US Recovery Plan

[chico20854]

As you know, we in (or formerly in) DC are slowly working on fleshing out the v1 canon, using the vast amount of information that has been declassified or otherwise come to light in the 25 or so years since the original timeline was written. We've tried to use canon, whenever possible, as a guide, and worked on how to make canon work with what we know know. We are working on a replacement for/supplement to Howling Wilderness, which we are calling the Survivor's Guide to the USA.

The two big deviations from canon we are basing this work on are the EMP effects of the nuclear exchange and the drought. We feel these variations, while making the situation less grim for the US, reflect a much more realistic interpretation of the information we have now. Briefly, while EMP damage is widespread in the line of sight of both air and ground bursts throughout the US target list, there was no high-altitude EMP strikes against CONUs by the USSR. Likewise, the scale of the nuclear exchange (we are in the range of 400-600 warheads each against the US & USSR, hundreds or probably over 1000 tactical warheads in the active fighting fronts) was not sufficient to induce widespread climate change of the scale described in Howling Wilderness. Both these subjects have come up among this group multiple times in the past, and while no final consensus has been reached we feel that the assumptions we make are not too far from the realm of accepted in here.

While we are quite some ways from having a finished supplement to put out, I thought I could at least release some of what I've been working on the last few months. Accordingly, I give you the first part of the US Recovery Plan. I'll try to release an additional section each week.

Enjoy...

Recovery Plan: America Crawls Back

America's recovery from the Third World War was a long, difficult and violent struggle over a period of decades. The devastation wrought by Soviet nuclear weapons, a breakdown in civil order, foreign invasion, destruction of most of the military's conventional firepower and a three-sided Second Civil War resulted in a United States, by the end of 2000, that bore little resemblance to the world power of just five years before. This is the story of how America began the long climb back from those dark days.

The July 15 JCS Conference

The failure of NATO's spring-summer 2000 offensive in Europe, in which the German Third Army's attempt to clear Warsaw Pact forces from the Baltic coast and drive Pact forces back from the German border ended with the loss of two U.S. infantry divisions (the 5th in the town of Kalisz and the 8th cut off and immobile in Latvia), convinced American military leaders that the war in Europe was un-winnable and in fact that further American military effort in Europe was a pointless waste of lives. The Red Army, disintegrating even as the wrecks burned in Kalisz, no longer posed a threat to Germany, a loyal ally that was overrun with combatants and short on resources to support them. Likewise, organized combat in the Korean peninsula had effectively ceased, with units on all sides occupying small cantonments in the mountains and trying to maintain some semblance of effectiveness and discipline. In the meantime, the U.S. governments, both military and civilian, struggling to maintain security and keep their citizens alive and fed, were unable to repel the foreign invaders and suppress the nefarious New America movement. The considerable U.S. forces remaining overseas could help the governments get America back on its feet.

In the months following the nuclear exchange the Joint Chief of Staff's ability to communicate with (and hence command and control) its subordinate commands deteriorated drastically, from physical damage, lack of electrical power, unavailability spare parts for communications gear, EMP, the continuing war in space and disintegration or rebellion of communications units. Consequently, the Joint Chiefs were forced to cede day to day control of military forces to theater commanders and provide general strategic guidance in bi-monthly conference calls with joint commanders worldwide. Usual participants included CINCEUR, CINCLANT, CINCCENT, CINCPAC and CINCUSFK. Each conference was conducted as a discussion among equals, as the Joint Chiefs were unable to force subordinate commanders to obey their orders - in fact CINCCENT refused to declare his subordination to MILGOV while continuing to coordinate with it and his fellow commanders worldwide (many of which he had worked with for years before and during the war). Unity among U.S. forces in the CENTCOM AOR was all that had allowed CENTCOM to continue to exist, and cooperation with U.S. forces worldwide offered the greatest possibility of some sort of rescue and recovery.

The July 15, 2000 conference call reported on the destruction of the 5th Infantry Division and withdrawal of Third German Army back to its start lines. XI U.S. Corps would remain in place due to lack of fuel, while much of the rest of U.S. Army Europe faced another poor harvest following attacks on its cantonments by counterattacking Pact forces. All the participants agreed that further reinforcement of American forces in Europe was not only impossible but pointless, but also that America's troops were no longer required to secure Germany and Western Europe from a Soviet threat and were too weak to free the occupied areas of Germany and the Netherlands from French occupation. (In addition, CENTCOM received important but unofficial and covert support from the French in the Persian Gulf.)

CENTCOM reported that Soviet forces in Iran, like America's, were unable to undertake offensive action and were in a deteriorating strategic situation as chaos in the Caucasus and Soviet Central Asia precluded reinforcement, resupply or replacement of losses. In the meantime, CENTCOM had control of a small petroleum production and refining capability which allowed it to continue operating military forces across the full spectrum of military operations - a small but operable air force, naval fleet, nuclear strike capability (from bombers operating from bases in the CENTCOM AOR and cruise missiles from the 487th Missile Wing recently recovered from Turkey) and experienced and tough ground troops.

CINCPAC reported that his forces were scattered across the Pacific, mostly immobile due to lack of fuel and incapable of significant military action beyond control of their local area. CINCUSFK, effectively independent from CINCPAC, was watching his subordinate commands disintegrate after years of tough combat, harsh weather and no resupply or support from home. CINCLANT, suffering from cancer throughout his body due to radiation from the strikes on Norfolk, was barely responsive during the conference, although his forces were no longer under his effective control and unable to move or fight. Other commanders in the U.S. were incommunicado, reinforcing the seriousness of their situation.

The strategic situation worldwide, the consensus held, was of continued decline and disintegration if the status quo continued. America's deployed forces, with the exception of CENTCOM, were serving no useful purpose where they were while vitally needed at home. CENTCOM, on the other hand, was still militarily effective and could provide small quantities of oil but was in desperate need of spare parts for its aircraft and ships, high technology munitions and manpower. As a result, the participants in the conference decided to evacuate U.S. troops from Korea and Europe, redeploying the troops either back home to restore order and rebuild or to reinforce CENTCOM in an attempt to secure petroleum to help the recovery effort in the U.S. Operation Omega was born.

[stilleto69]

As always Chico, I love your work and can hardly wait for you guys to publish your next insatllment.

[Ed the Coastie]

Keep going...I love it.

[chico20854]

part 2...

Operation Omega

CENTCOM's naval and air forces went into action to support the other overseas commands. A small convoy, escorted by the frigate USS Jarrett, sailed through the Mediterranean and into the North Sea, where (in order to conceal the worldwide, coordinated nature of Operation Omega) a tanker with a full load of fuel oil was abandoned and subsequently "discovered adrift and abandoned" by a U.S. Navy patrol aircraft operating from northern Germany. The remaining elements of the convoy then sailed throughout the North and Norwegian Seas, recovering and refueling over a dozen modern merchant ships that had been abandoned due to lack of fuel and inviting Americans and other interested Westerners to evacuate Europe for the CENTCOM AOR. Over 6,000 soldiers volunteered to remain overseas and reinforce CENTCOM, while the remainder returned to the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts. German cooperation with the effort was secured by leaving EURCOM's vehicles to the German Army (and their evacuation would have been impossible given the shortage of suitable shipping, time and port facilities). However, CINCEUR ensured that important combat equipment accompanied the evacuated soldiers. All ground vehicles were to be left for the German Army; however heavy weapons (mortars, anti-tank missiles, howitzers, heavy machineguns and rocket launchers, along with their ammunition), classified by the Task Force Bremerhaven Provost Marshall as "military supplies", were collected from arriving troops and loaded aboard one of the evacuation ships (a coastal freighter) that evacuated the Provost Marshall's command of military policemen. A handful of helicopters (all that could be made airworthy with some aviation fuel left aboard the tanker by CENTCOM) also arrived in Bremerhaven; the largest, a CH-47D, was used to evacuate the last of the perimeter guards after the task force had set sail.

As the CENTCOM convoy sailed back through the Mediterranean side expeditions tried to locate stranded Americans and offer them the chance to evacuate either to CENTCOM or (with a pair of ships, recovered from Gibraltar) back to the U.S. Meanwhile, a flurry of C-130 and C-5 flights evacuated the remnants of the U.S. Air Force's 16th Air Force from Turkey, bringing along several F-16 fighters and spare parts for many other aircraft in addition to the nine nuclear-tipped ground launched cruise missiles from the 487th Missile Wing.

U.S. forces in Jugoslavia that had pledged loyalty to CIVGOV declined to evacuate, citing a lack of orders from Omaha. In reality, the military commanders were in favor of accepting the offer but were in fear of their lives from ruthless CIA monitors loyal to Vice President Cabot. U.S. commanders in Jugoslavia were also unsure of their ability to extricate their troops from the myriad cantonments in the mountains of Bosnia and Croatia without cooperation of the numerous feuding local factions. The U.S. Navy task force in Split (formed around the USS John F. Kennedy carrier battle group), Croatia remained in place in solidarity with its Army brothers ashore, although it did accept what limited fuel and logistic support the Omega task force offered as a sign of goodwill.

When completed, the CENTCOM European evacuation effort resulted in a gain of over 12,000 American and allied citizens (some 25 percent of which were civilians).

The winter of 2000-2001 in CENTCOM was spent absorbing the new arrivals, repairing the aircraft and ships that had been used in support of the European phase of Operation Omega and amassing supplies of food and fuel for the next phase of the operation. At the end of February it went into effect, with the CENTCOM fleet, this time reinforced with the USS Belleau Wood, two oil-field support tugs, several tankers and breakbulk dry cargo ships, a cruise liner and a pair of open-decked roll-on/roll-off ships in the convoy, sailing for Asia.

Staying well to sea to avoid pirates, the convoy made its first landfall in Darwin, Australia, where a liaison officer from the Australian Brigade in the CENTCOM AOR was quickly able to secure fresh water, use of port facilities and the airfield outside of town from the local Australian commander in exchange for diesel from CENTCOM (the fleet left a tanker of diesel and aviation fuel in the harbor to support the Australians and the airlift expected from the Far East) and a promise of future visits from the American fleet.

The fleet then sailed to Subic Bay, Philippines, where a landing force of U.S. Marines reinforced the remnants of the U.S. Navy base (and adjacent Cubi Point Naval Air Station) against local bandits and warlords. The CENTCOM task force then descended on the bases like locusts, stripping as much of the spare parts, tools, repair facilities and infrastructure from the bases as possible. (For example, the turbines on the power plant were carefully dismounted and towed on trailers down to the piers by a pair of bulldozers, where they were loaded onto LCU landing craft for transfer to the roll-on/roll-off ships.) Meanwhile, CH-53E heavy lift helicopters operating off the Belleau Wood flew inland to Clark Air Force Base. In a five-day operation, they were able to salvage ten complete F-16s, two F-15s, almost 100 tons of spare parts for aircraft, large stockpiles of guided munitions and evacuate 400 U.S. Air Force personnel and 150 civilians and dependents, in addition to dispatching a pair of recovered C-130s, a Boeing 767 and a KC-135 tanker to Darwin for later recovery.

The destroyer USS Ingersoll, in drydock at Subic with torpedo damage, had its hull quickly patched by a crew from one of the oilfield tugs, which began to tow the inoperable vessel to Bahrain and its CENTCOM-controlled ship repair yard. Resistance from local bandits and marauders was light after a flight of Harriers (also operating off the Belleau Wood) flattened a bandit heavy machinegun position with Rockeye cluster bombs. Much of the salvaged material was loaded aboard the dry cargo ships, one of which accompanied the Ingersoll, its deck guns adding to the small flotilla's firepower to deter pirates and other waterborne hazards.

The task force then moved on to the Korean peninsula, where the 8th Army command had been making plans for the evacuation in secret. En route to Korea, the fleet rendezvoused with the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Stennis and its nuclear-powered escort, the cruiser USS Texas. The recovered fighter aircraft and many of the passengers were cross-loaded to the carrier to free up space in the Omega fleet, while aviation fuel transferred from the fleet's tankers allowed Stennis to resume limited flight operations.

Ever since the July 15th conference, 8th Army had been gradually concentrating on the U.S. airbase in Kunsan. Under the guise of planning meetings, supply runs, training classes and medical calls, almost half of the troops which had the means to reach Kunsan (some 6,500 men from I and IX Corps, miscellaneous support units assigned to 8th Army HQ and U.S. Air Force personnel, with another 3,000 civilians and family members) had arrived there by the time the evacuation fleet appeared over the horizon. III MEF and other units along the east coast of the Korean peninsula and southeastern Korea concentrated on Pusan, where the U.S. Navy maintained a significant force built around the USS Des Moines and the remnants of her battle group, with a total force waiting there of 4,500 military personnel (2,200 sailors, 750 marines, 550 soldiers and 1,000 airmen) and 1,500 camp followers. In addition to the waiting personnel, 8th Army command had attempted to stockpile what limited spare parts, vehicles (both operable and not), aircraft and munitions it could at the evacuation ports. The 2nd Infantry Division's 1st Battalion, 72nd Armor, for example, had one of its four operable tanks "Wild Thang" tow its inoperable sister "Terrible Two" to Kunsan for "repair."

