter of minutes are attacking the lightly-manned blockade positions maintained by the exhausted 1st Infantry Brigade (Arctic Recon) on the highway leaving the city. By lunchtime the Soviet division has broken through and begins evacuating south and west; the exhausted troops of X Corps unable to pursue effectively.

Dutch troops strike yet again, firing a mortar at a French Air Force C-160 transport that is unloading replacement troops at the nuked Gilze-Rijen air base; the airplane is riddled with shrapnel and abandoned by the aircrew before it is consumed by flames.

The surrounded and increasingly desperate troops of the 158th Motor-Rifle Division begin to mutiny, disobeying their officers and fleeing their positions, heading for the perceived safety of the Sava River valley. The garrisons in Maglai, Doboj and Modriča collapse, leaving the 549th Motor-Rifle Regiment's positions along the Sava River at Bosanski Šamac as the sole remaining portion of the division.

The 1890th Assault Gun Brigade, forming a significant portion of the garrison of the Central Asian city of Samarkand and faced with isolation, disease, privation and hostile citizens, begins to lose troops to desertion. Fortunately, most conscripts slip away with their personal weapons and not the brigade's massive SU-130 assault guns.

[chico20854]

March 12, 1998

An Italian air strike heavily damages the last fully operational oil refinery in North Africa at Bizerte in Tunisia, with Italian attack aircraft pressing the attack home in the face of SAM’s and Tunisian and US jet fighters. As a result of the attack, the US must greatly curtail its naval and air operations in the Mediterranean.

Unofficially,

At Goose Bay, Labrador, the Quebecois commander once again offers a parlay. He offers a continued ceasefire, repatriation of non-Canadians to their homelands and evacuation of Canadians to Nova Scotia in exchange for evacuation of the base. With supplies running low, the NATO commander and his Canadian counterpart accept the offer.

The 147th (my 261st) Motor-Rifle Division's retreat from Fairbanks, Alaska is celebrated by the 25th Corps headquarters in distant Anchorage, which dispatches a force equipped with captured civilian vehicles to speed their return to Anchorage.

With the coming of warmer weather, ice on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway system has broken up enough for ships to transit. A number of smaller freighters, which have been frozen in for the winter, begin to resume their voyages.

[chico20854]

March 13, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

With the threat of additional nuclear strikes appearing unlikely for the time being and resources running low, TACAMO flights (relaying orders to submerged missile submarines) come to an end, ordering remaining boats to return to designated dispersal ports on a staggered timeline.

1st Western Front, stationed along the Oder River (the Polish-German border) receives a contingent of reinforcements from the USSR - 1500 unruly and scared teenagers from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania grabbed from refugee camps, farms and semi-ruined cities by press gangs organized by rear area authorities in the Baltics. The untrained teens lack uniforms, equipment or weapons; the front commander suspects that Party authorities decided to unload 1500 mouths on him to feed and control, relieving themselves of the responsibility.

The German corvette Prenzlau and oilfield support ship Merk Dragon arrive in Wilhelmshaven, Germany carrying supplies and sailors from the 40-odd merchantmen laid up at Ålesund, Norway, the final batch of excess ships in the North Sea for now.

The supertanker Kapetan Panagiotis, seized in the Arabian Sea from its Greek owners in 1997 and pressed into service transporting crude oil from Saudi Arabia to Japan before the nuclear exchange, completes its overhaul and upgrade in Bahrain. The ship, renamed the Captain Pickering after the CENTCOM logistics officer killed in the Spetsnaz raid in May, begins moving to Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf, where it will load over 350,000 tons of diesel, aviation fuel and bunker fuel before being dispatched to Diego Garcia as a strategic reserve for CENTCOM.

[chico20854]

March 14, 1998

Nothing official for the day! Unofficially,

The landing party from the Danish containership Susan Mae returns to the ship at anchor in Long Island Sound. They report that law and order ashore has broken down and that food is not available. They refuse to go ashore again unless they are armed with more than the single pistol that the master entrusts to them.

In Goose Bay, Labrador, a trio of Air France 747s land to evacuate the NATO defenders. As the last plane takes off, headed to Europe with mostly German Luftwaffe ground personnel aboard, the demolition charges they had placed throughout the base detonate, rendering most of the base's fixed facilities useless. The Royal Canadian Navy begins to assemble the remnants of its fleet in the Maritimes in the Strait of Canson, the narrow but deep body of water that divides mainlain Nova Scotia from Cape Breton Island.

