On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[chico20854]

September 24, 1997

As the southern German offensive gains momentum, NATO forces in Poland increase the rate of their withdrawal, practicing a scorched earth policy as they fall back.

Unofficially,

The Freedom ship San Antonio Freedom is delivered in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

The Battle of Hamhung continues to rage, with Soviet troops spending the day regrouping and struggling to contain the ROK 21st Division's assault while sheltering from the unrelenting American naval gunfire and air attacks, the North Korean air force having been swept from the skies long ago and Frontal Aviation largely diverted to European skies.

The Luftwaffe 3rd Luftjaeger Regiment is assigned to the US Marine Corps’ 6th MEB as reinforcements and to help defend its rear areas from Pact infiltrators.

Pact commanders scramble for trucks to sustain the offensive in the absence of reliable rail transport; Polish government authorities draft masses of civilian refugees to manually load and unload cargo from trucks into the portion of the Polish rail network that are still intact and operational. As Soviet railway troops work around the clock (the need is too high to limit themselves to night operations only) to restore or replace the bridges destroyed in Operation Barnyard Tiger they become targets for follow-on nuclear strikes, especially as combat units transiting from China and deep in the USSR and increasing masses of supplies pile up waiting to cross. Fed by satellite and aerial reconnaissance (both photographic and electronic), NATO targeting specialists dispatch additional rounds of nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and deep strike aircraft; some sites are hit three and even four times.

SACEUR inquires with the Norwegian government about the availability of Army units for service on the central front. The Norwegians are struggling to recover from the losses suffered in the Kola campaign and are non-committal, although they agree to divert nearly the entire production of their munitions factories to the battlefields of Poland and Germany, having rebuilt their units' holding to a level unmatched by NATO units on the Central Front.

40th Army, having regrouped and brought forces south following the evacuation of the 1st Marine Division, launches a series of attacks on the Bandar Abbas area. The104th Guards Air Assault Division's 387th Airborne Regiment, despite being depleted by months in action, is landed by helicopter west of the city, cutting the coastal road and overland contact with XVIII Airborne Corps.

As more and more elements of the 173rd Airborne Brigade arrive in Kenya the front stabilizes. The combat hardened American veterans, supported with a sprinkling of friendly air power and able to use advanced communications, logistics and intelligence assets, are more than a match for the hodgepodge Tanzanian and Ugandan expeditionary forces, which are suffering from months of action and are poorly led in the best of times.

[chico20854]

September 25, 1997

As 40th Army attacks the Bandar Abbas perimeter, the cruiser USS Salem is key to holding it. (Unofficially, the troops of the 1st Marine Division, after having over a week to rest and recuperate, are thrown back into action alongside 4th Marine Division and their British and Iranian allies. With overland communications to the rest of Iran cut, local transportation is forced to rely on dhows and other small craft in the Persian Gulf while Allied command scrambles for troops to break the Soviet deadlock on the coastal road.)

The Freedom ship San Jose Freedom is delivered in Pascagoula, Mississippi and the Brooklyn Freedom in San Diego, California.

A late-night fire breaks out at the Joliet Army Ammunition Plant in Illinois. The fire soon detonates some warheads on the AT-4 production line, destroying the building and killing six workers; the design of the plant (with multiple buildings, partially buried and surrounded by berms, each handling a small portion of production) prevents a wider disaster from occurring.

The airbases at Sembach and Lahr, Germany are hit by Soviet nuclear strikes. The main headquarters of 17th US Air Force at Sembach is destroyed but operations continue from alternate and backup field headquarters.

West of Warsaw, Pact troops shake off the effects of the nuclear strikes and resume their attacks on the withdrawing NATO troops; the lead elements are composed the East German loyalists, now fighting as part of a single VOPO regiment. The East German communists, a strange mix of fanatics and reluctant students and workers unfortunate enough to be in other Warsaw Pact countries at the outbreak of war and drafted into the unit, are used as cannon fodder by their Soviet commanders, who question their loyalty while simultaneously afraid that they will call out the Soviet for not being "good enough communists".

Deployment of new large formation from the US has largely stopped as the war consumes men and materiel at a pace that exceeds America's ability to replace. The best that Training and Doctrine Command can manage is sending Cohort squads, platoons and, once or twice a week, companies. These units are formed at the onset of basic training, allowing unit cohesion to develop throughout the soldiers' training, and are led by experienced NCOs (often recalled retirees or the lightly wounded being returned to duty), often by freshly minted officers. These units can be "plugged into" formations that have been ravaged in combat, taking advantage of the new parent command's already existing command structure. Deployment of these units is almost entirely by air, as there are adequate numbers of requisitioned civilian airliners to fly the troops over; westbound return flights carry heavily guarded POWs or wounded

In northwestern Iran, Kurdish guerillas, guided by Green Berets of the 5th Special Forces Group, execute a well-orchestrated campaign to interdict Soviet supply lines. They launch multiple ambushes along the roads leading from Azerbaijan as well as guiding F-15Es of the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing and A-6F bombers from VA-155, the last strike aircraft remaining from the USS Independence's air wing.

Pakistani lines across the entire front begin to buckle under weeks of relentless Indian assault. The Indian Army, sensing an opportunity, throws its last heavily mechanized formation, the XXI Corps, into action at the bulge in the Pakistani lines south of Lahore, crashing into the armored forces of the Pakistani II Corps. A massive tank battle ensues.

[ToughOmbres]

More excellent updates per usual.

Great to see more attention to the stockpiling from both FEMA and DOD prior to the Thanksgiving Day exchange. Good plot and adventure material-future updates eagerly awaited.

[chico20854]

September 26, 1997

Nothing in canon for today!

A detachment from the 1st Armored Brigade (Training) escorts the train that transports a large portion of the gold from the Fort Knox Bullion Depository to a secret, secure location.

The Soviet drive in Alaska is stalled by a poor (and deteriorating) supply situation and the increased resistance offered by X Corps, whose newly-arrived 197th Field Artillery Brigade is providing well-placed and timed heavy fire support to the front-line light infantry units facing the Soviets.

Naval gunfire support plays a key role in the defense of Allied positions in North Korea, with the USS Missouri alternating between supporting III MEF west of Pyongyang and the Chinese 31st Group Army and its American and British attacjhments holding the mouth of the Yalu. On Korea's east coast the heavy cruiser Des Moines is pulled south, off the gunline, its magazines depleted, fuel tanks running low and, most seriously, the liners of its eight-inch gun barrels in dire need of replacement. The ship heads to Pusan at top speed, its way cleared by an umbrella of American, Japanese and South Korean patrol aircraft.

With the supply of missiles becoming problematic, the 111th Air Defense Artillery Brigade consolidates into two battalions, 4th Battalion, 200th Air Defense Artillery with Patriots and 7th Battalion, 200th Air Defense Artillery with I-Hawks, with excess personnel transferred to other units. The brigade is assigned to XX Corps, facing the Italians in far southwestern Germany and is fortunate that the Italian Air Force in the sector is composed almost entirely of simple light attck aircraft and helicopters.

With continued NATO attacks on the rail lines into Eastern Europe, Pact logistics planners make greater use of the industry of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, taking the entire output from those nation's refineries and munitions plants and even depleting the national food reserves to feed Soviet soldiers at the front.

The NATO forces operating in southern Poland withdraw from Krakow after inflicting as much damage as possible on the industrial facilities of the nearby industrial center of Novy Huta. Their withdrawal is accompanied by streams of refugees, ordinary Poles who desperately seek a more comfortable life in the West as well as Free Polish Congress operatives and sympathisers who fear the reprisals that surely will accompany the returrn of Communist control.

The American carriers John F Kennedy and America are joined by the Royal Navy's last remaining carrier, HMS Illustrious, in the Mediterranean. The addition of the British ships's air wing (depleted as it is, consisting of 5 Sea Harriers (including two 2-seat trainers pressed into combat service) and 8 helicopters) provides additional anti-submarine and anti-surface screening, allowing longer-ranged American aircraft to range over the battlefields of Jugoslavia as the carriers remain on station at the mouth of the Adriatic.

