On this day 25 years ago

[chico20854]

June 12, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

Throughout the world, nearly all of the carefully husbanded reserve stockpiles assembled so carefully and at great expense in the months and years leading up to the nuclear exchange have been emptied. Even the most ambitious plans were for at most 90 days of supplies of food, fuel and strategic materials; by this point it has been nearly a year since the first nuclear weapons were used and over seven months since the attacks on the Soviet, British and American homelands. Most of the few remaining stockpiles are intact because they have been lost or because various small groups are maintaining tight control over their contents, usually for nefarious purposes.

Ex-corporal Nathan Snyder, now a marauder in New York City's Hells Own gang, leads a group of six other gang members (including his girlfriend, the gang leader's younger sister) in an attack on an isolated New York State Guard outpost. The attack succeeds in killing three guardsmen and driving the others off, yielding the dead militiamen's M1 Garand rifles and ammunition, steel helmets and a cache of food and a TA-1 field phone.

2nd Mexican Army's assault on California continues, with Brigade Ensenada reaching the San Diego Naval Base's southern perimeter, which has been hastily reinforced by armed sailors from the San Diego Recruit Training Command. The Mexican Air Force flies six additional companies of paratroops in Miramar Naval Air Station; the growing airborne force aggressively pushes combat patrols out in all directions. One of these patrols, which has set up ambush positions along Interstate 15, intercepts a USMC convoy headed into the city. The convoy of trucks carries over 100 tons of ammunition from the range complex at Camp Pendleton, ordered hastily loaded by recruits training at the rifle ranges and rushed to arm the recruits training at MCRD San Diego. The trailing 5-ton truck, commanded by an aggressive Corporal who lost an eye during 1st MarDiv's evacuation of Yadz and manned by three privates, escapes the ambush and takes back roads onto the base, bringing nearly 300,000 rounds of 5.56 ball ammo to the the defenders. The truck, however, does not carry any grenades, anti-tank weapons, linked ammo for machineguns or SAWs, mines or grenade launcher ammunition.

The Mexican 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment has reached Interstate 8, blocking what little traffic the limited fuel supply permits. The Mexicali Brigade's cavalry regiment continues northward, with lead elements arriving in Palm Springs, while its 8th and 78th Infantry Regiments turn east to deal with the American forces at MCAS Yuma and the garrison of the National Training center at the Yuma Proving Ground.

The Nogales Brigade's advance on Tucson continues, facing light resistance from scattered law enforcement officers, armed civilians and veterans, while warily watching its eastern flank lest the 111th Military Intelligence Brigade emerge from its garrison at Fort Huachuca.

The fighting in El Paso continues, with the Ciudad Juarez Brigade's troops maneuvering room limited by the desire to avoid the blast damage zone from the Soviet strike on the El Paso refinery in December. The limitation provides the garrison commander time to reinforce the basic training companies from the base with anti-aircraft weapons systems from the Air Defense Center and School; the Diana systems' 25mm guns and the 20mm PIVADs provide massive direct firepower to the otherwise lightly equipped infantry. The Torres Motorized Cavalry Brigade is still tied up with the Texas State Guard's 9th Brigade, which has retreated to high ground dominating the northern exits to the city.

The remote town of Marfa, Texas falls to the Chihuahua Brigade's 10th Motorized Cavalry Regiment; the 20th Motorized Cavalry Regiment is closing on the town while the horsemen of the 30th Cavalry Regiment provide screening for the brigade's three battalions of infantry, who are advancing on foot through the scorching desert heat.

Further east in Texas, the Monclova Brigade, reinforced by informal militias from refugee camps at the Eagle Pass Auxiliary Airfield and Laughlin Air Force Base's auxiliary field, wheels northwest along Highway 277 to move on Del Rio and its garrison of Texas State Guardsmen and the trainees and staff at the USAF basic training center at Laughlin.

The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment drives the 1st Texas Brigade out of the town of Laredo, inflicting heavy casualties on the Texans who have no means of halting the Mexican armored vehicles. The 2nd Mechanized Brigade has hit a roadblock when trying to advance through Harlingen, with unexpectedly fierce resistance from the cadets of the Marine Military Academy, who have fortified their campus over the preceding months. An advanced detachment's DN-V Toro armored personnel carrier falls victim to an improvised anti-tank mine, and the Mexican attempt to rescue the crew is thwarted by cadet machinegun fire. The brigade's commanding general (the Mexican Army, with more than 500 generals, has generals commanding brigades) orders a halt to forward progress while the situation can be evaluated. The Matamoros Brigade has linked up with the remaining inhabitants of the largest two refugee camps in Brownsville and cleared out several outposts of sailors from the Makin Island. At dusk the brigade's troops have the five-story high partially completed amphibious assault ship, still on land at the shipyard, in sight and place it under harassing fire.

The skies over the southwestern US are a little more active. The Mexican 401 Squadron's F-5Es fly photoreconnaissance missions at dawn, overflying sites as far north as the outskirts of Dallas, and after lunchtime fly a second sortie in support of 4th Army, striking runways and barracks at Laughlin Air Force Base. The 6th Air Defense Artillery Brigade commander at Fort Bliss authorizes the use of all anti-aircraft missiles on base against the PC-7 turboprop light attack aircraft that are harassing movement on the base; the shootdown of one of the aircraft two hours later by a Patriot missile marks the low point on the value of missile-to-target tradeoff but succeeds in convincing the Mexican pilots to be much more conservative in their behavior over the lines. 402 Squadron's aged T-33 trainers spend the day scouting for reinforcements headed for the San Diego area, attacking some Marines at Camp Pendleton and strafing the flight lines at NAS North Island and Camp Pendleton. American aircraft make their first appearance over the battlefield, with a flight of four AT-38 trainers from Holloman Air Force Base's 433rd Tactical Fighter Training Squadron dropping 250-lb bombs on the Torres Cavalry Brigade, a mission guided by spotters with the Texas State Guard. The mission is partially successful, but one of the trainers was nearly downed by an American Roland missile fired by an enthusiastic gunner at Fort Bliss which mistook the fast, low-flying fighter for a Mexican F-5.

In Colorado Springs, the Joint Chiefs struggle to get a clear picture of the situation. Communications with the combat zone are spotty at best and no remaining national-level intelligence collection assets (satellites, aircraft) are oriented towards the border. The units of the strategic reserve are fully committed to domestic duties and shortages of fuel limit the options for response. By the end of the day the first centrally-directed assets are preparing for movement towards the combat zone, as the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing at Hill AFB, Utah arms and prepares two flights of F-16s for transfer to Tinker AFB, Oklahoma. A courier is dispatched by light plane (a USAF Academy Cessna T-41 trainer) to Fort Irwin, California with orders for the 177th Armored Brigade and 1st Brigade, 4th Armored Division to move south to contain the invasion.

Naval commanders in San Diego use the array of harbor craft to ferry civilians, dependents and non-combatant personnel from the naval base to the Marine Corps base, returning with armed boot camp graduates who are rushed to the base perimeter or to throw up blocking positions on the narrow spit of land south of the Coronado Naval Base.

Mexican naval squadrons sortie from Veracruz in the Caribbean and Acapulco in the Pacific. Each task force contains a single LST and several auxiliaries loaded with Marines for follow-on landings to support the efforts along the coastlines.

The American cruiser USS Gettysburg, operating independently in the Mediterranean, strikes a defensive mine while conducting a gunfire raid on the Greek airbase at Araxos after failing to find any Greek surface craft other than small fishing boats and other small civilian craft. The AEGIS cruiser begins to rapidly take on water, and as midnight approaches the ship settles beneath the waves.