On this day 25 years ago

[chico20854]

April 19, 1997

Nothing official today!

The tanker Kaskaskia is delivered in Newport News, Virginia. It is "placed in service" (not commissioned, as it is civilian-manned) as the USNS Kaskaskia, T-AOT-207, under control of the US Navy's Military Sealift Command.

The car used by the Spetsnaz team in New York state is discovered abandoned in the Bronx. The NYPD is placed on even higher alert, and state guard and National Guard units redeploy into the city.

The troops of the 81st Infantry Brigade (Washington National Guard) are granted an unusual 2-day pass so they can spend a precious few days with their families before deploying to Europe. Sadly, it will be many of the soldiers' last time seeing them.

Under a secret plan known as Operation Peripheral, the UK is split into 11 Civil Defense Districts, each with a regional seat of government bunker facility. The last of the 11 command facilities (at Loughborough in Leicestershire) is activated today with a small staff of local and central government officials.

The battleship USS Missouri takes up station off the coast of North Korea to provide fire support for the 8th US Army.

photo
A patrol from the 27th Panzer Division makes contact with outer pickets of the US 1st Infantry Division's 4th Battalion, 16th Infantry. Unfortunately, the American troops mistake the former East German division's T-72s for Polish tanks, and five of the German tanks are destroyed in the resulting American firefight before the error is discovered.

The Katowice industrial center is subjected to a third night of NATO air attacks.

British SAS troops, who maintain a safe house in Leningrad, attack the Kirov tank plant, which manufactures T-86 tanks.

The convoy carrying the US 28th Infantry Division (Pennsylvania National Guard) arrives in Bremen and Bremerhaven, Germany and begins discharging.

A flight of F-15Es from the 334th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 4th Tactical Fighter Wing, locate a supply train south of the Soviet-Iranian border. They attack the train with a combination of general purpose and cluster bombs, completely destroying it and releasing a large cloud of deadly gas from the five boxcars of chemical weapons aboard, which Transcaucasian Front had planned to use to kick off its upcoming offensive.

Soviet transport aircraft and heavy lift helicopters begin to converge on airbases in the Caucasus and Turkmenistan.

[chico20854]

April 20, 1997

The Iran Nowin government withdraws from Esfahan to Shiraz. The Iranian Crown Jewels are to follow as soon as a safe location for them can be prepared for them in Shiraz.

Unofficially,

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

30th Infantry Brigade, 36th Infantry Division (North Carolina National Guard) completes Rotation 97-6 at NTC-3 at the Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona and is declared combat ready.

Headquarters, XXIII Corps arrives at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas for a pre-deployment command post exercise.

Colonel Tumanski's spetsnaz team launches another attack, this one on a column of coaches carrying reinforcements to RAF Brize Norton, where they were to be flown to battlefields around the world. 28 soldiers are killed and 32 more wounded.

NATO's deep strike aircraft take a night off to allow the crews (air and ground) to rest and recover from two weeks of high intensity operations.

Survivors of the 7th Guards Air Assault Division, mauled in the fighting in Norway and the Kola, are reorganized into a single regimental battle group in the barracks in Petrozavodsk, near Leningrad. The demands of the war are such that only a few dozen replacements have arrived, and only a trio of BMD-3 armored fighting vehicles; the rest of the VDV's replacement system is replacing losses suffered by the 13th and 76th GAADs and bringing the 103rd, 104th and 105th GAADs to 110 percent strength for the assault on Iran.

The Tango-class submarine B-489 attacks a small convoy between the Cape Verde Islands and Senegal. The commander does not realize that it is a French convoy. Luckily, the escorts (the frigates Prairial and Jean Moulin) have limited anti-submarine capabilities and the the sub manages to slip away after sinking the freighter Ursula Delmas.

Task Force 61 returns to Gibraltar. Sixth Fleet's carriers call at the nearby Naval Station Rota, which has not seen such a mass of warships in many decades. The ships refuel, replenish and make minor repairs.

Convoy 132 arrives in Europe, carrying the equipment and vehicles of the 32nd Infantry Brigade (Mechanized) (Wisconsin National Guard), several support units (such as truck companies, water purification detachments and field hospitals) as well as large amounts of ammunition. The escort commander turns his flagship, the nuclear missile cruiser USS Virginia, east to support the offensive into Poland.

The USS Independence battle group steams west, to be positioned to support Ethiopian rebels operating in the Red Sea.

[chico20854]

April 21, 1997

photo1 photo2 photo3 photo4
The Soviets launch a multi-division airborne assault in Iran. The 103rd Guards Airborne Division air-assaults Bandar Abbas. The 104th Guards lands at Bandar-e Khomeyni while the 105th Guards Air Assault Division seizes Bushehr while the 94th (my 57th) Air Assault Brigade seizes Chah Bahar. The assault uses nearly the entire Soviet airlift fleet, and the 94th (57th) is landed by heavy lift helicopters. The success of the assault is greatly assisted by the actions of supporting Tudeh rebels, who soften up the defenses and wreak havoc in the Iranian rear areas.

Unofficially,

Headquartery, XIII Corps is formed at Camp Mabry, Texas from the 89th and 90th ARCOMs. The new headquarters is assigned support duties in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma.

The troops of the 81st Infantry Brigade (Washington National Guard) return to Fort Lewis following their two-day pass. Only 14 fail to report; they are replaced by recalled reservists from the replacement pool maintained at the fort while the State Police are sent to their homes to retreive them.

photo
A F-15 of the 48th Fighter Interceptor Squadron from Langley AFB, Virginia, successfully launches a ASM-135 ASAT missile against Cosmos-2579, a Soviet Yantar-4 photoreconnaissance satellite that had just been launched from the Plesetsk space center.

Over Poland, the Advent Storm air attacks resume, with a multi-wing raid on the Kraśnik munitions plant.

The Soviet 26th Army Corps headquarters is redeployed from Arkhangelsk to Belomorsk, ordered to strengthen the landward defenses of Leningrad and the Finnish border.

