|
|
|
|
|
#1
02-10-2022, 03:40 PM
|
||||
|
||||
February 10, 1997
Denmark declares war on the Soviet Union following the prior dayss (and weeks') attacks on Danish facilities and ships. Unofficially: The Freedom-class cargo ship Wisconsin Freedom is delivered in Beaumont, TX and the Indiana Freedom is delivered in Pascagoula, MS. The 56th Brigade, 28th Infantry Division (Pennsylvania National Guard) completes Rotation 97-4 at NTC-2 at the Yakima Training Center and is declared combat ready. The escort carrier USS Shangri-La (CVHE-3) is commissioned at the Charleston Navy Yard. A week prior it had been a Korean-flag container ship. The Canadian Navy commissions the patrol-minesweeper Nanaimo in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She begins a transit through the Panama Canal to British Columbia, joining westbound Convoy 117 for the first part of the trip. There's chaos in the North Sea as simultaneous explosions on five offshore oil platforms disrupt production from the Forties oil field, the largest in the British sector of the North Sea. The Soviet 2nd and 4th Guards Tank Armies halt their offensive actions, while their reserve formations construct hasty field fortifications. For the first time in a week, the front lines of the Oder bridgeheads are quiet. The Soviet 1077th Ski Regiment grows to five battalions of all-female volunteers, mostly from the Leningrad area. The new battalion joins the rest of the unit patrolling 18th Army's open southern flank southwest of Murmansk as NATO troops push eastward. Naval clash in the Aegean between the Greek and Turkish navies, when the Turkish 3rd Assault Boat Flotilla sorties into the Aegean and engages a Greek Surface Action Group composed of the destroyers Kanaris and Lonchi. Both destroyers are overwhelmed by Turkish SSMs and sink, taking down the Turkish missile boat Pelikan with them. An air battle follows overhead, when Greek A-7s swoop in, sink the Turkish missile boats Sismek and Gurbet, and are subsequently set upon by Turkish F-4s. Two A-7s are lost, and when Greek F-4s intervened one of each nation's Phantoms are downed before the engagement finally ends, 45 minutes after the first shot was fired. Soviet bombers strike Brasov, Romania, hitting the ordnance plant once again. US Army Patriot missiles down two more Backfire bombers. In Kaliningrad, the KGB arranges a meeting of the East German Communist Party, including party officials who fled reunited Germany, party members who were travelling elsewhere in the USSR and Warsaw Pact, political officers of East German Army units fighting in China and a number of officials arrested by the KGB during the retreat from East Germany. Following a script written by the KGB in Moscow, the Party meeting expels all SED members who supported or participtated in the reunification campaign and called for the formation of "Liberation Armed Forces" to free all of Germany from revanchist imperialist NATO-allied German authorities.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end... 
|
|
#2
02-11-2022, 08:51 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
February 11, 1997
A Spetsnaz team under Colonel Mikhail Tumanski arrives in the UK, landed in inflatable boats on a remote section of coastline. Unofficial: The order to deploy CENTCOM to Iran and Saudi Arabia is issued. Within hours, the 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division is loading on transport aircraft for Saudi Arabia. The 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) moves its equipment and vehicles to the port of Savannah, the 101st Air Assault Division to Jacksonville, Florida and the 9th ID(Lt Mech) to Tacoma, Washington. The Air Force hastily shuffles tankers to support the deployment of the highest priority aircraft, the F-15Cs of the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing and the F-15Es of the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing. (The F-15s are able to load maximum fuel tankage for their deployment flights since there are two ships - the Buffalo Soldier and the American Merlin - loaded with munitions and spares en route to the region from Diego Garcia.) The 53rd Infantry Brigade (Florida National Guard) completes Rotation 97-5 at JRTC-2 at Fort Chaffee, AR and declared combat ready. The front along the Oder River in Poland remains quiet for a second day. Soviet units pull back 500m or so to the fighting positions that have been prepared by their rear elements in the prior few days. IV Corps headquarters is formed in Flushing, New York from personnel assigned to the 77th and 94th Army Reserve Commands (known as ARCOMs). When the mobilization support mission was completed, IV Corps assumes duties overseeing and supporting training units in the northeast, providing security in the New York Port of Embarkation, receiving and processing POWs arriving from overseas and coordinating the emergency and disaster relief planning efforts of civil authorities. The Freedom ship Idaho Freedom is directed to Tacoma, Washington to prepare to load elements of the 9th ID (Motorized) from nearby Fort Lewis. The Soviet raider Buliny, under the command of Captain 2nd Rank Mikhail Mischenko, attacks the Romanian-flag general cargo ship Trinity, using the ship's 130mm guns, setting it ablaze. Soviet long-range aviation returns to Jugoslav skies, hitting the Čačak munitions plant in Serbia. The American transport USNS Bob Hope loads the vehicles of the 169th Field Artillery Brigade (Colorado National Guard) at the Bayonne Army terminal in New Jersey for movement to Germany. The 362nd Guards Assault Gun Regiment in the Odessa Military District is mobilized for service in the Balkans.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#3
02-12-2022, 05:20 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
February 12, 1997
Nothing official for today! The US 11th Airborne Division is activated at Fort Dix, New Jersey from volunteers from throughout the Army. The XI Corps Headquarters staff travels to Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas for a command post exercise. A preliminary assesment of the damage to the Forties oil field infrastructure in the North Sea concludes that it will be out of service for the remainder of the year. A classified annex to the assessment discloses that the "incident" was likely the result of a Spetsnaz raid. The Western TVD begins to rotate units on the front line in Poland, bringing fresher and stronger divisions up while withdrawing worn-out units for reconstruction. Among the many changes is bringing forward the 3rd GMRD, which enters action in Poland under command of the 22nd Army. The escort carrier Shangri-La receives its air wing off Cherry Point, NC and begins transit to Jacksonville, FL. The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army begins to amass an infantry-strong reserve force from the stream of light divisions that flow weekly from the interior. With Soviet resources stretched to the limit by the worldwide conflict, the upcoming thaw in Manchuria offers an opportunity to launch an offensive, one where the outnumbered Soviet forces will be unable to exploit their superior mobility due to the mud, and whose fire support has been weakened with the transfer of aircraft to other theaters and diversion of artillery ammunition to other fronts. The Soviet battle cruiser Kirov, in the South Atlantic en route to a resupply, encounters the Brazilian-flagged freighter Rio Coari. It peppers the freighter's bridge with 30mm fire before landing a detachment from the ship's Ka-27 helicopter to seize the ship. A detachment of the US Navy SEEBEEs Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 24 arrives on Ascension Island to install a temporary fuel system and repair the fire-damaged original system. The 17th Guards Tank Division is withdrawn for reconstruction following nearly two months on the front line beseiging Galati, Romania. The last tanks for Romania are unloaded from the American ship Marine Reliance, which departs for its next assignment. Soviet bombers target the Romanian shipyards in Mangalia in a bid to prevent Romania from completing ships to contest Pact control of the Black Sea. The Fast Sealift Ships Pollux, Antares and Denebola load the 151st Field Artillery Brigade (SC National Guard) in Charleston, SC. The 6th Air Cavalry Combat Brigade, 14th Armored Cavaly Regiment, 48th Infantry Brigade (Mechanized), 18th Field Artillery Brigade, 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade and 20th Engineer Brigade are all placed on alert for deployment to the CENTCOM AOR. Movement of vehicles and equipment to load ports and arrival of ships and aircraft will take several days (or weeks) yet. Following up on the East German Communist Party meeting on the 10th, the Red Army sponsors the creation, training and equipment of East German loyalist units. Many military veterans are assigned to Volkspolezei (VoPo) riot control units, which sided with the Soviets during the Battle of Germany, (organized into three independent regiments). Students attending schools in the USSR and Warsaw Pact nations and workers and tourists under age 30 are hastily rounded up from their locations and formed into two regiments of the Freie Deutsche Jugend, a party-allied youth political organization that was transformed into a party militia. The mini-convoy of the Victory ship PVT Fred C Murphy and Coast Guard Cutter Resolute arrives in Guantanamo, Cuba.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#4
02-13-2022, 04:59 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
February 13, 1997
Nothing official for the day. The 46th Brigade, 38th Infantry Division (Michigan National Guard) completes Rotation 97-3 at NTC-3 at the Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona and is declared combat ready. Air Force Systems Command concludes its test series of AGM-142 Have Nap missile drops from F-111s at Edwards AFB, CA and clears the missile for use from that aircraft. The final former South Korean container ship, the Hanjin Kobe, arrives at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, CA, for conversion to an escort carrier. The Iranian 43rd Tactical Fighter Training Squadron receives its complement of F-20s in Savannah, Georgia and flies them to Pensacola for conversion training. RAF Mildenhall struck again (the first strike was on January 11th), this time by Tu-22Ms. This time 3rd Air Force was ready and very little damage was incurred. Following the collapse of the drive to eliminate the NATO bridgeheads in western Poland, the Polish Communist Party declares a total national mobilization. The last manufacturing plants producing civilian goods convert to military production and the nation begins to prepare for the possibility of NATO invasion. Rationing is imposed nationwide as the government increases stockpiles of food, fuel and materials. The population is called out to assist in the war effort; each town, city and village forms a militia (mostly armed with Second World War-vintage rifles and submachineguns, if armed at all). A massive effort is launched to create defensive lines across the country. Pensioners are assigned duties digging trenches, and schools go to a half-day schedule, with classes (often on military subjects such as small-unit tactics or use of gas masks) in the morning and the afternoons spent working on defensive positions. 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division reaches the mouth of the Litsa River. The Romanian freighter Trinity, set ablaze 2 days prior, sinks 200 miles west of Dakar, while the Soviet destroyer Buliny heads for Luanda, Angola for replenishment. Cloudy weather over Jugoslavia results in Soviet bombers dropping their loads over rural Croatia, damaging several farms but having no real effect on the Jugoslav war effort other than to enrage a few more Jugoslav families. The 38th Infantry Division (Indiana and Michigan National Guards) begins loading vehicles and equipment aboard ships in the ports of Wilmington and Philadelphia. The US Coast Guard cutter Resolute begins a patrol of local area in the central Caribbean.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#5