The situation for NATO in the Balkans is grim. Both Belgrade and Bucharest are under attack by Pact troops and the Romanian and Jugoslav armies outside the capital cities are disintegrating under the weight of unrelenting Soviet nuclear attacks and increasing numbers of Soviet reservists flooding into the area, poorly trained and equipped as they are.

In Romania, the American 71st Airborne Brigade is joined by the 2nd Battalion, 6th Special Forces Group. Each airborne rifle company is paired with a Green Beret A-team and the brigade's service and support units (everythign from the air defense battery to the support battalion) is broken down, attached to individual companies as Soviet tank forces approach the 71st's positions in the Carpathians from all directions. The brigade's reserves of food, fuel and ammunition are placed in hidden caches as the final C-17 flight departs with as many of the wounded as can be crammed aboard.

Transcaucasian Front reels from the disruption to its supply lines in northwestern Iran; while doctrine calls for Soviet formations to carry 3-7 days of supplies aboard unit trucks the long distances and lack of functioning railroads mean that many units subsist only on daily supply deliveries. The KGB arrests Transcaucasian Front's deputy commander for the rear for deriliction of duty, despite his protests that the front was never provided the requisitie rear area protection division. More helpfully, the KGB dispatches several of its motor-rifle regiments to northwestern Iran to suppress the Kurdish uprising.

South of Lahore, Pakistan, a massive tank batle rages as Indian Vijayanta tanks of the 31st Armored Division clash with Pakistani Type 59s and M-48A5s. By noon the fighting has died down, as the remaining Pakistani tanks are hunted down by the numerically superior surviving Indian ones. Truckloads of Indian infantry arrive on the eastern edge of the battle area and begins streaming west.

[chico20854]

September 27, 1997

Another day without any guidance from GDW! Thanks guys! Unofficially,

The tanker Cacpon is delivered in Newport News, Virginia.

Gander Air Base, Newfoundland is struck by Soviet conventional cruise missiles launched by the Sierra-II class sub K-453; Headquarters, 170th Air Refueling Group is one of several buildings hit. Three KC-135 tankers and a transiting C-5 are lost.

The Victory ship Queens Victory leaves the shipyard in Oakland, California and loads military cargo for transit to Korea.

Another day of fierce battle rages in the eastern port city of Hamhung, North Korea. Allied forces are running low on supplies as US Naval commanders refuse to authorize merchantmen to sail through the minefields and North Korean and Soviet light craft which have arrived in the area following the departure of the Des Moines. The stream of refugees south has abated somewhat, as those most eager to flee have already left and the remaining population is too fearful to leave their shelters into an active battlefield.

The 72nd Field Artillery Brigade is pulled from the line and sent to the eastern Netherlands for rest and recovery.

Soviet troops reach the outer pickets of the US 1st Brigade, 40th Infantry Division (California National Guard) on the eastern outskirts of Lodz and are halted by the defenses the guardsmen have had a week or more to prepare.

A detachment from the Polish 28th Infantry Division occupies Krakow's Wawel Castle, signifying the return of the Polish Army to what some say is Poland's grandest city. NATO forces throughout Poland have uniformly fallen back from the Wisla River.

Although nearly all American Green Berets have been withdrawn from the Kola (a single B Team from 3rd Battalion, 20th Special Forces Group remains), Saami partisans continue their resistance to Soviet rule. Saami reindeer herders cautiously wander the summer's battlefields, scavenging weapons, ammunition and supplies that can be used to defend their villages when the opportunity for an uprising arises. Their American advisors work to train village militias, accompany the herders to gather intelligence, and undertake their own special missions, gathering intelligence and monitoring troop movements in and out of the region.

As Soviet tanks reach the brigade's outer positions, the commander of the 71st Airborne Brigade gives the order for the brigade to disperse into company-size units and scatter through the Romanian mountains. His order is echoed by the Romanian high command to all Romanian units remaining in isolated pockets throughout the country as Soviet and Bulgarian troops launch an armored force into the capital, siezing the refugee-packed main train station only a mile and a half from the Parliament. Elsewhere in the city, civilians sheltering in the city's metro system are panicked by the appearance of Soviet troops, who have entered the system from the city''s outskirts and are trying to use the network for concealed movement, avoiding the numerous Romainan defenders aboverground.

The German container ship Herm Kiepe completes discharge of its cargo of food, fertilizer and munitions in Brunsbüttel, Germany and departs for another load from Canada, carrying 100 containers of scrap aluminum.

The Iranian 9th Airmobile Brigade disengages from fighting the Soviet 32nd Army in the central Zagros, leaving their positions to Pasdaran units, and returns to the Persian Gulf coast aboard trucks.

The gap blasted in Pakistani lines south of Lahore beccomes a hole as additional Indian infantry battalions flood the area, pushing back the desperate Pakistani units on either flank. The Indian 31st Armored Division hurridly reconstitutes its surviving tanks, concentrating them in its 54th Armored Brigade, while the Pakistanis rush troops from Kashmir south and west.

[chico20854]

September 28, 1997

The 5th US Infantry Division (Mechanized) withdraws from Czestochowa, Poland, detonating a 10kt demolition charge in the industrial section of the city.

Unofficially,

The light frigate USS Hurst is delivered in Savannah, GA and manned by USCG personnel.

Headquarters, 170th Air Refueling Group is disbanded, with survivors and subordinate units reporting to the 101st Air Refueling Wing.

A team from the (much-depleted) 4th Spetsnaz Brigade locates a GLCM flight from the 485th Tactical Missile Wing in the forests and rough terrain east of Cologne, Germany. It immediately attacks, but is driven off by the USAF security force. The surviving Soviet commandos report the location, and soon Soviet commandos and pro-Soviet guerrillas are streaming into the area.

All along the front in Poland NATO forces give ground, practicing the half-forgotten tactics of a fighting withdrawal under nuclear conditions that they had long planned for in the many decades of the Cold War.

Orders from the alternate headquarters, 17th Air Force call for the withdrawal of the 112th Tactical Fighter Group (Pennsylvania National Guard) and its remaining 9 A-7 attack aircraft from Tuzla Air Base, Jugoslavia as the security situation in the country takes a turn for the worse. A hastily assembled fleet of C-130s, C-23s, C-17s and even C-2 light transports from the carriers in the Adriatic begin a round-the-clock airlift to evacuate the unit's personnel, equipment and what munitions and supplies that can be hastily salvaged.

The Iranian 9th Airmobile Brigade is trucked to the Jam airport, 120 miles southeast of Bushehr, where the Iranian Army is massing its remaining utility helicopters from throughout the Zagros.

The USS Salem moves west into the Persian Gulf and, guided by US Marine Force Recon troops, begins attacking the dug-in 387th Airborne Regiment's positions.

In northwestern Iran, KGB border guard motor-rifle regiments dispatched to suppress pro-NATO Kurdish guerillas begin operations; ominously their first actions involve rounding up civilian hostages from villages near recent attacks; several prominent local leaders disappear after being detained by KGB troops.

As an economy measure, new recruits (the fall intake of conscripts has been extended to 17-year olds) and reservists aged 35-40 (the current round for mobilization) are issued Second-World War-style uniforms when new camouflage battle dress are not available. The uniform consists of either a woolen greatcoat or quilted cotton jacket, riding breeches-style trousers and a pullover tunic with faux-leather jackboots. While less comfortable than more modern uniforms, they offer reasonable performance in harsh weather.

At dawn the Indian Army releases its XXI Corps into the hole in the Pakistani lines, led by the 31st Armored Division, which has been reinforced with several battalions of truck-mobile paramilitary troops. The corps breaks through the crust of Pakistani irregular infantry that have been thrown into action and soon is arcing deep into Pakistani territory, passing west of Lahore. Indian forces in Kashmir, noting the weakening of Pakistani lines opposite them, go over on the offensive, overrunning numerous Pakistani positions, held by troops that, in many cases, arrived just hours before and in third of the strength that had previously held the sector (i.e. a company holding a battalion's frontage).