The missile cruiser USS Virginia launches four TLAM (Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles) against the Soviet naval base in Liepaja, Latvia. The conventionally-armed missiles strike the KGB Border Guard naval detachment pier, sinking the patrol boat P-663 and inflicting significant damage to the facility.

In Iran, a massive artillery bombardment (with many chemical rounds) is fired at the Iranian positions (this is however of less power than originally planned as a US air strike had destroyed a sizeable proportion of the stores). Despite fierce resistance by the Iranian People's Army the Soviets push into the Zagros Mountains. In Bandar Abbas, under chemical attack, the Iranian militia flees, although some units put up a spirited resistance. The Gurkhas fight a desperate battle to keep the port open for reinforcements (the 27th Infantry Brigade).

Responding to continued instability in Central America and the Caribbean, the US 71st Airborne Brigade (Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma National Guards) is deployed to Honduras to assist the embattled government and make inroads against Sandanista-controlled and pro-Soviet Nicarauga.

[chico20854]

April 22, 1997

Eritrean rebels, with USAF and USN long-range air support, land forces on the Dahlik Islands, destroy the remnants of the Soviet forces along with much of the Ethiopian Navy.

Unofficially,

A RPG is fired at the destroyer Coontz, in drydock in the Philadekphia Naval Shipyard, starting a small fire that is quickly extinguished.

An inventory of ammunition stocks at Camp Dawson, West Virginia reveals that an entire magazine of 40mm HE rounds for M-203 grenade launchers is empty, over 100 72-round cases.

Three Soviet Skory-class destroyers, the Vertkiy, Vidnyy and Vdumchivyy, rendevous approximately 700 nm south of Adak, Alaska. They are met at the rendevous site by the Hotel-class submarine K-178, a former missile sub that was converted to a support vessel. The sub is able to supply some food and ammunition to the destroyers as well as an intelligence update.

In Poland, NATO troops continue their slow territorial gains against continuing strong resistance. Polish units at the front receive a steady flow of replacement troops from territorial defense units, but replacement vehicles are limited to what can be produced by domestic factories (the Bydgoszcz rolling stock plant, turning out OT-64s, 2S1s and MTLBs from Stalowa Wola, the Jelcz, Starachowice and Lublin truck plants, the BMP factory in Poznan and the Labedy tank plant). Soviet units receive a steady flow of replacement troops and equipment, transported through Poland on priority rail shipments that are the target of NATO special operations forces and interdiction aircraft.

Advent Storm continues to target Poland's military industry, with attacks on the Skarżysko-Kamienna ammunition plant. Cumulative losses for NATO strike aircraft are in excess of 10 percent since the beginning of the month.

In Iran, Soviet patratroops consolidate their positions, clearing out Iranian police and military rear area troops and securing airports in their airheads for follow-on shipments of supplies and equipment. These prove fleeting, as the Iranian Air Force and the USAF 9th Air Force launch an all-out effort to close the airheads, putting all aircraft capable of air-to-air combat in the skies over the Soviet troops. Soviet Frontal Aviation tries to provide escorts for the transports, but American F-15s and Iranian F-4s and F-14s succeed in pulling the escorts away, letting F-16s, F-5s and F-20s tear through the streams of Il-76 and An-12 transports. By nightfall, 37 Soviet transport aircraft have been shot down (as well as 14 fighters), at the cost of 2 F-15s, a F-4 and a F-20 which fell to a Il-76's tail guns.

On the ground below, Soviet forces surge forward. Iranian units at the front find their rear area in disarray and commanders are faced with the very real possibility that the supplies and equipment they have on hand (averaging about three days worth of consumables such as fuel, ammunition and rations) will not be replaced easily. The Iranian II Corps was already preparing for a withdrawal towards Shiraz, but the speed of 45th (my 32nd) Army catches it off guard and Iranian units fall back in a semi-organized manner.

The SAS troops in Leningrad attack the Baltic Fleet base at Khronstadt. They swim into the base's harbor under cover of darkness and attach explosive charges to five ships before exfiltrating. When the limpet mines explode at dawn all of the ships are disabled; the corvette SKR-12, Whiskey-class submarine S-194 and minesweeper BT-322 are all sunk.

The Victor III-class submarine K-412 arrives in position off the port of St. Johns, Newfoundland, to await the transit of the next NATO convoy. Red Banner Northern Fleet commanders plan for the Victor I K-469 to reinforce the blockade when it completes its transit from West Africa.

The convoy carrying troops of 28 ANZUK Brigade arrives at the port of Kunsan, Korea.

[chico20854]

April 23, 1997

Researchers at St George's Medical University in Grenada develop vaccine for GHF, known locally as "the flu", which has ravaged the island for nearly a year. Production of the vaccine in the University's labs begins immediately.

Unofficially,

The FBI receives a report of suspicious people in a South Jersey rental apartment, hauling heavy cases into the apartment after dark and speaking a foreign language.

Army CID (Criminal Investigation Division) agents arrive at Camp Dawson, West Virginia to investigate the loss of 40mm grenades.

The USS Virginia joins the westbound Convoy 135, mostly consisting of empty transports returning to the US for another load of war material. The usual exports of German cars, fine European foodstuffs and high tech manufactured goods have all been disrupted by the war.

American F-111 bombers strike the truck plant in Starachowice, Poland, disrupting production of Star 266 medium trucks for several weeks.

The Independence battle group remains near the mouth of the Red Sea, launching repeated anti-shipping sweeps to round up stragglers of the Soviet and Ethiopian navies from the prior day's attack. The B-52Gs of the 320th Bomb Wing, which had supported the attack from Diego Garcia, fly support missions over the Zagros Mountains in Iran.

The Soviet Skory-class destroyers Vertkiy, Vidnyy and Vdumchivyy, which had broken out of Petropavlovsk in March, begin a medium-speed run north towards the sealanes that run through the Gulf of Alaska on the shortest route between North America and Japan and Korea.

