On this day 25 years ago

[chico20854]

March 31, 1998

The 76th Guards Air Assault Division, which fought throughout the Norwegian and Kola campaigns, is withdrawn from the Murmansk area to the Leningrad area in an effort to improve the local security situation there.

40th Army, safely out of direct contact with Allied forces in Iran, reorganizes its remaining helicopter assets. It combines its four pre-war helicopter regiments (the 50th, 181st, 280th and 335th) and two independent squadrons (205th and 239th) into a single regiment, the 340th.

Following the loss of half the division's combat strength, the remaining troops of the 97th Guards Motor-Rifle Division are ordered to withdraw to Ploesti and secure the invaluable oilfields and refinery infrastructure, the largest and most intact in Europe.

Unofficially,

David Tokugawa, a highly successful salesman from Los Angeles who was gambling in Las Vegas on Thanksgiving, maneuvers himself into a position of leadership in one of the many bands of survivors who coalesced in the weeks after the Thanksgiving Day Massacre through a series of events that are poorly understood.

In the Yukon, the Soviet 1st Arctic Mechanized Brigade assumes occupation duty in the recently captured capital. The brigade's hovercraft have been heavily attrited by combat and lack of spare parts, and the terrain to the south is not as favorable to their use as it was in the Arctic tundra.

The Sierra II-class submarine K-443 rendevous with the Soviet fishing flotilla which is still operating in remote waters of the southern Pacific. The fishermen have arranged makeshift sails for their craft and adapted the engines for operation with a mix of fish oil and methane generated from organic waste.

[chico20854]

April 1, 1998

Nothing official for today. Unofficially,

Farmers in Nebraska are dismayed by the ground conditions. As the normal planting season begins, the soil is too cold and dry for the process to begin, and every day brings added pressure from the tens of thousands of evacuees on their land to eat the carefully husbanded seed that should be on its way into the ground.

16th Army, on occupation duty in southern Germany, assigns the 24 T-62 tanks and 100 of the new replacements that arrived on a recent train from the USSR, to the 19th Guards Tank Division, bringing it up to 80 tanks and 8,500 men.

The last US Army industrial equipment - backup generators, machine tools and building-mounted cranes - arrives in central Germany north of Frankfurt, from the Franco-Belgian occupied zone. The few remaining US Army troops and civilian employees in the zone are now involved with collecting "engineer materials" (mostly fencing, barbed wire, pipe and copper wire) from the last of dozens of kasernes, depots and stations located in the zone. Informally, they are also trying to eat as much of the French-supplied food as possible, hoping to return to Germany with several pounds of calories stored.

The crew of the Second World War-vintage American freighter Occidental Victory, which has been in harbor in Portland, Oregon since concluding a voyage from Korea, abandons the ship as the last of the food in the ship's lockers runs out.

The mobilization-only 106th Motor-Rifle (my 232nd Rear Area Protection) Division is ordered to prepare for movement to the front in Austria from its home station in west-central Ukraine, where it has been performing anti-partisan duties. The division commander begins an effort to gather (the locals would characterize it as horde) food, fuel and transport in preparation, as well as inducting by force a number of teenage boys and men in their 40s, depriving local collective farms of badly-needed workers

The transfer of USAF air assets to Kenya from Europe and the Mediterranean has largely been completed despite the poor weather in Africa. To provide command and control of the airlift squadrons, two new commands are stood up - the 139th and 164th Tactical Airlift Groups. Assurances are received that additional personnel to stand these commands up will be aboard the long-delayed reinforcement convoy.

[chico20854]

April 2, 1998

In Angola, the Cubans have managed to reorganize their forces after the nuclear attacks of the previous year on new defensive lines but their fight against UNITA and their new South African allies is not going well as they begin to run short on fuel, spare parts and munitions.

Unofficially,

Anti-American rioting in Mexico peters out as eaily identifiable symbols of America have all been damaged or destroyed, locals return to trying to eke out an existence, and the flow of Mexican evacuees from Texas and Arizona slows.

Soviet transportation planners complete another link in their effort to support the ongoing European war effort when they complete a repairs to a rail route between Ploesti, Romania and Miskolc, Hungary, which is already a junction in a cobbled-together continuous rail route between Ukraine and occupied souhern Germany through Austria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The development allows the Soviet occupation authorities to ship refined petroleum from Ploesti's remaining remnant refining capacity to the front in Germany. As yet the rail lines into Poland across the Carpathians remain inoperable.

The Norwegian sail training ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl arrives in Montevideo, Uruguay. Its captain and first mate go ashore, after clearing customs, to try to obtain a cargo of grain for its home port of Bergen.

The aircraft carrier USS John F Kennedy, in one of the last naval air raids of the war, strikes the Italian air base at Grazzanize near Naples. The base had been used in March to launch airstrikes that crippled the Bizerte refinery in Tunisia. The American raid hits the sole remaining radar and fuel tank farm with conventional munitions, knocking them out in preparation for the second strike, 15 minutes later, that inflicts massive damage from a lone F/A-18 dropping a 150-kiloton B61 bomb that lands 14 meters off the runway.

[chico20854]

April 3, 1998

The 1st Marine Division begins anti-marauder operations from Bandar Abbas. The British contribute two Gurkha battalions from their MEFF (Middle Eastern Field Force) to assist the American and Iranian forces.

Unofficially,

The fighting in Alaska heats up as additional troops on both sides are fed into the battle along the road to Anchorage. X Corps contributes the troops of the 115th Field Artillery Brigade, operating as dismounted infantry, to the force alrready containing the 10th Mountain (my 11th Airborne) Division and 2nd Infantry Brigade (Arctic Recon), facing the Soviet 2nd Arctic Mechanized Brigade and 110th Guards Motor-Rifle Divison.

The elite Dutch marines of the 1st Commando Group arrive at the port of Den Helder. The town's naval base has been destroyed by Soviet bombers, but the marines are able to land their small freighter and contact remnants of the naval garrison.

Swedish naval staff, operating from a hardened command post ashore, detect an unidentified submarine in the waters southwest of Goteborg and dispatch a combined surface and air fleet to intercept the intruder. The boat is classified as a nuclear-powered attack boat and permission to engage is given; after a thirty-minute localization and pursuit the boat is sunk by a pair of hits by air-dropped torpedoes. Only some months later is the submarine identified as the American USS Sea Devil, on a mission to infiltrate agents into the Soviet Baltic states and Leningrad area.

The Hungarian 53rd Mechanized Rifle Brigade, having completed its crossing of Lake Baikal, finds itself stranded in the chaotic countryside near Irkutsk. It had counted on using seized railcars to travel across the vast distances of Siberia and Russia on its way home, but was forced to abandon them (and much of the carefully gathered fuel in the tank cars) by a blockage of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Irkutsk, the vicinity of which was blasted by American nuclear bombers in November and December, has little suitable rolling stock, forcing the Hungarians to send out search parties along the rail lines in the region, in many cases encountering heavily armed bands of deserters and marauders.