[chico20854]

September 29, 1997

(Unofficially) With the front opposite it a rare quiet sector, NATO forces withdrawing from Poland and Allied commanders growing increasingly concerned about the long, lightly held (on both sides) southern East German border with Czechoslovakia, (officially) XV US Corps detaches the 38th Infantry Division (Indiana, Illinois and Michigan National Guards) to establish defensive positions south of Berlin. (Unofficially,) Retreating American corps deploy their assigned Armored Cavalry Regiments to serve as a screen covering the withdrawal of the rest of the corps; in many cases frustrated cavalry commanders discover that the supporting field and air defense artillery batteries, engineer companies and other support units assigned to them are "not available" when called upon, their troops bugging out rather than hang around and get overrun by advancing Pact troops. (According to canon) Two of the ACRs, depleted by months of hard tactical nuclear combat, are surrounded by Soviet armored formations that are able to outflank their extended lines - the 3rd ACR east of Piła and the 107th north of Bytom in Silesia.

Unofficially,

The American freighter Louise is reactivated in Oakland, California and moves to Puget Sound to load ammunition at the Port Hadlock naval ordnance facility.

Tokyo announces the formal incorporation of the Kurile Islands of Iturup and Kunashir back into Japan and appoints a regional governor and authorizes the creation of local government authorities. Elections for local officials are to occur in April, giving six months for officials, candidates and parties to prepare.

German territorial troops engage in numerous firefights in the Rhine Valley as Soviet special operations troops and pro-Soviet terrorist groups arrive in the region intent on attacking NATO nuclear weapons units.

In a final blow for Jugoslavia, the Bulgarian 1st Army crosses the now lightly-protected border (many troops having been diverted to other fronts) and makes rapid progress towards the town of Pirot, advancing down the valley of the Nišava River.

In the predawn hours the Iranian 9th Airmobile Brigade embarks in a mixed flotilla of Huey helicopters (old American built Bell 214s and Italian Augusta-Bell 205s), the remaining four UH-60s delivered in 1994 and a pair of CH-47s. Sunrise finds the brigade's troops landing amongst the Soviet paratroops of the 387th Airborne Regiment and, supported by the guns of the USS Salem and her escorts, a series of small actions erupts throughout the wadis and villages of the region. By midmorning supporting USMC EA-6 electronic warfare aircraft have identified the location of the Soviet regimental commander and his position is soon plastered with high explosives. As the situation continues to deteriorate for the elite Soviet force, at noon the deputy commander orders the remaining desnatniki to head for the hills, to return to friendly lines in small groups.

Pakistani lines crumble on a broad front as additional Indian motorized formations stream through the gap south of Lahore. The remnants of the Indian Army's II Corps (which saw many months of combat starting in the summer prior to being withdrawn for reconstruction) are committed once again, even though at 45 percent of authorized strength. That corps drives southwest, heading for the communications hub of Multan. Indian fighter-bombers break up a forming Pakistani infantry counterattack that sought to drive north and seal the hole in the lines.

[chico20854]

September 30, 1997

In Korea, 4th (my 1st) Marine Division suffers heavy causalities from tactical nuclear strikes and retreats from the front lines along the west coast of the peninsula.

Unofficially,

The 72nd Field Artillery Brigade, in the eastern Netherlands after being pulled from the front line, reorganizes. Surviving MLRS launchers are consolidated in one battalion (4th Battalion, 27th Artillery) and, as the M110 had been out of production for many years, 4-14 is reduced to a single battery of nine guns; the excess personnel are assigned to other artillery units in Europe and the identities of the deactivated units transferred back to Fort Sill.

The Pact offensive in southern Germany is making slow progress, as the Italian war economy is not yet ramped up to full production, Pact forces are hobbled by tranport bottlenecks entering the theatre and additional NATO forces arrive at the front from Poland and Scandinavia.

The American attack submarine USS Olympia moves west into the Barents Sea.

In the North Atlantic, the frigate HMS Southerland detects an enemy submarine and dispatches its Sea Lynx helicopter to engage. The helo locates the Tango-class B-319 and sinks her with a WE-177 nuclear depth charge.

The Jugoslav high command and governmental leaders depart Belgrade in an early-morning helicopter flight, arriving at the Crna Rijeka bunker in the mountains of Bosnia.

Bulgarian troops of the 1st Guards Motor-Rifle Division capture the town of Pirot, while Bulgarian paratroops land at the Nis Air Base.

While the prior day's assault west of Bandar Abbas has reopened the coastal road and Kurdish guerillas remain active in northwestern Iran, both Allied and Soviet forces in Iran are stretched to their limits logistically. Both sides' combatants are operating at the end of very long, unsecure supply lines that are being fed by nations on the brink, exhausted by months of intense combat.

The Pakistani army along the entire front begins to give way as Indian armored and motorized formations drive deeper into the country's heartland.

[Andrew]

This is stellar work, keep ‘em coming!

[chico20854]

October 1, 1997

In the skies over Iran, the operations tempo has slowed significantly as both sides' air forces struggle to obtain sufficient fuel, missiles and spare parts.

Soviet forces recapture Brzeg, Poland and institute brutal reprisals for the citizenry's unopposed surrender to NATO in the spring and friendliness to the Allied occupation force.

Unofficially,

The Freedom ship Jacksonville Freedom is delivered in Galveston, Texas.

The 11th Tactical Air Support Squadron is consolidated into the 18th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Eileson Air Force Base, Alaska (east of Fairbanks).

The Soviet 35th Army in western Korea goes on the attack, taking advantage of the nuclear strike on the American 4th (my 3rd) Marine Division the day before. Allied commanders are dismayed by the sudden and unexplained withdrawal of American carrier air support, forcing them to rely on much-depleted USMC and USAF units.

Headquarters, 17th Air Force is reconstituted at Neuberg AB, Germany.

The 11th Luftjaeger Regiment, originally a Luftwaffe reserve security unit dedicated to defense of radar and communication sites is placed under Army command, converted to infantry and committed to combat. It is deployed along a quieter sector of the Czech border, bolstering NATO's defense of that long and vulnerable sector.

The battered 75th Field Artillery Brigade is withdrawn from the front in northern Poland, handing over its remaining MLRS rocket launchers to III Corps' other artillery brigade, the 212th.

In Bavaria, as the struggle for Ingolstadt drags on, Italian and Soviet forces launch a surprise strike against Danish and Britsh forces, finally capturing Augsburg (or the ruins thereof, having been fought over since early August).

XI German Korps is withdrawn from the front lines north of Lodz and directed to prepare defenses along the Oder River opposite Frankfurt-Oder. The move will alos provide the corps, battered by months of fierce combat in Warsaw, an opportunity to rest and receive replacement troops; replacement equipment is in short supply.

Despite the efforts of HMS Illustrious, the Italian Navy strikes a blow against the NATO naval force operating in the Adriatic and Ionian Seas. NATO forces have permitted local fishermen to ply their traditional trade; Italy's hard-pressed government has exploited this generosity, using several of the craft to lay mines in the overnight hours. The submarine Primo Longobardo sneaks into the operating area in the darkness as well, tailing the USS America as it conducts flight operations. At mid-morning the carrier strikes one of the mines, disrupting operations and blasting a 15-foot long hole in the carrier's port side. As escorts race to assist, the Italian sub opens fire, hitting the carrier with two torpedoes as well as the destroyer Joseph Strauss. The American destroyer goes down while America remains afloat, forced to be withdrawn to Sigonella, Sicily for emergency repair.

Soviet forces on the ground in Iran continue local attacks to keep Allied defenses on alert and deny them the opportunity to rest and improve their positions unmolested.

[chico20854]

October 2, 1997

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[chico20854]

October 3, 1997

The last NATO troops are driven out of Silesia.

Unofficially,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[chico20854]

October 4, 1997

Nothing official for the day.

The Freedom ship Columbus Freedom is delivered in Pascagoula, Mississippi and the tanker Caliente is delivered in Baltimore, Maryland.