The last of the company-sized Polish Free Legions formed earlier in the year completes its training at the US Army Grafenwoehr Training Center. Rather than attach the units to other NATO armies or send the units for yet more training to enable them to operate as a battalion (and eventually brigade), the Polish Free Congress agrees to use the troops as guides for other NATO troops as the advance through Poland proceeds.

The Enterprise battle group departs Rota, Spain to hunt a rumored raider near the Canary Islands.

The Tango-class submarine B-489 uses the last of her torpedoes to sink the Marshall Islands-flag tanker Aqua Forest, which was carrying West African crude oil to refineries in the UK.

The British 27th Infantry Brigade in Iran is pushed back from Bandar Abbas and begins to withdraw into the mountains, conducting a guerilla war against Soviet logistics forces. Rifleman Goreng Nassang wins the Victoria Cross for manning a GPMG against overwhelming Soviet forces, enabling his platoon to escape.

KGB headquarters in Leningrad is ordered to locate the SAS team suspected of operating in the city.

[chico20854]

April 24, 1997

Father Wojiech Niekarz is refused enlistment into the Polish Army because of his age. (He is 64 years old). He sought to join the fight to defend his homeland against the second German invasion of his lifetime.

Unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship Cleveland Freedom is delivered in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

The FBI sets up surveillance of the South Jersey apartment. Agents quietly displace the residents of the adjacent units and deploy a mobile command post two blocks away.

The Fourth Marine Division, a reserve force, assembles in Camp Pendleton, California following conclusion of a division-level exercise at MCB 29 Palms.

The US 10th Special Forces Group teams operating in the Baltic republics redouble their efforts to disrupt Soviet supply lines heading into Poland. Three rail lines are cut and an ammunition depot is attacked; six guards are killed when their BTR is struck with LAWs while responding to the break-in.

Advent Storm turns its attention from industrial targets back to transportation infrastructure as intelligence indicates that Polish internal troops, using three of their four pontoon regiments, have repaired many of the bridges damaged by earlier airstrikes, allowing trains carrying Soviet supplies and reinforcements to travel deeper into Poland before having to unload their cargoes onto the already overburdened road network.

In light of the seriousness of the situation in Korea, brigade-level exercises for the 23rd Infantry Division are cancelled and the division's battalions are ordered immediately transferred to the front in Korea. A hastily assembled stream of C-130s (American, Korean and Japanese), civilian airliners and ferries begin moving troops and equipment across the Straits of Tsushima.

Soviet Long-Range Aviation, following several weeks of low intensity operations to allow units to rebuild and consolidate, returns to the skies over the Balkans, striking the Craiova tractor plant (which has been turning out replacement TAB-79 scout cars).

The Soviet destroyer task force in the North Pacific makes its first kill when it catches the Danish-flag freighter Gitte Sif. The small container ship takes several hours to sink, allowing the crew time to escape into the ship's lifeboat, as well as radioing a distress signal.

A US Navy EP-3 Aires ELINT aircraft detects the 3P41 Top Dome radar of a Slava-class cruiser emanating from the vicinity of Tartus, Syria. (Two of the Slavas were sunk in the Battle of the Norwegian Sea. The remaining Northern Fleet unit, the Admiral Lobov, was active off Teriberka in the last two weeks, and two remain in the Pacific, leaving only the class' lead ship, the Slava, unaccounted for, barring a massive intelligence failure.)

Soviet paratroopers in Iran complete the securing of their airheads and begin digging in as they await the arrival of relieving friendly mechanized forces. In conjunction with Tudeh guerillas they send out patrols to disrupt IPA operations and provide early warning of approaching enemy forces. The patrols also scrounge for food and fuel to supplement the meagre stocks on hand. (Military Transport Aviation, following the losses of the prior days, pulls its Il-76 and An-12 transports from the area, leaving smaller An-26s and helicopters to low level nighttime sorties to supply the large airborne force.)

The USS Independence group is ordered east, to return to the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz to help suppress the Soviet landing force. The group's commander objects, claiming he is wearing down his force sailing back and forth across the Arabian Sea, but is overruled.

In Leningrad, local police and MVD internal troops are placed on high alert. Security checkpoints are implemented at the train, metro and bus stations. Police are not told who they are looking for, but dozens of suspicious people (and several wanted criminals) are detained. The SAS' informant warns the team, and they stay hidden.

Soviet crewmen aboard the Venezuelan tanker Jose Carlos Mariategui set off a bomb in the ship's machinery spaces as it is in port in Conakry, Guinea. The bombing is blamed on NATO as the ship sinks at her berth.

[chico20854]

April 25, 1997

An IPA unit assigned to evacuate the Iranian Crown Jewels from Esfahan to Shiraz arrives and loads the loads the cargo. As they finish loading the trucks, Soviet forces surround the city. Other units of the Iranian II Corps fall back under heavy pressure.

The 44th (my 20th) Armored Division is declared fully operational. Each of the division's constituent brigades have already completed a rotation at one of the National Training Center sites; the division headquarters staff has just completed a two-week long command post exercise intended to forge it into an organization ready for combat. The division's troops and equipment begin moving to East Coast ports for deployment to Europe.

Unofficially,

The Victory ship Wayne Victory arrives in New Orleans carrying a load of munitions returned from Argentina.

The Ulster Defense Regiment, a Territorial Army formation composed (despite years of effort) almost exclusively of Protestants, is fully mobilized. The UDR's nine prewar battalions are increased to 11, reversing reductions made in 1984. They gradually take over responsibility for security in Northern Ireland, releasing British regular units for service on the continent.

In Ulsan, Korea, the iron ore carrier Berg Nord is delivered. The large ship - capable of carrying over 220,000 tons of cargo at a time - is designed to carry iron ore from Quebec to Rotterdam to feed steel mills in the Ruhr.