02-14-2022, 02:49 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
February 14, 1997
Another day with nothing in the official canon. The latest (and last) version of the US Nuclear warfighting plan, the Single Intergrated Operating Plan or "SIOP", known as SIOP 8, Revision 2 goes into effect. It has quite extensive changes from the prior version, as several targets located in East Germany are now under NATO control and many of the Red Army garrisons have been vacated when their tenant units deployed. This version also omits targets in the People's Republic of China. A C-141 from the 30th Military Airlift Squadron loads a cargo of AGM-142 Have Nap missiles from K.I. Sawyer AFB, Michigan for transfer to F-111 units in the UK. The British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) commander, refelcting on the difficulty controlling forces in the Frankfurt-on-Oder bridgehead and forces on the Czechoslovak border simultaneously, requests the establishment of a second corps headquarters in BAOR. The 10th Special Forces Group in Poland and the Baltic States launches a series of coordinated strikes on Soviet supply lines, ambushing over a dozen trains and convoys over a three-hour period. In the Pacific, American aircraft launch Operation Steel Hammer - four American carriers (the Abraham Lincoln, Independence, Constellation and John C. Stennis, making its combat debut with the US Navy Reserve Air Wing CVW-20 embarked), operating in coordination with USAF aircraft operating from Japan, all under the direction of an E-3 AWACS, carry out a raid on Vladivostok area naval bases. Most of the sorties are devoted to suppression of the PVO regional air defense network, so central Vladivostok is spared attack, several smaller outlying bases receiving devastating amounts of damage. The Soviet battlecruiser Kirov enters the Orinoco River Delta in remote eastern Venezuela and meets the Soviet supply ship Suzdal, which has been hiding there for several weeks. The Suzdal provides Kirov with 12 fuel air explosive versions of the SS-N-19 Shipwreck missile for a special attack mission along with fuel, other munitions and supplies. Soviet long-range aviation returns once again to the Bucharest tank plant, where the presence of American Patriot missiles and newly introduced jamming and electronic spoofing results in no damage to the plant. The first formerly Israeli Ti-67 tanks arrive at the front in Romania. The front continues to remain largely static as Soviet forces try to amass sufficient manpower and supplies to resume the offensive and Romanian and Jugoslav forces try to conserve their resources and maintain a strong defense. The final elements of the 2nd Battalion, 6th Special Forces Group arrive in Romania, and half of the 1st Battalion is in Jugoslavia, embedding in Jugoslav Army units and training territorial defense troops to communicate with NATO forces, including how to call in airstrikes and artillery fire.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#6
02-15-2022, 03:11 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
February 15, 1997
Another day with nothing official, but unofficially a lot is going on! The Freedom-class cargo ship Virginia Freedom is delivered in Portland, Oregon. It is directed to sail to Tacoma, Washington to load follow-on elements of the 9th ID (Motorized). photo Headquarters, II Corps is activated at Fort Rucker, Alabama from the 121st Army Reserve Command (ARCOM), an Army Reserve unit responsible for providing peacetime command and administrative support to other Army Reserve units in its geographic area, with an initial wartime mission of supporting the mobilization and deployment of those units as well as assisting Army National Guard units in its area. The first AGM-142 Have Nap missiles are delivered to RAF Lakenheath and orientation to the new weapon begins. Colonel Tumanski's Spetsnaz team, disguised as "ramblers" (hikers), begins surveying forests in Berkshire to identify USAF Ground Launched Cruise Missile deployment sites, or, better yet, to locate one of the missile flights, which have been dispersed since December. Operation Newsboy, the photo reconnaissance by RF-16s of the 192 Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron of North Korean naval facilities at Wonsan, North Korea, is launched. Unfortunately, the North Koreans are alerted by Soviet agents in Japan and the mission results in 3 of the 4 aircraft involved being lost. The 26th Infantry Division (Light) (Massachussetts and Connecticut National Guards) begins its deployment by air to Korea. The NATO offensive on the Kola stalls as 3rd Brigade, 6th (US) Infantry Division arrives at the Litsa River nine miles south of its mouth and the Norwegian 6th Division crosses the frozen Litsa 10 miles further south using the partially destroyed railroad bridge. The Norwegian's forward momentum is halted by well dug in troops on the heights looming overhead. The Soviet Victor III-class submarine K-254 is sunk off Jacksonville by the USCG cutter in conjunction with P-3s from Jax NAS and, in its first action, the escort carrier Shangri-La. Soviet long-range bombers come in over Jugoslavia at low level and supersonic speeds, different tactics than had been used in prior raids. The infiltration is successful, and the Zastava munitions complex is hit. One aged Tu-22 Blinder crashes into a mountain on the exit from the target area, with no survivors. photo The 1st Tactical Fighter Wing's F-15s fly their first operational sortie, patrolling over the Persian Gulf to protect the eastern Saudi ports and assist the Iranian Air Force. The 336th Tactical Fighter Squadron, part of the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing, arrives in Saudi Arabia with 24 F-15Es. The convoy of prepositioning ships which sailed from Diego Garcia arrives in eastern Saudi ports.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end... Last edited by chico20854; 02-16-2022 at 03:13 PM. Reason: changed the Tu-16 Badger that crashed into a Tu-22, which could sustain supersonic speeds at low level! Thanks Paul!
|
|
#7
02-16-2022, 03:12 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
February 16, 1997
The Soviet ground offensive in Iran resumes as the first battalions of the 82nd Airborne Division land in Saudi Arabia. Unofficially: The Swiss ambassador hosts a short meeting in New Delhi between the NATO and Soviet peace delegations. The Soviets demand immediate withdrawal of NATO troops from the Kola, Bulgaria and Polish territory along the Oder-Niesse. NATO rejects the demands out of hand, prompting the Soviet delegation to storm out. The AGM-142 Have Nap missile is cleared for use from F-15E Strike Eagles. HQ, VIII US Corps is formed from the 124th ARCOM at Fort Lewis, Washington and assigned training support, security for the Tacoma Port of Embarkation and civil support functions throughout the Pacific Northwest. SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team One launches its second attack, landing at Korsakov on Sakhalin Island. One part of the team raids the airfield, demolishing a dozen Mi-14 and Mi-8 helicopters, while the rest of the team attacks the port facility, attaching limpet mines on the minesweeper Admiral Khoroshkhin and commandeering a civilian trawler, which was scuttled in the channel exiting the harbor. US Pacific Command launches a major strike on North Korean naval bases in the Sea of Japan, known as Operation Sea Dragon. Operating under cover of land-based interceptors (USAF, USMC, RoKAF and JASDF), the USS Independence group raid on the Sagon-ni naval base. F-111s bomb the North Korean Navy's shipyard at Wonsan, destroying the headquarters for the North Korean Navy's East Fleet and damaging the Soviet destroyer Lovkiy, which was undergoing repairs before heading home. At the Mayangho naval base, F-111s sink an aged North Korean submarine, several patrol boats and three Soviet cargo ships. SACEUR recieves a request from the Free Polish Congress to support the creation of military units to defend the slivers of Polish territory under NATO control (Szczecin and the three bridgeheads) and lay the groundwork for the restoration of a noncommunist Polish Army. On the Kola Peninsula, the 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division is detached to capture the naval bases on the western side of the Litsa Fjord, a mission that ends in disaster when Soviet naval troops blow up the nuclear waste storage facility at Andreeva Bay, raining radioactive waste onto the advancing infantrymen. The US 103rd Field Artillery Brigade (Rhode Island National Guard)'s final men and guns (two battalions of towed 155mm howitzers) arrive in X Corps' rear area along the Norwegian-Soviet border, ready for action. The battlecruiser Kirov sorties from the Orinoco River Delta, soon launching six missiles each at the refineries at Point Fortin and Pointe-a-Pierre on Trinidad. The missiles are not intercepted (or even noticed by local air-traffic controllers), and the fuel-air explosive warheads cause extensive damage to both refineries, stopping all production at both of them. As a result of the increased raider threat and ongoing naval losses the American heavy cruiser Newport News, reactivated the previous summer as a training vessel, is ordered to Sunny Point, NC to discharge its midshipmen and load ammunition, to assume convoy escort ASuW (anti-surface warfare) duties. SACLANT orders as many combatants as can reasonably be made ready to sea immediately to hunt down raiders. The Navy and Coast Guard are ordered to redouble their air searches, and areas less than 100 miles offshore are to be visually searched by members of the Civil Air Patrol, a paramilitary volunteer US Air Force auxilary. The escort carrier Shangri-La sails from Jacksonville with its first convoy, Convoy 8, headed to the Mediterranean, carrying supplies, fuel and equipment to support Turkish, Romanian and Jugoslav allies as well as US forces in the Mediterranean.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#8