The commander of the USS Missouri is relieved of command for the unauthorized release of a nuclear-tipped TLAM cruise missile two days before. He is evacuated to Yokohama, Japan.

NATO forces in Bavaria launch a counterattack against Italian and Soviet forces that recently captured Augsburg. Ironically, the NATO attack is supported by the 17th Field Artillery Brigade, which is fighting to recapture its long-time peacetime barracks.

The attack submarine USS Olympia attacks the submarine support ship Amga and its escorting frigate Norka in the Barents Sea, sinking both Soviet ships as they sortied to support extended missile submarine patrols. The American sub expends its last Harpoon missiles in the mission.

The Indian government authorizes immediate retaliation for the Pakistani nuclear attacks on two of its three nuclear-capable air bases and major economic and population centers. Within hours, Indian Jaguar strike aircraft are roaring over Pakistan, wiping out the two Pakistani air bases that launched the strikes as well as the cities of Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and Islamabad. As the Indian aircraft are headed into Pakistani airspace, a second wave of Pakistani aircraft are headed eastbound, striking additional population and economic targets in the Indian heartland.

[chico20854]

October 5, 1997

Nothing in canon for today.

The Freedom-class cargo ship Tulsa Freedom is delivered in Beaumont, Texas, the Ft. Worth Freedom is delivered in Pascagoula, Mississippi and the Spokane Freedom in San Diego, California.

Canton, China is struck by a small Soviet tactical nuclear strike in a bid to cut off the trickle of relief supplies that daring captains continue to deliver.

The former commanding officer of the USS Missouri is arrested in Yokohama, Japan and charged with dereliction of duty for the unauthorized release of a nuclear weapon.

The NORTHAG G-4, the general responsible for the logistic support of most NATO units in Poland, reports that his efforts are at a critical state. His greatest concerns are the losses inflicted by Soviet nuclear weapons on his supply lines and support sites, the disruption of supply lines from damage to north German ports, the wholesale desertion of third-nation civilian contract workers and the near-total depletion of spare part supplies for former East German units. (Many former NVA units had subsisted during the advance across Poland by scavenging the battlefield for damaged Soviet and Pact vehicles for spares; while withdrawing that source has been cut off).

The NATO attack on Augsburg sees success, driving the Italian Ariete Armored Division from the city center, pushing the fighting to the city's southern outskirts; the nearby Battle of Ingolstadt is going less well for NATO, with American forces gradually being pushed out of that battered city.

In order to support the embattled Turkish Army in Thrace, 6th Fleet redirects the John F Kennedy, Wisconsin and Illustrious from the Adriatic to the Aegean Sea, hopefully forcing the Greeks to divert forces from the Turks and allowing JFK's aircraft to appear over the battlefield in Thrace. JFK's squadrons have been restored to full or near-full strength by the transfer of aircraft from the damaged USS America.

Turkish resistance in Thrace begins to evaporate as Soviet and Bulgarian tank units, supported by tactical nuclear strikes, begin a seemingly mad dash for Istanbul. Isolated units that stand and fight are bypassed or pounded to bits by conventional and nuclear artillery, while others streaming away from the battlefield in an attempt to survive find themselves competing with Pact units to see who reaches Istanbul first.

The German container ship Herm Kiepe arrives at the port of Becancour, Quebec to take on another load of containerized foodstuffs, industrial chemicals and munitions. The ship's master, nervous about the continuing and escalating nuclear exchange, is distressed by the presence of the Gentilly nuclear power plant a little more than a mile from his berth.

In one of the rare arms sales (the major arms manufacturers either retaining their output for themselves or their allies, or delivering to the Chinese under extremely large contracts signed in late 1995), France delivers the first AMX-40 tanks to Saudi Arabia, where they are placed into service with the 11th Mechanized Brigade, initially serving alongside older AMX-30 tanks from which the AMX-40 was developed. The deal helps to reinforce France's ties with the kingdom, hopefully (in the French calculus) encouraging preferred supplies of crude.

The Pakistani and Indian governments struggle to provide adequate relief to their populations in the wake of the nuclear attacks on their country.

[chico20854]

October 6, 1997

7th Guards Army renews its attacks against the 24th Infantry Division in the Bandar-e Khomeyni area. The Soviet 45th Army (my 32nd Army) debouches from the passes in the Zagros Mountains and attacks the positions of the 101st and 9th Divisions at Bushehr and Ganaveh. The Soviet 1st and 40th Armies have the US I Amphibious Corps (I have it as I MEF) pinned down at Bandar Abbas.

Unofficially

FEMA contractors complete the conversion of another facility - the Madera Speedway in Madera, California - to evacuee housing, taking advantage of the power, water and traffic handling already on the site.

The Guardian newspaper in the UK runs a story detailing how the draft papers of wealthy and influential families' sons had "gone missing". The article causes great anger from families whose sons reported for their mandatory military service.

The local military commander of the city of Xiangfan in central China declares himself the city's overlord and protector. The locality has suffered relatively lightly - its car plant (converted to military production) was destroyed by Soviet strategic bombers in the winter of 1995-6, sparing the city from a nuclear attack. The local population welcomes the declaration, with its implicit promise that the general will restore order and be able to coordinate the delivery of food, water and house the refugees flooding into the region from the north.

The commander, 3rd Fleet in Japan sets a November 8 trial date for the former commander of the battleship Missouri.

Faced with dwindling reserves and relentless attacks from the 1st Byelorussian Front's combined three tank armies seeking to exploit the boundary between V and XXIII US Corps, the commander of NORTHAG, over the objections of the Polish Free Congress, authorizes the creation of a tactical nuclear barrier along the Warta west of Lodz. After coordinated planning between both corps' operations cells and consultation with meteorologists, engineer and artillery units of both corps execute over a dozen nuclear strikes. The explosions, all ground bursts, are arrayed so that their blast radii overlap, creating a continuous line of blown-down trees, cratered or burned ground and intense radiation on the far shore of the river, hopefully impassable to Pact troops on foot or in unprotected vehicles. The blasts also create vast amounts of radioactive fallout which blows north, reinforcing the intensity of the radiation along the barrier line. The river valley is overwatched by mechanized detachments prepared to deal with armored vehicles attempting to cross the blast zone and approaching the river.

The USS Virginia hunter-killer group, operating as a team with P-3s from Keflavik and Goose Bay, establishes contact with a suspected Soviet SSBN and begins to hunt it. Over the next 16 hours they lose and re-establish fleeting contact six times.

Unable to stop the rout of its troops, the Turkish High Command directs all available reserves (mostly training formations and recently raised infantry units filled by recalled reservists and nervous teens) to the western edge of the Istanbul metro area, where there is an attempt to construct a defensive line at Catalca. That location, which succeeded in halting a similar Bulgarian drive in 1912, is a point where the isthmus is only 40 kilometers wide, much of which is bisected by lakes and waterways, forming a naturally strong defensive position. Military Police are stationed at the crossings to direct retreating soldiers seeking shelter from the battlefields in Thrace to positions along the nascent defensive line.

The survivors of the 341st (my 22nd Guards) Tank Division are formed into a single composite regiment, the 302nd Guards Tank Regiment, with 44 T-72s and a smattering of other armored vehicles salvaged from the ruins of the division’s trains. The unit begins drills in the local area in preparation for a continuation of its movement to the front in the Balkans.

[chico20854]

October 7, 1997

Nothing in canon for today. Unofficially,

The light frigate USS Camp is delivered in Panama City, Florida and manned by USCG personnel. The tanker Chikaskia is delivered in Newport News, Virginia and placed into naval service, manned by a mix of naval and civilian sailors.

Polish civil defense authorities resist the demands from high Party officials to enter the still-burning ruins of Warsaw to put out fires and begin rescue and restoration work. The General in charge of civil defense responds that the area is still too radioactive, is infested with unexploded ordnance from the recent siege and that his remaining overworked troops (many have been press-ganged into Army service as engineers and infantrymen) are better used restoring less-heavily damaged areas of the country.

Reorganized troops of the 35th Army in North Korea are able to resume some offensive action following the nuclear attack on their supply lines. The pontoon bridges have been replaced by a more primitive method - forced-labor by North Korean civilians taking loads across the river in small boats and rafts.

