On this day 25 years ago

[chico20854]

October 18, 1997

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

Unofficially,

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

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

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

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

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

[chico20854]

October 19, 1997

Forty-eight technicians, scientists, employees, and company officers and their families, 119 people in all, board the airship Columbia in the afternoon.

The Silesian town of Chrzanow is hastily abandoned when civil defense authorities note the danger from fallout from the nuclear strikes on nearby Bytom and Katowice.

Unofficially,

As the Soviet 20th Guards Army, which was part of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany before the war, prepares to travel back to Europe from China, its 58th Independent Tank Regiment is disbanded to bring other units in the command up to strength.

Allied forces along the North Korean coasts enjoy the support provided by naval gunfire, the USS Missouri off the west coast and USS Des Moines along the east coast. The gunfire is especially appreciated as supplies of artillery ammunition for batteries ashore becomes scarce, the massive stockpiles built up in prewar years exhausted and new production (both in South Korean factories short of drafted workers and with those in the US trying to support a worldwide war) unable to keep up with the prodigious consumption. For now the supply of small arms ammunition remains adequate, although both ROK and US training commands have begun to use .22LR adaptors in basic trainee's M16s to stretch the supply of 5.56mm.

The 937th Engineer Brigade is transferred from the US V Corps to the nearby XI Corps. A construction rather than combat engineer unit, upon arrival in the former East Germany it begins preparing winter quarters and defensive positions along the western shore of the Oder River.

The destruction of the isolated 43rd (my 274th) Motor-Rifle Division in the town of Szczecinek continues as German infantry advance on the town while the defenders are hampered by German artillery fire directed from spotters within the town. At midday a squadron of German PAH-1 anti-tank helicopters arrive, providing pinpoint fire on targets throughout the town, and at dusk the Soviet commander orders a breakout of remaining troops.

The defensive line along the Warta, created with a series of ground bursts, is abandoned, the defenders at risk of being outflanked. The damage from the creation of the line, however, will linger for several years.

In one of the last major convoy battles of the war in the Atlantic, Soviet forces attack Convoy 302 southwest of Iceland. The attack is by a rare (for this stage of the war) Soviet "wolfpack", composed of three nuclear and one conventional attack submarine and a cruise missile submarine (the Oscar II-class K-329), which fires a nuclear SS-N-19 in an airburst over the convoy's approximate center. The attack subs are able to penetrate the convoy's screen by avoiding the widely-spaced escorts (dispersed to avoid nuclear strikes) and have a heyday among the thundering merchants, sinking eight ships and damaging six more before slipping away. One of the nuclear boats, the Victor I-class K-398, is unlucky enough to get caught during its egress by a helicopter from the Canadian frigate Fredericton; it calls in a responding P-3 from VP-11 which sinks the Soviet boat with a B-57 nuclear depth charge. The sub is the sole Soviet loss, while over 150,000 tons of badly needed equipment and supplies are lost to the Allies.

Romanian and American troops in the southern Carpathian Mountains welcome the 53rd Guards Motor Rifle Division to the Dej area by overrunning one of the Soviet division's outposts before its troops have a chance to fortify it, melting away before the division's rapid response force can arrive.

Following the attack on Ankara, Turkish resistance at the Catalca Line west of Istanbul begins to crumble. The Soviet 810th Naval Infantry Regiment lands along Istanbul's Black Sea coast and rushes inland, capturing the Istanbul airports control tower and cargo complex. With Soviet troops in their rear and after receiving repeated Soviet and Bulgarian hammer blows, the Turkish defense line west of the city collapses. Advancing Soviet troops are opposed by isolated groups of stragglers, diehard nationalists holding out in Istanbul's west end, and NATO aircraft, mostly American but with a significant Turkish presence, overhead.

The 1103rd Assault Gun Regiment, assigned to Transcaucasian Front, is destroyed when the unit's vehicles, immobilized by lack of fuel, are located by an American Special Forces team which called in attack helicopters and strike aircraft. The mass of Soviet vehicles is raked by guns and rockets and within a half hour the 1103rd had ceases to exist.

Army engineers complete repairs to the Tabriz air base, allowing C-17s and C-130s to land and disgorge vehicles and supplies more efficiently than airdropping.

[chico20854]

October 21, 1997

Major General Aleksandr A. Vostokov is named commander of the 19th (my 145th) Motor-Rifle Division, at the request of Transcaucasian Front commander Suryakin. Vostokov had previously served as Suryakin's Chief of Staff.

In Boston Harbor, the sail frigate USS Constitution celebrates its bicentennial.

The US 25th Infantry Division (Light) is hit by six Soviet tactical nukes, taking heavy casualties and disintegrating while retiring back to the ROK under heavy pressure.

The 4th Marine Amphibious Brigade is moved south to the Baltic Sea and disbanded, reverting to 2nd Marine Division control along with the 6th Marine Regiment.