With the appearance of the evacuation fleet the Korean military government raised a formal protest, requested that the 8th Army commander rescind the evacuation order, and forbade South Korean government and military personnel from assisting the evacuation in any way. Fighting immediately broke out along the Kunsan perimeter, while Pusan remained quiet under the lowered and very operable guns of the Des Moines. Scattered firefights broke out as U.S. units within 50 miles of the evacuation ports attempted to depart overland. Units farther than 50 miles from the ports were evacuated by the always-busy helicopters operating off the Belleau Wood and Stennis, with cover provided by Harriers and CVW-30, operating from the Stennis. Along the east coast of the peninsula, III MEF units were evacuated by sea, as regiments massed on the seashore. Security units from the fleet went ashore to bolster the defenses, and Kunsan was stripped bare in a manner identical to that used in Subic Bay just a few weeks before. After a few days Korean resistance slacked, but the environment remained tense and hostile. The Des Moines and its escorting destroyer USS John S. McCain were refueled from the last of the tankers accompanying the evacuation fleet. Fortunately, in 1998 7th Air Force had concentrated the remaining 110 operable tactical aircraft (a mix of F-4s, F-16s, A-10s, A-7s and OV-10s) at Kunsan to simplify command and control and logistics. Likewise, the Marine's 1st Marine Aircraft Wing had concentrated at Pusan's airport. These greatly simplified the evacuation of the aircraft - many were rolled onto the roll-on/roll-off ships or lifted aboard ship using dockside cranes. Many of the operable Marine Corps aircraft flew to the Stennis for transportation back to the CENTCOM AOR. After a week of furious activity CINCUSFK was able to report to General Cummings in Colorado Springs that 8th Army, 7th Air Force and their subordinate units had successfully evacuated Korea with losses of less than 300 men and with most of their heavy equipment, aircraft and spares accompanying them. CENTCOM was now stronger by some 5,000 marines, 17,500 soldiers, 15,000 airmen, 2,200 sailors and 10,000 civilians, along with 30 tanks and over 100 aircraft. Conditions on board the evacuation fleet were difficult with such a large number of passengers crammed aboard (the cruise ship, designed for 2,300 passengers, had over 10,000 aboard for the voyage), limited fresh water and monotonous food for the three weeks of creeping along at less than 12 knots to conserve fuel. Many of the evacuees were disheartened to discover that they were being evacuated not to the U.S. but to the Persian Gulf, but all accepted that the Operation Omega fleet was the only way out of Korea and that as members of a military still at war they would serve where ordered.

On their voyage back to the Persian Gulf, the Omega fleet sailed past Japan and Okinawa. The Jarrett diverted into Okinawa to assure the U.S. garrison there (Air Force, Navy, Marine and Army support and aviation units) that they were not forgotten and that they would be receiving support from CENTCOM and evacuated when resources were available.

Operation Omega was officially declared over on May 7, 2001, with the return of the evacuation fleet to the Persian Gulf. It increased the strength of I MEF by almost 50 percent, and XVIII Airborne Corps was transformed as new arrivals equaled the number "old Iran hands". With the influx of spare parts, aircraft and personnel, 9th Air Force tripled the number of aircraft available to become the world's second strongest air force (the French Air Force, of course, was still champion of the skies). The 5th Fleet, in the meantime, had gained an operable aircraft carrier with a nearly full strength air wing (after CVW-20 and the remnants of Independence's CVW-10 were combined), doubled its naval gunfire support capability by reuniting the Des Moines class sisters and strengthened its surface and transport fleets.

[Rainbow Six]

As others have said...this is great stuff...love it...

[chico20854]

The Persian Gulf Region Transformed

The arrival of 8th Army in the CENTCOM AOR was one of the two major changes to the strategic situation in May 2001. The other major change was the Transcaucasian Front's spring offensive and its aftermath.

While information from the Soviet perspective is sketchy, the impression among historians is that the remnants of the Soviet Politburo were exerting pressure on General Suryakin to undertake on offensive and seize one of the Persian Gulf ports. This pressure, combined with a sense of duty as a soldier, convinced General Suryakin to undertake one last offensive. He had received inconclusive and partial intelligence reports about the American withdrawal from Europe and that a similar withdrawal might be occurring from the CENTCOM AOR. He felt that if the Americans were withdrawing an offensive might succeed or that a Soviet offensive might convince General MacLean to follow CINCEUR's lead and withdraw American forces.

The Soviet offensive started at dawn on May 1 (in tribute to workers everywhere) with a desultory artillery barrage on 3rd Army and the IPA's forward outposts along the entire front south and east of Esfahan. The initial assault was by Tudeh troops from the forward garrisons, followed by Soviet motor-rifle troops probing for weaknesses in the NATO lines, to be exploited by concentrations of the few remaining Soviet tanks, supported by the carefully husbanded ground attack aircraft of the Soviet Transcaucasian Air Force. In the Zagros Mountains progress was limited as the Soviet troops faced difficult terrain and deep American and IPA defenses. Limited success was made southeast of Esfahan, enough to convince General Suryakin to concentrate the forces of 45th and First Armies to drive down Highway 7 towards Shiraz. The KGB's 74th Motor Rifle Regiment was identified as a key element of the breakthrough and exploitation force. However, a personal dispute between the commanders of the KGB regiment and the Tudeh brigade in the sector resulted in a firefight that resulted in the deaths of both men and the failure of the effort in that sector. The concentration of tanks waiting for the breakthrough was identified by Pasdaran rebels and bombed by a flight of F-16s equipped with cluster bombs (recently received from stocks in Turkey), ending the possibility of success in that sector. Upon news of the firefight between KGB and Tudeh units, scattered fighting broke out between KGB and Tudeh units throughout Iran. With the failure to break through NATO lines and with chaos in his rear areas, General Suryakin called a halt to the offensive. General Kurdakov, the KGB commander in the theater, was assassinated by a still unidentified hit team (rumors are that it was French, GRU or Israeli supported, but the truth has never emerged) while on his way to relieve General Suryakin.

Front line Soviet commanders began reporting NATO probing attacks, while unusually active American strike aircraft were roaming Soviet rear areas interdicting supply convoys and attacking artillery emplacements. At the same time, a GRU agent reported the arrival of a massive troop convoy (the Omega fleet) in Bandar Abbas. Faced with the failure of his offensive, a CENTCOM much stronger than anticipated and the chaos in the USSR, General Suryakin decided to end the Transcaucasian Front's war.

In their only face to face meeting, General Suryakin and General MacLean met in the village or Lordegan and agreed to the terms of the Transcaucasian Front's withdrawal. Soviet troops would be allowed to leave Iranian territory, with a series of phase lines and deadlines (generally 100 km a week), retaining all equipment and military supplies. NATO troops would remain no less than 5km from Soviet troops to prevent marauders from grabbing control of neutral territory and both armies would be responsible for maintaining order behind their lines. The forces of the Tudeh could evacuate with Soviet forces or remain in place to be dealt with by the Iran Nowin government; however Soviet support of any kind to Tudeh elements remaining behind was forbidden. Likewise, Soviet support to the Pro-Soviet government of Iraq was forbidden. Once Soviet forces were over the prewar Soviet-Iranian border active hostilities between NATO and Soviet forces in the CENTCOM AOR would cease, and General MacLean would encourage what American units he had contact with in Turkey to observe the ceasefire. Of course, if units from either nation crossed the border into Iran, the ceasefire would be void. Finally, the release of prisoners of war held in the areas under Transcaucasian Front and CENTCOM control was arranged.

Over the next three and a half months, a constant stream of vehicles flowed north through the Iranian countryside. IPA units took the lead in following the Soviet units, while American troops provided what logistic support they could and hunted down bands of marauders and deserters. The KGB Motor Rifle Regiments, bereft of the leadership of General Kurdakov and distrustful of the Red Army, retreated to Central Asia or Afghanistan to fight with "loyal" units there against the enemies of the Soviet Union. Most Tudeh units and supporters withdrew, some with the Soviet forces falling back on Baku, some to Central Asia or Afghanistan. In a few scattered Tudeh units the commanders were overthrown and reconciliation with the IPA accepted. Three Tudeh brigades attempted to form a nascent communist regime in the city of Tabriz prior to the Soviet withdrawal, but General Suryakin and his men followed the terms of the agreement with CENTCOM, providing no support to the Tudeh. Tabriz was retaken by PA troops after a short firefight scattered the demoralized Tudeh supporters, while the Tudeh politburo fled in a helicopter to Baku.

Elsewhere in the region, there were changes in the strategic situation. On May 15, General MacLean was summoned to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where the Saudi king congratulated him on his defeat of the Soviet Transcaucasian Front. In the subsequent discussion, the king also offered that with the Soviet threat gone he no longer felt the need for CENTCOM troops to be stationed in his kingdom and requested that all American military personnel be out of Saudi Arabia within one month. The French government, in return for priority of oil shipments, would provide for the security of the Saudi monarchy. The United States would still be able to purchase oil surplus to French and Saudi needs on a commercial basis, and American and other Western civilians working in the Saudi oil fields were guaranteed the protection of the Saudi state. Shocked, General MacLean remained calm and successfully negotiated a period of six months to effectuate the withdrawal and secured overflight rights for American aircraft for five years. Over the next several weeks General MacLean and Ambassador Thayer toured the capitals of other GCC nations (Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates) and secured American access to those nations' (except for Kuwait, under French protection and with French troops occupying Kuwait City) facilities and markets. Meanwhile, American troops outside Iran remained in their garrisons in other areas of the CENTCOM AOR (Aden, Yemen, Diego Garcia and Mombassa, Kenya).

Negotiations were also opened with the Iran Nowin government on the American role and presence in Iran. The Iran Nowin government realized the challenge it faced in securing and rebuilding its war-torn country and unifying its divided, war-weary, depleted and impoverished society. Providing security for the entire country would require the full effort of the IPA, and at some point the Pasdaran would present its demands for compensation for its allegiance in the struggle against the Soviets. A continuing American military presence would be essential to ensuring stability in Iran.

General MacLean decided that the disposition of what was now America's greatest military force required consultation worldwide and convened another commander's conference call. During the call, all the joint commanders agreed that CENTCOM in its current situation was a priceless asset that needed to be harnessed to rebuild the United States. Its position in the oilfields of the Persian Gulf, even if not in Saudi Arabia, its functioning military structure, operational combat aircraft and fleet and transport network provided many of the tools that the U.S. needed to rebuild, if used wisely. It was decided that CENTCOM would remain in Iran, splitting its efforts between helping the Iran Nowin government rebuild and sending petroleum back to America.

CENTCOM offered to remain in Iran, securing and rebuilding the area that had been under NATO control prior to the Soviet withdrawal. In exchange, the United States would receive half of all industrial and oil production in that zone and one third of all agricultural production. CENTCOM would be available to assist the Iran Nowin government in other areas, and if American reconstruction aid in the reconquered areas was needed it would be made available in exchange for half of its production. The Iran Nowin government generally accepted the terms, although the city of Shiraz was excluded from the American Zone. (While the Iran Nowin government relocated to Tehran as soon as the city was evacuated by Soviet troops, much of the civil bureaucracy remained in Shiraz until Tehran was sufficiently rebuilt to support it.)

[kato13]

Very nice as always.

Originally Posted by chico20854

The Soviet offensive started at dawn on May 1 (in tribute to workers everywhere)

This gave me a chuckle. A Zampolit was still gumming up the works even near the end.

[chico20854]

CENTCOM Transformed and Iran Rebuilt

As the Soviet withdrawal was occurring and in light of America's ejection from Saudi Arabia, CENTCOM was undergoing a massive reorganization to absorb the reinforcements and to adapt to the new strategic situation and mission. Each branch handled the reorganization differently.

Navy and Marine Corps units of III MEF were disbanded and used to bring the equivalent units of I MEF up to strength. In that transition, small units were, to the maximum extent possible, kept intact to preserve the trust, teamwork and esprit de corps that had been developed over the years of operations in Korea. Those small units (fire teams, squads and platoons) were then fed into existing units in I MEF.

Likewise, Army units from I and IX Corps were disbanded and used to bring XVIII Airborne Corps up to strength. By the time the reorganization was finished, divisions in XVIII Airborne Corps ranged in strength from 4,600 to 7,250 soldiers, and they received massively more support as 1st Corps Support Command and 3rd Army's 22nd Theater Army Area Command (TAACOM) had absorbed over 6,000 reinforcing soldiers and hundreds of civilian augmentees.

The Navy assigned ships to early-war style task groups and organized excess personnel into shoreside support units, providing everything from technical expertise (ranging from welding, shoreside construction and machine shop operations to aircraft ordnance and electronics maintenance and repair) to reconstruction support (labor, truck transport and coastal transportation). In this role, the SeeBee's First Naval Construction Regiment was augmented by the remnants of the 31st Naval Construction Regiment, arriving from Korea and brought up to strength with personnel assigned from damaged or sunken ships or disbanded organizations. In addition, CINCNAVCENT organized the civilian merchant ships into a pool from which sailing orders were drawn to support CENTCOM and the United States worldwide. Quickly the mission of transporting personnel and supplies fell to civilian merchant ships, which required much smaller crews and less fuel than Navy transport or support ships. Naval signal and guard parties were formed to serve aboard all CENTCOM controlled merchantmen, and convoys were formed for vessels sailing outside the Persian Gulf and Northern Arabian Sea.

The 9th Air Force absorbed the personnel and equipment that had arrived from Europe, Turkey, the Philippines and Korea into its existing structure. Simultaneously, CVW-10 was released from 9th Air Force control and returned to Navy control as it integrated into CVW-20 aboard Stennis. During the years of war the wing and squadron structures of 9th Air Force had been depleted of excess personnel as aircraft counts decreased; now those structures were built back up using many of the reinforcing airmen. The support units in Iran, however, were not forgotten, as the 915th Construction Engineer Squadron was reinforced in order to prepare airfields in Iran to host units displaced from Saudi Arabia, and as the 619th Security Group's area of responsibility expanded to include areas recently vacated by the advancing IPA. The 53rd Mobile Aerial Port Squadron was tripled in size as it adapted for its new task - to open an air bridge back to the United States through Diego Garcia, Darwin, Guam, Wake Island and Hawaii to the Pacific Northwest. With all this activity, however, the air operations tempo decreased dramatically for many reasons. First, except for engagements against marauders, pirates and deserters, there was little demand for sorties. Second, commands were busy integrating new arrivals into their structure (it was decided not to reverse the wartime personnel transfers to support units due to the importance of the duties they were performing in Iran). Third, maintenance personnel were overwhelmed by relative masses of aircraft and spare parts from around the world - it would take months just to organize the parts, assess the condition of the aircraft that were received from other theaters (the computerized records lost since lost or destroyed) and bring them back to operational condition (or consign them to the cannibalization heap). 9th Air Force headquarters determined that launching more than a minimal number of sorties during this time would place an excessive burden on its structure (and, soldiers in Iran joked, endanger the weekly Friday night barbeques enjoyed by the Air Force throughout the war).

