On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[chico20854]

June 20, 1998

In Cuba, Major General Femerov, after several days of consideration, accepts the Mexican government's offer and begins preparing his troops for movement to Texas. (Unofficially, he has no amphibious shipping but a motley collection of shipping of various types; he is hoping the Mexican offer to transport his command to the combat zone involves sufficient shipping, his Cuban "allies" unwilling to part with any of their small fleet.)

Unofficially,

The Mexican supply situation begins to improve as the hastily reorganized supply and transportation effort begins to show results; the railheads are getting organized and regular convoys of requisitioned civilian 18-wheeler trucks are being dispatched into captured territory. On the other hand, the Mexican Army's pre-war structure, emphasizing internal defense, is increasingly hampering operations as maintenance on the many disparate weapons systems and vehicles comes due. The support structure is oriented towards maintaining vehicles from permanent facilities in garrisons throughout Mexico, often with contract or civilian staff; the brigades in combat lack the necessary mechanics, tools, spares and expertise to performs maintenance above the operator level. For unarmored vehicles this shortcoming is partially rectified by seizing similar vehicles from Americans in the occupied zone, but commanders are reluctant to send lightly damaged armored vehicles hundreds of miles south for repair, opting to keep them in action until they break down completely.

The 49th Armored Division's G-4 (supply officer) informs the commander that there is insufficient fuel and heavy trucks available to convoy the entire division to Oklahoma by road. (The tracked vehicles need to be moved by truck; they are so maintenance intensive that the few vehicles that could complete the drive to Fort Sill would need an overhaul upon arrival). There is a possibility, however, to make use of the many barges and towboats tied up along the Mississippi, Ohio and Illinois Rivers to transport the division to Muskogee, Oklahoma, about 225 miles from the division's rally point at Fort Sill, via the Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers. The Commanding General approves the plan and within hours troops are seizing tugs and barges along the rivers.

The lead battalion (the 5th Battalion, 37th Armor) of the 1st Brigade, 4th Armored Division, equipped with a full complement of IPM-1 tanks (the stock maintained at the National Training Center for units rotating through), arrives on the front lines north of Palm Spring California. To its west, the scout platoons of the 40th Training Division are attempting to identify clear routes through the post-nuclear chaos of the Los Angeles basin to reach the front.

In southeastern New Mexico, the resistance offered by the cadets of the New Mexico Military Institute runs its course as ammunition supplies run out after several days of fierce urban fighting in the town of Carlsbad. At dusk, Brigade Chihuahua resumes its advance and by midnight a forward detachment has arrived in the town of Artesia.

The crisis in the 3rd Mexican Army zone is avoided when the first reinforcements from the Mexican interior arrive at the front in El Paso - the 17th Motorized Cavalry Regiment from the Torreon Brigade and the 50th Mechanized Cavalry Regiment from Brigade Durango. The cavalry's ERC-90 armored cars add much-needed firepower to Brigade Ciudad Juarez's tired and depleted infantry. As more Mexican troops (Brigade Monterrey and the 51st Infantry Regiment from Brigade Monclova) arrive on the front line south of San Antonio, the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment is withdrawn from contact with the city's American defenders and resupplied.

The Mexican Air Force has largely faded from the skies over the front following American raids on its bases and as shortages of fuel, spares and munitions begin to bite. Similar shortages also force the US Air Force to scale back its activity over the front.

The B Team from 1st Battalion, 8th Special Forces Group has completed its transit of Guatemala and crosses over into southern Mexico. A Drug Enforcement Agency field agent (a former Army Military Intelligence warrant officer) links up with the Green Berets to act as a local guide and to introduce them to some of the local indigenous leaders.

A contingent of Dutch Marines that remained with the American 2nd Marine Division score a victory against the guns of the Soviet 1048th Assault Gun Regiment, disabling the last remaining SU-130 with a well-placed Carl Gustav shot to the behemoth's engine compartment. Several other guns have been destroyed as well; in two of them the crew remains inside, continuing to fire back with small arms.

Along the front in Southern Germany, Soviet troops have paused their attacks as they await additional supplies of ammunition as well as the (likely vain) hope for replacement troops, weapons and vehicles to replace their losses in the advances to date.

Reflecting the poor condition in many navies around the world, the ammunition ship USS Mount Shasta is destroyed by a massive internal explosion while at anchor in Okinawa.

Sudanese and Somali forces in Kenya begin a general retreat under pressure from the combined forces of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, 30th Marines and Kenyan forces.

[chico20854]

June 21, 1998

The Albanian Army, always a reluctant ally, protests the Greek annexation of Macedonia.

Cape Cod is completely under UBF control. The USCG and naval commands in the area, as well as the 43rd MP Brigade, have their plates full dealing with multiple crises in other areas and are unable to take any action.

Headquarters, 63 (my XVI) Corps issues orders redesignating the 40th Training Division (less 1st Brigade) back to an infantry division, as well as ordering its reinforcement with a hodgepodge of armored vehicles. Accompanying these is a directive for it to proceed south to halt the Mexican invasion. Orders are also issued to the 221st MP Brigade to move south, and (unofficially) for the 91st Training Division to provide trained troops to the 40th and 196th Infantry Brigade to allow those units to move south; the 91st is also to assume the internal security and disaster relief duties that the 221st and 196th had been performing. The 91st, which has been training locally-drafted troops continuously since the nuclear exchange, has excess troops that are available for these duties, although weapons and vehicles are in short supply.

Unofficially,

Mexican troops of Brigade Ensenada cut off the narrow corridor between the San Diego Naval Base and the Marine Corps Recruit Depot to the northwest, taking heavy losses in the effort as Mexican Marines advance under heavy fire across the runway of the heavily burning Naval Air Station North Island, former home of the Pacific Fleet's helicopter force.

Brigade Mexicali and Brigade La Paz's 160th Infantry Regiment launch a frontal attack on 89th (my II) Corps' positions north of Palm Springs; the American armored force easily turns back the largely dismounted attack.

3rd Mexican Army pauses offensive operations for the day to allow its exhausted troops a chance to rest and to allow the rapidly evolving support organization time to resupply the widely-scattered units. The day also sees the arrival of the first infantry companies from Brigade Durango arriving in El Paso.

Farther east in Texas, a task force built around the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and Brigade Monclova's 47th Infantry Regiment (motorized with captured vehicles) strikes out north from the former Hondo Airfield west of San Antonio, the beginning of an effort to bypass American resistance in the city. The column is attacked by an ad-ho force of Texas Rangers and armed civilians as it enters the hilly terrain, but beats the resistance back with machinegun and mortar fire. The so-called "Coastal Column" dispatches its first scouting parties into the ruins of post-nuclear Corpus Christi.

The Mexican Navy begins mobilizing a motley collection of ships and craft, dispatching them to Cuba to pick up the Soviet "Division Cuba" and its equipment.

The Soviet 2nd Southwestern Front begins planning the next wave of tis offensive, the effort to capture Frankfurt.

After assessing the situation in Byelorussia, the Byelorussian Military District commander, Colonel General Vitaly Ragozin, directs the conversion of one of his last remaining uncommitted forces, the cadre and student body of the Minsk Higher Military-Political Combined Arms School, to the 138th Motor-Rifle Division with the incorporation of any number of stragglers as well as men from the ages of 16-55 in refugee camps in the district. Equipment is appallingly short, but since the division is intended for internal duties the shortages are not crippling.

[Homer]

Great stuff. Keep it up!!