In the Gulf of Alaska the three Soviet destroyers try to escape the location of the prior day's sinking. They succeed in doing so, but are spotted by the American trawler Nichole B. The fishermen call the Coast Guard, and within hours a S-3 Viking from the USS Constellation has located the destroyers.

The combined German Navy reactivates an inactive formation, the 2nd Landing Squadron. The force is made up of three former East German trailer-carriers, the former Iraqi naval transport Al Zahraa (renamed the Bochum) and the former Soviet barge carrier Alexy Kosygin, captured in Norway in December and re-named the Glckstadt in German service. The ships begin a short period of training together in preparation for amphibious operations in the Baltic, supplementing the 12 remaining former East German Frosch-class ships.

Allied troops in Poland continue their grinding advance, blasting through seemingly endless series of defensive lines, each protected by minefields and fanatically defended by well-motivated Polish and Soviet troops.

The US Sixth Fleet dispatches the John F Kennedy and America carrier battle groups back into the Mediterranean, to strike Libyan targets en route to the eastern Mediterranean, where they are ordered to locate and sink the Slava-class cruiser detected yesterday.

In the Persian Gulf, the Soviet Sierra II-class submarine K-534 launches a trio of conventionally-armed SS-N-21 cruise missiles at the US 5th Fleet command center ashore in Bahrain. The attack, launched from a distance of less than 20 nm, gives the American command only a few minutes of warning. It is enough time to get the staff to bombproof shelters (allowing the command to weather the attack without loss of life) but the headquarters building is left a smoking ruin. The loss of the structure disrupts fleet operations, and the command is forced to reorganize as the command moves aboard its flagship, the Aegis cruiser USS Yorktown, which has considerably less space available for the headquarters (which had inevitably grown ever more bloated). The surprise attack also serves as a blunt warning of the threat posed by submarine-launched missiles.

A KGB Alfa Group commando team is dispatched to Leningrad in preparation of a raid on the SAS safehouse when it is located.

[chico20854]

April 26, 1997

3rd (I have the 4th) Marine Division deploys to Saudi Arabia under the I Amphibious Corps. (more below)

The commander of the unit transporting the Iranian Crown Jewels determines that getting through the Soviet lines is impossible; an Armenian NCO offers an Armenian Catholic church in the suburb of Julfa as a location to hide the jewels.

Unofficial:

The tanker Santee is delivered in Baltimore, Maryland and put into naval service, designated T-AOT-208.

A second R-5D hypersonic spy plane is completed and handed over to the Air Force in Palmdale, California.

The Air Force authorizes the release of obsolescent aircraft from the boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, for modernization and sale to allies. The two most promising programs are the C-123T turboprop conversion of the venerable C-123 transport and the conversion of 1950s-era T-33 trainers into Boeing Skyfox light attack jets. Both projects also make use of aircraft retired by allies, Thailand selling 36 decommissioned C-123s and Canada releasing over 50 CT-133s.

A multi-squadron raid from the Midway and Constellation air groups on the three Soviet destroyers in the Gulf of Alaska ends the threat those raiders posed. Only one ship - the Velichavyy - remains at large from the eight that broke out of Petropavlovsk on March 10.

The 4th Marine Division loads aboard a mass of transports in San Diego (the 24th Marine Regiment, boarding amphibious shipping) and Los Angeles-Long Beach (the 23rd and 25th Marines, loading aboard merchant-type ships).

Aircraft of the USS Coral Sea's Carrier Air Wing CVW-19 intercept a joint Soviet and Polish missile boat task force as it departs Gdynia at dusk. The American aircraft make multiple runs against the Pact squadron; the second-line aircraft from the reactivated carrier are forced to attack with Vietnam-era Walleye guided bombs and unguided cluster bomb and iron bombs. The attacks continue for three hours (with some aircraft making two sorties), resulting in the loss of four A-7s and five patrol and missile boats.

Soviet interceptors from the Kaliningrad region get pulled into the air battle over northern Poland. Responding to calls for assistance from the naval task force, a mixed force of Su-27s and MiG-31s head west, only to be intercepted by the RAF Typhoons and USAF F-15s flying top cover for the night's Advent Storm air raids on crossings of the Wisla River. By the end of the engagement, the PVO air defense troops have lost eight interceptors, with three NATO fighters shot down. The commander of the 27th PVO Corps in Riga resolves the future not to divert his forces to fights over Poland unless it helps him accomplish his mission of defending the Baltic Republics and Kaliningrad region.

A Soviet "wolfpack" (consisting of the Sierra II-class SSN K-336, the Victor III-class K-412 and the Charlie II-class missile submarine K-503) attacks the eastbound Convoy 136 125 nm northeast of St. Johns, Newfoundland. The attack subs locate the convoy and transmit its location to the cruise missile boat; the resulting melee is initiated with a volley of SS-N-9 missiles. The frigate Talbot shoots down one of the missiles, two others hit the frigate Whipple, setting her superstructure afire, and two more strike the American freighter Argonaut. As the escorts scramble in the aftermath of the missile attack (dispatching most of their anti-submarine helicopters to hunt for the missile boats) the attack submarines strike, the K-412 hitting the Coast Guard Cutter Dallas with two torpedoes while the K-336 launches a spread of torpedoes into the mass of transports. Three strike, two hitting the Bahamian Steady Shipper (carrying US Army replacement vehicles) and one damaging the American Jean Lykes, which is loaded with US Army cargoes (mostly containerized rations, engineer supplies and spare parts). Sixteen hours later only the Jean Lykes remains afloat.

The Turkish command of First Army begins to receive a major influx of reinforcements in preparation of a spring offensive to take advantage of the USSR's setbacks in other theaters.