[chico20854]

April 4, 1998

The stresses of wartime combined with long periods underwater causes the crew of the Soviet nuclear missile submarine Barrikada to crack under the strain. The resulting mutiny results in the death of the captain and most of the officers. The reactor chief and his technicians (all but two of which are junior officers) shut down the boat's reactors at the first sign of trouble. They die fighting the mutineers, but not before one of their numbers manages to send a partial message describing the boat's fate (but not its position).

The replica USS Constitution attacked by coastal pirates off Lagos; the ship puts up full sail and leaves the pirates behind at 15 knots.

Unofficially,

The Soviet GRU manages to launch a long-range reconnaissance aircraft to determine conditions in North America. (The loss of reliable communications with its satellite constellation and limited reporting from its agent network, struggling to survive, forces the GRU to expend the valuable resources involved with a manned flight). A Tu-95MR "Bear-D" reconnaissance aircraft, restored to service after being damaged by a Norwegian F-16 in the early days of the war, performs the mission, launching from Kipelovo airbase north of Moscow. It proceeds over the North Pole, "sniffing" for electronic emissions as it crosses Canada and enters American airspace over North Dakota at 35,000 feet. Its onboard SIGINT system detects NORAD radar and radio transmissions, as well as the communications between the interceptor base at Duluth, Minnesota and the F-15A fighter of the 148th Fighter Interceptor Group scrambled to shoot it down. The Bear commander immediately turns north and retreats and the interceptor sent after it is unable to close the distance between it and the fast Soviet bomber. After 18 hours in the air the plane lands back in Russian, having succeeded in one of the most successful and daring reconnaissance missions ever flown by the Soviet air force.

The British Government's regional government headquarters for the East Midlands, which evacuated its bunker in Skendleby in Lincolnshire in February, finally goes back online at its new location at RAF Waddington.

RainbowSix reports that the last B-52 sortie from RAF Fairford in Southwestern England takes off, launching strikes on Pact artillery concentrations east of the Oder River in Poland before turning northwest for a long flight to return the aircraft to America.

The 486th Tactical Missile Wing, a prewar Ground-Launched Cruise Missile unit, which evacuated the occupied zone from dispersal sites around its home station of Woensdrecht Air Base in the Netherlands (taking a considerable number of Dutch allies, military and civlian with it), resumes operational duties with its dozen remaining missiles after re-establishing secure, reliable communications with 17th Air Force headquarters. Taking a different approach to dispersal, the wing hides the four loaded TELs (Transporter-Erector-Launcher vehicles) in four separate buildings in the small town of Zeewold, east of Amsterdam.

[chico20854]

April 5, 1998

Aboard the Soviet missile submarine Barrikada southeast of Svalbard, the surviving mutineers attempt to bring the boat's reactors back online. The sub has been operating on battery power since the reactor chief shut down the reactors at the outbreak of the mutiny.

Unofficially, Unfortunately, the mutineers' complement only include two reactor technicians, both junior sailors who regard the reactors almost as if they are demons barely contained by technology just short of magic. They (and the sole remaining, badly wounded and barely conscious junior reactor officer) struggle to safely get the demon to work.

The B-52G bomber of the 2nd Bomb Wing's 62nd Bomb Squadron, which took off yesterday from RAF Fairford in the UK and bombed Pact artillery sites in western Poland, lands at its dispersal site in the continental US, Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi following a long-distance repositioning flight that involved three high-priority aerial refueling missions.

The Eagle Brigade is formed from the various US military security units located in the United Kingdom. Most of the unit's troops are from Air Force security squadrons from the various RAF installations that hosted American aircraft as well as the Ground Launched Cruise Missile (GLCM) wings at RAF Greenham Common and RAF Molesworth. The unit also absorbs the Marine Corps' FAST Company Europe, with its 400 elite urban warfare experts, as well as miscellaneous embassy guards, liaison officers attached to British units and personnel in transit through or recovering from wounds in the UK. The unit's priority is to concentrate the remaining stockpile of US nuclear weapons in the UK into two locations - RAF Sculthorpe and aboard the USS Eisenhower in Portsmouth and protect them in the chaos that is post-nuclear Britain.

In northeastern Poland, Captain Krzysztof Czarny, a decorated veteran of the siege of Warsaw who has been recovering from his wounds in his hometown of Polutsk, takes command of the city's nascent militia as the town faces increasing numbers of armed deserters and stragglers passing through, robbing and killing.

[chico20854]

April 6, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

In an attempt to improve its relative strategic position vis-à-vis the US, the Soviet command orders an attack on the US missile early warning radar at Thule, Greenland, which the recent reconnaissance flight has indicated is still operational. The target is selected both for its importance as a strategic warning asset and because it is the farthest that the Tu-16 bomber can reach with its onboard AS-6 missile. The missile partially malfunctions, detonating 16,000 feet over the base and with a reduced yield of 100 kilotons, knocking the radar out and lightly damaging the other on base facilities.

A second missile launched by the same aircraft at Keflavik air station in Iceland overshoots that site and detonates over the small town of Býjarskerseyri, 7 km away. The 350 kiloton blast inflicts light damage on the base, breaking windows and injuring a few exposed personnel who failed to take cover in the 7 seconds between the detonation and the arrival of the blast wave.

RainbowSix reports that the British Government has decided to evacuate the RAF base at Machrihanish on the tip of the Kintyre Peninsula in Argyll, Scotland. The Royal Navy warship HMS Achilles picks up a small number of British and American personnel still there and makes for Portsmouth.

The Dutch 1st Commando Group, armed with somewhat current intelligence on the Franco-Belgian occupation of Holland, begins scouring the area around Den Helder for small craft that can be used to infiltrate into occupied territory.

On the submerged Barrikada in the Arctic Ocean, the mutinous enlisted men continue to restart even one the reactors. The remaining reactor officer dies of his wounds received during the mutiny. Battery power is running low and the air aboard the boat grows foul as the ventilation system is turned off to conserve power.

The 115th Guards Motor-Rifle Division, a veteran formation that fought NATO troops on the Kola and across Finland before being stripped of men and equipment as the northwestern front died down, is in reserve south of Leningrad, assigned to 11th Guards Army on local security duties. The Army command orders the unit converted to horse cavalry, commandeering the division's few remaining vehicles and providing it with ten cavalry instructors, descendants of historical Cossack families and experienced horsemen.

[chico20854]

April 7, 1998

The mutineers aboard the Soviet boomer Barrikada are forced to surface the boat through the ice, as the batteries have been exhausted and the fresh air has run out. The sailors, most of whom have been below decks since the 48,000-ton ship left harbor outside Murmansk in July, rush out on deck to get fresh air and a sight of the sky, clouded as it is.

