On this day 25 years ago

[chico20854]

October 3, 1997

The last NATO troops are driven out of Silesia.

Unofficially,

The mistress of the German lawmaker who challenged the command arrangements in the prior day's Bundestag debate receives a 2m Deutchsmark deposit into her Swiss bank account. While the investigation is never concluded, it is likely that the payment came from the GRU.

The 2nd Battle of Kamchatka occurs as the U.S. attempts to eliminate smaller Soviet naval bases before pounding Petropavlovsk from both sides (knocking out the remaining support facilities for the Soviet Pacific Fleet as well as surviving airfields) as well as hunting Soviet missile submarines lurking near friendly shores. The American force, built around the remaining carriers in the Pacific - Nimitz, Kitty Hawk, Lincoln and Stennis and their battle groups and a diversionary group built around the surviving escorts for the sunken USS Constellation, moved into the Bering Sea and Sea of Okhotsk. Two carriers (Nimitz and Stennis) approach from the southwest, two carriers (Lincoln and Kitty Hawk) from the northeast and the diversionary group from the southeast.

They run into an aggressive Soviet force that intends to sink all the carriers and defend their homeports, knowing that they are the USSR’s last line of defense in the Pacific. One group, built around the nuclear-power battlecruiser Varyag, sorties from Petropavlovsk and heads into the Barents, alerted by spotters deployed in the Aleutians. Another group departs Vladivostok, trailing the American force entering the Sea of Oshkosh. The diversionary group, with their Aegis combat systems operating at full power, draws out the remnants of Soviet Naval Aviation, who believe that they are accompanied by a carrier.

The resulting scrum is the final application of Soviet naval warfighting doctrine, with massed attacks from surface ships, submarines, bombers and even coastal defense missiles, timed to arrive on target simultaneously, overwhelming American defenses. The American force gets its aircraft airborne for another of the oft-repeated massed air strikes while the escorts try to hold off the incoming wave of missiles with the last of the Pacific Fleet’s carefully husbanded store of air defense missiles.

The Americans are only partially successful - the Soviets heavily damage Nimitz and moderately damage the Stennis and Kitty Hawk, leaving Abraham Lincoln as the only undamaged carrier in the Pacific. The diversionary group suffers heavily - the Aegis cruiser Lake Champlain's and the Aegis destroyer Benfold's superstructure are shredded by Soviet anti-radiation missiles. The cruiser Port Royal is damaged by an anti-ship missile fired by a Soviet SSGN (the Oscar II-class K-132) and the destroyer David Ray is sunk. Port Royal is saved by the herculean efforts of its crew as well as the timely assistance of the frigate Roark, which takes the cruiser under tow to Japan. The Nimitz and Kitty Hawk require dry dock repairs in the U.S. lasting several weeks, while Stennis undergoes almost a month of repair in port in Japan. A total of six other American escorts (and three supporting auxiliaries) are damaged or sunk. In return, the USSR loses almost all of its participating surface units - five cruisers (mostly older Kresta/Kresta-II, but Kara and Slava class cruisers as well), the helicopter carrier Baku, five destroyers, and seven frigates as well as several submarines. The airstrikes from the Nimitz and Stennis ravage the Soviet naval aviation base complex at Sovetskaya Gavan while Lincoln and Kitty Hawk’s aircraft knock back Petrpavlovsk’s air defenses and replenish the minefields in the channel laid earlier in the war; the damaged carriers’ aircraft recover to Japan, assisted by rapidly responding SAC tankers.

Strategically, like the First Battle of Kamchatka in June, the engagement is a draw; some claim it as a slight Soviet victory. The Soviet Pacific Fleet loses nearly all of its remaining surface fleet and its naval aviation force is badly depleted, both never to operate again. The Americans neutralize Petropavlovsk (it is struck by an American nuclear missile later in the year, just as minesweepers are finishing clearing the channel) but are unable to conduct the boomer hunt they had planned on or deliver a concerted pounding to Petropavlovsk or the minor bases in Sakhalin and on the Soviet Pacific coast.

Despite changing locations frequently and the deployment of additional German territorial troops for area security, another Spetsnaz team locates a flight of USAF nuclear cruise missiles of the 485th Tactical Missile Wing east of Cologne. Once again the USAF security troops are able to fight off the attackers, who are ambushed by German security troops while evacuating the area. Documents found on their bodies reveal the location of their safehouse, which is raided by GSG-9 commandos within four hours. The safehouse is empty (and booby trapped); the loss of the German commando from the trap is not offset by capture of any further useful intelligence.

XII German Korps is authorized to withdraw its jaeger divisions - composed of former border guard and territorial units - to the east of Szeczin to prepare defenses and rebuild, detaching its 6th PanzerGrenadier division to VII Korps, which is facing the 2nd Guards Tank Army near Chojnice, Poland.

The nuclear cruiser USS Virginia leads an anti-submarine hunter-killer group into the Norwegian Sea hunting Soviet ballistic missile submarines. (Naval intelligence believes that the Soviets are sortieing older boomers with shorter-range missiles, which in peacetime patrolled north of Bermuda, to the Norwegian Sea east of Greenland to avoid transiting the GIUK Gap).

The damaged USS America arrives in Sigonella, Sicily for emergency repairs. The US Navy salvage ship Grasp is there to begin repairs, while the destroyer tender USS Shenandoah departs Rota Spain, escorted by the frigate Blakely, to assist.

Jugoslav resistance in Belgrade collapses as the surrounded defenders, abandoned by their political leaders, decide that the life in captivity offered by Soviet propaganda units is preferable to death in the isolated city.

Elsewhere in Jugoslavia, remaining surviving JNA units fight rearguard actions as they retreat to the mountainous center of the country, under attack from all directions.

The Portuguese 1st Mechanized Brigade, facing the Soviet 58th Army in Thrace, is blooded by a coordinated attack by two Soviet divisions - the 9th and 82nd Motor-Rifle - and forced to fall back. The Bulgarian 2nd Army captures the key communication hub of Kirkakeli, forcing the Turkish XV Corps to withdraw. Greek Forces in Thrace send a secondary force south to capture the base of the Gallipoli Peninsula, allowing Greece to cut off traffic out of the Dardanelles; the only resistance the Greeks face are lightly-equipped Turkish gendarmes, that are supported by a few sorties by the dwindling Turkish Air Force.

The day marks the formal end of South Yemeni resistance in Aden as “arrangements” are reached with local tribal leaders (which mostly involved transfers of cash and weapons as well as guaranteed jobs for relatives and tribe members) as the communist government of South Yemen has faded away. The 29th Infantry Division is in constant action against unorganized bandits and guerrillas.

Executing the Pakistani high command's instructions, in the predawn hours the Pakistani Air Force's No. 16 and 26 launch a combined 14 Nanchang A-5 bomber aircraft at Indian targets - three air bases (Ambala, Gorakhpur and Maharajpur) and seven cities in the center and west of the country. Each airplane carries one 35-kt nuclear bomb. Indian interceptors shoot down four planes, but two of the airbases and five cities are hit in a bid to knock out India's nuclear strike ability and cripple its economy. The Pakistanis lose two more aircraft on the egress, and one (with a volunteer pilot) was assigned a one-way mission, to strike Calcutta.