The 74th Tank Division is stood up in Ulyanovsk, Russia from the staff and student body of the Ulyanovsk Higher Tank Command School. It is organized along 1950s heavy tank division lines, with two tank regiments with T-10M heavy tanks, a breakthrough tank regiment with T-34/85s and a regiment of infantry that rely on the tanks and requisitioned trucks for mobility. The T-10s are hopelessly obsolete - their 122mm guns, while extremely powerful, can only fire two to three rounds a minute, by which time any opposing NATO tank could fire six or more shots, and ATGMs offer similar anti-tank power in a much lighter package. The aged tanks also move slowly - 50 kmph maximum on roads - and are limited in what bridges they could cross.

[chico20854]

April 27, 1997

The commander of the detachment moving the Iranian Crown Jewels dispatches the empty trucks to Shiraz, instructed to inform the IPA command of their location while he returns to the city to aid in its defense.

Unofficially,

The FBI team records the inhabitants of the South Jersey apartment speaking Russian, positively identifying them as the Soviet Spetsnaz team that has been active across the northeast for weeks.

The Navy certifies the M650 Rocket-assisted Projectile, the M422 tactical nuclear and M509 Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munition rounds for use aboard the Des Moines-class heavy cruisers (the Salem, Des Moines and the Newport News).

Under cover of darkness and in great secrecy, the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment escorts the British Crown Jewels to a secret safe storage site at Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire.

The skies over the front in Poland are relatively clear as both sides recover from the prior day's operations. NATO artillery attempts to make up the difference, delivering an especially heavy pounding to Pact defensive lines and supply lines in the division rear areas.

The Danish government commissions the first of three emergency stockpiles in Jutland, in the Daubjerg limestone mine. The cache contains approximately 20,000 tons of grain plus canned food, cooking oil, bulk salt and other foodstuffs, blankets, tents and cots, diesel generators and reverse osmosis water purification units. Simultaneously, the tanker Augustenborg, 22 years old and scheduled for replacement were it not for the war, is loaded with 45,000 tons of diesel fuel and anchored in the Aalborg fjord.

The 48th Infantry Brigade (Mechanized) (Georgia National Guard) begins loading for deployment to CENTCOM at the port of Charleston, South Carolina.

The USS Independence battle group arrives in the Arabian Sea near Masirah Island, where it meets with an underway replenishment group to refuel and bring aboard additional ammunition, spares and food before resuming strike operations against the Soviet paratroops at Chah Bahar.

The Soviet "wolfpack" (consisting of the Sierra II-class SSN K-336, the Victor III-class K-412 and the Charlie II-class cruise missile submarine K-503) that attacked eastbound Convoy 136 yesterday heads north, the boats having expended nearly all their ordnance in their months of raiding NATO sea lanes. To avoid the NATO naval forces guarding the GIUK Gap the group heads through the Labrador Sea to transit west of Greenland into the Arctic Ocean.

[chico20854]

April 28, 1997

Esfahan falls to Soviet 4th Army. The commander of the detachment assigned to evacuate the Iranian Crown Jewels is killed in the fighting.

Unofficially,

A POW camp for Pact senior officers is established in Bedford, Pennsylvania at a requisitioned luxury resort. The press quickly discovers that the contract is a boondoggle to benefit the financially troubled hotel owner and that fewer than 20 colonels and generals have been captured by all NATO forces worldwide, only 7 of which have been evacuated to the US to date.

The final elements of the US III Corps cross the Oder River into Poland, the first American corps to fully deploy into the nation. The corps is facing the Soviet 3rd Shock Army and Polish 1st Army. The corps' 31st Air Defense Artillery Brigade is deployed towards the corps rear to protect the bridges that are the corps' lifeline to friendly territory, while the 89th Military Police Brigade patrols the corps rear area, evacuates captured enemy soldiers and refugees and escorts supply convoys. The roads and brigdes are maintained by detachment from the 411th (USAR) and 937th Engineer Brigades.

The first battalions of the 23rd Infantry Division arrive on the front lines in Korea. Assigned to IX Corps, the Americal Division is thrown into action holding the line against the North Korean onslaught. Losses are moderate and the division's performance under fire is considered barely acceptable. (In this regard, the unit's lack of training, nonstandard equipment and the perilous state of the logistic and personnel situation all hampered performance.)

A trio of convoys depart California. One, leaving San Diego, carries the reinforced 24th Marine Regiment, which is tactically loaded in amphibious assault ships. The second and third leave Los Angeles and Long Beach, respectively, carrying the remainder of the 4th Marine Division and 4th Marine Air Wing. The 23rd Marine Regiment's equipment is carried in the naval-owned transports of MPS Squadron 3, which had carried prepositioned equipment already discharged in the CENTCOM area. The remainder of the force is carried aboard a wide array of requisitioned merchant shipping, including seven Freedom-class ships and the troopship Golden Bear, in peacetime a training ship for merchant ship cadets.

The workers at the Gdańsk shipyard, the original members of the Solidarność trade union, form an ORMO regiment to defend their home city from a possible German onslaught.

The escort carrier Langley and frigate Connole are detached from escorting the westbound Convoy 133 to reinforce the badly depleted screen of Convoy 136 following the wolfpack attack on the 26th.

In the central Atlantic, the Enterprise battle group concludes its unsuccessful raider hunt near the Canary Islands and heads north.

While aircraft from the USS John F Kennedy and America bombard Libyan air defenses and oil installations, the Soviet Mediterranean Squadron (the 5th Operational Squadron) gets word of the American fleet's approach. It deploys a line of diesel submarines in a line south of Crete to detect the fleet's approach (and attrit the American force as the opportunity may present itself). Soviet subs sortie from Tartus and Latakia in Syria and Patras, Greece.

[chico20854]

April 29, 1997

The convoy of trucks assigned to transport the Iranian Crown Jewels is destroyed by an air strike while en route to Shiraz. There are no survivors; they were the last members of the detachment that were still alive. The Soviet command assumes that the jewels were evacauted while the Iran Nowin government assumes that they were captured by the Soviets. (The Iranian National Security Force's intelligence analysts consider that if the Tudeh had possession of the jewels that they would broadcast the fact in their propaganda.)