Unofficially,

Following an unexplained accident at Camp Edwards on Cape Cod and the very substantial loss of facilities and equipment, the 301st Port Security Unit moves its base of operations to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

RainbowSix reports that 44-year old Brigadier Richard Woodley, a Regular Army officer of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, who was assigned to the Regional Government Headquarters at Swynnerton a few miles outside Stoke in Staffordshire, finds himself the senior officer in the region. He claims authority over the whole area on behalf of His Majesty's Government. He is supported by a small group of soldiers and civilians, most notably a man named Ian Price, a former Civil Servant who held the position of Director of Communications at the RGHQ.

Despite the bomb damage inflicted by a B-52 strike earlier in the week, Pact artillery units along the length of the Polish-German border launch a coordinated series of artillery strikes on NATO defensive positions on the western bank of the Oder River. While intended to inflict damage, the attacks are also used to provoke NATO counterbattery fire, revealing the extent of surviving NATO artillery force, their ammunition availability and the speed of its response. Soviet officers are dismayed to discover that the Americans and their German allies have spent the winter months carefully emplacing counterbattery radars and planning counterfire strikes. Within minutes, eight Soviet and Polish artillery batteries that revealed their positions by opening fire are recipients of nuclear-tipped ATCAMS missiles fired by American MLRS batteries behind the lines.

[chico20854]

April 8, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

Soviet forces in British Columbia and Yukon resume their offensive with a landing on Victoria Island by troops of the 76th (my 71st) Tank Division's 415th Tank Regiment and a simultaneous attack southward out of Whitehorse by the 13th Guards Air Assault Division. The Soviet paratroopers face the greatly depleted US 47th Infantry Division and Canadian 40th Brigade, while the 76th (my 71st)'s tanks are faced by poorly equipped and supplied reservists of the Canadian 39th Brigade. The Allied troops are suffering from lack of supplies due to the Albertan government's decision to halt traffic through the province.

After a few months of research and gathering resources, MI5 recruits a volunteer, Martin Russell, to impersonate the late GRU officer Colonel Piotr Bulganin, who killed himself in British Army custody in January.

The French and Belgian armies (now united under a single command but still in the process of integration at the unit level) complete the evacuation of US Army facilities from the occupied areas of Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands that they conquered in January. The return of the last French truck over the Rhine near Karlsruhe marks the end of the controversial agreement reached between the surviving NATO command and the French.

On board the Barrikada, the mutineers continue their efforts to restart the reactors, a task the two 19-year old reactor technicians have only seen done twice before (an evolution in which their responsibility was solely to stay out of the way, standing by to bring the officers tea or any tools needed by the michmany.)

RainbowSix reports that HMS Achilles, carrying evacuees from RAF Machrihanish, is torpedoed by the Soviet Kilo-calss submarine B-888 en route to Portsmouth and goes down with the loss of all hands. The loss of the ship negates the chance for any resolution of rumors that the abandoned airbase harbors a hyper secret US reconnaissance aircraft code named Aurora that made an emergency landing at the base several days before the base was abandoned and remains hidden there. One particular rumor states that the Aurora’s pilot survived the sinking of the ship and after making it to shore is living and working on a small farm somewhere on the Kintyre Peninsula.

Engineers complete the installation of the portable diesel generator at the Shiraz, Iran munitions plant, allowing it to operate multiple machine tools simultaneously. The additional power provided allows the plant to resume production of Land Rover engine pistons, camshafts and brake pads; while seemingly minor the line represents a source of spare parts for tens of thousands of vehicles in IPA service, whose flow of spares has been cut off by the nuclear exchange. It also allows plant engineers to plan for additional production and allows managers to train new machinists to replace those lost in the war.

[chico20854]

April 9, 1998

The Mengistu regime in Ethiopia finally collapses as he is overthrown by his generals, who execute him and his ministers publicly. The new government comes to an accommodation with the remaining rebel forces and the civil war comes to an end. The few remaining Soviet personnel in the country are hunted down and killed over the next several weeks, ending the last vestige of the Soviet presence in the Horn of Africa. With the fall of the Mengistu regime the Eritrean rebels finally achieve a full victory against Ethiopia and achieve their independence. Even with the war ending the area is far from peaceful as marauders from Ethiopia and the Sudan continue to raid into Eritrea.

Unofficially,

Planting of the oat, wheat, canola and barley crops begins in Nebraska, a week late because of the long, cold winter of 1997-8.

Canadian troops on Victoria Island make desperate pleas for anti-tank weapons to counter the Soviet T-34/85s that they have nothing to stop.

RainbowSix reports that 29-year old Major Natalia Y. Ivanova, a GRU operative, is infiltrated into southern England by submarine. Born to an East German mother and a Russian father who is a serving General in the Red Army, Ivanova is fluent in five languages (including English, French, and German), and is an utterly ruthless young woman who is completely loyal to the Soviet Union. She manages to establish herself in Portsmouth under the alias Lisa Ross, the identity of a RAF Tornado Navigator who was shot down over Eastern Poland in the spring of 1997. Captured by the GRU and interrogated under torture, the Soviets ae able to create a false identity based on her life before she joined the RAF. Ivanova participated in several of Ross’ interrogations, and ultimately executed the Englishwoman herself.

Western TVD command, after analyzing the response of NATO artillery to the recent Pact artillery barrage and receiving a report from the chief of engineers on the status of assault bridging (most was lost in the campaigns across Poland and much of what remained was destroyed by tactical nuclear strikes on assembly areas in the fall), decides that an offensive on Germany will have to be launched from occupied territory in southern Germany or from Czechoslovakia. Soviet forces in Czechoslovakia proper are relatively scarce, and given the recent completion of rail links from Ploesti and Ukraine into southern Germany that seems the most favorable region for a continuation of the effort to drive capitalist imperialists from Europe. Accordingly, orders are issued to prepare a spring offensive and direct supplies and reinforcements to 1st Southwestern Front.

As the mutineers aboard Barrikada realize that the reactor technicians are not going to be able to restart the submarine's nuclear reactors they hold a "Soviet" (all hands meeting) to determine their next steps. Some advocate for continuing to restart the reactors, some urge heading for the nearest land (Svalbard to the northwest) over the frozen sea while a few are in favor of heading south, dragging life rafts in their storage containers along, and making way for the USSR across the open sea to the south. The debate rages late into the night.

[chico20854]

April 10, 1998

Canon is silent on today. Unofficially,

In west-central Wisconsin, the members of the Ho-Chunk tribe close off the approaches to the town of Hatfield to all non-native people. They declare the area the core of their new tribal territory; the many vacation homes in the area offer housing for native people from throughout the area.