Operationally, the Army and Marine Corps units ashore started carrying out a vastly different mission than their previous one of closing with and destroying the enemy. One third of troops, on a rotating basis, were assigned to conduct security operations, hunting down brigands, deserters and marauders and patrolling the countryside. One major civil support task was identifying unexploded ordnance and minefields, so that civilians could travel through the countryside safely. (As part of the withdrawal, Soviet commanders were required to turn over any information they had regarding minefields emplaced by either side). The remaining two thirds of troops were assigned more direct reconstruction missions, repairing roads and bridges, building schools, clinics and industrial facilities. The power plants dismantled in Kunsan and Subic Bay were brought on line in Bushehr and Bandar-e-Khomeini to provide reconstruction power. Sewage and water treatment plants were rehabilitated and brought into operation. In many of these operations, advisers from the SeeBee battalions of the 1st and 31st Regiments, who were engaged in similar reconstruction tasks, provided vital guidance.

During these reconstruction tasks maintenance units of all branches of service played a very special role. As any sort of machinery was being serviced, the maintenance units would use their machine shops (augmented by tools removed during Operation Omega) to make three copies of each part. One copy would be assembled somewhere in Iran, to assist in the recovery, and the other two copies would be placed in storage for shipment to the United States. (When CENTCOM's Judge Advocate General became aware of the scheme in a staff briefing he objected vigorously to the willful violation of intellectual property, whereupon his Chief of Staff escorted him out before other members of the CENTCOM staff attacked him.) Using this technique recovery in both Iran and the U.S. was sped up considerably. (The technique had its limits, of course. It did not help to replicate inoperable equipment, and materials supply and quality control was spotty. And upon to the U.S., it was discovered that some of the equipment was incompatible with North American standards and required adjustment if it was to be brought into operation at all.)

Throughout the war, CENTCOM's logistic support organization, the 22nd TAACOM, had gradually built up an independent support and supply organization from rear areas of the CENTCOM area of operations. This was a natural result of the always tenuous support from the continental United States, as CENTCOM was forced to procure the food, fuel and other vital supplies from wherever possible. In general, fuel was the least problematic to provide, given the massive amount of refining and production capacity in the Persian Gulf region. Nonetheless, CENTCOM also controlled refineries in Aden, South Yemen and Mombassa, Kenya, which provided refined products and were safe from Soviet air raids and were never targeted by Soviet ballistic missiles. CENTCOM's food was mostly provided locally from farms in Iran south of the Zagros Mountains, but additional food came from farms under contract to CENTCOM in Tanzania and Kenya. As the war ran down, 22nd TAACOM had the luxury of procuring food more familiar to American soldiers, so that Operation Omega evacuees were uniformly welcomed to CENTCOM with a hot dog, hamburger and cold beer cookout upon debarkation in Iran. The entrepreneurial metalworkers of East Africa were engaged to provide spare parts for vehicles and weapons systems, while uniforms were sown from African cotton in sweatshops in Dar-es-Salaam and Mombassa. These products were transported to the fighting troops by the dhows that had sailed for centuries between East Africa, the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf. 5th Fleet maintained anti-piracy patrols in the western Indian Ocean, and the refineries in Aden and Mombassa (and surround areas) were protected by the 29th Infantry Division (Light) and 173rd Airborne Brigade, respectively. Ammunition and electronic spares were more difficult to obtain, however. Small arms ammunition was provided by local workshops that reloaded spent cartridges. For large caliber and artillery ammunition, CENTCOM had to trade with Israel and South Africa and, as the war went on, it received unmarked ammunition from France. CENTCOM paid for these services in the currency of the early 21st Century - oil, both crude and refined.

As time went on, a key aspect of the reconstruction of Iran (and the U.S.) was CENTCOM's alliance with Israel. Israel and France were exceptional in that they both avoided direct involvement in the war and, while receiving what would in pre-war times be considered catastrophic damage, emerged from the war with their governments, militaries and economies intact. Israel, due to its small size and limited natural resources, was much less able to survive on its own than France, and hence struck an alliance with the U.S. in the Middle East. In early 1999, Israel provided troops to CENTCOM in exchange for a trickle of oil from the Persian Gulf region. With the end of the war, this partnership broadened in scope, so that CENTCOM provided much of the raw materials Israel needed in exchange for Israeli manufactured goods. 22nd TAACOM and 5th Fleet worked to obtain raw materials from East Africa and South Africa, which traded not only ammunition but also strategic minerals for oil, and transport them to Israel. Oil from CENTCOM kept the lights on in Israeli high-tech labs, factories and the steel mill at Ashdod, while Israeli Military Industries and the Israeli high-tech industry were able to craft a trickle of spare parts for fire control systems, radars and communications equipment as those systems went offline in the rest of the world. The output of the Israeli electronics industry leapt in the late summer of 2000, when the DIA recovered the plans and prototype for a Polish-developed system to bring EMP-damaged computers and electronics back online. U.S. military personnel assigned to the DIA's Krakow station finished the mission started by the 20th Special Forces Group, and shortly thereafter Shabak, an Israeli intelligence agency, obtained copies of the plans and rushed them home. CENTCOM was aware of the development and insisted that American forces in the Persian Gulf, as brothers-in-arms of the soldiers who recovered the plans, benefit from Israel's use of the plans. Israeli computer engineers quickly reengineered the Reset Device, as it was called, into a unit that was about the size of a hardcover book. The device was configured using a functioning computer (which itself could have a Reset Device) to replace a damaged or destroyed computer chip, in a process which required about four hours of work by a skilled electronics technician, programmer or engineer. Once configured, the Reset Device replaced the damaged chip's function in whatever device it was attached to. The use of the Reset Device in this manner was key to the reconstruction effort, since it avoided the need to make a custom replacement of every one of thousands of different chips used in infrastructure, industry, communications network and military equipment.

Fuelling the reconstruction was the Iranian oilfields. While heavily damaged by the war, production in early 2001 was approximately 10 percent of the 1996 level - 370,000 barrels a day, two thirds of which was concentrated in the southwestern Khuzestan province north of Bandar-e-Khomeini or offshore in the Persian Gulf. The large refinery in Adaban, destroyed in the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988 and only partially operational in 1996, was once again destroyed. The refinery in Shiraz, damaged in the 1997 fighting, had been repaired by the end of the war and refined 30,000 barrels a day. (The facility did not operate at full capacity due to the disappearance of many of the sophisticated catalytic chemicals required to operate fully, the loss of many of the highly skilled refinery staff due to war, hunger and disease and the limited electrical power available to operate the plant). I MEF was furiously working on reopening part of the Bandar Abbas refinery, open for just a few weeks before it was captured by the Soviet 103rd Guards Airborne Division and flattened in the weeks of fighting that followed. The major source in Iran of refined petroleum for CENTCOM was the Lavan Island refinery, which produced 20,000 barrels a day and survived the war unharmed. The refinery was defended by the guided missile frigate USS Samuel Eliot Morison, damaged by a Soviet ASM in 1997 and ran aground on the west coast of the island. It has remained there, its missile battery having protected the island from numerous air raids and its gun deterring the waterborne marauders that prey upon the waters of the Persian Gulf, while its engineering department has become adept at operation of the refinery along with the pipeline and offshore production equipment that provide it with crude oil. The remainder of Iran's refineries (which even before the war were incapable of producing enough gasoline to meet Iran's domestic needs) were captured by Soviet forces and in most cases damaged or destroyed in the fighting. CENTCOM set a recovery goal of 20,000 barrels a day of refining capacity each year, split between bringing the Adaban and Bandar Abbas refineries back online, increasing the output of the Lavan and Shiraz refineries, and establishing small "teapot" refineries (ones that basically just distill crude oil and turn out rough diesel fuel, benzene and kerosene) which could support divisions in the field and be disassembled and brought back to the U.S. Likewise, increasing crude oil production was given a high priority.

Additional refinery capacity came from American allies in the GCC, from the remnants of Saudi Arabia's massive Jubail, Yanbu and Dharan refinery complexes, which were damaged or destroyed by Soviet missile strikes and bomb raids, and from CENTCOM-controlled refineries in Mombassa, Kenya and Aden, Yemen, which were each capable of refining 75,000 barrels per day. Following the ejection of CENTCOM from Saudi Arabia, Ambassador Thayer encouraged all American citizens working for Saudi Aramco to leave the company (ELF of France was more than happy to provide replacement technicians to the Saudis) and work for CENTCOM. Almost all of the American experts did so, further boosting both production and refining capacity in the American zone of Iran. However, increasing production was difficult, as essential oilfield equipment had been damaged or destroyed during the conflict and could not be replaced.

With that, fuel consumption for U.S. forces in the Gulf averaged less than 18,000 barrels per day (plus another 2,750 per day if 9th Air Force was operational with two sorties a day and whatever fuel was used by the Navy, typically another 1,500 barrels a day). The excess refinery production was used for essential civilian recovery or stockpiled for CENTCOM essential missions. Storage facilities, established ashore in Iran during the war, were located at Bandar Abbas, Bandar-e-Khomeini, Lavan Island and Bushehr, while an emergency reserve of diesel and JP-4 (one million barrels in total) was maintained aboard a tanker anchored at Diego Garcia.

In the reconstruction effort a limiting factor was the availability of materials and electronics. CENTCOM machinists (and East African metalworkers) could replicate almost any metal part if they had appropriate base stock. There were no functioning metal forging facilities in Iran, and the output of Israel's steel mill in Ashdod was limited by the supply of fuel. (A Soviet IRBM destroyed the steel mill in Haifa in late 1997 in the sole nuclear attack on Israel - the rapid destruction of the Soviet metalworking complex in Rustavi, and the port and refinery of Batumi, both in Georgia, by nuclear-tipped Jericho II missiles ended the Soviet-Israeli nuclear exchange.) If production was to be sped up, or steel of the requisite strength or size was unavailable from Israel, CENTCOM was forced to bargain with the French, who overall preferred a weak United States, especially after the defeat and withdrawal of Transcaucasian Front. The overall effect, however, was to severely limit the rate of recovery as CENTCOM faced a spiral of needs - increasing oil production required steel from Israel, which needed to be transported aboard the ships (which required steel parts and oil) that also brought the iron ore from South Africa (which was paid for in oil), all of which were worked by scarce skilled people who needed food, clean water, health care and protection, also all paid for (indirectly) in oil. The continuing wear and tear on machinery, vehicles and equipment as time went on added to this burden. However, with the end of the fighting in Iran, CENTCOM was gradually able to pull out of the downward spiral and produce a small surplus.

CENTCOM Transformed and Iran Rebuilt

As the Soviet withdrawal was occurring and in light of America's ejection from Saudi Arabia, CENTCOM was undergoing a massive reorganization to absorb the reinforcements and to adapt to the new strategic situation and mission. Each branch handled the reorganization differently.

Navy and Marine Corps units of III MEF were disbanded and used to bring the equivalent units of I MEF up to strength. In that transition, small units were, to the maximum extent possible, kept intact to preserve the trust, teamwork and esprit de corps that had been developed over the years of operations in Korea. Those small units (fire teams, squads and platoons) were then fed into existing units in I MEF.

Likewise, Army units from I and IX Corps were disbanded and used to bring XVIII Airborne Corps up to strength. By the time the reorganization was finished, divisions in XVIII Airborne Corps ranged in strength from 4,600 to 7,250 soldiers, and they received massively more support as 1st Corps Support Command and 3rd Army's 22nd Theater Army Area Command (TAACOM) had absorbed over 6,000 reinforcing soldiers and hundreds of civilian augmentees.

The Navy assigned ships to early-war style task groups and organized excess personnel into shoreside support units, providing everything from technical expertise (ranging from welding, shoreside construction and machine shop operations to aircraft ordnance and electronics maintenance and repair) to reconstruction support (labor, truck transport and coastal transportation). In this role, the SeeBee's First Naval Construction Regiment was augmented by the remnants of the 31st Naval Construction Regiment, arriving from Korea and brought up to strength with personnel assigned from damaged or sunken ships or disbanded organizations. In addition, CINCNAVCENT organized the civilian merchant ships into a pool from which sailing orders were drawn to support CENTCOM and the United States worldwide. Quickly the mission of transporting personnel and supplies fell to civilian merchant ships, which required much smaller crews and less fuel than Navy transport or support ships. Naval signal and guard parties were formed to serve aboard all CENTCOM controlled merchantmen, and convoys were formed for vessels sailing outside the Persian Gulf and Northern Arabian Sea.

The 9th Air Force absorbed the personnel and equipment that had arrived from Europe, Turkey, the Philippines and Korea into its existing structure. Simultaneously, CVW-10 was released from 9th Air Force control and returned to Navy control as it integrated into CVW-20 aboard Stennis. During the years of war the wing and squadron structures of 9th Air Force had been depleted of excess personnel as aircraft counts decreased; now those structures were built back up using many of the reinforcing airmen. The support units in Iran, however, were not forgotten, as the 915th Construction Engineer Squadron was reinforced in order to prepare airfields in Iran to host units displaced from Saudi Arabia, and as the 619th Security Group's area of responsibility expanded to include areas recently vacated by the advancing IPA. The 53rd Mobile Aerial Port Squadron was tripled in size as it adapted for its new task - to open an air bridge back to the United States through Diego Garcia, Darwin, Guam, Wake Island and Hawaii to the Pacific Northwest. With all this activity, however, the air operations tempo decreased dramatically for many reasons. First, except for engagements against marauders, pirates and deserters, there was little demand for sorties. Second, commands were busy integrating new arrivals into their structure (it was decided not to reverse the wartime personnel transfers to support units due to the importance of the duties they were performing in Iran). Third, maintenance personnel were overwhelmed by relative masses of aircraft and spare parts from around the world - it would take months just to organize the parts, assess the condition of the aircraft that were received from other theaters (the computerized records lost since lost or destroyed) and bring them back to operational condition (or consign them to the cannibalization heap). 9th Air Force headquarters determined that launching more than a minimal number of sorties during this time would place an excessive burden on its structure (and, soldiers in Iran joked, endanger the weekly Friday night barbeques enjoyed by the Air Force throughout the war).