Unofficially,

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

FEMA completes the stocking of another emergency stockpile, SRS-17374-2, at [REDACTED] in the Alleghany Mountains of Pennsylvania.

The first units of 20th Guards Army arrive at the terminus of the rail lines into Poland, between Lvov and Lutsk, Ukraine. They quickly detrain, scurrying to cover as rapidly as possible to avoid detection by NATO overhead reconnaissance, and after dark continue their transit westward under their own power, with only a handful of tanks moving via tank transporter.

The remnants of the 43rd (my 274th) Motor-Rifle Division are evacuated to Byelorussia to rebuild.

Following the destruction of their wing headquarters, the two remaining flights from the 487th Tactical Missile Wing - Cobra Flight with five missiles and four launchers and Echo Flight with four missiles and launchers - in dispersal areas over 75 miles from the smoking ruin of their headquarters - decide to head to the nearest large, intact and secure USAF facility, the Incirlik Air Base. The units are dependent on higher headquarters for the detailed radar mapping data required for the missiles to find their targets; the destruction of Konya airbase has made it impossible for the missiles to be targeted. Prewar plans, when the unit was still stationed in Italy, called for backup support to come from the two GLCM wings in the UK. Unfortunately, the flights in the field are unable to establish secure communications with those units; their commanders hope Incirlik will have that capability.

The 216th Motor-Rifle Division, mauled by fanatical Pasdaran resistance in December and recalled to Baku, Azerbaijan for reconstruction, is ordered back into Iran to attack the American airhead in Tabriz. Almost immediately after crossing the border the division becomes engaged by pro-NATO Kurdish guerrillas supported by Green Berets of the 5th Special Forces Group; the division nonetheless advances, but slowly as it fights a series of small skirmishes along its route of advance.

The commander of the 302nd Guards Tank Regiment meets with the rebellious enlisted men, who explain that while they are loyal Soviet citizens, that they have already been attacked by and survived American nuclear weapons. Given that the nuclear conflict has only grown since then, they are unwilling to place their lives at risk yet again, but are willing to support other units that have not done their part and support the Soviet war effort. When the general objects, he is "arrested" by the men and escorted out of the unit's area of control, told that anyone approaching with orders for the division to move to the front will be met with gunfire.

[chico20854]

October 22, 1997

The effect of Operation Pegasus II is catastrophic to the Soviets. The steady stream of supplies and replacements dries up. The Soviet 24th Guards (my 60th) Motorized Rifle Division literally runs out of gas while assaulting the US 24th ID's positions around Ramshir. American planes and artillery destroy most of the Soviet's vehicles and a quick counterattack finishes them as a unit.

The British 6th Division, also attached to the Chinese 31st (my 3rd) Army along the North Korean-Chinese border at the mouth of the Yalu River, suffers heavy losses from follow-up Soviet tactical nuclear strikes. (Unofficially) As the Americans withdraw south towards friendly lines under heavy pressure, the British force retreats to the ports of Dandong, China and Sinuiju, North Korea, at the mouth of the river.

The nuclear exchange in Europe continues unabated. NATO targets the city of Radom with a pair of submarine-launched ballistic missiles fired from beyond Scotland, with a yield approaching 2 megatons. (Unofficially, Three of the warheads are aimed at the Radom Sadk3w Air Base, tearing apart the massed helicopters of the 37th Air Assault Brigade; others hit transport junctions and industrial facilities in the city.)

Unofficially,

The light frigate USS Joyce is delivered in Tacoma, Washington and manned by USCG personnel.

Three additional Army truck companies are stood up - two using recalled retiree leadership and recent trainee drivers and the third using trained and experienced drivers transferred from Air Force bases in Texas.

In the predawn hours the lead troops of the 20th Guards Army's 38th (my 27th Guards) Motor-Rifle Division cross the frontier into Poland.

The USS Olympia, off the North Cape on its way south, is ordered to launch its Tomahawk cruise missiles (a mix of conventional and nuclear armed variants) against an array of targets in northwestern Russia. (The most notable is the chemical weapons production facility in Kineshma, which was struck with a pair of missiles).

STAVKA directs 1st Ukrainian Front, on occupation duty in Romania, to transfer a division to 2nd Southwestern Front to reinforce the Austrian occupation force. Unwilling to divert one of his experienced combat divisions, 1st Ukrainian Front commander Marshall Agayev foists the 155th Motor-Rifle (my 235th Rear Area Protection) Division onto Western TVD. The hapless division (with only two battalions of T-34 tanks and lightly equipped with artillery and staffed with overaged reservists and teenagers shanghaied from local communities) is loaded into boxcars, bereft of vehicles or supplies, and begins a slow and roundabout ride to the front.

[chico20854]

October 23, 1997

Following the loss of the 24th Guards (my 60th) Motor-Rifle Division the prior day when the Soviet force ran out of gas while attacking American troops, the 147th Guards Motor-Rifle Division suffers the same fate while attacking the 101st Air Assault Division around Bushehr. (Unofficially) The American airmobile unit inserts several battalions of infantry in the division rear areas, who then advance towards the coast, rolling up the Soviet unit from behind.