The Soviet drive out of the Yukon is reinforced when troops of the 62nd (my 245th) Motor-Rifle Division link up with Soviet troops advancing from Alaska; the 62nd has travelled inland from the rugged coast.

Opposite the Pact forces in southern Germany, NATO forces, under command of 4th US Army, complete repositioning after a complex series of moves to deploy the Danish Expeditionary Force into positions vacated in January when the Dutch I Corps was rapidly withdrawn to fight the Franco-Belgian invasion of their homeland. The Danes have had to reach deep into their well of personnel and equipment to find sufficient troops to hold their sector south of Ulm. All along the front NATO troops are unexpectedly provided with massive amounts of fencing and barbed wire to reinforce their defensive positions - materiel withdrawn to Germany from American bases in the occupied territory west of the Rhine. Some troops use the chain link fence to outfit their vehicles with anti-RPG cages, hoping that a screen of wire fencing might deflect or detonate Soviet HEAT warheads before they can contact a vehicle's armor.

The soviet aboard the Barrikada continues, growing more acrimonious. There is no single leader among the mutineers, and factions have arisen among the crew, based largely along ethnic lines (between Russians and Ukrainians, there being few Balts, Central Asians or Caucasians deemed politically reliable enough to serve aboard one of the Soviet Navy's most advanced boomers) and department (weapons, engineering, bridge and steward). All of the alternatives has serious drawbacks, and adding to the challenges the crew faces, one of the frigid storms that are common this time of year sweeps through.

In the Balkans, troops of the US 6th Special Forces Group are able to establish a communications link with the headquarters of the US 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean. Before the batteries on the long-range radio are depleted, the Green Berets relay the locations of six Soviet regimental and divisional command posts in Jugoslavia and Romania and receive an assurance that those targets will be struck between 24 and 48 hours in the future, giving the Green Berets and their local guerrilla allies time to clear the immediate vicinity of the Soviet garrisons.

Chaos reigns on the streets of Ethiopian cities as the military attempts to establish control of the shattered nation.

[chico20854]

April 11, 1998

The first gangs form in Erie, Pennsylvania to seize by force what shelter, food and fuel the authorities can no longer provide. Soon the gangs are fighting each other, contributing to a precipitous decline in the population as violence, starvation and disease take their toll. Some civilians flee south while others risk the perilous voyage across the lake to the imagined safety of Canada.

As the floods subside American and Kenyan forces launch an offensive to drive the occupying Tanzanian Army from Kenyan territory south of Nairobi.

The mutinous crew of the Barrikada abandons ship, heading out on foot. Some (mostly Russians) head northwest for the nearest land, the Svalbard Islands. (Unofficially, the rest (overwhelmingly Ukrainians) heads south, dragging the ship's life rafts across the ice to make the passage across the Barents Sea to the Kola Peninsula.

Unofficially,

As promised, 24 hours after receiving target coordinates, 6th Fleet launches a flight of six Tomahawk cruise missiles at Soviet targets in the Balkans. Fired by the cruiser USS Normandy, destroyer USS Caron and sub USS Montpelier (two missiles each), the low-flying nuclear missiles hit the headquarters of the 9th Motor-Rifle Division and the 259th Motor-Rifle Division's 133rd Motor-Rifle Regiment. One of the missiles crashes prior to impact, and in another the warhead fizzles, yielding 1.2 kt rather than the 150 kt it was set for.

[chico20854]

April 12, 1998

Reacting to a disturbing increase in anti-Soviet partisan activity, the 6th (my 5th Guards) Tank Division is withdrawn from positions deeper in China to Manchuria, bolstering the Soviet occupation of one of the world's more intact industrial areas.

Unofficially,

After a journey of many weeks, characterized by roundabout routings, discomfort and frustration, the train carrying the Joint Chiefs and the rump national military command staff arrives in Colorado Springs from the Alternate National Military Command Center at Raven Rock, Maryland. Upon arrival the Joint Chiefs take over a historic hotel and resort complex as their combined residence and headquarters, while most of the staff begin operations out of the Air Force Academy. The 24-hour command and communications center is located at the NORAD headquarters at Cheyenne Mountain, which survived a Soviet near-miss in November. Security in the city is tight thanks to the presence of security troops from the Cadet Brigade (the former Academy Corps of Cadets) and the graduates of training battalions from the 100th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, who, in the absence of transportation to combat zones overseas, are on local duties.

A second Polish horse breeding farm is started in eastern Poland, this one near the town of Bełżyce, 20 km southwest of Lublin, where much of the remaining Polish government (and military command) has assembled.

The resupply convoy headed to AFRICOM finally draws around the Cape of Good Hope, remaining out of sight of land to avoid being sighted by anyone ashore.

Local military authorities in Karshi, Uzbekistan order the mobilization of the 151st Motor-Rifle Division, a mobilization-only unit that has access to the somewhat depleted contents of 15 warehouses full of military equipment in the city's northern outskirts. They hope that the unit will both relieve the area's many idle young men of the temptation to turn to banditry and provide a force to maintain security (as well as possibly means to resist unreasonable demands from the center).

[chico20854]

April 13, 1998

Nothing official for today. Unofficially,

Another incident occurs along the Mexican border, when an armed militiaman (the Texas State Guard denies that he is a member of any of their units, being a Kansas resident) opens fire on a family crossing the Rio Grande River northwest of Laredo, killing both parents and three of their four children, all under the age of 10.

In Alaska, the 10th Mountain (my 11th Airborne) Division makes slow progress, reaching the lower slopes of the Alaska Range (the mountain range of which Mount McKinley is the highest) after the Soviet 25th Corps is pushed back after weeks of fighting.

RainbowSix reports that a riot breaks out at Albany Prison on the Isle of Wight. Many of the prisoners are suspected subversives arrested by the Security Service at the start of 1997, who now find themselves sent to either Albany or Camp Hill, dependent on which Category they are classed as (medium risk prisoners at Abany and low risk at the Camp Hill prison). The Parkhurst prison remained Category A (high security), and received a number of prisoners who were transferred there from other facilities after the nuclear exchanges. Built to hold just over 1700 prisoners, over two thousand four hundred men are now confined in the three facilities. The rioting quickly spreads from Albany to Parkhurst; although they are armed with a variety of weapons, the warders are heavily outnumbered.

Two additional troop trains arrive in Salzburg, Austria from Moldova and Ukraine, carrying (unwilling, poorly trained and equipped) recruits for 1st and 2nd Southwestern Fronts.

A fierce winter storm slides south from the North Pole towards the Kola Peninsula. The storm is accompanied by extremely cold temperatures and heavy snowfall (it is fierce by pre-war standards, but the nuclear detonations of the prior six months have made the cold winter of 1997-8 much worse than normal). The mutinous sailors from the Soviet submarine Barrikada, who have travelled only 8 of the over 200 miles to the nearest settlement, huddle together for warmth in the lee of an ice ridge. Seven die of frostbite.