Operationally, the Army and Marine Corps units ashore started carrying out a vastly different mission than their previous one of closing with and destroying the enemy. One third of troops, on a rotating basis, were assigned to conduct security operations, hunting down brigands, deserters and marauders and patrolling the countryside. One major civil support task was identifying unexploded ordnance and minefields, so that civilians could travel through the countryside safely. (As part of the withdrawal, Soviet commanders were required to turn over any information they had regarding minefields emplaced by either side). The remaining two thirds of troops were assigned more direct reconstruction missions, repairing roads and bridges, building schools, clinics and industrial facilities. The power plants dismantled in Kunsan and Subic Bay were brought on line in Bushehr and Bandar-e-Khomeini to provide reconstruction power. Sewage and water treatment plants were rehabilitated and brought into operation. In many of these operations, advisers from the SeeBee battalions of the 1st and 31st Regiments, who were engaged in similar reconstruction tasks, provided vital guidance.

During these reconstruction tasks maintenance units of all branches of service played a very special role. As any sort of machinery was being serviced, the maintenance units would use their machine shops (augmented by tools removed during Operation Omega) to make three copies of each part. One copy would be assembled somewhere in Iran, to assist in the recovery, and the other two copies would be placed in storage for shipment to the United States. (When CENTCOM's Judge Advocate General became aware of the scheme in a staff briefing he objected vigorously to the willful violation of intellectual property, whereupon his Chief of Staff escorted him out before other members of the CENTCOM staff attacked him.) Using this technique recovery in both Iran and the U.S. was sped up considerably. (The technique had its limits, of course. It did not help to replicate inoperable equipment, and materials supply and quality control was spotty. And upon to the U.S., it was discovered that some of the equipment was incompatible with North American standards and required adjustment if it was to be brought into operation at all.)

Throughout the war, CENTCOM's logistic support organization, the 22nd TAACOM, had gradually built up an independent support and supply organization from rear areas of the CENTCOM area of operations. This was a natural result of the always tenuous support from the continental United States, as CENTCOM was forced to procure the food, fuel and other vital supplies from wherever possible. In general, fuel was the least problematic to provide, given the massive amount of refining and production capacity in the Persian Gulf region. Nonetheless, CENTCOM also controlled refineries in Aden, South Yemen and Mombassa, Kenya, which provided refined products and were safe from Soviet air raids and were never targeted by Soviet ballistic missiles. CENTCOM's food was mostly provided locally from farms in Iran south of the Zagros Mountains, but additional food came from farms under contract to CENTCOM in Tanzania and Kenya. As the war ran down, 22nd TAACOM had the luxury of procuring food more familiar to American soldiers, so that Operation Omega evacuees were uniformly welcomed to CENTCOM with a hot dog, hamburger and cold beer cookout upon debarkation in Iran. The entrepreneurial metalworkers of East Africa were engaged to provide spare parts for vehicles and weapons systems, while uniforms were sown from African cotton in sweatshops in Dar-es-Salaam and Mombassa. These products were transported to the fighting troops by the dhows that had sailed for centuries between East Africa, the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf. 5th Fleet maintained anti-piracy patrols in the western Indian Ocean, and the refineries in Aden and Mombassa (and surround areas) were protected by the 29th Infantry Division (Light) and 173rd Airborne Brigade, respectively. Ammunition and electronic spares were more difficult to obtain, however. Small arms ammunition was provided by local workshops that reloaded spent cartridges. For large caliber and artillery ammunition, CENTCOM had to trade with Israel and South Africa and, as the war went on, it received unmarked ammunition from France. CENTCOM paid for these services in the currency of the early 21st Century - oil, both crude and refined.

As time went on, a key aspect of the reconstruction of Iran (and the U.S.) was CENTCOM's alliance with Israel. Israel and France were exceptional in that they both avoided direct involvement in the war and, while receiving what would in pre-war times be considered catastrophic damage, emerged from the war with their governments, militaries and economies intact. Israel, due to its small size and limited natural resources, was much less able to survive on its own than France, and hence struck an alliance with the U.S. in the Middle East. In early 1999, Israel provided troops to CENTCOM in exchange for a trickle of oil from the Persian Gulf region. With the end of the war, this partnership broadened in scope, so that CENTCOM provided much of the raw materials Israel needed in exchange for Israeli manufactured goods. 22nd TAACOM and 5th Fleet worked to obtain raw materials from East Africa and South Africa, which traded not only ammunition but also strategic minerals for oil, and transport them to Israel. Oil from CENTCOM kept the lights on in Israeli high-tech labs, factories and the steel mill at Ashdod, while Israeli Military Industries and the Israeli high-tech industry were able to craft a trickle of spare parts for fire control systems, radars and communications equipment as those systems went offline in the rest of the world. The output of the Israeli electronics industry leapt in the late summer of 2000, when the DIA recovered the plans and prototype for a Polish-developed system to bring EMP-damaged computers and electronics back online. U.S. military personnel assigned to the DIA's Krakow station finished the mission started by the 20th Special Forces Group, and shortly thereafter Shabak, an Israeli intelligence agency, obtained copies of the plans and rushed them home. CENTCOM was aware of the development and insisted that American forces in the Persian Gulf, as brothers-in-arms of the soldiers who recovered the plans, benefit from Israel's use of the plans. Israeli computer engineers quickly reengineered the Reset Device, as it was called, into a unit that was about the size of a hardcover book. The device was configured using a functioning computer (which itself could have a Reset Device) to replace a damaged or destroyed computer chip, in a process which required about four hours of work by a skilled electronics technician, programmer or engineer. Once configured, the Reset Device replaced the damaged chip's function in whatever device it was attached to. The use of the Reset Device in this manner was key to the reconstruction effort, since it avoided the need to make a custom replacement of every one of thousands of different chips used in infrastructure, industry, communications network and military equipment.

Fuelling the reconstruction was the Iranian oilfields. While heavily damaged by the war, production in early 2001 was approximately 10 percent of the 1996 level - 370,000 barrels a day, two thirds of which was concentrated in the southwestern Khuzestan province north of Bandar-e-Khomeini or offshore in the Persian Gulf. The large refinery in Adaban, destroyed in the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988 and only partially operational in 1996, was once again destroyed. The refinery in Shiraz, damaged in the 1997 fighting, had been repaired by the end of the war and refined 30,000 barrels a day. (The facility did not operate at full capacity due to the disappearance of many of the sophisticated catalytic chemicals required to operate fully, the loss of many of the highly skilled refinery staff due to war, hunger and disease and the limited electrical power available to operate the plant). I MEF was furiously working on reopening part of the Bandar Abbas refinery, open for just a few weeks before it was captured by the Soviet 103rd Guards Airborne Division and flattened in the weeks of fighting that followed. The major source in Iran of refined petroleum for CENTCOM was the Lavan Island refinery, which produced 20,000 barrels a day and survived the war unharmed. The refinery was defended by the guided missile frigate USS Samuel Eliot Morison, damaged by a Soviet ASM in 1997 and ran aground on the west coast of the island. It has remained there, its missile battery having protected the island from numerous air raids and its gun deterring the waterborne marauders that prey upon the waters of the Persian Gulf, while its engineering department has become adept at operation of the refinery along with the pipeline and offshore production equipment that provide it with crude oil. The remainder of Iran's refineries (which even before the war were incapable of producing enough gasoline to meet Iran's domestic needs) were captured by Soviet forces and in most cases damaged or destroyed in the fighting. CENTCOM set a recovery goal of 20,000 barrels a day of refining capacity each year, split between bringing the Adaban and Bandar Abbas refineries back online, increasing the output of the Lavan and Shiraz refineries, and establishing small "teapot" refineries (ones that basically just distill crude oil and turn out rough diesel fuel, benzene and kerosene) which could support divisions in the field and be disassembled and brought back to the U.S. Likewise, increasing crude oil production was given a high priority.

Additional refinery capacity came from American allies in the GCC, from the remnants of Saudi Arabia's massive Jubail, Yanbu and Dharan refinery complexes, which were damaged or destroyed by Soviet missile strikes and bomb raids, and from CENTCOM-controlled refineries in Mombassa, Kenya and Aden, Yemen, which were each capable of refining 75,000 barrels per day. Following the ejection of CENTCOM from Saudi Arabia, Ambassador Thayer encouraged all American citizens working for Saudi Aramco to leave the company (ELF of France was more than happy to provide replacement technicians to the Saudis) and work for CENTCOM. Almost all of the American experts did so, further boosting both production and refining capacity in the American zone of Iran. However, increasing production was difficult, as essential oilfield equipment had been damaged or destroyed during the conflict and could not be replaced.

With that, fuel consumption for U.S. forces in the Gulf averaged less than 18,000 barrels per day (plus another 2,750 per day if 9th Air Force was operational with two sorties a day and whatever fuel was used by the Navy, typically another 1,500 barrels a day). The excess refinery production was used for essential civilian recovery or stockpiled for CENTCOM essential missions. Storage facilities, established ashore in Iran during the war, were located at Bandar Abbas, Bandar-e-Khomeini, Lavan Island and Bushehr, while an emergency reserve of diesel and JP-4 (one million barrels in total) was maintained aboard a tanker anchored at Diego Garcia.

In the reconstruction effort a limiting factor was the availability of materials and electronics. CENTCOM machinists (and East African metalworkers) could replicate almost any metal part if they had appropriate base stock. There were no functioning metal forging facilities in Iran, and the output of Israel's steel mill in Ashdod was limited by the supply of fuel. (A Soviet IRBM destroyed the steel mill in Haifa in late 1997 in the sole nuclear attack on Israel - the rapid destruction of the Soviet metalworking complex in Rustavi, and the port and refinery of Batumi, both in Georgia, by nuclear-tipped Jericho II missiles ended the Soviet-Israeli nuclear exchange.) If production was to be sped up, or steel of the requisite strength or size was unavailable from Israel, CENTCOM was forced to bargain with the French, who overall preferred a weak United States, especially after the defeat and withdrawal of Transcaucasian Front. The overall effect, however, was to severely limit the rate of recovery as CENTCOM faced a spiral of needs - increasing oil production required steel from Israel, which needed to be transported aboard the ships (which required steel parts and oil) that also brought the iron ore from South Africa (which was paid for in oil), all of which were worked by scarce skilled people who needed food, clean water, health care and protection, also all paid for (indirectly) in oil. The continuing wear and tear on machinery, vehicles and equipment as time went on added to this burden. However, with the end of the fighting in Iran, CENTCOM was gradually able to pull out of the downward spiral and produce a small surplus.

[kato13]

Great stuff as always. Making Reset reducible to the size of a book makes a lot more sense from a feasibility standpoint. Oh and I am stealing the following for my Morrow Project, thanks.

As any sort of machinery was being serviced, the maintenance units would use their machine shops to make three copies of each part.

[Marc]

Great job. I'm waiting for more. It seems to me an excellent background for a range of new possible campaigns following the "classical" timeline. A good way to reactivate old groups with new challenges.

[Targan]

Chico, I realise that given the vast scope of the work you guys have been doing, your thoughts on Australia would necessarily take up a very small portion. When you mentioned in your last post that Darwin was a link in the air corridor from CENTCOM's AO back to the CONUS it immediately got me thinking. I don't think that most of the rest of the world really understand the truly vast amounts of natural resources that Australia possesses.

On a global scale Australia is not a major oil producer but we do produce oil in not inconsiderable amounts and have large reserves (mostly off the NW and northern coasts and especially between Australia and East Timor) which remain largely untapped. But even more significantly Australia has truly enormous reserves of natural gas and coal (and I mean seriously enormous) and even after the Twilight War some ability to tap them.

And while Australia may not currently produce all that much high tech gear it has more to do with commercial realities pre-war than ability. Australia is a first world, high tech nation. If Australia's manufacturing infrastructure remained largely intact after the Twilight War it would (in my opinion) be an invaluable partner for the huge task of rebuilding the power of the USA. If Darwin was a major staging point for US air and sea assets to and from the US and the Middle East I'm sure it would receive US land, air and sea military assets to enhance its security and or provide assistance to the Australian Defence Force to do its job better.

[chico20854]

and now on to CONUS!

European Veterans Return Home

When Task Force 34 arrived in Norfolk, Virginia on November 25, 2000, the 50,000 American troops aboard faced an America that they did not recognize - one without cars, heat, electricity, invaded from north and south, struck by over five hundred nuclear weapons, with two governments and an insidious organization corrupting its shocked and desperate population. Contrary to what they had been told prior to embarking in Bremerhaven, all of the physically fit troops were to be retained in military service, with the mission of restoring order and rebuilding the U.S.

During the voyage across the Atlantic (which saw the reinforcement of Task Force 34 by the remnants of the Enterprise and Eisenhower battle groups from Northern Ireland and Portsmouth, England, respectively), the troops of U.S. Army Europe were reorganized into coherent units. Like the restructuring of Army and Marine Corps units in CENTCOM, small groups of soldiers were kept together as units of the appropriate size (fire teams, squads or platoons) and integrated into larger organizations. It was decided to keep the organizational structure of the three pre-war active-duty Army corps that fought in Europe (III Corps, V Corps and VII Corps) intact, and reconstruct the corps into units under the banner of pre-war active-duty units that fought in Europe. Each Corps was organized at a strength of 15,000 men, organized into three 4,000-man brigades (each of which took the identity of a pre-war division) and a 3,000-man Corps headquarters and ancillary units. III Corps, which returned to Norfolk, was composed of the 1st Cavalry Brigade, 2nd Armored Brigade and 4th Infantry Brigade. V Corps, returned to Mobile, Alabama, was composed of the 1st Infantry Brigade, 3rd Armored Brigade and 6th Infantry Brigade. VII Corps, returned to the south Texas coast, was composed of the 1st Armored Brigade, 3rd Infantry Brigade and 10th Mountain Infantry Brigade. (The identities of the 5th and 8th Infantry Divisions were not used, as CINCEUR considered those units still to be in action in Europe and as a tribute to those American soldiers still fighting behind Warsaw Pact lines in Poland and the USSR.) Each corps also had an assigned civil affairs brigade and a Naval Construction (SeeBee) regiment to perform recovery and reconstruction tasks.