02-17-2022, 03:50 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
February 17, 1997
Nothing official today! Most members of the Soviet peace delegation in New Delhi are ordered to return to Moscow, ending the peace talks for the time being. The Victory Ship Wayne Victory departs Philadelphia for Argentina, unescorted but armed with a pair of 40mm cannon and four 20mm guns. The British newspaper the Daily Mail reports that many of the "subversives" arrested in December have been released, although the most radical amongst them were still detained. Those that have been released are noticebly chastened, maintaining a low public profile, possibly as a result of a warning from MI 5 of a return to custody if considered "making trouble". The Soviet navy's Division Polyarnyy is formed in Murmansk, taking command of the 8th and 211th Naval Infantry Regiments, 69th and 72nd Naval Infantry Brigades and other small naval security forces and other naval personnel from the Red Banner Northern Fleet’s bases in the Kola Peninsula. photo Soviet rocket artillery fire disrupts the 6th US Division's rear area, temporarily halting the unit's artillery fire as the guns expend the last of their ammunition and poor weather prevents helicopters from resupplying the batteries. A NATO task force, under the command of the Canadian Special Service Force, begins a drive to clear the Srednii and Rybachiy Peninsulas (offshoots of the Kola Peninsula). The garrison is formed around the naval 501st Coastal Missile Regiment and the air defense force's 116th Guards Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade. The Red Banner Northern Fleet begins several days of dispatching obsolescent Whiskey-class diesel-electric submarines to the North Sea. The boats, with small crews of recalled reservists aboard, are ordered to travel submerged at low speed in inshore waters, snorkeling at night or poor weather, to avoid detection. Knowing that they are incapable of successfully attacking modern NATO warships (despite the number of relics from the 1950s and 60s that NATO navies are reactivating), the subs carry only a pair of torpedoes each, the rest of the space aboard being consumed by mines. The central front on the Polish-German border has settled into a new routine, with periodic air and artillery strikes from both sides. NATO establishes a shaky air supremacy over the Oder River valley, able to maintain at least a few interceptors airborne at all times, guided by an AWACS aircraft orbiting over West Germany. That force is sufficient to deal with minor Soviet raids and protect the bridgeheads in Poland from periodic harassment strikes by Soviet and Polish MiG-27s, Su-22s and Su-25s. The Soviet battle cruiser Kirov sights the American tanker Overseas Jennifer, carrying crude from the Middle East to the US Gulf Coast 200 km east of Trinidad and sinks her with gunfire. She has only a single SSM remaining. US naval commanders order the battleship New Jersey, patrolling the Pacific approaches to the Panama Canal, through the canal to protect the Caribbean from the marauding Kirov. photo 76th and 2nd Brigades, 38th Infantry Division (Indiana National Guard) complete loading equipment and vehicles aboard ships and depart for Europe with Convoy 122. 38th ID's last brigade, the 46th, will ship on the next convoy. It started its equipment onload later because it had just finished a National Training Center rotation. Most troops will deploy by air aboard requisitioned civilian airliners. (A handful travel aboard the ships in their limited passenger space to provide security and limited maintenance for the cargo). Soviet bombers over the Balkans strike the TAB APC plant in Moreni (about 60 miles northwest of Bucharest). The iron bombs are effective in blowing holes in the roof and walls and damaging the neighborhood but do relatively little damage to the production line's tools or many of the vehicles being built on it. The Coast Guard cutter Resolute's patrol takes the craft 15 nm off the south Cuban coast. Onboard electronic sensors indicate it is being tracked by several coast defense radars.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#9
02-18-2022, 03:23 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
February 18, 1997
Nothing official for today. British shipbuilders in Glasgow begin assembly of the first modules of the amphibious assault ship HMS Theseus, sister to the newly completed HMS Ocean. The Dutch port of Rotterdam returns to full capacity following Soviet SSM and bomber attack in January. The refinery is operating at 75% of capacity, and the chemical plant at 50%. East German VoPo regiments are assigned to the Polish Internal Front, with the unofficial mission to ensure Polish formations' loyalty to the Communist cause. On the Kola, the 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division attempts to force its way across the Litsa River, covered by fire from the division’s and corps’ artillery, but the LAV-25s of the 4th Battalion, 19th Infantry are too heavy to cross the frozen river’s ice, leaving the depleted infantry companies of 1-14 Infantry isolated only 250 meters from the river. After 12 hours of nonstop Soviet counterattacks, 1-14 withdraws across the river, leaving 200 dead behind. The Soviet battle cruiser Kirov sinks the Dutch patrol vessel Pelikaan, responding to the prior day's sinking. photo The New Jersey battle group transits the Panama Canal and heads east at flank speed. With Turkish interdiction of the Bulgarian coast diminished, the Soviet 157th MRD begins unloading in the Bulgarian port of Burgas. The USNS Bob Hope, carrying the 169th Field Artillery Brigade (Colorado National Guard), arrives in Bremen, Germany. The Coast Guard cutter Resolute's ESM equipment identifies a Muff Cobb radar in the port of Cienfuegos, Cuba. The Cuban Navy is known to employ the fire control radar in some of its patrol craft, but it is also widely used by the Soviet Navy.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end... Last edited by chico20854; 02-22-2022 at 12:16 PM.
|
|
#10
02-19-2022, 07:19 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
February 19, 1997
Massive air battles rage over Iran and the Persian Gulf, as Soviet Long Range Aviation shifts from the Balkans to neutralizing Saudi and Iranian oil production. Saudi and American F-15s, Kuwaiti F/A-18s and Saudi Tornadoes join Iranian F-14s, F-4s, F-20s in massive furballs against Soviet MiG-29s and Su-27s escorting the Soviet bombers. Unofficially, The first R-5D Aurora hypersonic spy plane is delivered in Palmdale, California. The Iranian 41st Tactical Fighter Squadron receives its complement of F-20s in Savannah and follows its sister squadron to Pensacola. Responding to the BAOR Commander's request, HQ II British Corps is established in Dusseldorf from the BAOR Headquarters, British Rear Combat Zone. The area of operations of the British Communications Zone, booted out of Belgium in December, was expanded to include all support duties within the Netherlands and West Germany. The NVA (East German Army) 1st Motor-Schutzen Division is officially renamed the 21st PanzerGrenadier Division as it completes its re-equipment with Leopard II and III tanks and Marder IFVs and begins a period of training with a changed command staff at the Munster training area. British, Dutch and American marines land at Teriberka, eastofMurmansk. The assault is launched with the transport fleet 30 miles offshore, with the initial waves arriving by helicopter and CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, followed by vehicles and troops arriving from over the horizon in LCAC hovercraft. The garrison of third-line naval security troops and local militia is quickly overwhelmed, and the handful of patrol craft and support ships in the harbor are quickly dispatched by gunfire from the supporting attack helicopters. Aggressive commanders ashore quickly dispatch infantry companies to secure the heights over the town, securing the area to allow the force to establish a logistic base to support a rapid advance on Murmansk. The Kirov strikes the sea lane between the Venezuelan oil fields and the refinery in St. Croix, the world's largest. In a rampage, the nuclear-powered cruiser sinks two tankers and damages another with gunfire, then turns northeast, to travel up the Windward Islands to strike the refinery and the tankers feeding it. A Dutch patrol aircraft locates the ship and radios in its location before being blotted from the sky by a surface-to-air missile. The New Jersey leaves behind its escorts, which are low on fuel and unable to keep pace with the massive battlewagon. The 102nd MRD is mobilized in the Moscow Military District from the cadre and students of the Moscow Higher Combined Arms Command School.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#11
02-20-2022, 06:47 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
February 20, 1997