The Virginia group is finally able to establish a solid enough situation to engage the suspected Soviet boomer east of Greenland. A helicopter from the cruiser, piloted by Lt. Hans Brupp, drops a B-57 nuclear depth charge on the contact, identified by postwar research as the Yankee Notch-class cruise missile sub K-423, sinking it.

Romanian troops in Bucharest are forced out of the train station by a massive Soviet counterattack that is supported by a combined force of Su-130 assault guns and 2S3 152mm self-propelled howitzers firing in direct-fire mode. The fierce Soviet firepower sets the building ablaze and the roof collapses, forcing the remaining defenders into the tunnels under the building.

Bulgarian and Greek troops link up east of Skopje, Macedonia, having defeated or run off the last Jugoslav defenders in the southeastern portion of the nation.

[chico20854]

October 8, 1997

Nothing official for today!

R-5D spy plane number 6 is delivered in Palmdale, California.

Naval experts across the US are frantically searching old warehouses and back lots of naval bases and arranging visits to museum ships across the country as the naval ship repair organization struggles to come up with the parts to complete the reactivation of three Essex-class carriers - the Oriskany, Bennington and Hornet and the Independence-class light carrier Cabot as well as repair damage to the aged carriers Lexington and Midway, which have returned to the US in need of major repairs to systems that have been out of production for decades.

Allied troops finally begin to evacuate the ruined city of Hamhung, North Korea after weeks of pounding from Soviet forces and their ragtag North Korean allies. The fighting has left the city a mostly depopulated ruin, with the meagre industrial capacity leveled and the port clogged with wreckage and sunken craft.

A hasty reorganization occurs among units of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, which happen to be located in the UK. The 112th Tactical Fighter Group, evacuated from Jugoslavia and equipped with 9 A-7Ds, is effectively disbanded. Its subordinate 146th Tactical Fighter Squadron hands over its aircraft (and associated ground crew and experienced pilots) to the 132nd Tactical Fighter Wing (Iowa Air National Guard) in Germany, the only other A-7 unit in the Western European Theatre. The 146th is then re-designated an Air Refueling Squadron and assigned to the Pennsylvania Air Guard's 171st Air Refueling Wing at RAF Fairford. Simultaneously, nine KC-767 tankers, which have been gradually arriving in theatre and assigned on an ad-hoc basis to other 171st ARW squadrons, are transferred to the 146th, allowing planning, support and maintenance of the type to be centralized in a single organization.

Building on the strikes on Soviet rail lines in September, NATO executes a round of nuclear strikes on Czechoslovakian transportation sites and petroleum pipelines. In this round of attacks, Ground Launched Cruise Missiles fired from the UK substitute for deep-strike aircraft, which have suffered heavy losses over the nearly year of action. The attacks hit railyards, bridges, tunnels and highway junctions that are vital to transferring the relative trickle of supplies to the Western TVD.

The 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment, surrounded in central Poland, endures another round of intense Soviet artillery attacks. The unit is dispersed in rough terrain to avoid creating a lucrative target for a Soviet nuclear strike, but supplies are running low and most of the regiment's armor is immobilized due to lack of fuel. The regiment's air cavalry squadron, depleted by the drive from East Germany into the Ukraine, has evacuated to the west, temporarily bringing the 116th Armored Cavalry Regiment's air cav unit up to near-full strength.

The destroyer USS John Rodgers is sunk in the Aegean Sea by a torpedo from the Greek Type 209 sub Proteus as it escorts the battleship Wisconsin towards the Turkish Straits.

The first Bulgarian reconnaissance units arrive opposite the Turkish defensive line west of Istanbul. The Turks have managed to throw up a somewhat formidable defensive line in a few days, assisted by a massive number of civilian volunteers who are less than eager to see Soviet troops in their fine city. To the northwest, the Soviet 810th Naval Infantry Brigade embarks on a collection of naval amphibious and small civilian merchant ships in the Danube Delta.

XVIII Airborne Corps units are hard pressed to hold off the Soviet assaults on their front lines. The 101st and 9th Divisions rely on Iranian allies to defend their fixed base areas while the combat troops rely on their superior mobility to strike at the Soviets' flanks and rear and exploit the speed and superior mobility of their lighter force structure.

[chico20854]

October 9, 1997

Students of St George's Medical University in Grenada complete their vaccination drive against "the flu"; over 90% of the island's surviving population has received the jab, although one third of the prewar population has succumbed to the disease.

The Dutch 105th Recon Battalion is withdrawn to the Netherlands for refit following heavy losses to the Italian air force and army in southern Germany.

Unofficially,

The Army staff at the Pentagon authorizes the immediate raising of 20 medium and heavy truck companies to help address the growing shortage of transportation capacity in the theaters of war. Each medium company will field 60 Mack 8-ton trucks, while the heavy companies will be equipped with 96 tank transporters, military conversions of civilian heavy trucks that are underused by the Army but being produced in adequate numbers to equip the new units.

In reserve in a series of dispersed camps in central Germany, the American 75th Field Artillery Brigade is re-equipped following its transfer of its remaining MLRS launchers - it receives a full contingent of Lance missile launchers. Many of the senior officers and NCOs of the brigade's MLRS battalions are familiar with the older system and begin a series of rapid training classes to bring the junior troops up to speed on the short-range rockets. The new launchers are accompanied by four light infantry companies to serve as guards for the launchers and their nuclear warheads (all the conventional missiles were expended by allies months ago).

The last American troops (bar a handful of isolated pre-designated stay behind parties) evacuate Ingolstadt, while the main body of VII Corps withdraws into the uplands dividing the Danube and Main valleys. VII Corps' engineer brigade - the 7th - prepares obstacles to reinforce the natural barrier of the steep-sided and deep Altmühl River Valley. Pact forces in Poland keep up their relentless advance, with NATO forces aggressively counterattacking any Soviet or Polish units that achieve breakthroughs. Often these take the form of a tactical nuclear strike at the base of a Pact salient, followed by a vigorous armored thrust to cut off the forward elements.

The German destroyer Molders, operating in the Baltic protecting coastal shipping and providing air defense along the northern Polish coast, is attacked by a trio of Frontal Aviation Su-24s. The destroyer shoots two of them down but is hit by three AS-10 missiles from the last one, setting it afire and adrift.

The Wisconsin surface action group continues its foray into the Aegean Sea, covered by aircraft from the John F. Kennedy, whose squadrons have been augmented by aircraft and pilots from the damaged America. The Greek Navy makes an appearance, but after sighting the battlewagon (and losing a pair of destroyers to its guns) they flee to remote harbors and bays until the overwhelming power of the American group moves on. Once beyond Crete, the battleship and its escorts unleash a volley of nuclear-tipped TLAM cruise missiles, which strike all four of Greece's refineries, incinerating them and forcing Greece to rely on fuel imported overland from Bulgaria (which, in turn, is reliant on crude supplied by ports in the Black Sea which were struck several weeks ago by American nuclear weapons.

[chico20854]

October 10, 1997

The 6th ACCB and 82nd Airborne Division, in Saudi Arabia, are reported combat ready. The 82nd has been in reserve since May, and the 6th since August. During that time, they had absorbed the bulk of what few replacements had been sent from the US. The 6th ACCB had been able to replace some of its aircraft and aircrew losses.

Unofficially,

The light frigate USS Howard D. Crow is delivered in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin and manned by USCG personnel. The troop transport General Patch is reactivated from reserve in Philadelphia and towed, without a crew, south to the Chesapeake Bay, where it is anchored in St. Mary's, Maryland (at the mouth of the Potomac River) to serve as evacuee housing.

The 72nd Field Artillery Brigade's brief rest in the eastern Netherlands comes to its conclusion, the rest was brief, as it is rushed to the front in southern Germany under the command of XX Corps, helping to halt the Pact advance out of Bavaria.