Unofficially,

FEMA completes another racetrack to refugee camp conversion, this one the Flemington Speedway in New Jersey.

The Daily Mail newspaper publishes the results of its investigation of the scandal involving the wealthy and influential evading military service. It concludes that the Guardian's reporting is flawed, and thoroughly debunks the article's reporting and conclusion.

As the front lines of the Chinese 31st (my 3rd) Army disintegrate, the remnants of the British 6th Division (down to 2500 men and a handful of armored vehicles) board three transports and a dozen smaller craft (tugs, fishing boats and the like) in the ports of Dandong and Sinuiju to be extracted from the rapidly collapsing Allied pocket at the mouth of the Yalu.

The 12th Luftjaeger Regiment, a Luftwaffe security unit, is hastily converted into a motorized infantry regiment with the addition of a company of obsolescent M48 tanks, two dozen captured Soviet BTR-152 APCs and requisitioned civilian trucks.

NATO defensive efforts in Poland are increasingly hampered by supply shortages, fed by insufficient German industrial production (made worse by the occupation of southern Germany by Pact forces) and severe damage to Northern European ports. Only minor ports remain undamaged, and air resupply from the UK and North America is unable to move even 10 percent of the needed supplies, if logistic planners could even have an assurance that the airports required were safe from nuclear attack.

On the opposite side of the lines, the Pact forces are equally starved of supplies and Soviet divisions are running low on troops. The NATO interdiction campaign has severely hampered the flow of supplies and replacements into the theater, Czech and Hungarian industry has been almost totally neutralized by nuclear attacks, and production and transportation in the USSR are increasingly being disrupted by strikes, ethnic unrest and disorder. Still, the offensive to drive NATO out of Poland continues.

The remnants of the Turkish civilian government issue a proclamation declaring the imposition of martial law. (Some have speculated that this order was issued under duress, with the politicians under military protection/custody, but the reality is that the military is the sole entity in Turkey that is capable of organizing security and relief. Even then, military rule is largely delegated to the local level).

The team from the Soviet Ministry of Oil and Gas concludes their assessment of the main strategic prize from the conquest of Romania - its oil industry. The assessment is positive, reflecting that both sides strove not to damage it, leaving it largely intact. The team from the ministry notes two urgent needs to bring Romanian production online to support the Soviet war effort - a workforce of experienced and self-reliant employees led by managers that can adapt to the unfamiliar conditions and equipment (Romania having imported some high-technology machinery denied to the USSR), and an adequate security force to protect the oil wells, pipelines, pumping stations, refineries and supporting sites.

[chico20854]

October 24, 1997

Nothing in canon for the day!

The light frigate USS Kirkpatrick is delivered in Moss Point, Mississippi and manned by USCG personnel, and the tanker Marias is delivered in Baltimore.

In Northern Ireland the IRA begins forming more conventional military units, designating them according to geographic location. The initial units include the Derry Brigade, South Armagh Brigade, Fermanagh Brigade and three brigades in Belfast - the Falls Brigade, Short Strand Brigade and the Ardpyne Brigade. The IRA has had considerable success in asserting control in Derry and in rural areas adjoining the Republic; in Belfast intense battles rage between the Provos and the UDR and RUC, who are assisted (on a as-yet unofficial basis) by Unionist paramilitary bands. The US Navy, whose carrier Enterprise is in the midst of an extensive repair following battle damage off the Kola in the city's shipyard, restricts its personnel to the yard's territory, firmly defended by the ship's Marine detachment supplemented by contingents from the ship's 3300+-strong complement.

The Abraham Lincoln, the sole surviving operational and undamaged carrier in the US Pacific Fleet, returns to the waters off Petropavlovsk. Operating under EMCOM (Emissions Control, with all radar and radio emissions off) the carrier launches a predawn air raid which once again pounds the Soviet port after catching its air defense force off guard. After recovering its aircraft (three F/A-18s and an A-6 are lost) the carrier group turns tail and retreats to the vast empty spaces of the North Pacific.

The lead regiments of the 38th (my 27th Guards) Motor-Rifle Division reinforce the battered 1st Shock Army east of Wroclaw. The arrival of the hardened veterans of the Chinese campaign is an unpleasant shock to the troops of the American 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized), which are already under considerable pressure.

NATO forces in Poland continue to fall back, with the front line running from Koszalin on the Baltic coast, to the eastern outskirts of Poznan and Wroclaw to the Czech border.

Overcoming scattered and disorganized resistance, Soviet troops reach the Bosporus in Istanbul. Patrols are sent across to the Asian side, but Southern Front's logistic difficulties at the end of a very long supply line, prevent any further advance into Turkish territory. STAVKA concludes that the removal of Turkey from the war has effectively been achieved and redirects remaining scarce resources to more urgent fronts. (The decision also relieves the Soviet authorities from responsibility to administer the vast and populous nation).