In the Middle East, the Soviets launch a series of commando raids by air assault and airborne units. These operations are only partially successful. Several strike teams are wiped out by Iranian commandos. Other teams reach their assigned targets only to find that they were dummy installations. The raids cause some disruption but the results are less than had been expected. Spetsnaz teams attack American airfields in Saudi Arabia. US Air Force Security units stop these raids with a minimal loss of aircraft and lives. The air battles over Iran and Saudi Arabia continue, with additional squadrons of the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing arriving in theater. Although the wings F-15E Strike Eagles are normally tasked with deep strike and interdiction ground attack missions they retain the air to air fighting capability of their F-15C interceptor brethren and are pressed into service in an air defense role, flying missions loaded down with AMRAAM missiles instead of Paveway guided bombs. Unofficially, Operation Hatchback - a series of strikes on Czechoslovakian strategic targets. The USAF 52nd TFW attacks the Bratislava refinery complex (partially in retaliation for Soviet attacks on the Forties oil field in the North Sea and the attacks on refineries in Trinidad). It loses 4 of the 35 F-16s committed, in addition to 2 damaged, severely damaging the refinery, neutralizing eight SAM sights and destroying two highway bridges. Simultaneously, B-52s of the 416th Bomb Wing launched 28 conventionally armed AGM-86 air launched cruise missiles against the Skoda truck plant. The incoming missiles captured the attention of the Czech air defense forces, allowing the F-16s to strike the targets relatively unscathed. Nearly half the cruise missiles were shot down, but the factory still sustained extensive damage. Northwestern TVD commander Marshall Koroleve dispatches the 76th Guards Airborne Division from Murmansk to surround and wipe out the Allied landing at Teriberka, and his underlings scour the Kola for additional armed troops to send to the new area of operations. Admiral Popescu, the Northern Fleet commander, orders submarines and missile boats to sea to intercept the amphibious fleet. Some of Naval Aviation’s remaining long-range Tu-95 Bear patrol aircraft take off from their bases south of the White Sea and immediately light up their search radars, locating the nearly-stationary assault fleet despite the foul weather. The Backfire bombers that remain after the Battle of the Norwegian Sea follow a few hours later, after being loaded with conventional bombs (the stockpiles of anti-ship missiles were depleted in attacks on the American carriers in December, with remaining supplies reserved for anti-carrier use). The NATO fleet is protected from air attack by an intermittent combat air patrol of F-15s operating from Banak and F/A-18s from small airstrips in Norway, Sea Harriers from the escorting Illustrious and the guns and missiles of the surface escorts. The Backfire raid, nearly 40 aircraft strong, is faced by a single F-15A and four Sea Harriers that managed to get airborne. The Soviet aircraft approach at supersonic speed and toss dozens of 250 kg bombs at the fleet. Only two of the hundreds of bombs hit, setting the Spiegel Grove ablaze. The escorting destroyers and cruiser shoot down eight Backfires. To the west, X Corps’ divisions launch probing attacks, seeking a weak point in 18th Army’s defensive line that can be exploited. Those attacks prove fruitless, each met by a vigorous Soviet counterattack and leading to a retreat back across the Litsa to the start lines. Casualties in these attacks are heavy and once again the Litsa River Valley earns its moniker as “The Valley of Death” that was first bestowed on it in the Second World War. The USS New Jersey catches up with the Kirov, which is transiting near the west coast of Grenada, and in an hour-long confrontation off St Georges the two mighty ships engage in one of the last gun duels between rival warships in the 20th Century. The Kirov, hiding in the radar shadow of the island, lands the first blow, a broadside of airburst rounds that shreds New Jersey's radars, CIWS and Harpoon missile launchers. The broken Harpoon missile tubes leak jet fuel, which ignites a fire on deck. The smoke from the deck fire, as well as smoke from smoke pots and chaff rockets fired by the Kirov, obscures the battlecruiser, allowing it to land a few more volleys on the American battleship as well as expending its magazine of ASW and anti-aircraft missiles in SSM mode in a futile effort to damage the battleship enough to make an escape. Those rounds are insufficient to penetrate the battlewagon's armor, although continuing to destroy antennas, boats and fittings above the armor belt. Soon enough, New Jersey's optical rangefinders locate Kirov and nearly 30 minutes of high-speed maneuvering follow, as Kirov bobs and weaves, changes speed and does everything it can to dodge New Jersey's massive broadsides. Eventually, however, the game is up when a trio of 16-inch armor-piercing rounds find their mark, ripping through the comparatively lightly armored hull. The first rounds actually penetrate through the far side of the battlecruiser, detonating in the water alongside, damaging the hull and bending the starboard propeller shaft. That slows the cruiser and forces it to steam in circles, and within three minutes another two volleys arrive, utterly destroying the Soviet ship. (The superstructure above the weather deck is nearly blown off by a volley of high explosive rounds). As the ship begins to flood, the chief engineer orders both reactors flooded with seawater, preventing a meltdown as the ship sinks beneath the waves. A couple dozen men from the 700-plus man crew escape the burning wreck. The Freedom-class cargo ship Vermont Freedom is delivered in Beaumont, TX and the Iowa Freedom is delivered in Pascagoula, MS. The escort carrier Franklin, CVHE-2, is commissioned at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, CA, converted from a container ship. The Royal Navy commissions its newest corvette, HMS Ashanti. The ship was under construction for the Malaysian Navy, but the Royal Navy took over the contract and had the ship rushed to completion. Malaysia was refunded the money it had paid for the ship (and its sister, still incomplete), which partially abated their protests. A task force built around the Dutch 2nd Amphibious Combat Group raids a Dutch Red Army safehouse in Apeldoorn, killing 4 members, capturing a stock of AKs, a RPG-7, grenades, explosives and a Soviet-built secure radio and its code book. That code book and investigation of the members allows the Dutch government to identify other members as well as their GRU controller, who flees across the border into Belgium before he can be apprehended. The US 169th Field Artillery Brigade (Colorado National Guard) declared operational in West Germany. The Coast Guard cutter Resolute returns to Guantanamo, Cuba, where the Victory ship PVT Fred C Murphy is completing its loadout with excess articles and the last non-essential workers from the base.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#12
02-21-2022, 06:35 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
February 21, 1997
The 5th Marine Division is formed at Camp Lejeune, SC and begins platoon and company-level training. The air battles over Iran continue for a third day. The Soviet high command pulls two PVO MiG-23 regiments from quiet sectors of the border and throws them into the melee. Unofficially, Col. Tumanski's Spetsnaz team has identified three possible GLCM deployment sites in Berkshire, based on evidence of truck traffic and trash discarded at the sites. (MRE wrappers). Off the west coast of Grenada, the battleship New Jersey recovers from its battle with the Kirov. The fires on deck have been extinguished and communications restored with portable satellite radios and repairs to antennas on the masts. The ship is ordered to get underway for Puerto Rico, where topside repairs will be made at the Roosevelt Roads Naval Station. Her escorts are ordered to return to Panama for refueling and transit through the canal prior to resuming anti-submarine and anti-raider patrols around the canal's Pacific approaches and the west coast of Central America. The last of the vehicles and heavy equipment left behind by the divisions that fell in on POMCUS stocks in Europe (less two brigade sets from 4th ID used as training equipment at NTC-2 and NTC-3) arrives at East Coast ports for transit to Germany as replacement equipment as shipping comes available. The Soviet Victor III-class nuclear submarine K-412, operating in the central Atlantic, torpedos the Japanese supertanker Cosmo Pleiades, carrying over 250,000 tons of Saudi crude oil. The massive ship is left dead in the water and leaking oil. The USS Independence group participates in Operation Sea Dragon II (raids on naval bases at Haeju and Rason, North Korea), with F-111s of the 27th Tactical Fighter Wing attacking the naval facility at Sungjon-Pando, sinking several patrol boats and damaging the Soviet frigate Poryvisty. The 26th Infantry Division (Light) (Massachusetts and Connecticut National Guard) completes its deployment by air to Korea. 1st Battalion, 20th Special Forces Group (Alabama National Guard) completes its deployment to the Northern Theatre. A-Teams begin infiltrating into the Kola Peninsula through neutral Sweden and Finland. At Teriberka, air attacks continue (a raid by Backfires on the beachhead and a low-level run by Su-24s firing rockets at the transport force). A combined force of HMS Illustrious’ Sea Harriers and helicopters from the escort force break up a Soviet missile boat sortie. British Special Boat Service (SBS) patrols ashore report the imminent arrival of Soviet paratroopers. The heavy cruiser USS Newport News departs North Carolina as part of the escort of Convoy 124.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#13
02-22-2022, 03:06 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
February 22, 1997
A day of relative inactivity over the skies of Iran and the Persian Gulf, as both sides absorbed the heavy losses of aircrew and aircraft of the prior three days and decided to conserve their remaining ones. USAF stocks in the theatre of the most advanced missiles had dwindled - the prepositioned stocks contained mostly older (and inferior) AIM-7 Sparrow missiles rather than current-production AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles, and the newly deploying 9th Air Force headquarters had pushed combat units into the theatre before the supporting logistic and maintenance units. This left the fighter squadrons with dozens of aircraft in need of repair, bereft of mechanics and with the spare parts still sitting aboard ships in port for want of supply specialists to sort them out. Unofficially: In a closed-door hearing, Secretary of the Navy Joseph Leary is interrogated as to "Why, exactly, could the US Navy not locate a single Soviet ship and prevent it from sinking five warships and seven merchantmen, destroying two refineries and shooting down four warplanes? What exactly has the Navy done with the billions of dollars we have appropriated over the years?" The 71st Airborne Brigade is activated at Camp Gruber, Oklahoma, drawing jump-qualified reserve and National Guard troops from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana. A debate is held in the House of Commons about reintroducing conscription. Some of the most vocal opposition comes from the Chiefs of the Defense Staff, who see little benefit from an influx of large numbers of conscripts which would need to be trained, housed and equipped. The escort carrier Franklin, CVHE-2, converted from a South Korean container ship, begins workups off the California coast. The Freedom-class cargo ship Oklahoma Freedom is delivered in Pascagoula, MS. "In retaliation for the murder of its martyrs on the 20th" (as it stated in an angry message) the Dutch Red Army explodes a truck bomb outside the Royal Palace in Den Haag, killing sixteen civilians and two police officers. The Royal Family had evacuated its palaces at the outbreak of war and remained safe in secret locations. The Bundeswehr completes the transition of its existing I, II and III Corps headquarters to 1st, 2nd and 3rd German Armies, respectively. At Teriberka, General Cedric Skinner, DSO, commander of 3 Commando Brigade and the landing force, orders a withdrawal. While later subject to fierce criticism for his decision, Skinner, who had been a Royal Marines company commander in the Falklands War 15 years prior, determined that the assault force would not have had sufficient time to establish itself ashore (establishing supply dumps and land-based air defense, emplacing artillery in dispersed firing positions and constructing a helipad), ultimately dooming the marines to defeat. The withdrawal occurrs at night, the retreating marines thoroughly demolishing the coastal defenses and liberally scattering mines and booby traps over the area. The Victor III-class submarine K-412 sinks the American transport Maine, carrying vehicles and many of the helicopters of the 38th Infantry Division, as it lagged behind Convoy 122. (The ship, converted from a pair of Second World War-tankers, had an aged and unusual propulsion system. The 80-year old chief engineer fell ill and his younger assistant was unable to keep the aged propulsion plant going reliably.) The fast sealift ships Pollux and Antares arrive in Hamburg carrying vehicles and most of the guns of the 151st Field Artillery Brigade (SC National Guard). The ships had been routed by the Azores and through French territorial waters to avoid Soviet subs and raiders.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#14