Adapting to the decline of global transportation, Nhaziern Khazi, a small-time drug smuggler abandons his trade running hash from Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf. He, two cousins and some followers join a Pasdaran militia unit instead.

The nuclear cruiser USS Virginia continues its patrol of the central Atlantic, turning to the southwest from a point 300 miles west of the Azores.

[chico20854]

March 15, 1998

While the orders received by the Soviet submarine Barrikada permit the boomer to end its time on station in the North Atlantic, the boat cannot return to its homeport outside of Murmansk, which was heavily damaged in the fighting of 1997 and, naval command believes, at risk of being captured by NATO troops. Instead, the sub must head for what remains of the port of Vladivostok in the Pacific. Barrikada's captain decides to make way to Vladivostok via the Arctic, and the boat turns northeast.

Unofficially,

The Lieutenant Governor of New York, who is effectively single-handedly ruling western New York, scores some valuable assets when the Liberian freighter Holstenracer arrives off Buffalo on Lake Erie, continuing its voyage to Europe with 11,000 tons of Wyoming coal aboard after being frozen in Lake Erie over the winter. The ship is detained by quick-thinking Buffalo Police patrol boats, which bring the ship and its' valuable cargo to the city's pier.

Dutch special forces troops (for that is who now constitute most of the active guerrilla force) in occupied Holland launch another attack, once again ambushing a French supply column despite its escort by French VAB APCs. The attack outside Nijmegen destroys four escorting VABs and six trucks; a dozen more carrying various supplies of food, fuel and munitions, are driven off by the Dutch troops. By dark the food and fuel have been distributed to the remaining local population and the trucks burned on remote roads.

In an early test of effectiveness, the resurgent Romanians beseige an outpost of the 97th Guards Motor-Rifle Division in a remote pass in the Carpathians, surrounding the Soviet firebase and subjecting it to constant artillery, mortar and small arms fire while cutting off the flow of supplies to the base and capturing a dismounted patrol the overconfident Soviet commander sent out to investigate his attackers.

Internal strife in Saudi Arabia makes a brief flare into public view, with early morning clashes in the city of Taif between the remnants of the Army Royal Guard Regiment and troops of the National Guard 1st Mechanized Brigade. By 8 a.m. quiet retuns to the city, although a strict curfew is in effect, enforced by the Bedouins of the National Guard. During the mid-afternoon, General McLaren is informed by his Saudi hosts that Prince Badr has assumed the throne after the sudden death of his cousin, King Abdul, who himself had assumed the throne following the death of his uncle King Fahd as a result of Soviet nuclear attacks on Riyadh late in 1997. Prince Badr is a graduate of RMA Sandhurst.

[chico20854]

March 16, 1998

Although the national (and state-led) relocation effort has been abandoned, refugees continue arriving in western Pennsylvania. Hostile locals discourage them from settling on their farms and in their already-overcrowded towns, so some set up camp in Oil Creek State Park, a 6,250-acre haven north of Pittsburgh. While the park does not have a campground, desperate refugees set up camp at the park's picnic areas and near the administrative buildings.

The 82nd Airborne Division is returned to action in Iran, again committed to combat in central Iran near Shiraz where it fights the first of a series of sweeps and raids to clear the area of armed bands.

Unofficially,

In Lake Erie, the Buffalo Police seize another freighter headed for the Atlantic; this time the prize is the Grenadine Tasmia, carrying 9,000 tons of Manitoba wheat.

French occupation authorities order a search and destroy mission by the Nijmegen garrison to locate and annihilate the attackers from the prior day. French Gendarmes travel behind the Army troops, searching civilian homes for the food distributed the day before. Some civilians resist and are shot, others reluctantly surrender their bounty (and are arrested anyhow), and in a disappointingly few cases the Frenchmen have mercy on the suffering civilians and allow them to carry on their hardscrabble and miserable existence.

In the first naval action in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in many decades, the Royal Canadian Navy performs a sweep of the waterway leading to breakaway Quebec. While a mere shadow of operations of a year ago, it represents a major effort by the Canadians and is more than sufficient to counter the weak Quebecois force at sea (whicch is composed of requisitioned civilian vessels and the lone RCN vessel which went over to the secessionists, the auxilary minesweeper HMCS Anticosti). A lone CP-121 Tracker martime patrol aircraft (one of the aged type's last operational missions) sorties across the Gulf, locating and identifying craft at sea. The aircraft's radar locates the Anticosti and a mass of rebel ships sheltering off the town of Sept-Îles on the Gulf's north coast. The Canadian task force that has assembled in the Strait of Canso in Nova Scotia departs at the greatest speed available fuel supplies will permit.