While units were nominally armored or infantry, in practice they were light infantry. All heavy weapons, equipment and vehicles had been left in Germany. Each brigade in III Corps and V Corps was organized into two light infantry, one combat engineer, one military police and one support battalion. The light infantry battalions received the few 120mm mortars and most of the other heavy weapons that were available. The combat engineer battalions were equipped with civilian construction equipment and support equipment - compressors, dump trucks and the like, given the dearth of combat-capable heavy equipment. The MP battalions were the main motorized combat force, using a variety of light wheeled vehicles (the odd HMMWV, requisitioned civilian pickup trucks converted to mount machineguns) and armored cars (mostly former bank armored cars but also including a hodgepodge of former police vehicles, Department of Energy armored cars and vehicles in the ports that were awaiting embarkation for the war zones). The support battalion provided transportation (using school buses, delivery trucks and horse-drawn wagons), repair services for the brigade's equipment, warehousing, communications, procurement and medical support to other units of the brigade.

The civil affairs brigades were tasked to restore civilian government administration and law and order to the areas under Milgov control. The civil affairs brigade commanders served as the corps commanders' reconstruction coordinators, and were unique in the Milgov military structure since they were civilians, appointed by the JCS to manage the transition from martial law to a less severe national emergency (and eventually to normal peacetime) status. The commanders, commonly referred to as "Reconstruction Tsars", were usually senior pre-war civil servants, from agencies such as the Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, or Departments of Energy, Transportation, Labor or Housing and Urban Development. As the reconstruction effort expanded, a Reconstruction Tsar for each state was appointed by Milgov to coordinate Milgov's efforts in support of the restored state and local governments. The first step in the civil affairs brigades' efforts were to locate pre-TDM government employees, whether local, state or federal, and get them working in some aspect of the reconstruction effort related to their pre-TDM occupation. For example, Social Security benefits administrators established and maintained a registration system for refugees and administered ration allocations, while law enforcement officers and postal workers were placed to work in their local areas. Each Civil Affairs Brigade had two MP companies assigned - one to provide security for Milgov facilities and one engaged solely in providing training to re-formed local law enforcement agencies or expanding the remnants of pre-war agencies.

Each corps had a Naval Construction (SeeBee) Regiment assigned to it to perform reconstruction tasks - the 8th Regiment to III Corps, the 7th Regiment to V Corps and the 25th Regiment to VII Corps. These regiments were unique in that their organizations were brought back at their full wartime strength by incorporation of surplus naval personnel, refugees fit for military duty with prior construction experience, and new recruits fresh from naval initial training at the small recruit induction center at Cape May, New Jersey. The SeeBee regiments also absorbed construction engineer personnel from other branches of service, and civilians were often drafted (although not at gunpoint) to provide labor for reconstruction tasks. A novel two-year draft was also instituted in the SeeBee regiments, where a draftee would serve most of his or her term working in a single area (often a single project) and, upon discharge, remain in the area or at the facility as the permanent, civilian operations or maintenance staff. Heavy equipment in CONUS was obtained from state and local governments (highway, parks and public works departments) and requisitioned from civilian construction companies, and the regiments received priority allocations of fuel. The SeeBee regiments' efforts were directed at restoration of services and facilities of strategic, national importance - each combat brigade's combat engineer battalion was tasked to provide the engineer support needed to sustain that unit - so the SeeBees worked on projects such as restoring housing for refugees near agricultural or industrial areas (moving refugees out of "temporary" camps that had become all too permanent), restoring port facilities to allow waterborne trade between Milgov controlled areas and receive ships arriving from CENTCOM, refurbishing water treatment facilities and bringing oil refineries, power plants and steel mills back online. During the years of the reconstruction effort, the SeeBees of the 21st Century proved just as heroic, capable and hard-working as their grandfathers in the Second World War.

[kato13]

Fantastic work. Again some thoughts also really help my morrow thinking.

Renamed the thread "US Recovery Plan" as I am adding this thread to the "Important threads" section of the new member thread and the new name is a little less cryptic.

[chico20854]

III Corps in the Mid-Atlantic

III Corps, consisting of the 1st Cavalry Brigade, 2nd Armored Brigade, 4th Infantry Brigade, 304th Civil Affairs Brigade and 8th Naval Construction Regiment, returned from Europe to the Mid-Atlantic States. The Corps HQ, along with CINCEUR, his headquarters and III Corps' 2nd Armored and 4th Infantry Brigades arrived in the Hampton Roads area in November 2000 and were appalled at what they found. CINCLANT and his entire command were living in an area that was still radioactive from the Soviet nuclear attacks on the area (a total of 16 warheads yielding 4 MT scattered from Camp Peary in the west to Norfolk in the east) and all were slowly dying of radiation sickness. CINCLANT had moved his command to the Little Creek amphibious base and nearby Oceana Naval Air Station and Fort Story, but the damage had already been done. Food and fuel were critically short when CINCEUR and his command arrived, and CINCLANT's medical condition was so poor that the enclave was often effectively leaderless. CINCLANT's subordinate officers were suffering from the same dire medical conditions, leaving none fit to take command in CINCLANT's stead. Worse than the physical illness in CINCLANT's command, however, was the mental defeat and lack of hope displayed by the sailors, soldiers and airmen in the Hampton Roads enclave - many of whom seemed to exist each day solely to better prepare to die. Their low morale and hopelessness threatened to spread to the European veterans, all of whom were shocked and depressed by the condition of their homeland for which they had fought and strove to return to through all the hard battles across Europe.

Elsewhere in the Mid-Atlantic region, the 78th Infantry Division, U.S. Coast Guard's Cape May station and New Jersey state government's enclave in southern New Jersey was reinforced by the returning 1st Cavalry Brigade and some of the Task Force 34 vessels - the flagship USS John Hancock and three nuclear powered attack submarines, the USS Helena, USS Louisville and USS Atlanta, which anchored south of New York City at the U.S. Naval Weapons Station Earle. Upon arrival, the 1st Cavalry Brigade assumed security responsibilities from 1st Brigade, 78th Infantry Division, which was able to return to its normal wartime mission of conducting initial entry training (basic combat and advanced individual training) for new draftees, conscripted from the schools, refugee camps and checkpoints of the South Jersey enclave. The new draftees were assigned to other units of the 78th to bring it back to full strength, with subsequent trainees to fill other units up. In addition to the 1st Brigade, 78th Infantry Division, Fort Dix also contained the U.S. Military Academy (West Point), which conducted a two-year program focusing on civil engineering. The troopers of the 1st Cavalry, in turn, patrolled the northern border of the enclave, New Jersey Route 33, which had been transformed into a fortified zone with wide fields of fire and protective walls made of abandoned cars.

The crewmen of the submarines augmented the civilian nuclear workers who operated the Oyster Creek plant and provided a major portion of the reactor technicians who restarted the reactors of the Hope Creek/Salem power plant on the Delaware River in March 2001. In addition, the nuclear technicians established a nuclear reactor and power plant training school at Oyster Creek to supply areas under Milgov control with safe, trained and somewhat experienced plant operators to assist in the nationwide recovery effort. Soldiers of the enclave also worked on repairing damage suffered during the war and conducting company-level training. Sailors from the submarines' departments other than engineering were assigned technical jobs ashore commensurate with their individual skills. Electricians, for example, were assigned to the 21st Naval Mobile Construction (SeeBee) Battalion to rewire EMP-damaged electrical systems, while torpedo maintainers repaired small engines, and the unluckiest (and least skilled) sailors were assigned to stand guard on the anchored submarines and drive wagons between farms, factories and Milgov-controlled warehouses.

The assignment was a good one for both the soldiers and sailors that were sent to the New Jersey enclave. Southern New Jersey, sealed by the Pine Barrens and the line of military bases across the state to the north and the Delaware River to the west, had not received the refugee flow from the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan areas that prewar planners had feared. The availability of electrical power from the Oyster Bay power plant (which had been shut down during the nuclear exchange as a precaution but restarted in late spring 1998), the agricultural surplus from South Jersey farms, and the security provided by the state and federal armed forces meant that life in the New Jersey enclave in the winter of 2000-2001 was much more comfortable than almost anywhere else in North America.

Back in Norfolk, tensions between CINCEUR and CINCLANT were building. Milgov wanted the two commands and staffs to combine and supervise the operations of First, Fifth and Seventh Armies in a coordinated manner. When the task of joining staffs arose, CINCLANT, claiming superior local knowledge, insisted that "his people" be placed in all the senior positions, with a deputy from EURCOM. EURCOM, looking at the sad state of Milgov operations in the eastern U.S. and the poor physical and mental condition of the CINCLANT staff, thought that some fresh thinking and eager hands would be able to solve some of the vexing problems that the nation faced, and that the CINCLANT staff could use the rest to see to their health. Discussions over the winter gradually became more heated (not only over the staff assignments) and reached a head in late February 2001. A confrontation occurred between CONCLANT and CINCEUR during the planning session for the March 1, 2001 JCS conference call and the military police were called in. CINCLANT directed the MP's to arrest CINCEUR for insubordination, and the MP's (one of the few organizations which had successfully integrated) declined, citing a lack of clear evidence of a crime. While CINCLANT raged, CINCEUR left the headquarters building, went to the docks and boarded one of the TF 34 vessels still in Norfolk. He sailed to Cape May, and within a week the remaining European veterans (and the MPs from CINCLANT) had also departed the Norfolk enclave and moved to New Jersey, the last ship being cursed personally by CINCLANT as the final passengers boarded.

In Colorado Springs General Cummings was faced with the question of what to do with his squabbling subordinates. Practically, there was little he could do to support or punish subordinate commanders other than to alter the amount of supplies coming from CENTCOM, which in the winter of 2000-2001 was almost nothing. Therefore, he took the most practical course of action and redefined the commands and areas of responsibility of CINCLANT and CINCEUR. CINCEUR retained command over III, V and VII Corps, TF 34 and the naval vessels evacuated from Europe. He also was given command of 1st and 5th Armies and the naval forces based in Mobile and the New Jersey enclave. CINCLANT retained command of all forces in the Norfolk enclave. CINCEUR was responsible for the area north of the Potomac River/mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and the area west of the Appalachians (starting at the remains of Pensacola). CINCLANT retained responsibility for restoring order to Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. While not formally censuring CINCLANT, General Cummings instead gave CINCLANT an impossible job - to restore Milgov control to an area rife with Civgov and New America supporters with a minuscule amount of troops and equipment to do so. General Cummings had in other cases simply withdrawn support from subordinates who refused to follow orders, as the commander of the Coast Guard First District had done. As time went on the situations of these orphan commands became direr until they either ceased to exist as organized military units or began to follow the orders emanating from Colorado Springs.

With the coming of spring in South Jersey, CINCEUR was faced with the problem of a larger force to feed than he had planned. The added electrical power from the Hope Creek/Salem nuclear power plants was a boon to the enclave, but would not solve the food problem his Reconstruction Tsar predicted. As a consequence, CINCEUR decided to regain control of the fertile agricultural area of the Delmarva Peninsula. The 2nd Armored Brigade was ferried across the mouth of the Delaware River, using the pre-war Cape May ferries, to southern Delaware. Simultaneously, the 1st Battalion (Infantry) of the 4th Infantry Division was ferried into the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, where one rifle company secured each of the four bridges and began patrolling the local areas along the south bank of the canal and inland. Over the next two months the remainder of the 4th Infantry Brigade was ferried across and, in cooperation with the 2nd Armored Brigade, had swept as far south as U.S. Highway 50. Planting was started within the area swept by Milgov, and patrols extended farther south, only occasionally encountering resistance from bandits or locals unhappy to see the government return or fearful of seizure of their land or crops. (In many cases, local farmer's last interaction with the government was when FEMA forced farmers to hand over crops to and host families fleeing from Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia.) While III Corps commander wanted to further extend his area of control on the Delmarva Peninsula he did not yet have sufficient forces to adequately patrol the entire area. The town of Salisbury, Maryland had hosted tens of thousands of refugees from Baltimore and Washington, DC in its many hotels and in the dormitories of Salisbury State University. Soon their welcome wore out and the refugees were forced to seize food from the local farmers by force. A vicious gang, formed by hard-core inner-city gang members, soon became the only protectors of the refugees and the only force strong enough to seize the food needed them. Their brutal reign, in which the farmers were enslaved to provide a steady food supply, was only interrupted by periodic raids against or by rival gangs operating from the pre-war resort towns of Rehobeth and Bethany, Delaware and Ocean City, Maryland, which also had been used to relocate refugees from the Washington and Baltimore area. Milgov was unable to free the Eisenhower battle group and stockpiles of fuel and munitions to III Corps until after the fall harvest, and the gangs were too strong to take on without air support. In addition, the III Corps commander was tasked to carry out a delicate but special mission.

Colorado Springs wanted III Corps to investigate the recovery of the Federal Reserve's gold stockpile from New York and the related actions of a renegade Special Operations force under the command of the wealthy and mad Major Anthony Po. One of the scandals that had erupted in Norfolk during the winter was the discovery of the mass murders, torture and other crimes committed by the special operations force and the complicity of CINCLANT's special operations command in not halting or even reporting those crimes. Major Po was declared a renegade and wanted criminal and a price was placed on his head. Given the state of the area north of the New Jersey enclave and the strength of Major Po's force, direct military action was not initiated against him; instead independent bounty hunters were sent after him and DIA teams were tasked, among other things, to locate him so an air strike could be called in on his position. Finally, what limited support Major Po and his command had been receiving from Milgov was stopped, although suspicions remained that elements of CINCLANT's J-2 (Intelligence) staff continued covert support for Major Po and possibly even warned him of operations against him.