02-23-2022, 04:01 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
February 23, 1997
Nothing in the canon for the day! Unofficially: The small convoy of the Victory ship PVT Fred C Murphy and Coast Guard cutter Resolute arrives in Jacksonville, FL. There is a change of leadership in the Navy in the aftermath of the Kirov sinking. Commander, Task Force 26 (Second Fleet's maritime patrol aircraft commander) is reassigned as the new Superintendent of the Navy War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Task Force 28, the Caribbean Task Force, is split off from Second Fleet and designated Fourth Fleet. Fourth Fleet will be assigned responsibility for the Caribbean and the Atlantic south of the Tropic of Cancer. Col. Tumanski's Spetsnaz team finally spots a GLCM flight on the move in rural Berkshire, England in the early morning hours. The vehicles are out of range of the team's weapons (over 2 km away), and the colonel is alarmed by the firepower displayed by the flight, which outmatches the firepower his team can bring to bear. They are able to locate the general area the flight is hiding in (by observing from a distance with two observation posts). SACEUR approves the prior week's request to support the establishment of so-called Polish Free Legions, armed forces of the Polish Government in Exile. Despite the name and the announcment, the reality is less impressive. The "Free Legions" amount to five company-sized formations composed of first or second-generation Polish immigrants serving in other NATO militaries seconded to the Polish government, augmented by carefully screened volunteers from among Polish POWs captured in the fighting of the past months. Convoy 122 is attacked by two Soviet submarines, the Kilo-class B-459 and the Echo II-class K-131. The quiet diesel boat spots the convoy and relaya its location to the SSGN as well as providing updated inflight guidance to the SS-N-12 missiles K-131 launched, before launching a torpedo attack. The missiles strike the escorting Canadian frigate HMCS Terra Nova and the American freighter Montana Freedom (on its maiden voyage), and the torpedoes sink the Danish-flag Seaboard Sun. The American fast sealift ship Denebola arrives in Emden, Germany carrying the vehicles and heavy equipment of the 151st Field Artillery Brigade (SC National Guard). Like the ships that arrived the day before, the vessel had taken a circuitous route to avoid Soviet raiders. Travelling at 30 knots also helped to avoid enemy attacks! photo The 1st Squadron, 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment (Light) arrives in Saudi Arabia via priority airlift. The Squadron's LAVs and the regiment's M917 ADATS troop are deployed behind the screen established by the 82nd Airborne in northeastern Saudi Arabia, ready to respond to any enemy attacks.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#15
03-01-2022, 03:33 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
February 24, 1997
Nothing official today, but unofficially: A Spetnsaz team of the 16th Independent Spetsnaz Brigade (reporting directly to GRU headquarters in Moscow) crosses into the US over a lightly patrolled section of border in southwestern New Mexico. The Assistant Chief of Staff, N2 (Intelligence) of the Second Fleet in the Atlantic announces his retirement. A two-man patrol from Col Tumanski's Spetsnaz team probes the defenses of the GLCM flight while two other men return to their safehouse to retrieve a light mortar and an AT-4 missile launcher. IX Corps in Korea transitions from supporting the deployment of US troops into the Korean Peninsula to commanding the 7th and 26th Infantry Divisions in combat operations along the DMZ north of Seoul. SACEUR authorizes a major realignment of forces along the nearly 1250 km of active front line in Germany. Second German Army assumes responsibility for the area from the Baltic Coast southward, First German Army takes responsibility for the central portion of the Oder-Niesse line and Third German Army the sector up to the Czech-Polish-German tri-border point. The US 7th Army sector is extended along the Czechoslovak border all the way to Austria. All the armies are multi-national, and the German armies divert significant combat forces to internal security and reconstruction tasks in the former East Germany. NATO commanders in the Kola decide that future attacks along the Litsa are most likely to produce high casualties without territorial gains and call a temporary halt to offensive operations until the strategic situation along the front changes, and both opposing armies begin to dig in and settle down for an extended period. The Soviet Echo II-class cruise missile submarine K-131, its missiles expended, ordered to Bluefields, Nicarauga for replenishment. The landing ship Spiegel Grove, damaged by Soviet bombers off Teriberka, sinks while under tow. The trailing elements of the 82nd Airborne Division arrive in Saudi Arabia. They are accompanied by the AH-1S of the Aviation Squadron, NBC company and Air Defense Battery of the 14th ACR (Light). The 235th Rear Area Protection Division is called up in Artemovsk, Ukraine, falling in on cadre and supplies from the 36th Motor-Rifle Division and begins absorbing reservists and raw conscripts and small-unit (platoon and company) training.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#16
03-01-2022, 03:40 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
February 25, 1997
The owners of the airship Columbia begin preparing her for her first long flight, gathering survival supplies-guns, ammo, food concentrates, clothing, camping gear and all of the material necessary to build new airships, including tank after tank of carefully refrigerated liquid helium. Unofficially: The Coast Guard cutter Resolute departs Jacksonville, links up with four freighters and the tanker Overseas Alice transiting the Straits of Florida. The Second Fleet's chief of staff is relieved of duty following a preliminary investigation into the Kirov breakout and pursuit. The two members of Col. Tumanski's team that were attempting to locate the GLCM flight are intercepted by troops of the 2nd Battalion, The Wessex Regiment and detained. The rest of the team sets up the 82mm mortar and fires ten rounds at the area they suspect the flight is hiding in before abandoning it and leaving the area to avoid capture. The Soviet raider Buliny, under the command of Captain 2nd Rank Mikhail Mischenko, arrives in Luanda, Angola and is refuellled and rearmed. The ship's 130mm magazines are fully replenished and a partial load of 5 SS-N-22 missiles are received. The USSR and Greece sign a secret accord, allowing Soviet submarines and their support ships to operate in Greek waters. The 14th ACR (Light)'s support squadron and the lead battalion of the 7th Transportation Brigade arrive in Saudi Arabia.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#17
03-02-2022, 03:34 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
February 26, 1997
Nothing in the canon for the day. Unofficially, The Headquarters, XI US Corps completes its intense two-week command post exercise (in which it "fought" a month-long campaign which started as a defense against a Soviet Front and ended with a counteroffensive) and returns to its home station of Ft. Benjamin Harrison, Indiana for equipment issue prior to deploying. The 43rd (Wessex) Brigade dispatches additional companies to the area around the GLCM flight that was attacked (with only a single injury) by Col. Tumanski's Spetsnaz team. The flood of additional troops to the area causes the Soviet colonel to withdraw from the area and seek other targets. (The diversion of troops to the area in itself consumes resources that would otherwise be directed to the front). The old carrier USS Midway and its air group, CVW-16, is declared combat ready in San Diego. It is ordered to patrol the northeast Pacific, the area between the Aleutians, Midway and Puget Sound. CVW-16 fields two F/A-18 squadrons, a squadron of A-7E attack jets and a squadron of A-6 bombers, along with the usual complement of airborne early warning and electronic warfare aircraft and anti-submarine helicopters. The air wing does not have tankers, F-14 interceptors or fixed-wing anti-submarine aircraft. Convoy 208 arrives in Pusan, Korea, bringing with it the 264th Engineer Group, bulk ammunition and containerized supplies for 8th US Army and carrying bagged rice to help sustain the South Korean civilian population. The 151st Field Artillery “Gamecock" Brigade (South Carolina National Guard), with a M109 battalion and a M110 howitzer battalion is reported ready for action in Germany, and is assigned to III Corps. On the Kola Peninsula, units on the front line gradually reduce the portion of troops at the front, withdrawing the rest to prewar buildings in the rear (in the towns of Zaozersk, Kola and Murmansk for the Soviets, Nikel, Luostari and Pechenga for NATO troops). X Corps withdraws 10th Mountain Division, which has suffered the highest losses, back into Norway for rest, refit and to absorb what replacement troops and equipment arrive in Norway. The Norwegian Army rotates brigades off the front line, replacing the most damaged platoons in each battalion with replacement platoons reassigned from units in southern Norway and replacing losses in other units with fresh recruits from the training system, which was working overtime to make up for the casualties of over four months of intense combat. The Dutch marine battalion receives a steady stream of reservists to replace its losses, although the replacements arrive only with small arms. A Soviet raider in the South Atlantic sinks the bulk carrier Merchant Pioneer, carrying 60,000 tons of fertilizer to Lagos, Nigeria. The loss of the cargo will add to the growing food catastrophe in Africa. Convoy 8, under the protection of the escort carrier Shangri-La (and other escorts), arrives in Gibraltar. 2nd Squadron, 14th ACR (Light) and its 919th Engineer Company arrive in Saudi Arabia. The 269th Aviation Battalion (Combat) of the 18th Airborne Corps is deployed as well. The 196th Motor-Rifle Division, a mobilization-only division from the Moscow Mlitary District, is called up in Kursk and assigned to the 2nd Guards Army. It is equipped with T-62 tanks, Second World War-vintage artillery and 160mm mortars instead of howitzers in the regimental artillery batteries.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#18