Unofficially,

The FBI Hostage Rescue Team and a detachment from F Squadron, 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (the famed Delta Force) raid the Spetsnaz safehouse in South Jersey. The Spetsnaz team leader, Col. Oleg Tanatov and one member of his team are captured alive; the rest of the team (and three Americans) are killed in the predawn shootout.

The escort carrier Langley and frigate Connole join the escort of Convoy 136, now steaming towards Iceland, with longer-range protection from USN P-3s and the occaisional sortie by a S-3 carrier-borne ASW aircraft from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, which has returned to sea after rebuilding its air wing from the losses suffered in the Battle of the Norwegian Sea in December.

Green Berets of the 10th and 20th Special Forces Groups launch a battalion-sized raid on Second Western Front headquarters in Poland, killing most of the staff, destroying the communications center and capturing the Front's chief of Staff. (The commander, General Boris Aliyev, was away inspecting troops at the front, saving his life.)

A flight of F-111s of the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing are vectored onto a train located by a E-8 JSTARS radar reconniassance aircraft south of Torun, Poland. The aircraft, which were circling over East Germany awaiting targets of opportunity, hit the train with general-purpose 1000-lb bombs, setting off the several thousand tons of ammunition that the train was bringing forward to sustain the Pact defense.

The American Victory ship Mayo Lykes, a reactivated Second World War veteran, is sunk by a Soviet submarine-laid mine in the English Channel. The Dutch Navy dispatches its Mijnenbestrijdingssquadron (Mine Countermeasures Squadron) 22, with three minesweepers, to search the area for other mines.

The USS Independence battle group resumes strike operations, launching a volley of conventionally-armed Tomahawk cruise missiles to accompany the carrier's attack aircraft in pounding the Soviet 94th (my 57th) Air Assault Brigade in Chah Bahar.

The USS Salem and its battle group (the guided missile cruiser Fox, destroyer USS Russell, frigates Samuel Eliot Morrison, Bradley and Nichols and oiler Cimmaron) round the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean.

Road and terrain conditions begin to deteriorate on the Kola Peninsula with warming spring weather. The melting of many meters of snow turn the dirt roads into running streams and the countryside into a half-meter deep layer of mud atop the permafrost, making overland travel extremely difficult. The changing temperatures and close proximity of the warm waters of the Barents Sea drape the region in thick fog, lasting between days and weeks depending on local wind and elevation. Those factors combine to nearly halt all military operations in the Northern theater.

[chico20854]

April 30, 1997

The Soviet 7th Guards Army is in the outskirts of Dezful, the 4th Army is consolidating its grip on Esfahan before resuming its offensive and the 45th Army (my 32nd Army) has taken Yazd. The Council at Shiraz is cut off by the Soviet advance.

In Tehran, the Peoples Democratic Republic of Iran is established by the Tudeh guerillas; only the Soviet Union and Syria recognize the nation.

Unofficially,

The Soviet Kilo-class submarine B-459 intercepts Convoy 136 on the southwestern approaches to Iceland. It lurks silently submerged, allowing the escorts to pass by before launching a spread of six (of its seven remaining) torpedoes, targeting three ships with two fish each. Two of the three are hit, the Louisiana Freedom and the former East German containership Ocean going down. The Soviet boat attempts to slip away in the resulting chaos, but the escort force is able to marshall too many helicopters and by dawn the boat's batteries are nearly dead and the crew exhausted and battered by multiple attacks. The boat's commander, Captain Second Rank Vasili Bovtramovich, orders the boat to surface and the crew to surrender. He stays below, opening the seacocks and riding his command to the bottom.

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

The Iranian 22nd Tactical Fighter Squadron completes its conversion to F-20s in Pensacola and begins its ferry flights back to Iran.

Turkish marines land a major strike against their Greek opponents. A naval task force, under cover of F-4 fighter-bombers, departs the ++anakkale naval base at the southern entrance of the Dardanelles carrying the Marine Brigade. The convoy is protected by a screen of missile boats as well as several destroyers and frigates accompanying the fleet. Within five hours of departure the flotilla arrives in the Greek port of Alexandroupolis and the marines disembark. The following several hours of confused mellee see the elite Turkish troops overwhelming the Greek rear area security troops, and the Turkish force begins the systematic destruction of the town's transportation infrastructure. A company task force takes the train station and rail yard, destroying switches, signals and control systems, hobbling the sole rail line through eastern Greece and supporting Greek military operations in Thrace. Another company raided the airport, cratering the runway, destroying landing aids and torching the control tower, fuel tank farm and hangars after shooting up the aircraft that were on the ground. A third company boards the tugboats and other small craft in the harbor, setting demolition charges off in their engine rooms and along their hulls. The port's cranes are likewise toppled across the wharves into the water and the warehouses burned. Demolition charges are placed in the main roads into and out of the city, and the bridge across the small river that bisects the town is demolished. The marines then retreat, liberally scattering mines as they go, and as the fleet returns to Turkey it drops mines into the harbor while the escorting destroyers shell the town, igniting a large fire. The raid results in significant distruption to the Greek Army's operations in Thrace, reducing the pressure on the Turkish First Army's western flank.

The freighter Joseph Lykes completes a month loading munitions at NWS Concord and moves to San Francisco Bay awaiting a convoy to Japan and Korea.

The search for the SAS team in Leningrad has turned up no leads, and the KGB and local police back off from the state of heightened alert.

[chico20854]

May 2, 1997

After dark, US Navy SEAL teams and Iranian Marine commandos make a series of devastating raids against the 105th Guards Air Assault Division's communications and command networks. The division commander and his chief of staff are assassinated. Command posts and supply dumps are destroyed. Those antiaircraft positions not destroyed by ground operations are knocked out by airstrikes.

A special team reporting directly to the 4th Army commander concludes its search of Esfahan, seeking the Iranian Crown Jewels, reckoning that they have been evacuated to an area controlled by the Iran Nowin government.