Near Esfahan, pro-NATO guerrillas, under the leadership of Sirjan Khorrasani, shoot down another aircraft, an AN-24 transport carrying the Chief of Staff of the 45th (my 32nd) Army, using the second of two SA-14 MANPADS they captured some weeks before.

The Hungarian 53rd Mechanized Brigade, which has escaped the Irkutsk area, receives word of its next obstacle, the crater created by an American nuclear warhead at Taishet, a small Siberian town that derived strategic importance from the junction of the Trans-Siberian and Baikal-Amur Mainline Railroads, the only two routes across Siberia.

[chico20854]

April 14, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

RainbowSix reports that, while casualties in the prison riots on the Isle of Wight are heavy on both sides, gradually the prisoners begin to gain the upper hand. The surviving warders plead for reinforcements as they retreat to the relative safety of the Camp Hill complex.

The storm continues to rage over the Barents Sea and Arctic Ocean, preventing the mutineers from the Barrikada from making any progress. The second group (the Ukrainians), 20 miles to the south, has the benefit of life rafts to shelter under; nonetheless over a dozen of the sailors (in both groups) succumb to the weather.

Taking advantage of the disarray of Soviet occupation forces in Jugoslavia, the Jugoslav Army reopens its prewar hardened underground command post outside Han Pijesak, Bosnia, which has been secured by a skeleton staff for many months.

The 106th Motor-Rifle (my 232nd Rear Area Protection) Division begins a trek to the front in Austria. Promised transportation never arrives, forcing the division to move largely under its own power using up resources gathered by the unit over prior weeks.

In Pretoria, South Africa a car bomb detonates at lunchtime in a crowded downtown area, killing 23 civilians and a mixed-race policeman.

[chico20854]

April 15, 1998

The 1st Infantry Brigade (Arctic Recon) drives west to Kayukak, cutting the Soviet direct supply line across the Bering Strait. Now 25th Corps is reliant on supplies delivered by air, seized locally or (no longer existing) flown in from home.

Unofficially,

Rainbow Six reports that, unable to deploy troops from the mainland to bring the situation back under control, General Sir Clive Smith orders an airstrike on the three prisons which is carried out by two RAF Tornados, causing a heavy loss of life amongst the prisoners. Several hundred prisoners manage to escape, quickly scattering across the island.

He also reports that the bulk of British forces are withdrawn from Norway. Whilst most of the 3rd Commando Brigade is attached to the US 2nd Marine Division along the Baltic coast on the German-Polish border, the remnants of the British element of the Allied Mobile Force are brought back to the UK.

In the Arctic, the storm that has prevented the mutinous sailors of the Barrikada from moving for several days ebbs, leaving behind bitterly cold temperatures and over two dozen dead men.

[chico20854]

April 16, 1998

A combined American-Kenyan task force drives the Tanzanian forces from the city of Kisumu on Lake Victoria.

Unofficially,

Mexican government officials once again issue perfunctory demands for an investigation and accountability for the death of their citizens. Unfortunately, the few remaining American embassy staffers in Mexico City (many were killed in anti-American riots or drifted away in the chaos of post-nuclear Mexico) are out of contact with authorities back home, the State Department secure communications system not yet restored as the Joint Chiefs establish a new headquarters in Colorado Springs.

MI5 recruit Martin Russell wraps up his affairs (such as anyone in post-nuclear Britain has affairs to attend to!) and begins a period of intense training to impersonate the late GRU Colonel Piotr Bulganin.

As recruits arrive in Soviet formations all along the line in Germany, it falls upon the surviving leaders of the recipient units to train them. Even before the war, the Red Army did not run centralized Basic Training for new recruits (it did, however, operate training divisions to create "instant NCOs" from high-potential recruits), delegating that responsibility to individual units, who typically spent a month on turning civilians to soldiers able to follow orders, although lacking most skills needed for survival in combat. In 1998, many Soviet units have few leaders left to train raw recruits, leading to haphazard, at best, training for the thousands of shanghaied men appearing in the rear of 1st and 2nd Southwestern Fronts in preparation of the upcoming offensive.

The surviving Ukrainian mutineers from the Barrikada reach a wide stretch of open water and board the life rafts they have brought from the submarine. Unfortunately, blowing ice during the fierce blizzard has punctured the rafts (their material lacked the proper coating, being diverted by the manager of the mill in Byelorussia that manufactured it), but the desperate men (who can see the other side of the open water) pile in, hoping to make it across before the raft sinks. That turns out to be a poor decision, and the Ukrainians perish as they become trapped in the fabric of the collapsing, sinking raft.

After a week of dealing ashore, the captain of the Norwegian sailing ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl is able to secure a trade in Montevideo, Uruguay. In exchange for the ship's cargo of pipes, machinery and electrical parts, a local trading house is willing to provide 500 tons of canned beef.

[chico20854]

April 17, 1998

Another day with nothing in canon. Unofficially,

Members of the Ho-Chunk tribe turn back a Wisconsin State Patrol officer sent to investigate rumors of disruption to the area's roads.

The 10th Mountain (my 11th Airborne) Division and 2nd Infantry Brigade (Arctic Recon) send dismounted patrols into the mountains overlooking their positions, seeking a weak point in the Soviet lines.

Only eight Russian mutineers remain, the last survivors of the crew of the Barrikada. They now have adequate clothing (having stripped the dead of theirs) but are short (ironically) of water. The group is discovered by a pack of polar bears, who are driven away by gunfire from the group's pistols.

Having begun to somewhat organize his headquarters, the Jugoslav high command's surviving leader, Colonel General Petar Simatović, orders the creation of regular forces to eject the Soviets, Italians and their Pact allies. The new forces are to be formed from the remnants of the Jugoslav National Army (the pre-war Army and its reserves) and Territorial Defense (local defense forces under command of regional governments), unified under a new name, the Jugoslav Free Army (abbreviated JSA in Serbo-Croatian).

[chico20854]

April 18, 1998

The Scottish Nationalist Party (the SNP), which had declared Scotland to be an independent country in February, establishes the Royal Army of Scotland - the RAS. This force is instrumental in maintaining a semblance of peace between the various Scottish towns, and the SNP convinces many people that the real problem lies with the various marauder groups operating by that time.

Unofficially,

The Dutch 1st Commando Group's elite marines launch their first raid on the Franco-Belgian occupation force, sinking the Belgian minesweeper Breydel in harbor in Vlissingen.

Two of the remaining sailors from the Barrikada collapse and are left behind by the remaining mutineers.

Conditions in Yemen outside the bubble of control maintained by the 29th infantry Division (Light) around Aden have descended into total chaos. In some towns the dominant tribes and clans enforce order, and in northern Yemen the Houthi tribe succeeds in establishing a harsh order in the rural areas under its control.