Preparations hastily completed, the Dubai shipyard floods its largest drydock to accept the carrier USS Independence.

The 236th Rear Area Protection Division, in the Central Asian Military District, is struggling to secure the supply lines into eastern Iran against the array of bandits, nationalist or Islamic partisans, deserters and draft-dodgers and criminals that are roaming the border regions of the USSR. The importance of this effort is further driven home by the cutoff of the transportation routes between Transcaucasian Front and the Caucasus by Pegasus II, which is forcing more traffic through the vast, lightly populated area.

[chico20854]

October 25, 1997

Another day with nothing in canon!

The Freedom-class cargo ship Las Vegas Freedom is delivered in Beaumont, Texas.

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

The Guardian newspaper publishes an apology for the inaccurate story it ran on the 8th, alleging that the wealthy and influential were evading conscription. Nonetheless, the damage has been done to the perception that conscription in the UK is a fair and impartial process.

The Irish government closes the Donegal Air Corridor, a "unofficial understanding" which permitted British and NATO aircraft to access the Atlantic via a 4-mile long overflight of Irish territory between Belleek, Northern Ireland and Ballyshannon, Ireland.

With increasing Soviet artillery attacks on Poznan (ignoring the protests from their Polish Communist allies), the Polish Free Congress decides to evacuate its provisional capital. As the city's population's reaction varies from panic to mocking, the collaborators and exiles depart the city in a hastily-organized convoy headed for the German border.

The carrier Independence is successfully drydocked in Dubai and experts can begin cutting away damaged portions of the hull.

The 102nd Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron (New York Air National Guard) detaches a trio of helicopters from its home station at RAF Gibraltar to Mombasa International Airport, Kenya. Two of the squadron's HC-130 fixed-wing aircraft accompany the helicopters, refueling them inflight to allow them to transit to Cairo West Air Base in one flight.

[chico20854]

October 26, 1997

The American journalist Fanya Ayn Wilkerson is withdrawn from the Pegasus II airhead along with the remaining rangers and pathfinders.

Unofficially,

The (what was destined to be the) second to last FEMA emergency stockpile is sealed, this one at Ohio Caverns near Dayton.

FEMA officials are dismayed when they receive a report that the new Flemington Speedway evacuee camp in New Jersey has reached full capacity; word of the camp's opening quickly spread and nervous city dwellers from the New York and Philadelphia areas arrived in droves. Local officials are less than pleased, and the local sheriff (who is responsible for security in the camp) claims that the camp has attracted "a mass of neer-do-wells, troublemakers and shiftless folks looking for a handout from our fine community."

Fighting in Belfast intensifies. IRA forces, who in prewar years had amassed an impressive arsenal thanks to KGB support, enjoy an advantage in firepower, widely fielding RPG-7s and light machineguns. Added to this arsenal are weapons captured from Army and police outposts which were overrun in the past week. This firepower, combined with a superiority in young, enthusiastic volunteers, allows the IRA to accomplish a long-dreamed of goal in Belfast - conquest of the Loyalist Shankhill neighborhood, accompanied by a massive displacement of the population and widespread atrocities. The victory allows the Unionist forces to form a coherent pocket in primarily working-class areas from the city center to the northwest, which is surrounded by Loyalist suburbs, which the Catholics have yet to attempt to break into.

Soviet forces all along the front launch a day of coordinated attacks in an effort to dilute the efforts of the few remaining NATO tactical aircraft. The day's actions are somewhat successful, with advances in excess of 5 km on average, but the effort results in the expenditure of three days worth of supply deliveries. Many of the Allied aircraft that do respond, however, are armed with nuclear bombs as ELINT and reconnaissance teams desperately try to locate artillery and rocket batteries and headquarters.

In Bavaria, the Italian Army has drawn almost to a halt as depleted stocks of munitions and spare parts cripple its mechanized troops and its elite light infantry is unable to replace losses from earlier in the campaign. Platoons and squads of paramilitary Carabinieri troops, withdrawn from internal security duties at home, are increasingly shuffled to the front to serve as replacements; at least they are trained troops, unlike many new arrivals at fronts around the world at this stage of the war.

The first flight of workers from the Baku oil fields arrives in Ploesti, Romania. They were grabbed without any prior notice from their work sites and loaded onto an Aeroflot airliner for a harrowing low-level flight to Romania. Upon arrival, KGB and Communist Party officials give them a brief "inspirational" feat before ordering them to immediately get the unfamiliar plant back to maximum production.

The remnants of the battered Convoy 302 limp into European ports. Due to overcrowding in the few more lightly damaged ones (all medium to small in size, the largest ones - Hamburg, Bremen, Rotterdam and Bremerhaven - having been heavily bombarded or targeted by nuclear weapons), several ships have to remain at anchor in the North Sea or English Channel. One, the former East German freighter Hettstedt, is sunk by a drifting mine off Vlissingen, Netherlands.