The USS Virginia, hunting for Soviet subs in the western Norwegian Sea, is attacked by its quarry, the Akula-class attack submarine K-154, one of the most advanced subs in the Northern Fleet. The nuclear-powered cruiser is damaged by detonation of a torpedo warhead that struck Virginia's towed decoy; the blast damages one of the cruiser's rudders and causes leaks in the port propeller shaft. The sub goes on to attack another combatant in the hunter-killer group - the frigate Joseph Hewes, which is blown apart by two Soviet torpedoes.

The end comes for the Romanian government in Bucharest. The commander of the Southwestern TVD declares "we finally have all the rats cornered" and orders a rapid withdrawal of Soviet and Bulgarian troops from central Bucharest, followed shortly thereafter by five artillery-fired tactical nuclear strikes centered on the massive Palace of the People and the surrounding government and historic districts. The strikes result in massive civilian casualties (much like in Kiev, Warsaw and Minsk) and the final collapse of the Romanian government.

Romanian resistance to Soviet occupation, however, continues. Soviet, Bulgarian and Hungarian troops in the country are quickly discovering that the population remains hostile and it is best to travel in large, heavily armed groups and that the highlands of the Carpathians are strictly off limits to any force that is not well stocked with ammunition and with ready air support.

The Greek junta further tightens rationing of gasoline and diesel fuel, effectively reserving all remaining stocks for military use. Rolling blackouts accompany the shutdown of over 1.2 gigawatts of electrical generating capacity that are taken offline as remaining fuel oil stocks are requisitioned to sustain military operations.

US Air Force Europe is stripped of six squadrons of C-130s, which begin a transit to Saudi Arabia via Spain and Egypt. Military Airlift Command likewise dispatches multiple squadrons of C-17s and C-141s to the CENTCOM area of responsibility.

[chico20854]

October 11, 1997

The 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment, surrounded in southern Poland for over a week, expends the last of its vehicles ammunition in blasting a hole in the lines of the Polish and Soviet troops that have cut it off and begins to break out on foot, abandoning its vehicles.

Unofficially,

The Freedom ship Oklahoma City Freedom is delivered in Galveston, Texas.

In an attempt to slow the flow of weapons and reinforcements into China, the Soviets strike the port of Hong Kong with a 10kt bomb dropped by a Su-24. The strike is sufficient to halt operations at the port, sinking the large containership Newport Bay at its berth, destroying the operations center and convincing the surviving stevedores (the world's most productive) that their work is not worth the risk to their lives.

In North Korea, Allied troops continue to gradually give ground under pressure from Soviet nuclear strikes and a relatively-well supplied 30th and 35th Armies.

The American attack submarine Olympia sinks the Soviet troop transport Alla Tarasova, which is ferrying personnel from Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic, with a trio of Mk-48 torpedoes.

The Bulgarian Army makes an unsuccessful attempt to storm the Turkish defensive lines outside Istanbul. The Turkish outer pickets fall back in the face of Bulgarian armor (mostly composed of older T-55s and T-62s, with a sprinkling of T-34s thrown in to bring numbers up), luring the Pact tanks into an elaborately prepared urban armor ambush, with Turkish anti-tank teams located in basements and upper floors of multi-story buildings to attack the tank's weak spots. Only a scattered handfuls of survivors of the Bulgarian 104th Tank Regiment make their way back to friendly lines.

[chico20854]

October 12, 1997

Two battalions of Rangers and 82nd Airborne Division pathfinders are dropped into the Tabriz area. Accompanying them is the young female American journalist Fanya Ayn Wilkerson, who films the spectacular airborne assault upon Tabriz. The eerie grey-green of her low light-level mini-cam as she films the ghostly arrival of 6000 paratroopers descending in silence upon the sleeping city jolts the nation on the six o'clock news when it airs.

(Unofficially) The US Department of Agriculture signs a series of major procurement contracts at the onset of the nation's fall harvest. The USDA buys over 100,000 tons of grain throughout the country, arranging for much of it to be stored in commercial grain handling facilities and additional amounts to be stored aboard covered barges in the inland waterway system. The purchase serves a dual purpose - to provide FEMA with a ready reserve if the nuclear exchange in Europe is to disrupt commerical food distribution in the US or elsewhere in the world, and (for the third fall in a row) to offset the loss of farmer's income from the cutoff of grain sales to the USSR and its satellites. (Officially) Despite these actions, the glut of food produced results in low prices for the commodities and many farmers hang on to their harvest awaiting higher prices.

Czestochowa, Poland is incinerated by a 150kt blast from an American cruise missile, leaving the city smoking rubble.

Unofficially,

A team from Army Materiel Command, in one of the war's more audacious missions for its personnel, travels to North Kroea to meet with soldiers from the 7th Infantry Division (Light) about their experience with the PAMSS shelter systems. The Palletized Armored Shelter Systems were fielded in early September to the division, offering an improved portable hedquarters environment for combat commands. The response from the units that received the prototype units are mixed - they, to a man (and woman), find them more convienient, comfortable and useful than the array of truck and HMMWV-mounted shelters and tents that PAMSS is intended to replace. The biggest challlenge is their method of transportation - by PLS truck, which is in short supply in light infantry divisions and not assigned to the units that operate PAMSS, requiriing either tasking from a unit that has PLS trucks (which is seldom timely) or assignment of the heavy trucks to the PAMSS command, an inefficient use that also requires another stream of spare parts, heavy wreckers and all the additional logistic burden that comes from adding another vehicle to a unit's table of organization and equipment.

Under the superb leadership of the regimental commander, Colonel Steven Myers, the 107th ACR makes good progress towards rejoining NATO lines in western Poland. They are supported by allied airpower and the unseen efforts of a number of NATO special operations teams that help clear the way for the regiment, which is moving on foot.

The Red Banner Northern Fleet dispatches two surface ASW groups (one from Severomorsk in the White Sea, the other from Ostrovnoy in the remote eastern Kola) to locate and destroy the American submarine which has been marauding the Barents Sea for weeks.

Southern Front deploys additional troops to Istanbul, halting mopping-up operations to clear the last remnants of bypassed Turkish formations in Thrace. The 810th Naval Infantry Brigade moves south in the Black Sea aboard ships, closely following a small flotilla of minesweepers that are clearing a path for them.

[chico20854]

I'm determined to get caught up this week! I really think and hope I can!!!

[ToughOmbres]

More really good updates per usual and I am really enjoying each one. They are bittersweet in one respect: each update brings us closer chronologically to Thanksgiving Day, 1997...

[chico20854]

October 13, 1997

The 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division (reinforced with the British 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment) and 5th Special Forces Group are dropped into the Tabriz area of northwestern Iran in the second day of Operation Pegasus II.

Polish authorities order the immediate evacuation of the small town of Klobuck, west of Czestochowa, to protect the population from fallout from the strike on the nearby city.

Unofficially,

In what the court's press office characterizes as a "working justice's retreat", the nine justices of the US Supreme Court spend the Columbus Day weekend at a luxury resort in Ashville, North Carolina.

Despite the completion of training all pre-war divisions and brigades, the US Army's Combat Training Centers remain at work, now with newly-raised combat units. The National Training Centers (at three sites in California, Washington and Arizona) and Joint Readiness Training Centers (in Arkansas and Louisiana) have transitioned into supporting a 90-day rotation for new units, with 30 days spent on platoon and company/troop/battery-level exercises, another month on battalion-level and the final month forming combat-ready brigades. (Division staffs are prepared for war with command post exercises at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas).

Troop trains depart northern China with additional reinforcements for the western fronts - the 20th Guards Army, which in pre-war times had been part of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.

The USS Des Moines completes its minor repairs in the Korean port of Pusan, including replacement of the heavy cruiser's gun barrels with ones with new liners, flown into Korea by priority airlift.

The 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment's scouts locate a blocking position thrown up by the Polish 4th Border Guard Brigade and call in supporting strikes. A pair of F-16s, one Dutch and one American, soon arrive and hit the Polish positions with B-61 tactical nuclear bombs, throwing the Polish unit into disarray and allowing the Americans to slip past the disoriented border guards.