Major Po's command split upon word of Milgov's declaration. A little more than half of the group, under the command of Major Po's XO, LtCdr Tadeusz Jones, deserted the major and returned to Milgov lines outside Lakehurst Naval Air Station. After several bloody encounters between the remnant's of Po's command, the renegade major was forced to flee west towards Scranton, Pennsylvania, pursued by an A-team from 3rd Company, 10th Special Forces Group, a lone assassin from the CIA and two separate teams of independent pursuers. He evaded his pursuers during a severe thunderstorm and arrived at one of his family's country residences in the Adirondacks. Having lost nearly all his gear in the evasion effort, he was almost defenseless when he encountered a patrol from the refugee camp that had been set up on his family's land (with their consent) while he was overseas. During the subsequent altercation (which saw Major Po kill three militiamen in hand-to-hand combat) he was shot and killed by a young refugee girl named Britney Spears. When the .30-06 Springfield went off in her hands, Miss Spears was heard to remark "Oops! I did it again!" (This was Miss Spear's second kill).

Commander Jones' detachment reported that Major Po had discovered the location of the gold reserves but had not recovered them. The commander of the 78th Division (now reporting to III Corps) advised CINCEUR of the difficulties of operating in Manhattan (as one of the survivors of the 78th's evacuation in 1998) and the massive logistics challenge involved with recovering nearly 80 tons of gold, even if the various armed factions operating in New York could be dealt with. With the knowledge that nobody else was capable of recovering the gold and that Major Po's team had eliminated the only people in New York that knew of the gold's location, III Corps decided to defer the recovery effort.

III Corps also expanded a short distance north in New Jersey with the coming of spring 2001. In the east, the 1st Cavalry Brigade widened the safe corridor between the Route 33 line and the Naval Weapons Station Earl annex on Lower New York Bay, where the larger units of the TF 34 fleet were anchored. In the west, the troopers of the 1st Cav occupied the town of Princeton and the university. In September 2001 classes resumed at Princeton with the integration of the surviving faculties of Princeton, Rutgers, West Point, the US Naval Academy and other colleges and universities in New Jersey. The Combined Corps of Cadets (the combined West Point and Naval Academy student formation) moved to Princeton from Fort Dix and provided additional security to the town's State Defense Force detachment. The curriculum initially was limited - engineering, education, and the sciences, with the entire Combined Corps of Cadets enrolled in civil, mechanical or electrical engineering.

The Physics Department at Princeton, however, performed an absolutely revolutionary task - supporting the work of the Russian defector scientists, Doctors Alexi and Tanya Popovich, in their effort to complete development of a nuclear fusion reactor, simple to construct with relatively low technology, using a room-temperature superconductor that is also easily made under primitive conditions. Milgov assigned a 2-star general to coordinate Milgov's efforts to support the Popovich's efforts (under the code name the Philadelphia Engineer Support Detachment or Philadelphia Project, in tribute to the Manhattan Project of the 1940s). The Philadelphia Project enjoyed nearly endless (for post-war America) resources and called on dozens of small units (usually composed of 5-12 returned European veterans) to perform special, secret missions to retrieve items, documents or people needed by the Popovich's effort. It would take several years to bring the first prototype reactor online, but the benefits proved, in time, to be absolutely revolutionary to all of human history.

Long term, III Corps had several goals. First, Milgov demanded that absolute priority be directed to the Philadelphia Project, even as it was kept under the strictest secrecy. Second, the remainder of the Delmarva Peninsula needed to be brought under Milgov control. To do this, the gangs had to be defeated and the refugees screened for useful skills and protected from retaliation from the locals. The expansion to the southern end of the peninsula would have to be handled with some finesse, as the Norfolk enclave maintained much of its food growing capacity in farms on the southern end of the peninsula. The effort to restore control over the entire Delmarva Peninsula would be eased by establishing regular overland communications to southern New Jersey through the ruins of Wilmington and/or Philadelphia. The areas brought under Milgov control would need to have infrastructure restored (power, light, water, communications, local government, transportation and food distribution) and the ruined cities of Wilmington and Philadelphia salvaged for useful materials. Another long-term goal was to return to New York City and conduct a census, salvage useful materials, and recover the gold before starting full-blown recovery efforts. Finally, to increase the food supplies available to III Corps it was deemed necessary to expand into eastern Pennsylvania, eventually to the Alleghenies, incorporating the rich farmland and non-mechanized farming skills of the Amish of Lancaster County and bringing online the Limerick, Peach Bottom and Three Mile Island nuclear power plants and clearing a route to the Civgov enclave in Frederick, Maryland and the coal fields of northeastern Pennsylvania.

[stilleto69]

As always Chico, excellant work. And kudos to you and the DC Group for giving us such fine work.

I especially like the Britney Spears part - LMFAO!

[chico20854]

Originally Posted by stilleto69

I especially like the Britney Spears part - LMFAO!

Everyone loves a star!!

[Rainbow Six]

Very, very well done...I really can't stress enough how awesome I find the DC Group's work...thanks to you all for sharing it.

[Targan]

I've been wearing a stupid grin for hours since seeing elements of my campaign mentioned. The player of Major Po is coming round to my place tomorrow and I'm going to taunt him mercilessly.

[chico20854]

Originally Posted by Targan

I've been wearing a stupid grin for hours since seeing elements of my campaign mentioned. The player of Major Po is coming round to my place tomorrow and I'm going to taunt him mercilessly.

Well, like I said, everyone loves a star. And around here over the past couple years there has been no single PC that has been as much of a star as Major Po!

[Jason Weiser]

Originally Posted by Targan

I've been wearing a stupid grin for hours since seeing elements of my campaign mentioned. The player of Major Po is coming round to my place tomorrow and I'm going to taunt him mercilessly.

Whatever you do...playing the single "Oops, I Did It Again!" while doing so is almost mandatory.

[chico20854]

only one more update after this one... I'm posting faster than I can write!

V Corps in the Old South

V Corps returned from Europe to Mobile, Alabama. Composed of the 1st Infantry Brigade, 3rd Armored Brigade, 6th Infantry Brigade, 308th Civil Affairs Brigade and 7th Naval Construction Regiment, V Corps reinforced XIX Corps, nominally subordinate to 5th Army headquartered in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. In reality, XIX Corps was independent, as it had been over a year since the last patrols from XIX Corps and XIII Corps from Fort Sill had met. Nonetheless, 5th Army tried to maintain portions of a secure route along the Lower Mississippi River and contain the Civgov enclaves in Georgia, the Carolinas and Florida. Following their success against the Texian National Legion in 1999, XIX Corps fell back to the Mississippi River and east into Alabama. Accordingly, XIX Corps deployed roughly along the Interstate 65 corridor in central Alabama, linking the Gulf of Mexico with the Tennessee River. Connection to the Mississippi River was maintained by patrols and escorted convoys along Interstate 20 to Vicksburg, Mississippi. Upstream of Vicksburg, Milgov maintained outposts at Memphis (197th Infantry Brigade) and Cairo, Illinois (194th Armored Brigade). Marauders blocked the overland route from Memphis to the rest of 5th Army along Interstate 40, and reports trickled in during the spring of 2001 of a disciplined armed force operating in northern Arkansas.

A major impediment to travel along the Mississippi River was the effects of an unnamed hurricane that struck the Gulf Coast in August 1998. The combination of 150 mph winds and a 27-foot storm surge, accompanied by over 30 inches of rain and dozens of tornadoes wrecked havoc on the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf coasts. Following the devastation from nuclear strikes in the suburbs of New Orleans, on the capital city of Baton Rouge and refineries four other cities in Louisiana the storm was the final element in the breakdown of society along the central Gulf Coast. The cities of New Orleans, Gulfport and Biloxi were essentially destroyed, and the remnants of the local, state and federal governments, already broken by the nuclear exchange, were unable to provide any relief or reconstruction. The flooding of the Lower Mississippi River following the hurricane dug a new exit for the Mississippi River near Morgan City (which was wiped out by the storm), west of the pre-storm exit. Lake Pontchartrain flooded into the city of New Orleans, destroying most of it, and the change in the route of the Mississippi left the water by New Orleans' docks a stagnant backwater no longer connected to the Gulf of Mexico. Interstate 10, which ran along the Gulf Coast, was washed away in dozens of places and had miles of bridges and causeways destroyed. The offshore oil and gas infrastructure - rigs, platforms, pipelines and terminal facilities - were damaged. Repair could have come had there been workers, but the scope of the damage was so great and government support so feeble that the vital infrastructure, both onshore and offshore, was simply abandoned. The wave of refugees from communities along coastal Louisiana and Mississippi fleeing the storm, for which there was no warning due to the breakdown of the weather tracking and reporting system in the wake of the nuclear exchange, in most cases was too much for inland communities to withstand. Casualties from disease, starvation, crime and civil strife in the area were massive, and shortly after the storm much of the southern half of Louisiana and Mississippi was depopulated. The remnants of state government in Louisiana (always among the least competent in the US in peacetime) collapsed entirely, unable to deal with the chaos and demands imposed by nuclear strikes on the four largest cities, including the state capital, and the aftermath of the storm.

In the inland area of Mississippi islands of order remained around the Milgov cantonments at Camp Shelby (held by the XIX Corps HQ and two regiments of the Mississippi State Guard), Jackson (where the governor and remnants of the State Police were reinforced with troops from the 85th Infantry Division) and Vicksburg (held by the main body of the 85th Infantry Division and a force of SeeBees evacuated from Gulfport, operating under the banner of the 6th Naval Construction Regiment). The cantonments were under heavy pressure and unable to do more than maintain patrols along the major highways between each other. The backwoods and northern half of Mississippi saw nothing but privation, anarchy and despair, while northern Louisiana was slowly infiltrated by marauder bands, some of which pledged allegiance to the Texian National Legion or, it was later discovered, New America.

Prior to the arrival of V Corps, XIX Corps was slowly withering away. The anarchy in the pinewoods of Mississippi and Louisiana meant that food was scarce, replacements (obtained entirely by drafting the young from refugee camps or at roadblocks and checkpoints) meager and material support from Milgov non-existent. A sense of hopelessness began to settle in among the Army troops (the Marine Brigade in Mobile exhibited extremely high levels of motivation), and desertion began to become a problem. Despite these difficulties, XIX Corps had several valuable assets. First, there was limited electrical service in Alabama from the Farley nuclear power plant near Dothan (just a few miles from Fort Rucker and guarded by its troops), the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant west of Huntsville (secured by troops of the 59th Ordnance Brigade) and the Guntersville Dam, also near Huntsville. Experts from the 59th used power generated by the dam's turbines to restart Browns Ferry reactor one, which had been offline since 1985 and had its control systems disassembled, shielding it from EMP. Technicians were painstakingly rewiring the control systems of the other two reactors at Browns Ferry. Meanwhile, the Farley plant had restarted in the summer of 1999 with the assistance of technicians and engineers from military units throughout southern Alabama. Another valuable asset XIX Corps had was control of Fort McClellan and the adjacent Anniston Army Depot. Anniston was one of the Army's major armored vehicle overhaul and repair facilities as well as its primary storehouse for excess and obsolete small arms, so XIX Corps retained control of over 2 million rifles, pistols, submachineguns and machineguns. In addition, the fields of Anniston were filled with battle-damaged tanks, artillery and APCs. Gradually, XIX Corps was able to coax some of the former repair workers from Aniston to return to work in a makeshift facility that combined tools and equipment from several of the abandoned and fought-over shops on the post. While there was no supply of new spare parts, the fields of damaged armored vehicles provided an endless supply of spare parts. It was a painstaking process, but by the time V Corps returned from Europe the workers of Anniston had managed to get a dozen tanks, a handful of SP guns and 20 APCs operational. Ammunition and fuel for the armored vehicles was short, but the psychological advantage of operable, massed heavy armor was not to be easily dismissed.

The final asset XIX Corps had was control of the city of Mobile, Alabama. The city remained intact despite the hurricanes that had ripped apart the Gulf Coast to its east and west. A major industrial area and general-purpose port, Mobile hosted an oil refinery (74,000 barrels per day), two major shipyards, a plastic plant and miles of docks and wharves. The city was garrisoned by troops from the 2nd Marine "Raider" Brigade, a composite unit formed from Marine Corps garrison troops from stations, bases and posts around the southeast and equipped from the USMC war reserve stockpile at Albany, Georgia. Also present in Mobile was a sizeable naval fleet centered on the USS Lexington and elements of her battle group. The Lexington was recommissioned shortly after the outbreak of war to train additional naval aviators, but following the breakout of Soviet raiders into the Atlantic and Caribbean she was pressed into service to patrol the Caribbean with a scratch air wing, mostly composed of A-4 aircraft and instructors that had been training Chinese pilots. After several successful raider hunts she suffered an engineering casualty and was towed to Mobile for repairs. The repairs were never completed following the TDM, as the repair required replacement parts from one of Lexington's museum ship sisters. Lexington's escorts were placed on convoy escort duty, while her crew manned the museum ship USS Alabama's 16-inch guns to protect the city and served ashore in a variety of relief and reconstruction tasks.