The 241st Rear Area Protection Division is activated in Novosibirsk, Siberia, from the cadre and students of the MVD officer school in that city. Once formed, STAVKA intends to use it to assist the MVD with putting down the increasing number of uprisings and mutinies within the USSR. The MVD command objects to the Army takeover of its formation, sparking a harsh rebuke from STAVKA, which replies that if the MVD Internal Troops were doing their job maintaining order that the Army wouldn't need to.

[chico20854]

October 27, 1997

Nothing in canon for today!

In response to the continuing losses in Europe and the SACEUR decision to try to hold the Oder River line between Poland and East Germany, the Army command authorizes the release of the 353rd Engineer Group (Combat) (US Army Reserve) to Europe. The unit begins moving its equipment to Corpus Christi, Texas for movement overseas.

On the front line in Poland, NATO troops launch local counterattacks to keep their Pact opponents from consolidating the prior day's gains.

The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment joins the 107th in reserve in central Germany as they recover from their periods isolated behind enemy lines in Poland. Unfortunately, replacement armored vehicles are in short supply. US Army Material Command in the US has been dispatching a wide array of tanks to the European theater - LAV-75s, Cadillac-Gage Stingrays, M-60A4s and M1s of all models (the older ones either stripped from the test and training establishments or returned to service after battle damage repairs). It is up to exhausted logisticians at US Army Europe to allocate these vehicles (as well as the trickle that are returned to service after repairs from the severely damaged repair facilities in theatre) to the units that need them most, balancing the need with their current fleet and ability to maintain them. (i.e., most M-60A4s go to National Guard divisions that originally had them or had them in the 1992-5 time period, hoping that those units mechanics have memory of how to maintain the type). In this situation, the ACRs in the rear area are of lower priority for replacement vehicles than units still at the front.

The Bavarian defense is bolstered by the efforts of German territorial Wallmeister (rampart master) troops. These are Bundesheer soldiers trained in demolitions, obstacle creation, and key infrastructure denial. They use military painted civilian vehicles, and assigned their area of operations on a long term basis, allowing them to blend in thoroughly if needed. Armed with small arms, they travel with demo, tools, etc. At this stage of the war, they also make use of propositioned caches of demo and prepositioned obstacles designed as part of the existing infrastructure.

Along the high ground between the Danube and Main River valleys, VII Corps' defense is proving successful against a depleted and exhausted Soviet 21st Army.

Another naval action rages in the Baltic Sea as desperate Soviet commanders push a convoy of large merchantmen south, heading for the devastated harbors of Gdansk and Gdynia. The American carrier Coral Sea, which has been operating in the western Baltic for months, launches its remaining squadron of F/A-18s armed with unguided munitions (cluster bombs, iron bombs and rockets) to damage the Soviet convoy, which is escorted by a pair of aged destroyers and several frigates and corvettes. As the American attack aircraft wheel above the convoy's ships, strafing the merchantmen, a squadron of German missile boats arrives at high speed, adding their firepower to the effort. As their missiles are expended (many of them entered the action with only one or two aboard) they weave through the convoy at high speed, attacking the Soviet ships with deck mounted guns and even machineguns. As the Allied force departs, a single Marineflieger (German Naval Air Force) Tornado flies overhead and drops a B-61 tactical nuclear bomb, which bursts in the air over the convoy.

The carriers USS John F Kennedy and HMS Illustrious move close to the Turkish coast east of Crete in an effort to evacuate Allied citizens from the disorder that is rapidly spreading across the battered country. Helicopters from the carriers evacuate stranded personnel, while the carriers' fighters provide cover for a stream of airliners that are bravely evacuating civilians to airports in Egypt and Israel. 6th Fleet's request for additional helicopter carriers from SACLANT is approved, but they are all days away from the Mediterranean. CENTCOM refuses to release its amphibious ships, which would entail a voyage around Africa as the Egyptian effort to clear the Suez Canal is hopelessly delayed.

The 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment launches a successful raid on outposts of the Soviet 4th Army, forcing that formation to burn thousands of gallons of diesel fuel when it dispatches a tank regiment to reinforce the incursion.

The first strike mission is flown by a R-5D Aurora hypersonic spy plane, striking the tank rebuild facility in Kiev, Ukraine with a B-61-11 nuclear bomb. (The facility had survived the general attack on Kiev in September, and the plant had continued operations using workers who had been evacuated to the factory's "workers rest camp" 75 km from the city, brought in daily on surviving commuter trains.

Detachment 1, 102nd Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron resumes its journey to Kenya, departing Cairo West Air Base at dawn.

[chico20854]

October 28, 1997

In a further blow to Transcaucasian Front, the 346th (my 155th) Motor-Rifle Division is caught in an airmobile ambush by the IPA's 9th Airmobile Brigade as the Soviet force is hunkered down, low on fuel, ammunition and supplies, in the Zagros Mountains southwest of Shiraz. The unit takes heavy casualties and is nearly destroyed.