The USS John F. Kennedy, HMS Illustrious and battleship Wisconsin continue their patrolling in the Aegean, taking up station between Crete and the Greek mainland. The force attracts considerable attention from light Greek naval units, which are dealt with by a combination of standing air patrols and gunfire from the battlewagon and escorts.

The Greek Army's operations begin to grind to a halt as a result of shortages of fuel, ammunition and spare parts. The nation had been able to sustain a war on the Turkish front, but the addition of the Macedonian operation combined with the Allied naval blockade and destruction of the nation's refineries are more than the fragile Greek economy can sustain. Generals order a halt to offensive operations.

In Romania, active combat in the lowlands has largely ended as 1st Ukrainian Front transitions to an occupation force, Danube Front pivots to complete the defeat of and occupation of Jugoslavia and Southern Front pivots the last of its forces to face the Turks. In the mountains the dispersed companies of the American 71st Airborne Brigade are hardening their positions; in nearly every case they are joined by remnants of the Romanian Armed Forces who are eager to continue the fight against the Soviets and their Hungarian and Bulgarian allies. US Air Force transports attempt daring low-level night airdrop missions to try to provide a minimal level of resupply to the scattered paratroops.

In the freshly divided and largely defeated Jugoslavia, chaos reigns. A Soviet Spetsnaz team assaults the command post of the Jugoslav National Army, and while unable to force its way into the complex it is able to disable the bunker's external communications. In Macedonia an uneasy truce holds between Greek and Albanian troops (in the west) and Bulgarian and Greek troops (to the east). The first truck convoys of looted grain, coal and consumer goods have already reached the Bulgarian border, looted from Jugoslav civilians by Bulgarian officers. The central mountains of Jugoslavaia are essentially a lawless no-man's land, with armed bands of Jugoslavs turning on communities from other ethnic groups. The Italian occupation authorities are pressed by their political leadership to expand the area under their control, but the overstretched Italian Army is unable to fully control the area it has occupied; it resorts to incorporation of ethnic Croatian militias into its forces, looking the other way at the atrocities they commit. The Albanian Army likewise raises ethnic Albanian militias in the areas of Kosovo and Macedonia it controls. The Albanian high command is struggling to support the three divisions it has committed and looks on the militias as useful proxies.

[chico20854]

Originally Posted by ToughOmbres

More really good updates per usual and I am really enjoying each one. They are bittersweet in one respect: each update brings us closer chronologically to Thanksgiving Day, 1997...

Yes, and from there things get even more depressing...

[chico20854]

October 14, 1997

The 2nd and 3rd Brigades, 82nd Airborne Division parachute into the Tabriz area airheads established by the rest of the division as Transcaucasian Front reels from the massive disruption to its supply lines.

Open warfare erupts in Northern Ireland. With no regular army units available, the brunt of the battle on the British side falls upon the police and the Ulster Defense Regiment. Both forces are composed primarily of Protestants, and as a result, they tend to concentrate on the Catholic terrorists - the IRA and the INLA. Protestants and Catholics begin fighting in the streets of Belfast and Londonderry (as it is labeled on the British maps - Catholic Irish prefer to call the city Derry), and many Catholics are killed or forced out. In the border counties of Fermanagh and Armagh, the Catholics seize control, backed by the IRA, and call for military aid from Eire to overthrow the Protestant government.

Rotterdam is struck by Soviet nuclear warheads. (Unofficially) The strikes ignite the oil refinery and sets chemical plants on fire (for the second time in less than a year) and sinks dozens of ships in the port, NATO's busiest. (Officially) The city's security force, the 304th Infantry Brigade, is largely destroyed by the attack, and only scattered survivors escape the firestorm and subsequent chaos.

Unofficially,

The light frigate USS Pettit is delivered in Marinette, Wisconsin and manned by USCG personnel. The tanker Elokomin is delivered in Baltimore and placed in naval service.

With a quick stop at the ROK Navy's ammunition pier, the USS Des Moines returns to sea in the Sea of Japan. Once out of Korean waters, helicopters from the ammunition ship USS Pyro land on the cruiser's stern and a work party unload a half-dozen 12-kt W33 tactical nuclear rounds for the ship's main guns.

The 107th Cavalry Regiment's fighting withdrawal is sped along by the capture of a column of trucks from the rear area of the Soviet 1st Shock Army. The fuel bowsers are used to keep a relay of the cargo trucks going, transporting the trailing cavalry troops to the lead and then returning for more.

The first Soviet ASW group (from Ostrovnoy) arrives in the vicinity of the USS Olympia and begins hunting her, using active sonar to drive the American boat towards a new minefield.

The Pact renews its attacks on the Turkish defensive positions west of Istanbul. The initial attacks come from two divisions of Bulgarian Construction Troops, paramilitary formations composed of Gypsies, ethnic Turks and those judged too politically unreliable for military service, supported by Soviet assault guns of the 367th Guards Assault Gun Brigade (who have a secondary mission to machinegun the Bulgarians if any are to try to flee the battlefield). The assault is met with furious Turkish resistance, and it fails entirely after US Air Force F-16s of the 363rd Tactical Fighter Wing arrive overhead, hitting the supporting artillery batteries with four 60-kiloton B-61 tactical nuclear bombs.

The repair of the damaged tanker Starlight Gigant in Dubai is completed, freeing up the drydock it occupies, the only one in the region capable of holding the USS Independence.

[chico20854]

October 15, 1997

The commander of the German 1st Panzer Division is killed (unofficially) when Soviet electronic reconnaissance units locate his command post vehicle and relay its location to a battery of 2S7 203mm guns, which rapidly plaster the area with high explosive rounds. His deputy, Brigadier General Helmut Korell, assumes command.

The Tabriz airhead is declared secure and raids throughout the Soviet rear area begin.

The 6th Air Cavalry Combat Brigade stages forward to Bandar-e-Khomeyni from Saudi Arabia to support the airhead near Tabriz. The brigade has received the bulk of the few replacement aircraft that have arrived from the US and (unofficially) is operating at over two-thirds of authorized strength.

Unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship San Francisco Freedom is delivered in Beaumont, Texas and the Kansas City Freedom in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

The light frigate USS Sellstrom is delivered in Newport, Rhode Island.

On the extreme western end of the Chinese Front, the commander of the 39th Army directs the 292nd Motor-Rifle Division to drive south into the Chinese interior and not to stop.

Bremen International Airport is hit by a 250-kt Soviet warhead. The headquarters, maintenance facility and most of the 64th Tactical Airlift Squadron is destroyed.

The 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment, having covered nearly 100 km with captured Soviet trucks, abandons them (their gas tanks drained) and resumes its slower movement on foot.

The second Soviet ASW group, rushing north from the White Sea after the USS Olympia (which the Soviets have had intermittent detections of on fixed seabed sensors), arrives in the sub's vicinity, coordinating with the other group and one of the few remaining land-based ASW aircraft.

A difficult day for Soviet troops in the Balkans. In an operation coordinated by the 6th Special Forces Group, rail lines across the region are cut and dozens of supply convoys in the mountains of Jugoslavia and Romania are ambushed. The intensity and huge breadth of the attacks are paralyzing, and of such a huge scale that the few Soviet units specifically dedicated to anti-partisan warfare (mostly airborne troops augmented by a handful of KGB Border Guard detachments) are unable to effectively respond. The attacks not only cripple Soviet operations for days, the flurry of radio traffic from panicked Soviet formations allows an orbiting RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft to pinpoint numerous headquarters and troop locations for further attacks.

Civilian tugs begin towing the damaged USS Independence from the dock in Muscat, Oman to Dubai.

After weeks of delay, bureaucracy and equipment shortages, the 321st (my 252nd) Motor-Rifle Division begins movement from its home stations to the front in Romania. American reconnaissance satellites spot the division’s movement (to maintain control it moves in closely-spaced regimental columns) and within hours the formation is the unwelcome recipient of five air-launched cruise missiles which ravage the unit.

[chico20854]

October 16, 1997

XVIII Airborne Corps and I MEF launch limited counterattacks to tie down Soviet troops.