South African authorities announce the conclusion of a raid on a safehouse of the AWB, a Afrikaaner neo-nazi terrorist group, in which eight men linked to the recent bombing in Pretoria are killed.

[chico20854]

April 19, 1998

The town of Meadville, Pennsylvania suffers from food riots after its population, swelled by refugees, runs out of food following a period of reduced rations.

Unofficially,

Recently promoted Specialist Randolph Cutler suffers a minor injury when he checks on his reheating MRE. His lit cigarette ignites the hydrogen gas given off by the MRE's flameless heater, inflicting minor flash burns to his face. (In later years he will grow a beard to conceal the scars from the burns.)

The polar bears return to the small group of Russian sailors from the Barrikada in the early hours (there is midnight sun by this time) and attack. The lone awake sentry is killed, and only one of the sleeping sailors escapes.

RainbowSix reports that the remnants of the British element of the Allied Mobile Force arrives in South Shields aboard the DFDS ferry “Princess of Scandinavia”, from where they move to Catterick to refit and rebuild.

Thousands of Afrikaaners supporting the neo-nazi AWB right-wing movement turn out in protests in Johannesburg, South Africa to protest the death of eight of their comrades in a police raid. Many of the men are armed.

[chico20854]

April 20, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day.

The Wisconsin State Patrol returns to the area near Hatfield, Wisconsin in force, determined to reassert the state government's authority. A fierce firefight ensues, in which three troopers are killed and two captured by the Ho-Chunk tribe's militia (composed of well-armed veterans).

The scouts dispatched by X Corps in Alaska return, reporting that the Soviet defensive line through the pass in the Alaska Range is thinly supported, with little artillery or rear area installations. They report that there was minimal traffic to the Soviet forces, implying that they may be poorly supplied.

photo
The British Army command staff, responding to the heavy losses suffered by BAOR in the 1997 campaign, surveys the military units and garrisons under its control for armored vehicles, even obsolescent ones, to send to Germany. The survey turns up contingents of Ferret armored cars, Saracen and Humber APCs and even two batteries worth of Abbot self-propelled howitzers, as well as small quantities of more modern armor from training detachments and research and testing facilities throughout England.

Third German Army orders the disbandment of remaining KDA (Kampfgruppen der Arbeiterklasse) East German paramilitary militia units in the former East Germany, returning the workers to the economy and turning their weapons over to the Army. Some of the most useful weapons freed up are the KDA's light anti-aircraft artillery; the KPV and DSHK heavy machineguns and 23mm and 37mm light anti-aircraft guns are brought forward to harden the increasing numbers of bunkers and fortifications along the Oder River.

As the reinforcement convoy headed to Africom rounds Cape Horn into the Indian Ocean, the nuclear-powered cruiser USS Virginia departs, its skipper deciding that, absent orders, it should remain in the Atlantic.

In the early morning hours, downtown Johannesburg is turned into a battle zone when armed AWB extremists attempt to take over government buildings. Mixed-race police units are nearly overrun and respond with live ammunition as well as tear gas, and within a few hours SADF troops are on the streets as well, reinforcing the police and hunting down bands of right-wing terrorists.

[chico20854]

April 21, 1998

Another day on which canon is silent. Unofficially.

At its new base in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the 301st Port Security Unit is completely reorganized and absorbs a large number of personnel from other services, as well as police and federal agents. The reformed unit is flagged the 701st Maritime Rifle Regiment and is tasked as a waterborne military police formation.

Reflecting both the loss of industrial and military capability on the part of Frontal Aviation as well as the near-extinction of NATO interceptor coverage over the front line, a trio of Yak-52 light trainer aircraft, hastily modified with a pair of 57mm rocket pods, attack German positions north of Gorlitz on the Polish border.

The final survivor from the Barrikada, a scared 20-year-old steward from Perm in Siberia, wanders the pack ice of the Arctic. He does not know which direction he should be headed and escaped the polar bear attack without gloves or mittens.

The US Navy formally disbands the crew of the carrier USS America. The ship was abandoned and destroyed in Sicily following irreparable damage and the crew evacuated. After several weeks of indecision, they were brought to Germany to serve as replacements for depleted Army formations. Senior officers are assigned to corps- and army-level headquarters as additional watchstanders and technical experts assigned to 7th TAACOM to help maintain US Army Europe's battered equipment. Sailors that can't be used in their ratings are cycled through 7th Army Training Command's Basic Infantry Substitute Course (BISC), a four-week course to transform experienced servicemen (and women) into infantry replacements. (The training is a far cry from its pre-exchange conversion counterparts, since there is little ammunition, fuel or equipment to be spared for training use). The graduates, referred to as "Bisquicks", are welcomed to the depleted formations of III and V Corps in reserve positions behind the lines.

AWB extremists throughout South Africa rise up against the government in a (vain) attempt to halt the rollback of apartheid policies. Rail and road traffic is disrupted by blockades of heavily armed men (the AWB's right-wing beliefs also include that women should be passive and submissive) and government and military facilities, as well as airports and power stations, come under small arms fire.

[chico20854]

April 22, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

Graebarde reports that the harvest of the winter wheat crop, which had already been in the ground prior to TDM, fairs better than expected given the situation. Strenuous efforts are made to get the crop harvested. Fuels are made available for the transport of combines and trucks necessary to do the harvest, and the slow process begins in Texas. (The harvest will move north as the weather warms).

RainbowSix reports that GCHQ Bude, a satellite ground station on the north Cornwall coast operated by GCHQ, the British Signals Intelligence Service, is abandoned by the Government, with personnel relocating to Plymouth Naval Base together with what equipment they can carry.

Pleased with the prior day's successful sortie over German front lines along the Oder, the trio of Yak light trainers (operated by the 74th Guards Shturmovik Regiment), this time accompanied by a single Su-25, return to the skies over the Oder River. The mixed flight is greeted by a hail of anti-aircraft fire, but they press the attack on NATO troops (the 4th Battalion, 34th Armor, part of the US 8th Infantry Division). The driver of one of the American tanks (named "the Pink Cadillac"), SSG Kent Venters, on watch in the commander's position, scores a lucky shot with the vehicle's .50 caliber machinegun and the Su-25 goes down. The Yaks turn back after discharging their rockets in the general direction of the American positions, themselves scoring a lucky shot that destroys the Headquarters and Service Company's NBC LMTV truck.

Local Italian authorities in the northern part of the nation begin planning efforts to restore operations at the clusters of hydroelectric power plants along the southern slopes of the Alps.

The near civil war in South Africa continues. The SADF rallies its formations in garrisons throughout the nation and orders the 73rd Motorized Brigade back from the frontier facing Mozambique to supplement beleaguered police and local security troops. The first roadblocks leaving towns outside garrisons are removed by the application of firepower, in some cases augmented by strikes from the SADF's fighter-bombers and armed helicopters.