Unofficially,

The light frigate USS Leopold is delivered in Mobile, Alabama and manned by a mix of USN and USCG personnel.

In Northern Ireland, the IRA forces in Derry are suffering setbacks as the UDR and their Loyalist allies rally and force the Unionists back from the city center, cornering them in the historic "Free Derry" area in the Bogside neighborhood. In Belfast, the IRA-dominated Nationalist force has established a functioning shadow government to rule the Catholic enclave, which is still hemmed in by British troops. The pleas of the British force's commander to Westminster for reinforcements and armored vehicles are met with the response that none are available, so severe is the situation on the Continent.

The battleship USS New Jersey makes another sweep along the Aleutians, screened by USAF air defense fighters operating out of the Pacific Northwest (with tanker support) and with a tag-team of USN and USCG patrol aircraft providing surface search. The grouping is highly successful, allowing the New Jersey Surface Action Group to locate and sink seven Soviet supply vessels trying to sneak forward to resupply isolated Aleutian Front units.

Panzergruppe Oberdorf, formed in April to lead Third German Army's assault into northern Silesia, has returned to (former) East German territory and is disbanded. Most of its American units (the 5th Infantry Division, the 116th Armored Cavalry Regiment and the 46th Engineer Brigade) are assigned to the American XI Corps, which is holding a sector east of the group's. General Oberdorf is assigned to lead the Schleswig-Holstein Territorial Command, responsible for security and reconstruction of the West German Baltic coast and the region between Hamburg and the Danish border.

[chico20854]

October 29, 1997

Nothing official for today. Unofficially,

Delegations from the Greek and Bulgarian military governments meet in Erdine, Turkey to delineate administration of occupied areas in Thrace as Soviet forces begin withdrawing from the region. Both nations had lost sovereignty over the region in wars earlier in the century; while allies in the fighting against the Turks and Jugoslavs the two nations are both desperate to regain the lost territories and too weak militarily and economically to fight the other over them.

Another three Army truck companies are activated, one each at Fort Eustis and Fort Leonard Wood, with the third forming at Camp Perry, Ohio, from volunteers from the civilian trucking industry.

Soviet forces of the 1st Far Eastern Front conclude the clearing the last remaining pocket of Chinese Army resistance, the remnants of the 31st Group Army that had been sheltering in Dandong at the mouth of the Yalu. The suppression of the Chinese troops, who fought with a tenacity driven by fatalism and hate, is a bloody effort, and following its conclusion 1st Far Eastern Front directs the diversion of some of the less battered formations to reinforce Yalu Front's efforts in adjacent North Korea

The first ships of the ragtag evacuation fleet carrying the remnants of the British 6th Division arrive in Kowloon.

Soviet nuclear forces strike the main NATO aerial ports that receive reinforcements - Frankfurt International Airport/Rhine Main Air Force Base, Luxembourg International Airport, Amsterdam-Schipol International Airport and Dusseldorf International Airport - with IRBMs and cruise missiles, halting reinforcement operations at the bases. Aircraft already in flight are directed to land at Gatwick, Prestwick and Stanstead airports in the UK, where an ad-hoc aerial ferry system is implemented using smaller civilian transports and USAF airlifters flying to smaller (and in many cases damaged) airfields in Germany and the eastern Netherlands.

Convoy 306 departs Jacksonville, Florida, with 18 loaded freighters, two tankers and six escorts as well as an umbrella of maritime patrol aircraft overhead.

A particularly heavy day of flights into the Tabriz bridgehead, taking advantage of heavy air tasking by 9th Air Force with cooperation from the IPA and the Saudi Air Force.

Detachment 1, 102nd Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron is declared operational at Mombasa International Airport, Kenya. Two of the squadron's HC-130 transports return to Gibraltar.

[chico20854]

October 30, 1997

After several weeks of sheltering from fallout in local coal mines, the first inhabitants of Pyskowice return to their homes. They have deteriorated somewhat during the interval when they were abandoned but overall are still habitable and far preferable to conditions in government-operated refugee camps.

The 82nd Airborne and the Rangers begin to break out of their airhead and begin raiding south.

Unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship Milwaukee Freedom is delivered in Portland, Oregon.

NATO transportation planners assess the implications of the prior day's attacks on airports as well as the ongoing effort to cripple European seaports. The twin developments challenge NATO's ability to replace even a portion of the losses its forces are suffering at the front, for while the US Army's Training and Doctrine Command is churning out hundreds of recruits daily and American (and Canadian and British) industry is building armored and unarmored vehicles, the inability to get them to into the theatre threatens the alliance's ability to hold off the advancing Pact forces. The US Navy offers up the idea of troop ships - both purpose built ones brought out of mothballs and requisitioned cruise ships - but they are slower than airlift and require use of the same damaged port facilities that are currently unable to unload supplies and fuel. No decision is reached other than to continue to make maximum use of smaller, undamaged facilities; the available tactical assets (landing craft and C-130-scale transports) are too few and too urgently needed to divert to logistic support missions.