03-02-2022, 03:39 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
February 27, 1997
Another day with nothing official! The Spetnsaz team that crossed into New Mexico links up with a sympathizer on a remote back road and is driven to safe house in Albuquerque. The cargo ship Racer is returned to service (from reserve) in San Francisco and travels to Suisun Bay to load ammunition from the Concord Naval Weapons Station. A representative of HM Government meets covertly with representatives of the Ulster Defense Association (a Protestant paramilitary group), making known that the government is prepared to implement harsh measures to curtail terrorist activity for the duration of the war. NATO troops in Germany begin a complex dance to reorient into the new sectors identified in the previous days. Engineer units on both sides of the front line in the Kola begin efforts to construct additional roads and river crossings. Bunkers for headquarters are blasted out of the tundra and warm shelter constructed in the rear areas. A SOSUS fixed sonar sensor array east of Bermuda detects the Echo II-class nuclear cruise missile submarine K-131 transiting at speed. P-3 patrol aircraft of VP-49 are vectored to its location and, after a two-hour hunt, sink it with air-dropped torpedoes. The Soviet Black Sea Fleet dispatches a truck convoy carrying supplies, spares and torpedoes, to Varna, Bulgaria for further overland movement to Patros, Greece. Upon arrival there they will support surviving Soviet naval units in the Mediterranean. The 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) begins loading vehicles and heavy equipment aboard ships in Savannah, Georgia. The 14th ACR (Lt)'s regimental headquarters arrives in Saudi Arabia, accompanied by the advance party of the 18th Field Artillery Brigade. The 82nd Motor-Rifle Division transits to the Don River from its garrisons near Volgograd to load onto ships that will transport the unit to Bulgaria.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#19
03-02-2022, 03:48 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
February 28, 1997
The 44th (my 20th) Armored Division's headquarters is formed at Ft Hood, Texas, taking command of the 30th Armored (Tennesse National Guard), 31st Armored (Alabama National Guard) and 218th Infantry (Mechanized) (South Carolina National Guard) brigades. The new division begins training and establishing division-level units (Division Artillery, a composite cavalry squadron and an engineer regiment headquarters, amoung others) from the previously independent brigades' units. Unofficially, The Freedom ship Ohio Freedom is delivered in Galveston, Texas. The 218th Infantry Brigade (Mechanized), South Carolina National Guard, completes Rotation 97-5 at the National Training Center at Ft. Irwin, California and is declared combat ready, the same time falling under command of the new armored division. The 2nd Brigade, 29th ID(L) (Maryland and Virginia National Guards) completes Rotation 97-5 at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Ft. Polk, LA and is declared combat ready. Col. Tumanski is ordered by Moscow Center (the GRU headquarters at Khodinka airfield in Moscow) to maintain survellience of the identified GLCM launch sites but to shift his efforts to disrupting the flow of supplies and reinforcements onto the continent. Convoy 8, under the protection of the escort carrier Shangri-La and other US and allied escorts, departs Gibraltar, heading east through the Mediterranean. Several Soviet ships and submarines from the Mediterranean Squadron remain unaccounted for, despite intense searches for them. The 14th ACR (Light)'s final squadron (the 3rd) arrives in Saudi Arabia, completing the unit's priority airlift. Military Airlift Command shifts some of its aircraft back to supporting the war in Europe and Korea following the deployment of the 82nd and 14th to Saudi Arabia, despite the considerable amount of CENTCOM troops and equipment still ready to go to the Middle East.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#20
03-02-2022, 03:58 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
March 1, 1997
The 6th Air Cavalry Combat Brigade is assigned to XVIII Airborne Corps and begins to deploy by air to Saudi Arabia. The 41st Infantry Division becomes operational and begins deployment to Korea by sea. The 43rd Infantry Division becomes operational and begins deployment to Europe by sea. The division's 187th Infantry Brigade (US Army Reserve) is forward deployed to Iceland, requiring sealift planners to identify available ships that can fit into the island nation's harbors and direct them there. Hamadan falls to Soviet troops. The Iranian National Security Force begins recruiting nationalist Iranians, mostly veterans of the Iran-Iraq war, for Operation Shadow, an effort to seed anti-Soviet guerrilla bands in areas likely to be occupied by the Soviets and their Tudeh allies. Unofficially, The US Navy assigns the training carrier Lexington in Pensacola an operational anti-raider role in the Caribbean with a scratch air wing (three squadrons of A-4s from the trainign establishment and some Sea King helicopters) and a small battle group, designated Task Force 40.1. The Freedom-class cargo ship Arizona Freedom is delivered in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The Spetsnaz team in Albuquerque conducts a reconniassance of the Kirtland Air Force Base nuclear weapons storage facility. A Senior MI-5 official meets with a Ulster Volunteer Force leader in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, to convey the same message regarding sectarian terror as was delivered to the UDA in February. He also hints that MI-5 would entertain more extreme measures (beyond indefinate internment without trial, likely assassination of leadership) if the warning was ignored. The Headquarters, 12th Air Force arrives in Orland AB, Norway to provide C3I for USAF units in Norwegian theatre. Guards aboard the Soviet destroyer Buliny, under the command of Captain 2nd Rank Mikhail Mischenko, replenishing and receiving minor repairs in Luanda, Angola, detect swimmers in the harbor nearby and drop grenades in the water. The sailors' quick action disrupted an attack by 4 Reconnaissance Commando, South African Defense Force, who lost three recces in the failed operation. Convoy 10 departs Savannah, with a dozen ships carrying the equipment and vehicles of the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized).
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#21
03-03-2022, 03:38 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
March 2, 1997
Nothing official for today! The Freedom-class cargo ship Missouri Freedom is delivered in Pascagoula, MS. An unexplained explosion rocks a remote Sandia National Laboratory site in rural New Mexico. The Spetsnaz team under Col. Mikhail Tumanski lays explosive charges under the rail line exiting the US Army munitions depot at Caerwent, Wales. The Escort Carrier Franklin (a former container ship converted to operate helicopters and Harrier jump jets) returns to San Francisco Bay, ready to escort the convoy carrying 41st Infantry Division to Korea on its first operational mission. The former East German 24th Motorshutzen Division is re-designated the 24th PanzerGrenadier Division but retains its Soviet equipment and motor-rifle division structure. The 2nd and 76th Brigades, 38th Infantry Division arrive in Bremerhaven, Germany with Convoy 122. The brigades have lost a portion of their heavy equipment to raiders on the convoy, and are forced to requisition replacement vehicles from the theater's reserve stocks. The 3rd Brigade, 24th ID (M) loads its forward detachment aboard aircraft at Hunter Army Airfield for transit to Saudi Arabia. Upon arrival they will begin unloading prepositioned equipment from the squadron of ships which had been maintained afloat in Diego Garcia. They will form CENTCOM's first heavy brigade deployed to the region. The 14th ACR (Light) reports it is fully mission capable and moves into postions alongside the Saudi National Guard's 3rd Light Motorized Brigade south of the Kuwaiti border.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#22
03-03-2022, 03:45 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
March 3, 1997
As Iranian II Corps' defense of Esfahan continues, 4th Army commits the 31st (my 23rd Guards) Motor-Rifle Division (a Category C unit from the Transcaucasian Military District) to action outside Arak. Unofficially: TF 40.1 (the Lexington battle group) is ordered to patrol the Caribbean Sea, initially the eastern approaches to the Panama Canal and to be prepared to reinforce the New Jersey battlegroup on the Pacific approaches as the battleship is under repair at Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, Puerto Rico following its duel with the Kirov. The Freedom-class cargo ship Colorado Freedom is delivered in San Diego, California. It is ordered to Port Hueneme, California to load cargo for the CENTCOM AOR. An ad-hoc task force from the USAF Pararescue School is formed to assist the FBI in tracking down the suspected Spetsnaz team following yesterday's Sandia attack. Col. Tumanski's Spetsnaz team detonates explosives under a railcar full of flares leaving the US Army munitions dump at Caerwent, Wales. The subsequent fire ignites other railcars carrying explosives and consumes the locomotive. The rail line is out of service, slowing significantly the transfer of the over 400,000 tons of US Army munitions still stored at the site. The 264th Engineer Group (Combat) (Wisconsin National Guard) arrives in Korea, where it is assigned to restore roads, structures and bridges destroyed in December's fighting. Convoy 8, including the escort carrier Shangri-La, splits into two sub-convoys east of Malta. Convoy 8.1 turns north into the Adriatic, headed for Jugoslav ports, while Convoy 8.2 (including the Shangi-La) continues east.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end... Last edited by chico20854; 03-04-2022 at 04:48 PM.