As a result of the operable port facility and potential for both success (if reinforced) or collapse (if not reinforced), JCS made the decision to bring the reformed V Corps back from Europe to Mobile. The troops of V Corps could restore order to the backwoods of Mississippi, secure additional industrial facilities and power plants in northern Alabama, and most importantly, work to restore a viable waterborne transportation route to and from the Mississippi River (and, by extension, the Midwest and Great Plains). The armored vehicles recovered from Anniston and a detachment of helicopters from Fort Rucker (grounded following the TDM for want of fuel) were assigned to VII Corps, which came ashore and trained in the Mobile vicinity for several weeks before moving on to Texas (detailed below). XIX Corps' eastern border with Civgov was relatively stable, so upon arrival V Corps moved north and west to restore order and a connection to the Mississippi River. The 6th Infantry Brigade moved to Camp Shelby, Mississippi to reinforce XIX Corps headquarters and free one of the State Guard regiments to patrol the highways to the west of Hattiesburg leading to Natchez. The 6th also patrolled south and southwest towards the gulf coast. The 3rd Armored Brigade moved further northwest, to Greenville, Mississippi, to establish patrols on both sides of the river and set the stage for spring planting in the fertile agricultural land of the Mississippi River bottomlands.

The 1st Infantry Brigade drew the toughest mission - to move by barge and boat up the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway - a barge canal that connected the Tennessee River to the Gulf of Mexico - restoring the dams along the way, and establish a headquarters in Tupelo, Mississippi to begin restoring order to northeastern Mississippi. Opening of the waterway (popularly known as the Tenn-Tom) would provide a route to move barges (carrying grain, coal, oil or other bulk commodities) to and from the Ohio, Missouri and Upper Mississippi river basins, restoring the waterborne transportation route that was lost when the Mississippi River changed course. In this movement, the 1st was providing security for troops from the 7th Naval Construction Regiment, who performed the heavy construction and repair on the waterway's facilities. In addition, the 1st Infantry Brigade was able to perform a vital duty - relieving the beleaguered 14th Security Police Squadron and other airmen of Columbus Air Force Base. Columbus, home of the 14th Flying Training Wing, had not only its normally assigned T-37 and T-38 trainer aircraft, but also a mix of training and tactical aircraft from along the Gulf Coast who had fled there to avoid hurricanes. Most importantly for Milgov, however, it hosted a cell of four B-52G bombers and their attendant KC-135 tankers, dispersed from Barksdale AFB, with a full complement of nuclear-tipped air launched cruise missiles and nuclear gravity bombs, awaiting restoration of reliable communications from national command authorities as to their next mission. Knowing the bomber's importance to the nation, the base commander hoarded the facility's stock of JP-8, with over 500,000 gallons on hand - enough for the BUFFs to fly two round-trip missions to Moscow. From the beginning of 1998 until the arrival of the 1st Infantry Brigade, the 14th Flying Training Wing ceased all operations not related to either producing food and other necessities or securing the B-52s and their cargo. Fortunately, the base's perimeter was only probed a handful of times by passing marauder bands - the locals knew better than to approach the base and its nervous and trigger-happy defenders. The colonel commanding the base, seeing his dream of retirement finally coming true (command of the wing and base had traditionally been a final pre-retirement assignment for colonels who would never become generals), was bitterly disappointed to discover that the 1st Infantry Brigade did not have direct contact with the JCS and, that when the Joint Chiefs learned of the bombers and their cargo of weapons (and mass of fuel) they ordered the bombers to remain in place until further orders were issued.

1st Infantry Brigade's advance to Tupelo was a slow and difficult journey. Six of the dams along the Tenn-Tom had been damaged and needed the locks rebuilt, a task that took almost six weeks per dam. (Work proceeded simultaneously, so that the process took a little over five months). The brigade's logistic support moved by barge (escorted by armed tugs and small craft), limiting the range of the infantry operating shoreside. Resistance was surprisingly heavy, coming from the odd New America cell, right-wing extremist gangs (armed remnants of the KKK) and desperate farmers who were afraid that the reestablished government wanted nothing more than to confiscate their meager crops. Upon arrival at Tupelo, the brigade was forced to lay siege to the town to depose a local warlord and Elvis impersonator named Elvis The Second or "The Second King" (Tupelo was the birthplace of Elvis Presley) and his criminal militia, the Sons of the State Line Mob. The town fell after six weeks of deprivation for the civilian population, although State Line sympathizers maintained a low-level resistance movement in the area for years afterwards. The population of Tupelo was overwhelmingly hostile to the Army, requiring 1st Brigade to impose a curfew and actively patrol the town. In encounters between the criminals and the Army, the battle-hardened European veterans routinely defeated the criminals with minimal loss, but the soldiers were limited in their ability to pursue the fleeing gangsters by low numbers and a dearth of vehicles and fuel for them and further expansion of Milgov control was slowed by the lack of friendly troops to perform security missions for travel on the highways, requiring the infantrymen to carry out patrols rather than expand into adjacent counties.

Further to the west, the 3rd Armored Brigade faced less resistance. The Mississippi Delta, one of the richest farming areas in North America, had suffered severely following the nuclear exchange. The flood control system along the Mississippi River had deteriorated, and the damage from the resultant flooding had not been repaired. The agricultural economy had changed in the decades after the Second World War, with ever more large corporate farmers replacing the small landholdings and sharecropping that had dominated since the Civil War. Mechanized farming required less labor, and the Mississippi Delta suffered from a steady decrease in population. When the supply of petroleum, spare parts and fertilizer stopped food production, like elsewhere, collapsed. The poor and mostly black local population extended their traditional hospitality to refugees from the cities and Gulf Coast, but the refugees were totally unfamiliar with farming, leaving food production to those older locals who remembered the old ways of farming. Many refugees starved in the first years following the nuclear exchange, and the farmers were under constant pressure from bandits that roamed the roads and rivers. By the time Milgov troops arrived the surviving population was much depleted and very willing to support Milgov in its attempt to restore order. To protect the farmers from raids by desperate refugees and bandits, roads were patrolled and an organized food distribution system was established. Milgov civil affairs troops worked with local leaders to restore functioning local government and to organize the surviving refugees into labor, security and transport units to augment the 3rd Armored. While electrical power was not restored (the local plants relied on natural gas or coal from outside the state) life in the Mississippi Delta improved substantially in the spring and summer of 2001. Of vital importance was the repair of the levees along the Mississippi, a task led by SeeBees of the 27th Naval Mobile Construction Battalion and augmented by the combined labor of locals, refugees and soldiers. While the 3rd Armored had arrived in Greenville after the planting of the spring crop, the community organization, levee repair and increase in security set the stage for the Mississippi Delta to perform as the breadbasket of the southeast in 2002.

With the cooperation of the local population, the 3rd Armored Brigade was able to quickly eliminate the majority of marauder bands operating in the counties surrounding Greenville. The Brigade's reconnaissance troop began to send long-range patrols out to the north and west, establishing sporadic contact with the 197th Infantry Brigade at Memphis and with the Milgov-friendly Arkansas state government in Little Rock. Covert long-range patrols scouted as far west as Texarkana and the ruins of Shreveport, locating the outer pickets of the Texian Legion in the woods of East Texas. The majority of the brigade's patrolling efforts, however, were concentrated on establishing a Milgov presence along the major roads leading to the other Milgov cantonments in Memphis, Tupelo, Jackson and Vicksburg, gradually fanning farther from the main road and rail lines as banditry was driven deeper into the forests of northern Mississippi.

In the south, the 6th Infantry Brigade established its headquarters at Camp Shelby and began to expand the area under Milgov's control. With the backing of the 6th's regulars, the guardsmen of the Mississippi 2nd State Guard Regiment became more aggressive in their patrols, clearing Interstate 59 north and east to Meridian. The 6th, meanwhile, sent task forces west and south to establish clear lines of communications with Natchez and the Gulf Coast, respectively. In this effort they were hindered by the massive damage inflicted by the hurricane of August 1998. Downed trees blocked many of the roads and power and telephone lines were likewise downed by the storm. Efforts were initially made to transport the downed trees to sawmills for use as lumber for the reconstruction effort, but it was quickly discovered that less precious fuel was consumed if fresh timber from near the sawmill was used, rather than moving heavy logs miles on scarce heavy trucks. The fuel shortage slowed tree clearing considerably as gangs of troops and civilian volunteers (in reality, press-ganged civilians from the refugee camps in and around Camp Shelby) manually cleared roads with axe, saw and flame. By the end of the summer of 2001, troops of the 6th had reached the Gulf Coast at Gulfport and were within 20 miles of Natchez, having cleared major stretches of Interstate 59 and U.S. Routes 49, 84 and 98. During this period the troops also restored order to the areas between these roads, resulting in effective Milgov control of the entire state south and west of Jackson and Hattiesburg. With assistance of the engineer battalion of the 2nd Raider Brigade from Mobile the 6th was able to open the port of Gulfport. The cranes, warehouses, power and water supplies had been destroyed, but the harbor was cleared to a depth of 36 feet (after the removal of a wrecked Liberian freighter) - deep enough to dock any naval ship up to cruiser size or a 250,000-barrel tanker. Within a week, Milgov deployed the destroyer tender USS Yellowstone to Gulfport to provide berthing, electrical power, drinking water and machine shop support to troops ashore. The Yellowstone also brought along a crew of approximately 500 sailors from Task Force 34 ships tied up in Mobile Bay. These sailors, like their brethren around the world, soon found themselves engaged in relief and reconstruction tasks ashore.

By Christmas, 2001 V Corps was able to report to the JCS that the states of Alabama and Mississippi were mostly under Milgov control. Civilian travel along the main highways was once again safe, the Tenn-Tom waterway had been reopened and begun moving barges (under escort) through to the Mississippi and Tennessee rivers. The Mississippi State Guard had been trained and equipped so that they could assume responsibility for internal security. This left V Corps' 3rd Armored Brigade, 6th Infantry Brigade and all but one battalion of the 1st Infantry Brigade available to move across Louisiana and engage the Texian Legion in the spring of 2002.

For V Corps, an economic long-term goal, which demanded restoration of natural gas production (and renovation of the gas distribution network), was the reopening of Alabama's steel mills - the mini-mills in Birmingham, Decatur and Tuscaloosa, and the integrated steel mill at Gadsden, with the ability to turn out over four million tons of steel a year. The restoration of natural gas production would also allow electrical service to be restored through all areas of the region. Fortunately, the mouth of Mobile Bay was a productive gas field before the nuclear exchange. In late 2001, a team of petroleum engineers and rig operating personnel were flown into Mobile from CENTCOM (via a long airbridge operated by the 53rd Aerial Port Squadron) to bring the gas field back online. The drill rig Cecil Brown, laid up in Mobile Bay during the war, had been reactivated in the Mobile shipyards, and by February 2002 there was a trickle of natural gas flowing ashore. It would be another six months until the pipelines to Tuscaloosa were repaired and another year of repair, retraining and organization until the first of the steel mills began production. Throughout 2002 and 2003 the electricity in Alabama and eastern Mississippi came back on for a few hours each day, demonstrating to the civilian population that Milgov was bringing American life closer to normal.

In the fall of 2001 XIX Corps and V Corps faced a new problem - the growing threat presented by New America from both east and west. August saw New America defeat the self-proclaimed "Sea Lord of Jacksonville", and in September New America sympathizers in the 108th Infantry Division and 35th Engineer carried out a coup d'etat, delivering most of Georgia and the Carolinas to New America, leaving the extremist organization in control of the eastern seaboard from south of Norfolk to the Florida panhandle and the interior areas from the coast to deep into the Appalachians. While the rare encounters between Civgov and Milgov troops in eastern Alabama had been tense but peaceful, New America patrols uniformly clashed with Milgov patrols and began to raid forward outposts of XIX Corps. In the west, numerous reconnaissance teams attached to the 197th Infantry Brigade from Memphis disappeared in northern Arkansas before a team composed of European veterans identified a major New America cell in the Ozarks. The New America threat was one that could not be addressed solely by V and XIX Corps - the guidance of the JCS was needed to coordinate Milgov operations. In the meantime, V Corps' mission was to link up overland with VII Corps.

[chico20854]

This is the last segment for a while... the posting has caught up to what has been written!

VII Corps in Texas

VII Corps was structured somewhat differently than III Corps and V Corps - it had heavier equipment and air support. The portion of Task Force 34 that carried VII Corps home accompanied the part carrying V Corps back to Mobile, Alabama. Upon arrival in Mobile, VII Corps received what little heavy equipment that was available to Milgov troops in Alabama (the 2nd Marine Raider Brigade, Aviation Training Brigade, 17th Airborne Division and 59th Ordnance Brigade) and helicopters from Fort Rucker and formed the 2nd Armored Cavalry Battalion, 17th Field Artillery Battalion and 11th Aviation Battalion. VII Corps then conducted a few weeks of company and battalion-level exercises before loading the 2nd Cavalry Battalion and 35th Armor Battalion, 1st Armored Brigade (which incorporated most of the heavy equipment between the two units) onto the remnants of the USS Still to be Determined! amphibious group and the rest of VII Corps onto the Omega fleet. Lurking offshore was a surprise reinforcement - the USS Eisenhower and part of its battle group, and most importantly, a scratch air wing composed of remnants of Eisenhower's Carrier Air Wing 7, elements of Enterprise's Carrier Air Wing 20, USS Lexington's Carrier Air Wing 21 and training aircraft from along the Gulf Coast. While VII Corps was ashore training, the tanker USS Wabash from CENTCOM rendezvoused with the Eisenhower group and transferred 85,000 barrels of JP-5 and 400 tons of munitions, allowing Eisenhower to resume flight operations. After a short voyage across the Gulf of Mexico, VII Corps began the liberation of Texas.

DIA teams had conducted a reconnaissance of the south Texas coast and become familiar with the political situation in the region. The DIA teams had identified four groups that were actively opposed to the restoration of Milgov control - the remnants of the Mexican Army (broken into four warring factions), the Soviet Division Cuba, the Texian Legion and assorted local marauder bands. Likewise, they had identified two groups that would be able to help restore order to Texas - the South Texas Grange and the remnants of the Texas Rangers - legitimate representatives of the state government. DIA liaison teams established contact with the latter two organizations and VII Corps prepared to rely on them as local civilian authorities. All other armed groups were to be considered hostile.