The 36th Infantry Division (Mechanized) (less the 32nd Mechanized Brigade, which is completing a NTC rotation) is declared operational at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Unofficially,

39th Infantry Brigade in Lisburn (on the outskirts of Belfast), using the Ulster Defense Regiment battalions called up in April, expands its area of responsibility south, allowing 3rd Infantry Brigade headquarters to be released for service on the Continent.

Colonel Tumanski's spetsnaz team strikes in the UK again, returning to the chemical plant in Runcorn, Cheshire, striking three loaded tank cars with RPG rockets. The resulting fire disrupts production, which had largely recovered from the prior mortar attack.

The Soviet "wolfpack" consisting of the Sierra II-class SSN K-336, the Victor III-class K-412 and the Charlie II-class cruise missile submarine K-503 are detected by a seabed hydrophone array between Greenland and Baffin Island as they attempt to return to Murmansk via the Arctic. Allied naval commanders dispatch a trio of P-3 Orion patrol aircraft from Goose Bay Labrador to locate the enemy sub (they are unaware that it is three), which begin a hunt in the loose ice. The commander of the K-412 gets spooked by a near miss, dashing for cover of a nearby iceberg. He misjudges, and the sub strikes the submerged portion of the berg. The noise of the collision is immediately localized by the aircraft's crew, and the sub is hammered with multiple air-dropped torpedoes which send it to the bottom.

The last battalions of the 23rd Infantry Division are on the front lines in Korea, allowing the battered 2nd Infantry Division to be transferred to the rear for some rest and to absorb replacements from the steady flow of recalled reservists and freshly trained draftees arriving on daily flights from the US.

Traffic jams in the Pact rear area in Poland prevent some of the wide-spectrum jammers from reaching their assigned positions. Commanders suspect some of the delay may be the result of the crews' reluctance to be in the vicinity of the powerful transmitters, which are expected to receive a "very healthy" dose of NATO firepower once turned on.

Soviet bombers in the Balkans are re-roled from their strategic bombing mission to anti-ship strike, as the Black Sea Fleet prepares to engage the advancing American carrier groups in the Mediterranean.

American marines and the German amphibious troops of the 18th Coast Defense Regiment are relieved along the Baltic coast and returned by truck to the East German port of Sassnitz, where the newly formed Bundesmarine 2nd Landing Squadron has been joined by American landing ships.

Unrest erupts across industrial facilities and mines throughout the USSR when workers are informed that not only do they have to make up the production missed during the May Day holiday but also produce an extra two day's worth of output as a "sign of proletarian unity and pride". (The fact that no additional raw materials or fuel were provided for this burst of productivity set off many otherwise fairly willing and motivated workers).

[chico20854]

May 3, 1997

photo1 photo2
The US 82nd Airborne Division (reinforced with the British 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment) and two battalions of the 75th Infantry Regiment (Ranger) are airdropped into the Bandar-e Khomeyni-Khorramshahr area. The initial waves of pathfinders include an American journalist, Fanya Ayn Wilkerson, who takes shameless advantage of her uncle Marvin Wilkerson's good reputation among the "All Americans" of the 82nd Airborne Division to secure a seat. US Navy and Iranian surface units and gunships of the 6th Air Cavalry Combat Brigade provide fire support. Wilkerson loses two fingers on her left hand while earning a Pulitzer Prize and the undying love and respect of the 504th ("Devils in Baggy Pants") Airborne Regiment while delivering the first video footage and eyewitness accounts of the 82nd Airborne's parachute assault upon Bandar-e-Khomeyni.

photo1 photo2
The 101st Air Assault Division makes an airmobile landing in the Bushehr area, supported by units of the Iranian Navy and two battalions of Iranian Marines. At Bushehr and Ganaveh, as assault waves of UH-60's and AH-64's make their pre-dawn landing the Soviets are in a state of total confusion. By 1600 hours the 105th Guards Air Assault Division has been destroyed, seeding small bands of escaping desantniki fleeing to the mountains.

Unofficially,

The Canadian Navy recommissions the destroyer Margaree, which had been paid off in 1992.

Reporters discover that the Army has appointed the nephew of a prominent member of the House Armed Services Committee as commander of the guard company of the Bedford, Pennsylvania POW camp. The appointment prevents the young officer from deploying to Poland with his battalion. (One of his peers from ROTC, recovering from wounds received in Norway, says "He's a chickenshit. Always has been, always will be." when asked about the young captain).

The 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards escorts another "treasure caravan", containing priceless artifacts from the British Museum (including its Gutenberg Bible), in a secret nighttime effort to protect them from destruction if London should be struck. The items are stored in an underground quarry in a remote corner of Wales.

The newly arrived radiotechnical warfare officer at Western TVD deploys his new broad spectrum jammers. It is a colossal failure, as the jammers disrupt communications and radars on both sides of the front lines. The Warsaw Pact air defense early warning network collapses and Red Army and Polish commanders are forced to rely on couriers to send and receive messages. British troops take advantage of the confusion on the other side of the lines to break out of a bridgehead at Kostrzyn; small unit commanders are confident of the mission enough to advance when they realize that their opponents are unable to call in artillery to fend off their attacks.

The beleaguered Convoy 136 crosses into the North Sea.