Hearing the approaching thundering horde of Convoy 306, the Sierra-III class sub K-231 moves east into the Atlantic to ensure that a 120-km square area of the Atlantic north of Bermuda and away from the shipping routes is clear of enemy activity.

The first vehicles of the 353rd Engineer Group (Combat) arrive at Corpus Christi, Texas for movement to Europe.

[chico20854]

October 31, 1997

The 82nd Airborne Division and Rangers have done as much damage as they can to the Soviet base structure and communications routes in the Tabriz area as they can. To their south, Soviet troops are running out of supplies while XVIII Airborne Corps, I MEF and the IPA begin a limited counteroffensive. Caught in a vice, the Soviets begin withdrawing northward from their positions threatening Allied positions along the coast of the Persian Gulf.

The fires in the outer city of Warsaw have nearly died out. The firestorm had swept through those areas of the city which were not in the rubble, destroying most of those structures which withstood the blasts. The destruction is nearly complete. Over half of the native population died in the initial blasts and the firestorm which ran through the city. While many structures still remain standing, they are, for the most part, only shells, standing ominously over the sea of rubble which is modern Warsaw.

Unoffiicially,

Having had an entire two weeks (!) to organize, the 476th Truck Company is ordered to the nearby port of Norfolk for immediate deployment to Europe.

As the IRA consolidates its positions in Belfast and struggles to hold Derry it introduces involuntary conscription of all males between the ages of 13 and 62. Some affected men manage to slip away, while others willingly take up arms against the Loyalists.

One of the Soviet units involved in the elimination of the Chinese 31st Army, the 12th Motor-Rifle Division (3500 men, 25 tanks), is ordered south into North Korea to reinforce 35th Army. It crosses the Yalu later in the day, its infantry mostly on foot except for a lucky battalion which rides the exterior of the tanks.

The last elements of the British 6th Division arrive in Kowloon, having been evacuated from the mouth of the Yalu River, bringing an end to the "Dunkirk of China".

Convoy 306 is off the Hampton Roads area and picks up an additional nine ships and another escort, the frigate Koelsch, returning to sea after being damaged in March.

[chico20854]

November 1, 1997

The first convoy to Kenya from the United States arrives after being attacked by two Soviet submarines off the coast of Madagascar. The convoy loses two freighters, including one carrying the balance of the Sheridan tanks assigned to the 173rd. The escorts, aided by P-3Cs, manage to sink both submarines but lose one frigate and have another so badly damaged that it barely makes it to Mombasa. The rest of the convoy arrives intact, bringing the remainder of the 173rd Airborne Brigade and the 228th Aviation Regiment along with various support elements.

Unofficially,

The Army Chief of Staff reports that as of October 31, total casualties (KIA, wounded, missing and captured) have exceeded 100 percent of the Army's prewar (January 1996) Active Duty strength. (Noting, of course, that the Army Reserve and National Guard made up 58 percent of the total Army). While shocking, the Commandant of the Marine Corps notes that his force reached that milestone in July and that the nuclear exchange has put the equivalent number for the Marine Corps approaching 150 percent.

The government of Eire, noting the instability in Northern Ireland, calls up the FCA, the Army's reserve force. Reservists repeat the experience of most reservists around the world from a year ago, nervously leaving loved ones, reporting to mobilization stations and rushing through paperwork and store issuance.

In North Korea, Soviet artillery strikes the city of Wonsan on the east coast as Allied defenders continue to withdraw. To the west, fighting spreads in Pyongyang as the Soviets commit additional numbers of North Korea troops (a mix of pre-war regulars, reservists and People's Militia with a sprinkling of civilians forced to fight fleshing them out). Allied airpower, operating closer to its home bases, is able to provide slightly more effective support.

The US Pacific Fleet orders the withdrawal of the battleship Missouri from the western coast of North Korea, ordering it to Yokosuka, Japan for a brief period for minor repairs, resupply and minor electronic upgrades.

The German 23rd Missile Brigade, which has shot off it's entire stock of Scud-D missiles and taken grievous losses in the fighting in Poland, is disbanded. Survivors of the unit are distributed to other Bundeswehr formations.

The Dutch Air Force resumes flying missions from the Gilze-Rijen Air Base, which was struck by a Soviet missile a month earlier. The Dutch 314 Squadron's three remaining F-16s are able to take off and land from the base's taxiways, which were constructed specifically with this emergency option in mind.

Elsewhere in Germany, some Luftwaffe and USAF aircraft have begun to operate from small civilian strips and closed sections of Autobahn to reduce the risk of being struck by Soviet nuclear weapons while at one of the few remaining intact bases. NATO's remaining E-3 AWACS aircraft operating over the front have retreated to Stavanger, Norway and RAF Alconbury, relying on tankers to make up for the lost range.

The German defenders of Wroclaw, mostly the V Korps, are surrounded by Pact troops of the 2nd Polish and 8th Guards Soviet Armies.