A special case was the Soviet Division Cuba. The DIA teams reported that the division, based in and around San Antonio, was suffering from low morale, desertion and harassing attacks from local guerrillas. In addition, the division had recently sent a detachment to Brownsville, Texas that had routed a marauder band that controlled the city, and, more importantly, captured a small refinery and intact offshore oil platform. Production from the well and refinery was imminent, which would grant Division Cuba unparalleled mobility and allow it to return its Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters to the air over Texas.

The CG, VII Corps decided to take a carrot and stick approach to Division Cuba. At dawn on January 1, 2001, General Konstantin Femerov, commander of Division Cuba, was rudely awakened by the roar of jet engines as his headquarters at Lackland Air Force base was buzzed by over two dozen fighter and attack aircraft. Shortly afterwords, an American helicopter landed at the base and Major General Harrison Richards, CG, VII Corps, stepped out, accompanied by acting governor James "Big Tom" Thomas. They presented General Femerov with the choice of either accepting Milgov aid in evacuating Division Cuba from Texas or the commencement of active hostilities with VII Corps. Milgov aid in evacuation would consist of escorting Soviet troops, if desired, to a port on the Gulf Coast, where they could load onto some of the ships of the Operation Omega fleet - the remnants of the German merchant marine, refueled and for Division Cuba to keep and do as they pleased with (so long as they did not land on NATO territory). Due to the dilapidated state of the ships and port facilities, much of Division Cuba's armored vehicles would have to be left in Texas. The alternative would be around the clock bombing of Division Cuba followed by an offensive of combat-hardened European veterans. While being presented with this offer, General Femerov was informed that landing craft had appeared in the Gulf of Mexico outside of Brownsville, helicopters were landing troops outside of Brownsville and Port Isabelle, and that transmissions to Gulfwind 40 (the offshore oil rig) went unanswered. Knowing that production from the Brownsville facility had not yet started, the poor state of his division, and his deep desire to leave Texas, General Femerov accepted General Richards' offer, although he declined to accept the humiliation of having his soldiers, the only Warsaw Pact troops to invade the continental United States, escorted out of the country by enemy troops. Division Cuba was evacuated with honor through Brownsville saluted by troops of the 1st Armored Brigade, which had arrived to maintain order after the Soviet withdrawal.

The rest of VII Corps came ashore farther north in Texas and began to restore order. The 3rd Infantry Brigade came ashore in the less ruined part of Corpus Christi, making short work of the marauder band that occupied the Naval Air Station, while the 10th Mountain Infantry Brigade moved ashore from Port Lavaca. VII Corps headquarters established itself at the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station along with the 11th Aviation Battalion and headquarters of the 25th Naval Construction Regiment and 352nd Civil Affairs Brigade, while its 2nd Corps Support Command set up in Port Lavaca to take advantage of the vibrant market in food and other goods needed to maintain the Corps.

General Richards had to restrain his commanders from becoming over-eager in liberating territory - he wanted to restore order, security and some semblance of an economy in one county per brigade before moving farther inland. Mexican Army units of any faction were to be engaged if overtly hostile. If within the counties under VII Corps control, Mexican Army units that did not act in a hostile manner (always a difficult decision to ask low-level soldiers to make) were to be relieved of heavy weapons and directed to head south to Mexico. Marauders and members of the Texian Legion were to be engaged on sight. To help with the maintenance of law and order, whenever possible Texas Rangers, sheriff deputies or local police accompanied patrols and were present at perimeter checkpoints. Their local knowledge and civilian law enforcement authority (while technically not needed due to the martial law decree) went a long way in identifying local criminals and building Milgov credibility as more than an occupying force. DIA reconnaissance teams and members of 1st Company, 10th Special Forces Group (VII Corps' special operations unit, composed of a smattering of Special Operations and Ranger-qualified troops from seven NATO nations) sought out marauder havens in areas beyond the counties under Milgov control, which were then attacked by troops from the 2nd Cavalry Battalion, helicopters from the 11th Aviation Battalion or aircraft operating from the USS Eisenhower or ashore from Corpus Christi Naval Air Station. In the absence of Soviet troops, San Antonio suffered from a month of near-constant gang warfare, as groups of marauders, deserters and Mexican factions fought for control. After three weeks of chaos, the Banditos outlaw biker gang (allied with a yet unidentified! Mexican drug cartel rolled into town and imposed a harsh order. General Richards was not happy with this development but did not have the resources to act, and so was forced to simply monitor events and wait until he had the strength to dislodge and destroy the bikers.

Typical operations for a brigade saw two light infantry battalions maintaining outposts and patrols along the borders of the county, the other infantry battalion providing security for vital infrastructure (power plants, oil wells, water purification plants, refugee camps and industrial facilities) and a quick-reaction company, the military police battalion providing security for the headquarters, convoys outside the county and roving mounted area patrols. The SeeBee detachments, operating under orders from Corps HQ and acting governor Thomas' reconstruction tsar, worked on repairing roads and key railroad lines, fixing or replacing bridges, irrigation systems, water supply systems, power and telephone lines and the port facilities along the Gulf Coast. They also worked to restore electrical power plants, oil production facilities and the other infrastructure needed to restart America. Civil affairs teams from the 352nd Civil Affairs Brigade worked to identify local leaders and prewar government employees that could resume local civil government and interviewed refugees to identify those with useful skills (medical, engineering, teaching, administrative, mechanical, etc.) and to establish food distribution systems and a labor pool to augment the soldiers.

VII Corps' reconstruction plan envisioned building up a secure base along the Gulf Coast south of Houston, which could provide food and fuel (from reactivated onshore and offshore oil wells) to sustain future liberation of Texas. Once that secure base had been set, VII Corps brigades would expand county by county, first securing the Gulf Coast and expanding west to the Interstate 35 corridor. Moving north along the Interstate, the Corps planned to clear San Antonio of the Banditos and sweep the remnants of the Mexican Army from Austin and Waco, linking up with forces of XIII Corps moving south from their cantonments at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and Wichita Falls, Texas, skirting the ruins of the Dallas - Fort Worth metropolitan area. After establishing secure communications by road and rail with XIII Corps (and by extension, with Milgov headquarters in Colorado Springs), the combined forces would then move east and, in coordination with V Corps advancing west from Louisiana, encircle the forces of the Texian Legion. Following that operation, VII Corps would continue to clear Texas of Mexican Army troops and marauders of all types, while continuing the reconstruction effort.

In the initial months of VII Corps operation, they were able to achieve several successes. In Corpus Christi, 3rd Infantry Brigade cleared the city of marauders and bandits and began regular security and stability patrols. Behind this wall of friendly troops, the SeeBees of the 53rd Naval Mobile Construction Battalion began the task of clearing major roads through Corpus Christi of rubble, debris and abandoned cars. They also checked the berths in the Port of Corpus Christi, and found several that were capable of docking ocean-going vessels. While the cranes in the port had been damaged beyond repair by the blast, the port could still handle ships that had cranes aboard or roll-on/roll-off ships. On an interim basis a 35-ton construction crane was parked on a flat-decked barge to unload ships that called, until a real floating crane barge could be found or shoreside cranes fabricated. The electrical power plant in the port area was refurbished but not brought online due to lack of fuel for it. A quick survey of the refinery complex on the west side of Corpus Christi confirmed that nothing usable had survived the airbursts and subsequent firestorms. Likewise, nothing useful remained of the helicopter maintenance and overhaul facility on the naval air station after the military abandoned the facility and marauders occupied it. The barracks were usable after a thorough cleaning and some relatively minor repair, and most importantly the runway and some of the hangars were undamaged. A detachment of aircraft was stationed there to provide air support to VII Corps units. This detachment consisted of the 11th Aviation Battalion's AH-1, UH-1, OH-58 and CH-47 helicopters and a composite Navy-Air Force squadron of T-34Cs (fitted with hardpoints for bombs, rockets and gun pods), a pair of A-7s and a DC-3 transport.

After the departure of Division Cuba, 1st Armored Brigade began multiple reconstruction and security tasks. First priority was providing security and support for Gulfwind 40 and the refinery in Port Isabel. The security task was a challenge due to the brigade's proximity to Mexico and the stream of people crossing in both directions. The brigade commander decided to simply close the border to all northbound traffic that was not of a clearly commercial nature, while anyone who wanted would be permitted to leave the U.S. Tense unofficial negotiations with Mexico authorities in Matamoros established a ceasefire between armies that remained on their respective side of the border and an agreement to share information about marauder bands in the area, such as the remnants of the Familia that had been pushed out of Brownsville by Division Cuba. The low population in the area forced the 1st Armored Brigade to depend more on the supply of food from VII Corps's 2nd Corps Support Command than the other brigades operating in Texas. A weekly shuttle boat sailed the Intracoastal Waterway from Port Lavaca to Brownsville and back, bringing food southbound and refined petroleum northbound. 1st Armored Brigade was able to expand the area of its control north to include the town of Harlingen quite quickly, and by the end of April 2001 was sending patrols as far west as Laredo. (Those patrols reported that much of the northbound traffic that was shut down by the brigade was diverted west to Laredo, but like the Banditos in San Antonio that was a problem to be solved at a later time.) A SeeBee detachment from the 121st Naval Mobile Construction Battalion operated the refinery while the rest of the battalion performed a multitude of other reconstruction tasks.

Under the protection of the 10th Mountain Brigade, SeeBees from the 11th Naval Mobile Construction Battalion, both based in Port Lavaca, were able to restore several oil and gas wells within Calhoun County that had been only lightly damaged in the war. Using this gas and a combination of local and military expertise, the SeeBees were able to restore operation of a water purification facility and, more importantly, one of the three power plants in the county. There was only enough natural gas provided by the wells to run the plant for two hours a day, but the lights coming back on in Port Lavaca and armed American troops patrolling both the city streets and the country roads delivered an important message to the people of Texas - the government was there, and it was there to help the citizens.

[Adm.Lee]

Originally Posted by chico20854

and a DC-3 transport.

Man, those things are like roaches! Everything else is grounded, but one of these is still flying!

Any chance the Confederate Air Force home base in Harlingen has anything salvageable?

Again, this has been great to read.

[stilleto69]

Excellent work as always Chico, but I have a couple of questions: 1.) Isn't CVW-20 assigned to the USS Stennis & CVW-11 assigned to the USS Enterprise? 2.) What happened to the USS Enterprise? and 3.) Wasn't the Stennis assigned to LANTFLT as per your US Naval Aviation Orbat?

Just curious? But again GREAT WORK!

[Graebarde]

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

Man, those things are like roaches! Everything else is grounded, but one of these is still flying!

Any chance the Confederate Air Force home base in Harlingen has anything salvageable?

Again, this has been great to read.

Their like a Timex. Get a licking and keep on ticking. In '87 there were at least six of them sitting at McAllen airport in flyable condition. McAllen is next the Harlingen BTW.

As for the CAF, they moved to Midland-Odessa about this time frame IIRC. But most of the aircraft in the CAF was not located at Harlingen as it's privately owned and comes and goes for shows etc. B17, B24, B26, Mustangs, and god knows what all else they have in their fleet. All avgas consumers though.

And added cudos to Chico and gang for thier timeless work of excellence.

Grae

[chico20854]

Originally Posted by stilleto69

Excellent work as always Chico, but I have a couple of questions: 1.) Isn't CVW-20 assigned to the USS Stennis & CVW-11 assigned to the USS Enterprise? 2.) What happened to the USS Enterprise? and 3.) Wasn't the Stennis assigned to LANTFLT as per your US Naval Aviation Orbat?

Just curious? But again GREAT WORK!

Thanks!

I worked with Matt Wiser on the USN Aviation a bit after I put the orbat up on my site. I'll have to get around to updating the web site...

Here is the quick breakdown we're using these days:

CVW 1 - America
2 - Kitty Hawk
3 - JFK
5 - Connie
6 - Forrestal
7 - Ike
8 - TR
9 - Nimitz
10 - Independence
11 - Lincoln
13 - Washington
14 - Ranger
15 - Vinson
16 - Midway
17 - Saratoga
19 - Coral Sea
20 - Enterprise
30 - Stennis
21 - Lexington
56 - Oriskany

When Enterprise moved to the Atlantic Fleet, CVW-11 stayed in the Pacific. Enterprise went to war with a reserve air wing, CVW-20, and was damaged during the Kola operation. It retired to Belfast and remained there until TF 34 sailed back to the U.S., when it accompanied the fleet to Norfolk. The remnants of CVW-20 were integrated into Eisenhower's as the Atlantic Fleet's primary active carrier.

Stennis was newly delivered from the shipyard at the outbreak of war (commissioned in January 96). She was still on post-commissioning workups, so she was not in the initial operations in the Pacific. The air wing that was scheduled to deploy on Stennis upon her entry into full service instead stayed on Ranger (which was to decommission) and it was decided to have the reserve air wing CVW-30 do its workups on Stennis as she was doing her workups. When she was declared ready to deploy the powers that be decided to leave CVW-30 aboard.

I'd hope that not much of the CAF was at Harlingen. Too close to the border. On a practical level, the CAF would not be of too much use - maintenance intensive, need to find real machineguns for it, modern ordnance generally won't fit on WWII-era bomb racks, and they run off of real AvGas (100% octane, not kerosene JP-8 Jet fuel).

[stilleto69]

Thanks Chico for the update. I'll change my orbat.

[Matt Wiser]

Nicely done, Chico. Now, what's going on west coastwise? Or have you guys even discussed things west of the Rockies?

[chico20854]

Originally Posted by Matt Wiser

Nicely done, Chico. Now, what's going on west coastwise? Or have you guys even discussed things west of the Rockies?

We have discussed it in detail.


And written none of it down yet.

I'm going to try to find some time in the next few weeks to write some more... I can claim to the family I have an "important project" I need to work on and avoid endless days of babysitting!

[Mohoender]

Originally Posted by chico20854

I'm going to try to find some time in the next few weeks to write some more... I can claim to the family I have an "important project" I need to work on and avoid endless days of babysitting!

That will be perfectly true and we can all be brought up as witnesses of how impotant this project is. Not to you only but to an ever growing international community.