Turkish forces in Bulgaria launch an offensive against the Bulgarian 2nd Army. Under cover of American and Turkish aircraft, the Turks open their attack with a furious artillery barrage against the dug in Bulgarians. The front lines are held by second-rate troops, many ethnic Turks, who initially hold their positions.

photo
A major naval battle erupts in the Mediterranean as Task Force 60 faces off against the Soviet 5th Squadron. The American carrier task force is located by Soviet and Greek aircraft operating overland, while American and (ostensibly neutral) Israeli E-2 AEW aircraft watch the Soviet squadron leave Syrian ports. Missiles almost immediately fly from the Soviet flagship, the missile cruiser Slava, timed to arrive simultaneously with missiles launched by Tu-22M and Tu-16 bombers over the Greek-Bulgarian border. The Aegis cruiser USS Gettysburg, coordinating the American air defense, is struck by a torpedo fired by the Kilo-class diesel sub B-459, temporarily disrupting the anti-missile effort until the USS Richmond K. Turner assumes control. The disruption allows some of the missiles to slip through the multiple layers of defenses (F-14 interceptors, anti-aircraft missiles and short-range last-ditch defense guns), with the destroyer Stethem struck by a SS-N-12 and the America's flight deck peppered with shrapnel from a AS-4 that exploded 100m over the flight deck. Fortunately for the Americans, the air wing had just completed launching its aircraft for the anti-surface strike against the Soviet group, resulting in only a handful of aircraft being lost and only a (relatively) small fire from a pair of SH-60 helicopters on deck. The combined airstrike of the two carriers' A-6 and F/A-18 squadrons and subsequent cleanup by the S-3 squadrons left none of the Soviet ships afloat. The Soviet bombers escaped unscathed. ASW helicopters locate the Soviet submarine, and an ASROC missile from the destroyer USS Briscoe sends it to the bottom.

The headquarters and subordinate brigades of the 36th Infantry Division (Mechanized) begin moving to ports under control of the Charleston Port of Embarkation (Wilmington and Morehead City, North Carolina and Charleston) to begin loading for Europe. The division's 32nd Infantry Brigade (Wisconsin National Guard) will follow when it completes its training; a logistics team from the Wisconsin National Guard command begins loading vehicles the 32nd left at its mobilization station of Ft. McCoy, Wisconsin onto railcars for transit to east coast ports.

Simultaneously, the 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment (Ohio National Guard) is released from the Strategic Reserve for service in Europe and begins moving to Mid-Atlantic ports.

Caspian Flotilla spetsnaz team launches another raid in the Red Sea from the dhow that is, following the loss of Ethiopian bases, its mobile base of operations. The team attacks the Jizam airport in southwestern Saudi Arabia, overpowering the Saudi National Guard platoon that was watching over the mostly inactive facility. They destroy the airfield's navigation aids and control tower and blast a 15m wide hole in the runway before returning to sea. The attack's direct consequences are slight, but it alarms the Saudi government, forcing it to divert troops from the northern border and causing distress about the departure of American troops to Iran.

[chico20854]

May 4, 1997

The IPA command concludes that the Soviets captured the Iranian Crown Jewels when Esfahan fell.

Captain Pete Fanning of the 101st Air Assault Divison is awarded the Silver Star for bravery in the prior day's operation and receives an on-the-spot promotion to Major.

The 82nd Airborne Division continues to clear the area around Bandar-e-Khomeni and Khorramsharh.

Unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship Bronx Freedom is delivered in Beaumont, Texas and the Des Moines and Charleston Freedoms are delivered in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

The Headquarters, 4th Armored Division is formed at Fort Carson, Colorado. The unit begins to receive troops and equipment and uses facilities left behind when the peacetime resident 4th Infantry Division was airlifted to Germany in 1996.

The 8th Armored Cavalry Regiment is likewise activated at Gowen Field, Idaho as a new unit. Staffed with personnel from throughout CONUS, many fresh from various training programs, the regiment is initially issued obsolescent or substitute equipment for training purposes - the primary tank is the Cadillac-Gage Stingray, with a mix of M113 and Peacekeeper armored cars as substitute APCs. The two formations are part of the US Army's effort to face the demands of high-intensity warfare in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

The 118th Field Artillery Brigade (Georgia National Guard), which had failed its predeployment readiness evaluation in January and spent the next several months retraining in Florida (accompanied by a fairly extensive purge of unit leadership), is declared combat ready and moves to Jacksonville, Florida to load for Germany. Some of the brigade's troops believe that the evaluators were ordered to pass the unit so it could be rushed into action regardless of its actual readiness for action.

The disastrous Soviet jamming effort is stopped, but the damage has been done. Warsaw Pact lines begin to fail. A gap opens between the 3rd Guards Motor-Rifle Division, on the left flank of the 8th Guards Army and the Polish 2nd Mechanized Division (on the Polish 2nd Armys right) and 2nd Squadron, 116th Armored Cavalry Regiment (Idaho National Guard) slips through. Within hours the rest of the regiment enters the gap and two battalions of the 27th Fallschirmj$ger Brigade land in the woods north of Wrocław.

USAF F-111s of the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing, operating from Eindhoven, Netherlands, strike the small but important rail junction of Tunel, 35 km north of Krakow. The attack severely disrupts the rail yard but also devastates the surrounding community. Menawhile, NATO electronic reconnaissance aircraft identify the 3rd Guards headquarters.

The remaining two Soviet subs of the wolfpack in Baffin Bay (west of Greenland) are intercepted by the attack submarine USS Annapolis. The ultra-quiet Sierra II slips past the American boat, but the older and louder missile boat is located by the Americans. The Los Angeles-class boat launches a pair of Mk 48 torpedoes which sink the Soviet sub. The other Soviet boat does not come to its companion's aid, slipping away in the noise of the sinking boat and moving ice overhead.

Convoy 136 loses another ship, the Cypriot freighter Frantiz M, to a mine as it crosses the North Sea.

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The wreck of the Soviet 5th Squadron (and Black Sea Fleet) flagship, the missile cruiser Slava, slips beneath the waves.

The Bulgarian troops facing the Turkish First Army begin to waver as they continue to get pounded by artillery. The fighting prevents the Bulgarian Army's logistic troops (thinly equipped in the best of times) from pushing forward ammunition and rations to the troops on the front line.

The aircraft Constellation joins the Abraham Lincoln and Kitty Hawk in launching air strikes on Soviet defensive positions in the Kuriles, in a drive to increase Allied access to the region as well as forcing the Soviet commanders to dilute their limited resources.