On this day 25 years ago

[chico20854]

October 2, 1997

Nothing official for the day, but a busy one nonetheless!

In a debate in the German Bundestag, a member of a leftist party rises to decry the fact that the defense of Bavaria is under the command of an American general, the commander of the 4th Army. The defense minister explains that the American commander has troops of many NATO nations (Germany, Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands as well as two American corps) and that the commanders of the German 1st, 2nd and 3rd Armies in Poland have many American troops under their command. He also explains that the alternative, swapping out the American command for one in Poland, would be unreasonably disruptive and serve no military purpose. The member responds with his opinion that it would serve a great military purpose - motivating German troops to fight harder for one of their on commanders. The defense minister replies that such an assumption could imply that Allied troops might be less motivated (absent, of course, of any evidence to support such an idea either way, in Poland or Germany). While it is generally assessed that the defense minister prevailed in the debate, the lawmaker was able to seed doubt as to the wisdom of the command arrangement in the public mind.

Early Warning assets report a single inbound missile heading towards the UK. Once again the Government and Royal Family hastily evacuate the capital. As with the other occurrences, it is a false alarm - the missile is headed for a Dutch target.

The battleship USS Missouri provides much-needed relief to the embattled Allied forces along the western coast of Pyongyang. After a South Korean commando team operating behind the lines locates the pontoon bridges across the Ch'ongch'on River supporting 35th Army, the battleship commander, unable to get a rapid response from fleet headquarters, authorizes the release of one of the ship's nuclear-tipped TLAM cruise missiles to cut the Soviet supply line.

The missile that panicked the British government and Royal Family strikes a Dutch target - the Gilze-Rijen air base, cutting the runway and destroying most of the base's infrastructure. Three of 314 Squadron RNLAF's F-16s, protected in hardened aircraft shelters, survive the attack.

All along the front in Poland, NATO commanders shift units west, out of contact with Pact troops, to prepare defensive lines farther in the rear, to rest and to rebuild following nuclear strikes. Often the evacuation is of command and support personnel, surviving combat troops and weapons transferred to units still in contact to bring them up to strength. This shiift of units west presents great challenges to NATO rear area security units, who are charged to, among other duties, battle desertion. Some troops, their morale shattered by months of nuclear combat, seek to flee the horror; others, under legitimate orders to withdraw, lack sufficient written proof of such orders. Many local commanders throw up their hands and retain all such soldiers, forming them into ad-hoc defense units, tasked with preparing defense lines or assisting with the massive logistic support effort.

The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, surrounded by the Soviet 3rd Shock Army in northern Poland, battles its way out of encirclement, taking heavy losses in the effort. To its south, the troops of the 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment dig in, surrounded by the 8th Guards Tank Army.

The commander of the Baltic Front orders his 4th Guards Tank Army to be gutted to provide replacements for the 22nd Army; the 4th GTA's units are stripped of tanks with their crews, motor-rifle companies and artillery batteries while their trucks and artillery are tasked to support the rest of the Front. The remaining command staffs absorb some of the trickle of replacements arriving in the region, aging reservists and untrained teenagers, taking the chance to form them into semi-coherent units rather than allow them to be slaughtered at the front gaining the irreplacable experience gained in the first action.

The Danish Jutland Division joins II MEF in defending the city of Słupsk from the Polish 1st Army.

Romanian troops in Bucharest rally to defend downtown, surrounding the Pact forces in the main train station. A day-long series of assaults by combined forces of Army, Securitate and Patriotic Guard units suffer horrendous losses but succeed in recapturing the station in some of the war's most intense urban fighting, on par with the fighting in Stalingrad's Barrikada Plant in World War Two.

To the south, Turkish lines begin to crumble under the weight of multiple Soviet nuclear strikes on defensive positions, artillery batteries and logistic sites.

The 78th Tank Division is brought forward from reserve positions near Tehran it had held while rebuilding since late June. It is assigned to reinforce 45th (my 32nd) Army.

In Aden, South Yemen, the 29th Infantry Division (Light) (Maryland and Virginia National Guard) secures the final portion of the city. Elements of the division's 3rd Brigade have already moved out of the city, patrolling the approaches to the city and its' all-important refinery.

As the full-blown rupture in Pakistani lines transitions into a widescale collapse of the Pakistani Army, the country's leadership makes a dreadful and desperate decision - to use the country's stockpile of nuclear weapons against India. Driving this decision is the threat posed to Pakistania air bases by advancing Indian armored formations, which threaten to overrun the runways needed by Pakistan's fighter-bombers to deliver the country's bombs.