Unofficially,

With the increasing risk of nuclear attack, the deployment of the 301st Port Security Unit from New England to Korea is put on hold.

The first two new truck companies are stood up - the 476th at Fort Eustis, Virginia and the 297th (Heavy) at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

Colonel Tumanski's Spetsnaz team scores another (minor) victory, overrunning a Royal Observer Corps outpost and seizing communications gear and documents for their examination.

Berlin-Schoenfeld International Airport is struck by Soviet tactical nuclear weapon, destroying the headquarters of the 917th Tactical Airlift Wing (Air Force Reserve) but few aircraft, several of which are serving in Iran while many of the rest had been dispersed following the initiation of tactical nuclear warfare in July.

The American XI Corps launches a counterattack on the Soviet 1st Shock Army, which has been pursuing it all the way from the Ukrainian border. The 50th Armored Division (New Jersey National Guard) advances through the blast zone of a series of artillery-fired strikes, exploiting the disruption of those strikes and an ATACMS-N strike on the army's rear headquarters and creating a gap between the 2nd Guards Motor-Rifle Division and the 60th Tank Division. With the guardsmen holding the flanks, a task force rushes eastward, linking up with the outer pickets of the 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment. The task force quickly loads up the exhausted cavalry troopers into its trucks and APCs and the entire formation retreats back to friendly lines near the German border by dawn on the 17th.

The Battle of Svyatoi Nos. 30 miles off the eastern tip of the Kola Peninsula, the American attack submarine Olympia is under attack by two surface anti-surface groups, boxed in with shallow water to the west, a minefield to the east and a surface group to the north and south. The American boat is out of anti-ship missiles, and takes the bold move of launching its remaining torpedoes at the attacking ships while launching a series of three (all it had on board) Sea Lance-N missiles in sequence to blast a path through the minefield. The move is successful, the torpedoes sinking the pursuing destroyer Admiral Golokovo (the Red Banner Northern Fleet's last modern surface combatant) and two corvettes and allowing the American submarine to slip away.

A group of experts from the Soviet Ministry of Oil and Gas arrive in Romania to begin assessing the condition of the Romanian oil industry and the potential to exploit it to support Soviet war aims. Soviet troops are protecting the refineries and patrolling the major oil fields but the occupation authorities have been unable to round up the industry's former workforce, who they are loathe to trust with such a strategic asset in any case.

[chico20854]

October 17, 1997

NATO nuclear strikes target an array of industrial sites in Silesia to ensure that the Polish communist government cannot mobilize them. (The speed of the German Third Army's withdrawal from the region did not permit a thorough demolition of the sites). The Bytom-Katowice-Sosnowiec-Chorzow-Zabrze industrial conurbation is leveled by 2 megatons from a submarine-launched ballistic missile and Gliwice by a trio of 200 kt bombs.

Unofficially,

The light frigate USS Harveston is delivered in Panama City, Florida and manned by USCG personnel.

Stavka orders the battered 58th Air Assault Brigade to redeploy from Manchuria, where it has largely been on occupation duty, to Austria, to help secure the restive mountains. The unit, which lost its BMD armored airborne fighting vehicles in the 1995-6 campaigns, is able to rapidly redeploy aboard Aeroflot airliners, with its heavy equipment filling a number of Military Transport Aviation's carefully husbanded An-22 and An-124 heavy lifters.

The Whiskey-class submarine S-392, returning from a successful patrol in the Bering Sea (where it sank an oiler and the frigate USS Davidson during the 2nd Battle of Kamchatka) strikes a mine while returning to its homeport of Petropavlovsk. It is never determined if the mine was Soviet or American.

1st Shock Army throws its 321st Motor-Rifle Division at XI Corps' attack force, now nearly back to its start lines. The veteran American troops savage the Soviet division, which was formed of Zampolits in training, Ukrainian workers and peasants, prisoners rushed to the front on “combat parole”, the MVD guards who escorted them to the front and whatever other semi-able-bodied men that could be found on the streets of Lvov, poorly equipped and exhausted from months of fighting across Poland. As the Soviet formation falls back to friendly lines, XI Corps' 151st Field Artillery Brigade (South Carolina National Guard) hits the exposed infantry with a trio of W82 "neutron bombs" that rip the formation apart.

The 134th Guards Motor-Rifle Regiment, the remnant of the 45th Guards Motor-Rifle Division that survived the Kola Campaign, is pulled back to the Leningrad area, where it is felt the presence of loyal veterans would help the MVD maintain order.

The first sub-units of the 53rd Guards Motor-Rifle Division arrive in Romania. The weak Category C division from the Kiev Military District took so long to get ready for deployment that it missed active fighting against Romanian Army units. The division is assigned to 6th Guards Tank Army, serving as the occupation force for the city of Dej.

The damaged American aircraft carrier USS Independence arrives in Dubai, where shipyard workers, assisted by US Navy sailors, are preparing the giant drydock there to accept the ship.

The dazed and confused survivors of the 321st (my 252nd) Motor-Rifle Division are distributed to other units in 1st Ukrainian Front.

[chico20854]

October 18, 1997

The residents of Pyskowice, Poland flee their town in the aftermath of the nuclear strikes on the nearby Bytom-Katowice industrial region. They hide from the fallout in nearby coal mines. The population of the nearby town of Tychy seek shelter from the radiation in the railway tunnel that runs underneath their town. The (Communist) Polish government orders the closure of the Gliwice Canal to avoid the potential of radioactive contamination of the Oder River.

Unofficially,

Two additional truck companies are stood up, also at Fort Eustis, Virginia and Fort Leonard Wood. Responding to the continuing need for support troops, the Army Staff directs the activation of a dozen additional hospitals and a wide array of specialist ordnance units to maintain the wide array of systems the wartime army is fielding. Unfortunately, both kinds of units require large number of highly trained soldiers, which the training base will struggle to produce in hastily.

The German III Korps scores a notable success in its defense of the town of Szczecinek, Poland. The Korps lays a trap for the leadership of the 23rd Army by having the 220th Panzergrenadier Division (much reduced by months of combat and trying to limp by on a mix of Soviet and German vehicles) conspicuously evacuate the town. The Soviets take the bait, dispatching a combat group built around nearly half of the 43rd (my 274th) Motor-Rifle Division to seize the town. The Germans then spring the trap, surrounding the town with kamfgruppes from the 1st and 12th Panzer Divisions which cut the Soviet division off and subsequently defeat the reinforcements dispatched by the Soviets to relieve them. While those battles rage north and east of the town, the 220th returns to action, with artillery fire directed by stay-behind parties hidden throughout the town.

COMSUBLANT is informed that the Olympia will be terminating its patrol, transiting to Holy Loch, Scotland. The boat's skipper states that his crew is exhausted and his ship is out of torpedoes and anti-ship missiles. The damaged USS Virginia arrives in Hampton Roads, Virginia and enters the shipyard for repair.

Order breaks down in Turkey after Ankara is hit by a trio of Soviet SS-N-3c cruise missiles launched from the Juliette-class submarine K-67. Each missile carries a 350-kiloton warhead; they are relatively inaccurate and end up destroying large areas of the city.

The Soviet air forces score a rare victory in the skies over Iran, when a carefully orchestrated operation results in the shootdown of an American U-2 reconnaissance plane. The aircraft was orbiting over the northern end of the Persian Gulf, protected by a flight of F-15 interceptors from the 71st Tactical Fighter Squadron, 1st Tactical Fighter Wing and under the radar coverage of a Saudi E-3 AWACS aircraft. Soviet forces send a regiment-sized force after the spy plane, drawing off the F-15s and clearing the way for a PVO (Soviet air defense force) MiG-25, traveling south at high speed from Soviet airspace. The high-flying MiG is able to execute one successful pass at the high-flying (70,000 feet) spy plane, which is restricted to a very specific speed range to remain stable. The loss of the U-2, which was providing real-time ground radar data to commanders below, deprives CENTCOM of one of a handful of sensor platforms that have been essential in locating Red Army formations before they reach Allied lines.