|
|
#23
03-04-2022, 04:47 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
March 4, 1997
Kashan and Arak fall to the Soviet 4th Army; the Iranian II Corps continues to defend the approaches to Esfahan. Unofficially: The Freedom-class cargo ship Nebraska Freedom is delivered in Pascagoula, MS. The 55th Brigade, 28th Infantry Division (Pennsylvania National Guard) completes Rotation 97-5 at NTC-2 at the Yakima Training Center and is declared combat ready; as the division's last brigade the entire division is declared combat ready. The first three company-sized Polish Free Legions report to the Grafenwohr training area in Germany for pre-combat training. The units are equipped with HMMWVs provided by the US Army and captured RPGs and Soviet 120mm mortars. The former East German 8th Motor-Rifle Division is re-named the 28th PanzerGrenadier Division, assigned to VI Korps. The 196th Field Artillery Brigade (Tennessee National Guard) arrives at Jacksonville, Florida for loading aboard the transports Oklahoma Freedom, Cape Elgin, Ibn Qutaibah and Symphorine for transit to Saudi Arabia. Naval Spetsnaz teams, covertly deployed through Iraq and sailing through the Persian Gulf in a dhow (a traditional regional sailing vessel), strike two targets. One team sets the supertanker Solt Companion afire, with 2.25 million barrels of crude oil aboard, in the Straits of Hormuz. The other team sinks the smaller tanker Oraholm in the entrance to Bandar Abbas' oil port. F-16As of the 89th TFS (AFRES) launch a mission over the Black Sea to sweep Soviet shipping from the sealane between Burgas and Soviet ports in Crimea and Georgia. They locate three small freighters sailing independently and sink them with gunfire and cluster bombs. Another F-16 unit in Turkey, the 149th Tactical Fighter Group, based in the southeast, launches a decoy air raid on Soviet targets outside Yerevan, Armenia. The American fighters never cross into Soviet airspace - one flight of four aircraft approaches the border, prompting Soviet fire control radars to light up and interceptors to launch, before turning back. A second flight launches anti-radiation missiles at the newly identified radars, while the squadron's remaining aircraft engage the fighters with long-range missiles before turning back. As Soviet fighters pursue the retreating American aircraft, the first flight, which had dropped to low level over the mountainous terrain, pop up and ambushed the surprised Su-15s. Five Soviet aircraft are lost, a SA-10 battalion command post and acquisition radar is destroyed and two SA-2 batteries are neutralized.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#24
03-05-2022, 06:58 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
March 5, 1997
Nothing in the canon for the day! Unofficially, NATO heads of state begin another secret session on war strategy. This meeting includes the Jugoslav and Romanian leadership as well as a delegation from the Polish government in exile. USAF and RAF strike aircraft launch a series of attacks on Polish and Soviet supply dumps and fuel depots that have been identified by radar aircraft orbiting over the Inter-German Border. The 39th Infantry Brigade (Air Assault) (Arkansas National Guard) completes Rotation 97-6 at JRTC-2 at Fort Chaffee, AR and declared combat ready. The Iranian 42nd Tactical Fighter Squadron receives its F-20s in Savannah, Georgia, completing the outfitting of the 41st Wing. The squadron flies their new aircraft to Pensacola, Florida for conversion training. (The squadron's personnel are experienced with the F-20s predecessor, the F-5E, so training focuses on the differences between the two models). The eccentric rock star Ted Hendrix calls off his round the world voyage in his yacht the Iron Duke (a carefully reproduced copy of the clipper ship Cutty Sark) due to the world situation. He leaves the ship in Key West, Florida, heading to his ranch in North Dakota for some big game hunting. Two Soviet submarines, the Victor I-class K-367 and the Victor III-class K-251, infiltrate the Japanses naval base at Sasebo and sink the destroyer Haruyuki, the frigates Oyodo and Sendai and the oiler Sagami. The K-367 is sunk as it tries to escape the area. The Soviet raider Buliny, under the command of Captain 2nd Rank Mikhail Mischenko, departs Luanda, Angola at dark. The American heavy cruiser Newport News is detached from the escort of Convoy 124, heading for Scapa Flow, Scotland. Convoy 8.1 arrives in Split, Croatia and begins unloading munitions, light vehicles and supplies to support the Romanian and Jugoslav war effort. Convoy 8.2 splits once again, with six ships heading to Antalya, Turkey while the remaining 12 head southeast towards Israel and the Suez Canal. 3rd Brigade, 24th Infantry Division begins unloading the transports Shugart, Gordon, Yano, Gililand and Soderman in Damman, Saudi Arabia as additional aircraft arrive carrying the brigade's troops. The Soviet 7th Guards Army attacks the Iranian I Corps in the Kermanshah-Hamadan-Bourjes area. The supertanker Solt Companion continues to drift in the Straits of Hormuz; the fires aboard are too intense for salvage crews to board to attach a tow line. US and Allied naval forces in the region begin a frantic effort to locate the naval Spetsnaz teams that were responsible for the attack on the tanker, but there are dozens and dozens of small trading vessels in the region. Ironically, one of the most useful assets in this effort are the over 150 small armed motorboats manned by the Pasdaran, boats that had plagued the Persian Gulf in the 1980s.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#25
05-06-2022, 12:20 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
May 6, 1997
After three days of heavy fighting Soviet paratroops begin to withdraw from the Bandar-e-Khomeni area, a battered, but still cohesive fighting force. The 82nd Airborne Divison is ordered to hold its positions until the 24th Infantry Division can relieve them. Unofficially, The tanker Guadalupe is delivered in Baltimore, Maryland and put into naval service, with the hull number T-AOT-209. In New Orleans, the Victory ship Wayne Victory begins loading a cargo of bagged corn meal destined for war-torn Iran. Headquarters, XXIII Corps completes its command post exercise/wargame at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The staff there noted the corps' exceptional performance and recommended its immediate deployment overseas. The Bundeswehr forms the 2nd Military Police Command to coordinate support and operations for three territorial military police battalions that had been operating independently under direct command of Territorial Command Ost, the Bundeswehr liaison command in the former East Germany. Along the Polish Baltic coast, amphibious forces (the German 18th Marine Regiment and elements of the US 6th Marine Expeditionary Brigade) establish a lodgment on the coast west of Kolobrzeg. Allied troops all along the front continue to push back defending Pact forces. The first graduates of the Saami partisan training course in Kautokeino, Norway, are armed with small arms and ammunition abandoned by the Red Army in the retreat from Norway and cross the border back into Soviet territory. Turkish troops continue to capture Bulgarian territory, reaching the northern slopes of the Balkan Mountains overlooking the wide Danube Valley. The Romanian border is less than 100 km to the north, and an advance to it would cut the lines of communication between Bulgaria's capital and the Black Sea Coast. Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic assembles the largest convoy of the war to date, Convoy 140. The convoy will bring an entire armored division (the 44th (my 20th), roughly two-thirds of the 36th Infantry Divison and the 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment to Europe under unprecedented escort. It departs Jacksonville, Florida at sundown, with five ships loaded with the 1169th Engineer Group (Alabama National Guard) as well as over a dozen ships carrying munitions, fuel and supplies. In the Indian Ocean, the Soviet raider Buliny, under the command of Captain 2nd Rank Mikhail Mischenko, makes its first strike in many weeks. A GRU source provided information about the at-sea rendevous of two ultra-large bulk carriers, the Rio Leonard and the Rio Lawrence, for the Leonard to transfer a spare part to the Lawrence. When the two massive ships (each capable of carrying over 175,000 tons of Australian coal to Europe) meet the Soviet destroyer is not far away and pounces. The ships' massive size makes them hard to sink, but the Buliny eventually does so - by sending boarding parties aboard to place demolition charges against the hull. The Leningrad SAS team feels confident to resume operations, sending out a two-man team to observe conditions and begin assessing targets.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#26
03-06-2022, 07:14 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
March 6, 1997
Sirjan Khorrasani, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War and rug dealer, is recruited by National Security Force Major Javad Hedayati, formerly of the Pasdaran and an old firend, for Operation Shadow. Khorrasani is to remain in Esfahan if the IPA withdaws from Esfahan, appearing to cooperate with the occupying Tudeh and Soviets, while leading the local Pasdaran resistance band. Unofficially, The head of the Polish Free Congress, Lech Walesa (freed from jail earlier in the war in a daring joint SAS-Delta Force raid) addresses his fellow NATO heads of state, emotionally imploring them to liberate his nation after over 50 years of Soviet occupation. The CIA Director gives an assessment of Soviet military capabilities given the current world situation. A FBI counterintelligence monitoring team radio-locates a Spetsnaz team as they attempt to arrange pickup by their supporting sympathizer. The elite FBI Hostage Rescue Team deploys to Albuquerque. HQ, XI Corps completes its pre-deployment activities and rail loads its vehicles for transit to the load port of Bayonne, New Jersey. The Dutch Red Army fires a RPG at the Rotterdam refinery, starting a small fire and shutting down one of its hydrocracker units for three weeks. A group from the Latvian Free Army, supported by an A-Team of the 10th Special Forces Group, attacks the fuel depot at the Šiauliai air base, setting it ablaze and seizing a dozen weapons from the guard force. A major artillery duel erupts along the Oder-Niesse line. The troops in the bridgeheads retreat to their deep shelters, and American A-10s soon appear overhead, raining cluster bombs on the Polish and Soviet batteries. Three A-10s are lost when 57mm and 100mm flak batteries open up on them. The Whiskey-class diesel submarine S-359 arrives in the North Sea after over two weeks creeping at slow speed along the Norwegian coast. It lays 18 MDM-1 mines on the seabed between British and Dutch channel ports, then turns back for Murmansk. Convoy 8.2.1 is attacked by the Soviet Whiskey-class submarine S-383 northwest of Cyprus, sinking the Turkish freighter Ihlsan. The Solt Companion sinks, leaving behind a massive oil slick.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#27
03-07-2022, 03:44 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
March 7, 1997
Nothing official today... The 30th Armored Brigade, 44th (my 20th) Armored Division (Tennessee National Guard) completes Rotation 97-4 at NTC-3 at the Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona and is declared combat ready. It begins rail loading its vehicles for transit to East Coast load ports. A FBI-USAF team surrounds the Spetsnaz team in New Mexico after it is picked up by a sypathizer. The team is disarmed and handled as POWs, the sympathizer is arrested on treason charges. photo The Spetsnaz team under Col Mikhail Tumanski attacks the fuel depot at Avonmouth near Bristol. The team uses its 82mm mortar to split open some of the massive tanks and fires a pair of AT-4 missiles into the resulting spill to start a massive fire. The 265th Engineer Group (Combat) (Georgia National Guard) enters combat in Korea under command of IX Corps. As part of the unification of the German Army from the prewar NVA and Bundeswehr, the 17th Motor-Rifle Division (a mobilization-only unit) is retitled the 217th PanzerGrenadier Division. The 142nd Field Artillery Brigade (Arkansas National Guard) fires it first shots in anger along the Oder-Niesse line. The Soviet raider Buliny sinks the Liberian-flag bulker Galet, carrying bulk wheat to Capetown. The loss of the cargo further heightens the hunger crisis in Africa. Convoy 8.2.2 arrives at Port Said, Egypt and is officially ended. (Many of the ships will continue on to the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf under escorts provided by local navies and the US 5th Fleet). Convoy 8.2.1. arrives at the Turkish port of Izmir and begins unloading supplies of food, munitions and light vehicles. The 18th Field Artillery Brigade loads its guns and trucks onto aircraft at Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina for deployment to Saudi Arabia. The Soviet 40th Army, advancing west out of Afghanistan (from marshalling areas near Shindand and Herat) links up with troops of the 45th (my 32nd) Army at Bardaskan, in the harsh desert southwest of Mashad (and cutting off the last overland connection to the isolated Pasdaran garrison).