[chico20854]

April 23, 1998

Nathan Snyder, a 31-year old corporal in the 42nd Infantry Division (New York National Guard) on internal security duties in Manhattan, deserts from his unit, taking his M16 rifle and ammunition with him.

Unofficially,

In Alaska, X Corps organizes another effort to leapfrog over Soviet resistance. Once again, the plan calls for the 2nd Battalion, 511th Infantry to be parachuted behind the enemy lines from from the bush planes of the 2nd Battalion, 207th Aviation Regiment, where they will link up with scouts and other light forces infiltrated around the Soviet positions.

In British Columbia, the last of the Canadian Army forces resisting the 76th (my 71st) Tank Division's assault on Victoria Island is withdraw by small craft, leaving small detachments behind to report on enemy activity in the occupied territory.

Despite the loss of a Su-25 in the prior day's operations, the 74th Guards Shturmovik Regiment dispatches more Yak-52 armed light trainers across the Oder. This time they are intercepted by a F-16A from the 313th Tactical Fighter Squadron, which has a difficult time attacking the low- and slow-flying aircraft with the fighter's guns. After several minutes of weaving and circling, one of the trainers is shot down and the remaining pair split up, running for the relative safety of friendly lines and their haven at the Drawsko Pomorskie Airbase in northwestern Poland. That base is visited after dark by a flight of four F-16s from the 50th Tactical Fighter Wing, which catches the defending gunners unaware. With a single pass the American fighters dispense eight CBU-58 and eight CBU-71 cluster bombs on the Polish airfield, which blanket the Polish airfield with almost 10,000 bomblets. (One of the units fails to open and only breaks apart on impact with the ground 300 feet below). Half of the bomblets explode on impact, while the others detonate randomly in the minutes, hours and days that follow. The runway receives only superficial damage, but the Yak trainers, Su-25 attack aircraft and ground installations and vehicles (all in individual revetments scattered around the air vase and its perimeter, ironically built by USAF engineers in 1997) are all peppered by bomblet fragments. One of the Yaks survive, as do three of the regiment's remaining Su-25s.

The last survivor of the Barrikada mutiny succumbs to the elements.

The JSA issues orders on the organization of its subordinate units. Given the rough terrain and poor communications, the JSA leadership orders a simple initial plan of operations: formations are to descend from the high country into one of the valleys of each of the major tributaries of the Sava River and sweep downstream, engaging any Pact, Italian or puppet troops they encounter and linking up with other JSA formations, preserving as much of the supplies, industry and other infrastructure of the valleys as possible.

[chico20854]

April 24, 1998

The town of Titusville, Pennsylvania is flooded with refugees seeking the relative safety and security of western New York.

In west-central Alaska, the 6th (my 99th) Guards Air Assault Division finds itself cut off on the Seward Peninsula by the X Corps counterattack to its south.

Unofficially,

The Sturgeon-class nuclear attack submarine USS Pargo arrives in Pearl Harbor at the conclusion of a long patrol that took it in search of Soviet naval and merchant shipping throughout the western Pacific.

After a quiet and restful winter supported by the fruits of successful raids on Allied supply dumps in the fall, the deserters of 5th Squad resume their activity in the wooded region of northwestern East Germany. Their first ravaging of the year is a group of German civilian refugees traveling on foot from the coast inland in search of suitable land to farm.

RainbowSix reports that, with BAOR in dire need of reinforcement, the 5th Division embarks on the Princess of Scandinavia and a number of smaller ships and sails from South Shields for Bremerhaven, in what will be the last major British reinforcement of the war. Following their departure, responsibility for local security passes to a number of Territorial battalions based in the area.

In South Africa, Army troops have been able to restore movement along the rail lines and major highways between the major cities - Durban, Capetown, Johannesburg and Praetoria, while riot police have restored order to the city centers. Many rural areas and back roads remain impassible, however, due to AWB roadblocks, and many citizens of smaller towns and cities remain afraid to leave their homes. The South African Air Force deploys its aircraft in reconnaissance sorties, looking for terrorist roadblocks.

[chico20854]

April 25, 1998

In light of the dire condition of BAOR, 19 Infantry Brigade in the UK is relieved of disaster relief and internal security duties in England and ordered to prepare for deployment to the Continent.

Unofficially,

An emissary from the Acting Governor of Wisconsin arrives at the border of the Ho-Chunk nation under a white flag. He desires to discuss the return of the captured state troopers.

The commander of 2nd Battalion, 511th Infantry reports his command ready for its airborne assault on the Soviet rear area south of the Alaska Range. The infiltration of scouts from the 2nd Infantry Brigade (Arctic Recon) is still ongoing, however, so the date of the assault is postponed until they are in position. To tie down the Soviet defenders (the 110th Guards Motor-Rifle Division), X Corps permits some of its remaining mortar ammunition to be expended in harassment fires. (X Corps fired the last of its howitzer ammunition in February during the Battle of Fairbanks).

Frontal Aviation ground crewmen at the bomb-scarred Drawsko Pomorskie Airbase in Poland are able to clear the runway, taxiway and other paved areas of the base of undetonated cluster bomblets using the water cannon on a fire truck requisitioned from the Polish city of Bydgoszcz. Two men are killed, however, when a time-delayed bomblet located in a grassy area detonates, and time-delayed bomblets force the base to remain largely locked down as the Soviets hope the last of the timers have run down.

The convoy to AFRICOM is forced to reduce speed to a paltry 8 knots in order to reduce fuel consumption. While the move all but assures there will be sufficient fuel to reach port in Kenya, the flotilla's supply officers are concerned about the dwindling food supplies aboard the ships, especially those packed with troops. Marines are ordered to redouble their fishing efforts from the ships' decks, which, while bringing in precious protein, is insufficient to feed the thousands of troops and sailors.

[chico20854]

April 26, 1998

After hiding in an abandoned building in New York City and dodging patrols of his erstwhile compatriots, deserter Nathan Snyder joins up with an Upper East Side marauder gang called Hell's Own.

Of prewar population of Silesia of 3m, less than 100,000 survive, felled by bombings, invasion, nuclear strikes, famine and plague.

Kenyan and American forces drive the last organized Tanzanian units back to the border, forcing them back to their start lines.

Unofficially,

X Corps in Alaska is awaiting confirmation that the remaining infiltrators from the 2nd Infantry Brigade (Arctic Recon) have crossed the Alaska Range and are overlooking the 110th Guards Motor-Rifle Division's supply lines.

Soviet troops approach the Yukon-British Columbia border after linking up with friendly forces (the 22nd Motor-Rifle Division) that have crossed the coastal mountains from Skagway, Alaska.