The NATO attack submarines HMS Ursula and HNLMS Bruinvis blast their way out of the Murmansk Fjord following nearly two weeks of lurking. They follow the Soviet minesweeper Pavel Malkov out through the minefields, then sink her and her escort, the Grisha-class corvette MPK-33.

The USS Virginia remains in drydock in Norfolk, Virginia being repaired from damage sustained in mid-October. The ship's helicopter pilot, Lt. Hans Brupp, is promoted to Lieutenant Commander, partially in recognition of his role sinking the submarine that attacked the ship.

Following a long and difficult journey Cobra and Echo Flights, 487th Tactical Missile Wing, with nine GLCM missiles and launchers, arrive at Incirlik Air Base, Turkey. Incirlik is quickly evolving to be an enclave of relative order in the chaos that is Turkey, with a combination of local, Dutch, and USAF Security troops who are securing the miles-long perimeter. The base is slowly gathering stragglers from other NATO formations in Turkey that are able to make it there; most of 16th Air Force's surviving aircraft are recovering to the base after flying missions from their damaged home stations.

[chico20854]

November 2, 1997

Irish troops begin to move to the northern counties in response to the growing conflict across the border in Northern Ireland. The government of Eire, which relies on Sinn Fein for support, claims that the deployment is wholly defensive.

Unofficially,

The light frigate USS Menges is delivered in Pascagoula, Mississippi and manned by a mix of USN and USCG personnel.

The 1950s-vintage Decatur-class destroyer USS John Paul Jones, is recommissioned in Norfolk, Virginia and sets sail for the Pacific. The ship had last been in commission in 1982; such is the need for escorts that in January she and her sisters were ordered back into service, obsolescent as she is. The reactivation process included installation of modern radars, electronics and self-defense systems but she still lacks helicopters and a modern sonar.

ROK stay-behind special forces troops in North Korea spot the columns of the reinforcing 12th Motor-Rifle Division heading south after crossing the Ch'ongch'on River and within hours the formation is stuck by a South Korean nuclear-tipped Lance missile, largely ending the divisions war.

Allied forces in Korea have established a semi-prepared defensive line across North Korea from Wonsan to Pyongyang, using the south bank of the Taedong River as an obstacle. Engineers destroy the river crossings, while 8th Army headquarters acquiesces to ROK concerns and denies the use of atomic demolition munitions or nuclear strikes to create a nuclear dead zone on the north bank. ROK and US light units establish a screen through the central mountains, and the most battered units are withdrawn from the front lines for reconstruction.

ROK naval units move into the estuary of the Taedong River to provide naval gunfire support to Allied forces. The South Koreas are willing to risk the destroyer Jeon Ju, a World War II-era ship with six 5-inch guns, in the effort.

The Luftwaffe 2nd Luftjaeger Regiment reaches the safety of the German border and is assigned a sector along the Oder River south of Frankfurt-Oder.

The 930th Tactical Fighter Group (USAF Reserve) relinquishes the last of its surviving A-10s to the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing. It receives a composite force of six A-37 and six Boeing Skyfox light attack aircraft as replacements; it has been nearly six months since the unit had a dozen combat-ready aircraft.

Panzergruppe Westhoven, another ad-hoc multinational formation formed in the spring and assigned to First German Army, is disbanded, its constituent units returned to their national corps.

West of Wroclaw, the US XI Corps prepares a counterattack to once again rescue an encircled friendly unit, in this case the V German Korps.

NATO technical intelligence specialists score an amazing prize when a SS-23 missile lands within the perimeter of Ramstein Air Base and its nuclear warhead fails to detonate. Air Force Security Police immediately secure the site and EOD personnel arrive; unfamiliar with Soviet nuclear weapons they are unable to make the warhead safe but transport it (very! gingerly) to a hardened aircraft shelter.

Convoy 304 arrives in the North Sea following a nearly-unopposed voyage from North America. Naval commanders are dismayed to discover that some ships from Convoy 302 are still at anchor awaiting berths. The smaller ships are able to proceed to shallower ports such as Esbjerg, Denmark and Eemshaven, Netherlands.

Convoy 306 is off St. Johns, Newfoundland.

Red Banner Northern Fleet surges many of its remaining nuclear and diesel-powered submarines into the Barents Sea.

While 5th Special Force Group's Green Berets work with the Kurds of northwestern Iran, the 7th Group works in central and Eastern Iran, among the Baluch and Lur tribal groups. 7th Group even deploys several A-teams across the border into post-nuclear Pakistan, more gathering intelligence than active combat operations.

Kenyan stevedores work to unload the convoy that arrived in Mombasa. American commanders are frustrated to learn the slow pace that the workers work at, and are forced to choose between unloading supplies for the units already in action and unloading additional combat capability. Ultimately, the decision is made to unload several days worth of munitions and fuel as well as desperately needed parts, then switch over, if the ships' loading permits.