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end... Last edited by chico20854; 03-08-2022 at 07:34 AM.
|
|
#28
03-08-2022, 03:03 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
March 8, 1997
The US 4th (I have the 3rd) Marine Division first enters combat against the North Korean Army. Unofficially: NATO heads of state conclude their conference. After nearly two days of discussion, they order SACEUR to prepare and execute an invasion of Poland to restore the Polish Government in Exile's control of the country, something it has not had since September, 1939. A shipment of M-60 machineguns from the factory in Saco, Maine to the Army ordnance center at Anniston, Albama goes missing while the unmarked truck carrying the weapons was travelling through southwestern Virginia. Over 250 brand new weapons were aboard. The site of the munitions train fire and explosion outside RAF Caerwent in Wales is cleared of unexploded ordnance so railroad workers can begin the task to remove the wreck of the train and rebuild the damaged track underneath it. The carriers Abraham Lincoln, Independence, Constellation and John C. Stennis launch a coordinated series of raids against North Korean targets northwest of Pyongyang. The 28th ANZUK Brigade begins a series of exercises at the Shoalwater Bay Training Area in central Queensland, Australia. This is the first time the formation has had its battalions operate together. 1st Brigade, 9th Infantry Division (Light Motorized) arrives at the port of Tacoma, Washington to load equipment and vehicles for Saudi Arabia. The brigade loads many of its vehicles and supplies into containers so that relatively abundant container ships can be used, speeding the brigade's deployment. The former NVA (East German Army) reserve 6th Motor-Rifle Division is re-named the 26th PanzerGrenadier Division and reorganized, its three motor-rifle and single tank regiments each assigned a even mix of panzergrenadier and panzer battalions. The American heavy cruiser Newport News departs Scapa Flow, Scotland, leading a group consisting of a missile cruiser, a destroyer and three frigates, on convoy escort duty in the Norwegian and Barents Seas and to provide on-call naval gunfire support for NATO troops ashore. The British ferry European Freeway is sunk by a mine (laid by a Soviet submarine just days before) in the North Sea. It was carrying equipment to bring II British Corps up to strength. The 82nd Motor Rifle Division arrives in the Bulgarian port of Varna, assigned to the 58th Army. Convoy 126 forms in Jacksonville, Florida. It includes the vehicles, guns and heavy equipment of the 209th (New York National Guard) and 227th (Florida National Guard) Field Artillery Brigades. The 20th Engineer Brigade (Airborne) loads its heavy equipment aboard transports in Morehead City, North Carolina for deployment to the CENTCOM region. The transports Donald Kowalski (the former Soviet frieghter Donetsk Komsomolets, captured by the Royal Navy in December), the American transport Gulf Farmer and the Panamanian roll-on/roll-off ship Ciudad De Oviedo load the 187th Infantry Brigade (US Army Reserve)'s heavy equipment in Reykjavik, Iceland while 737s carry the brigade's troops to German airports. 3rd Brigade, 24th ID is fully manned and equipped in Saudi Arabia. The transport ships that carried its equipment are released to return to the U.S. for their next mission. Long Range Aviation completes a week-long stand-down following several months of intense operations over the seas adjacent to Soviet territory, China, the Balkans and the Persian Gulf. Half of the force's Tu-16 Badger regiments are disbanded, their remaining aircraft and crews reassigned to the surviving units to bring them up to strength. Despite herculean efforts, the delivery of new Tu-22M4 Backfire bombers (one aircraft a week) is insufficient to replace the Backfire force's losses, and a third of the regiments are left intact but stripped of aircraft and aircrews. (The intent is to equip those regiments with aircraft as they become available). The Tu-22 Blinder force is allowed to continue operations until it fades into irrelevance, while the Tu-160 Blackhjack force is held for long-range nuclear strikes on the UK, Canada and USA and the Tu-95 Bear force continues to launch cruise missiles from over Soviet territory at targets in the NATO (and Japanese) rear.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#29
03-09-2022, 06:13 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
March 9, 1997
The Danish army (Slesvig RCT) first enters combat against Warsaw Pact forces. The Danish contingent is involved with a minor attack to drive Czechoslovakian forces back in Bavaria. Unofficially, SACEUR staff brief NORTHAG and CENTAG staff on the political directive to liberate Poland from Soviet occupation. They discuss some concepts of operation and begin planning the offensive. It is assigned the code name Operation Advent Crown. In Framingham, Massachusetts, a small ceremony marks the delivery of the first LAV-25 from the former GM automotive plant, the culmination of a reactivation process that took 15 months. Unfortunately, the Chinese People's Liberation Army, for which the plant was reopened, will not receive any of the factory's production, which instead is directed to US Army and Marine forces fighting around the world. The 329th Engineer Group (US Army Reserve) is declared combat ready at its mobilization station of Camp Edwards, Massachusetts and begins moving its equipment to Boston to load for Germany. Senior leaders of MI5 meet covertly with PIRA leadership in Londonderry, expressing that HM Government would take extreme measures in the event of sectarian violence during the ongoing war in Europe. Frontal Aviation tries a new approach to operations over the front line on the German border. Over a period of three hours in the predawn hours it dispatches trickles of bombers and fighter-bombers in ones and twos at low level; the move forces NATO interceptors to either let the raiders through (possibly being engaged by SAMs) or divert from their patrol stations, requiring the dispatch of additional ready aircraft to take up the station. The Soviets hoped that the supply of ready aircraft would be depleted after five or more sorties, but unfortunately they were not, and 17 aircraft were lost overnight for minimal damage to targets in Germany. The Soviet raider Buliny attacks the US transport ship Hattiesburg Victory (built in World War II but delivered too late to serve, a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars) in the South Atlantic. A Soviet submarine sinks the Panamanian freighter Manley Appledore, exporting timber from Finland, as it exits the English Channel. A second Whiskey-class submarine arrives in the North Sea and begins laying mines. The 46th Brigade, 38th Infantry Division arrives in Bremen, Germany with Convoy 124. The 194th Engineer Brigade (Tennessee National Guard) begins loading its vehicles and heavy equipment aboard ships in Charleston, South Carolina for transit to CENTCOM. Turkish troops launch a series of attacks against Greek troops in Thrace, seeking a weak point that can be exploited. Greek artillery fire breaks up the attacks before they can make any significant gains. Meanwhile, the front in Bulgaria has become static as both sides lack the offensive power to advance. First World War-style trench systems are being dug across the mountains and hills to shelter from artillery fire. Chinese commanders have built up a reserve of over 100,000 reasonably trained light infantry, drawn from throughout China and begin moving them into Manchuria. American leadership orders the dispatch of the USS Independence and her battle group to 5th Fleet in the CENTCOM AOR to augment 9th Air Force and resume offensive naval operations against the Soviets and their allies in the Indian Ocean.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
|
#30
03-10-2022, 04:05 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
March 10, 1997
The Headquarters and the 157th Infantry Brigade (Mechanized) of the US 43rd Infantry Division (US Army Reserve) arrives in Europe. Unofficially, The Freedom ship Puerto Rico Freedom is delivered in Galveston, Texas. A group of eight 1950s-era destroyers and fifiteen trawlers sortie from Petropavlovsk into the North Pacific, scattering after storming past the American SSN guarding the harbor exit, the USS Pasadena, which sinks one of the trawlers in the mass of ships rushing past. Equipment and vehicles of the 2nd Brigade, 9th Infantry Division (Light Motorized) arrive at the port of Seattle, Washington to load for Saudi Arabia. The East German 9th Panzer Division is re-named the 29th Panzer Division. A Soviet submarine attacks the Marshall Islands-flag container ship Merkur Rivera in the North Atlantic. The ship is left listing and dead in the water, but the arrival of a British Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft forces the attacker to slink away before it can finish off the hapless freighter. The Soviet Sierra II-class SSN K-336 sinks the American nuclear missile submarine USS Maine off Kings Bay, Georgia. Under command of Captain First Rank Sergei Babenko, the K-336 escapes, sinking the USCG cutter Valiant during the escape. The attack on an American "boomer" raises alarms throughout the chain of command, afraid that it is the opening move of a general campaign to neutralize America's most secure second strike capability. 3rd Brigade, 24th ID is deployed in defensive positions along the coast of the Persian Gulf to protect the region from possible Soviet spoiling attacks on CENTCOM's staging areas in Eastern Saudi Arabia as additional units flow into the theatre. The Soviet Ministry of Agriculture authorizes the release of one quarter of land farmed by collective and state farms from central control to individual farmers. While not publicized, the move transforms Soviet agriculture, more than compensating for the loss of production from the callup of tens of thousands of young, strong healthy young men for military service.
__________________
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
|
 |
| Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests) | |
|
|
Hybrid Mode