In Lithuania, Party officials, rebuffed by the commander of the 1st Byelorussian Front, dispatch an emissary to the commander of the Reserve Front to beg for the removal of the renegade Colonel Skrebys from Trakai Castle.

[chico20854]

April 27, 1998

Nothing official for today. Unofficially,

After two days of talks, the representative of the Wisconsin state government and the chief of the Ho-Chunk Nation, Henry Red Cloud, agree to release the two captured state troopers (less their weapons and equipment) and the bodies of the three killed in exchange for recognition of the tribe's sovereignty and an agreement to not interfere in the tribe's territory.

In Alaska, the scouts from the 2nd Infantry Brigade (Arctic Recon) are in place near the lone road supplying the 110th Guards Motor-Rifle Division but the weather is too bad for the bush planes available to X Corps to locate the drop zones. (The requisitioned civilian aircraft are largely reliant on visual navigation, lacking military navigational equipment).

The 81st Tactical Fighter Wing, an A-10 Warthog unit that fought throughout the 1996 and 1997 campaigns in Central Europe, launches its first sorties in many months from its new station of Neubrandenburg, (former East) Germany. The wing (down to eight operable aircraft) launches two aircraft to attack suspected Polish Army artillery positions identified by US Marines southeast of Szczecin.

The USS Virginia, operating independently in the South Atlantic, encounters the Soviet trawler "Star of Crimea" fishing some 375 miles southwest of Capetown, South Africa. A short chase results in the capture of the Soviet craft (the crew being wise enough not to scuttle the ship, knowing how slim their chances of survival in this remote patch of ocean are). The crew are taken prisoner, the trawler's catch of frozen fish transferred to the cruiser's depleted freezers and the ship's officers interrogated, its logs examined, communications gear seized and ship's conditions examined by US navy engineers. The logs are encoded and the trawler's crypto gear was destroyed before the boarding party arrived, but the crew confirms that there is a largely idle fishing flotilla extant in the southern Atlantic, providing support to Soviet Navy raiders and submarines. The engineering crew notes that the trawler has been burning fish oil and that two of its fish meal tanks are carrying oil instead; they speculate that the fishing fleet is relying on the catch to provide oil to keep the ships operating. The Virginia takes the fish oil aboard to run its emergency generators if needed, then the boarding party opens the seacocks and sends the trawler to the bottom.

David Hudson, a CIA agent who has been operating undercover in the outskirts of Moscow (reporting on scientific developments in the many research institutes and high-tech production centers) since he was infiltrated in during 1996, requests permission to evacuate. He reports to his supervisor (operating from Camp Peary, Virginia) that he has been evacuated to a collective farm northeast of Moscow and that following the nuclear attacks on Moscow he has been unable to re-establish contact with any sources and he doubts that the research institutes are operating. His handler agrees that the information Hudson can gather is unlikely to be of sufficient value to justify his continued presence and authorizes him to evacuate to friendly territory as he best sees fit.

In Australia, the Ned Kelly gang launches another raid, this one on a remote farm near the town of Goombargana in southern New South Wales. They make off with several cattle, a generator and two farm trucks loaded with feed and fuel. The station manager calls for help from the Main Force Patrol, but the police force is currently engaged in an extended struggle to capture a motorcycle gang leader known as "The Night Rider".

[chico20854]

April 28, 1998

Ammunition stocks in Kenya have been run down significantly in the fighting and further operations must wait until a second convoy arrives from the US. As a result of the ammunition shortage and the flooding the Somali and Sudanese invaders still retain a small foothold in northern Kenya.

Stuart Harris, leader of a gang of armed Scottish raiders, forms an alliance with two other armed gangs that are operating nearby, with the intention of controlling the Scottish countryside. He calls the group the Tartan Army and calls for other groups to join his alliance.

Unofficially,

Conditions over X Corps' front lines between Fairbanks and Anchorage remain overcast, delaying the airborne assault for another day.

A detachment of the Soviet 22nd Guards Motor-Rifle Division reaches the Yukon-British Columbia border.

A 5th Squad scouting group encounters another group of heavily armed men wandering the NATO rear area, these a motley group of German Army deserters and wayward stragglers, and a firefight breaks out. Three 5th Squad men are killed as are four Germans.

The first contingent of Italian engineers, escorted by a Carabinieri detachment, departs Turin to evaluate conditions at the Campore Basso hydropower plant.

In the early morning hours CIA agent David Hudson slips away from his shared bunk in the tractor barn ion a collective farm northeast of Moscow, bringing his radio, a supply of food and a Stenchin machinepistol with him.

[chico20854]

April 29, 1998

The 46th Infantry Division (Texas, New York and Puerto Rico National Guard) is ordered to move from Virginia, where it has been performing internal security and disaster relief duties since November, to Texas by road, where it will disperse throughout the eastern part of the state on anti-riot duties.

Unofficially,

The division is filled out with additional troops - sailors from the Hampton Roads area without ships or squadrons, airmen from Langley Air Force Base and freshly trained recruits from the training battalions at Forts Lee and Eustis (including an entire platoon of parachute riggers that have completed their training at Fort Lee but are unable to obtain transport to XVIII Airborne Corps in Iran). To conserve fuel and in recognition of its mission in Texas, it leaves nearly all of its remaining heavy weapons and armored vehicles behind. This move is a recognition of the significant military forces available in the Hampton Roads region from the cluster of bases there (the Army's Forts Eustis, Story and Monroe, Langley Air Force Base and the Norfolk Naval station complex, its ranks swelled by the crews of ships stuck in port and aircraft grounded for lack of fuel). It is also a reflection of the need for additional troops to secure the remaining petroleum production infrastructure of the Texas Gulf Coast.

The weather in Alaska remains snowy, windy and cloudy, delaying again the 2nd Battalion, 511th Infantry Regiment's parachute drop behind Soviet lines.

The commander of the 2nd Southwestern Front reaches out to his KGB counterparts in preparation for the release of tactical nuclear weapons in the upcoming offensive. The KGB officer demurs, citing a lack of orders from Moscow. The Army commander suspects the real reason is the KGB detachments' comfortable occupation of former Austrian and German garrisons, including Luftwaffe and US Army bases in southern Germany with highly secure nuclear weapons storage facilities; even with the electronic alarms and other sophisticated defenses disabled they provide admirable security and, more importantly to the KGB troops, more comfortable surroundings than any comparable base in the Warsaw Pact.

In eastern Siberia, the Hungarian 53rd Mechanized Brigade has reached the blockage in the Trans-Siberian Railroad caused by an American nuclear strike which obliterated the junction of the Trans-Siberian with the Baikal-Amur Mainline, the other railroad that crosses Siberia to the Pacific. The Hungarian rear guard reports sightings of the 27th (my 90th) Tank Division's advanced patrols as that unit continues its journey to the Western Front.