On this day 25 years ago

[chico20854]

February 14, 1998

Again, nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

Islands of stability have formed acrosss many areas of the US, often in vicinity to intact military units, petroleum or food production or the remnants of a state government. (Or, frequently, many or all of these). Notable areas include western New York, central Pennsylvania, Bakersfield, California and Mempis, Tennessee. By this point, lack of fuel and harsh winter weather have halted most refugee movement across the country, granting remaining authorities time to organize the provision of food, shelter and what little fuel is available.

The 20th (my 16th Guards) Tank Division is reassigned from 4th Guards Tank Army to 8th Guards Army and assigned a sector along the German-Polish border opposite Frankfurt on the Oder.

At the Mydlniki train station in Krakow, daily deaths to starvation and disease now exceed 15. Many of the youngest and healthiest refugees depart, seeking less dangerous shelter. One group discovers a dangerous but intriguing location - an abandoned prefabricated concrete apartment block that faces the ruins of the adjacent manufacturing center of Nowy Huta, which was struck by an American nuclear weapon in the fall. All of the windows have been blown out and many of the apartments have suffered extensive damage, but hold small stashes of food, clothing and other valuable salvage abandoned when the original residents evacuated, fearing radiation.

The 158th MRD's column is still surrounded by Jugoslav territorial defense troops and the remnants of the Jugoslav National Army, who keep the column pinned down with well-aimed sniper fire from the hills over the immobile convoy. Adding insult to the situation, the Jugoslav partisans launch simultaneous attacks on the surrounded 151st Tank Regiment in Sarajevo, overrunning the last remaining isolated observation post and the division command post in Zenica. As dusk falls the division commander orders the abandonment of the relief effort and the suffering troops mount up and fight a running battle the 15 km back to their base, leaving 20 percent of the force that left the steel mill at dawn three days ago behind as dead, with twice that number brought along in the surviving vehicles wounded.

The commander of XVIII Airborne Corps is distressed when he is told that nearly 15 percent of supplies dispatched from his port facilities are lost en route to the front line by bandit roadblocks, pilferage from civilian material handlers and attacks on supply lines and routes.

[chico20854]

February 15, 1998

The 8th Infantry Division (Mechanized) has completed its reorganization and is preparing to return to duty on the front lines in East Germany. Armored vehicle losses in 1997 had been heavy and all remaining tanks in the division are assigned to 1-68 and 3-77 (my 4-69) Armor, while 2-68 (my 2-69) and 5-77 Armor are disbanded to provide personnel replacement for the other two battalions. The remaining tank battalion in the division, 4-34 (my 5-68) Armor, is left without any vehicles of its own, but a convoy of heavy equipment has recently arrived in Europe (one of the last to do so) and included in the cargo is a consignment of Cadillac Gage Stingrays which are used to re-equip the battalion.

Unofficially,

The remaining team members of B Squadron, Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, who have been operating in Manchuria for nearly a year, have established themselves in relative comfort in a small hamlet in rural Suihua prefecture in Manchuria; some members remark that they have "gone native", moving in with local families and providing a (very, very competent and dangerous) militia to defend the small town.

In the early morning hours the last stragglers of the 158th Motor-Rile Division's ill-fated relief force trudge back to the division's headquarters complex at the Zenica steel mill. By dawn it becomes apparent that the Jugoslav resistance fighters that harried the column have followed them, with the base coming under rocket and mortar attack and outer pickets reporting movement in the buildings and hills that surround the base. In Sarajevo, the surrounded 151st Tank Regiment comes under attack, its remaining operational T-34/85s rushing around the perimeter to reinforce positions threatened with annihilation.

In the no mans land between Allied and Soviet lines in the Zagros mountains, Antoly Shinsky, a deserter from the Soviet 9th Army and his compatriots (all from the Russian Far East) occupy the village of Dorodzan and begin a reign of terror, pillaging and oppressing the town's helpless civilians.

[chico20854]

February 16, 1998

As conditions in the area deteriorate and the flow of components grinds to a halt, workers at the Red River Army Depot halt conversions of M113 ACCVs to the M115A1 standard.

The 6th (my 5th Guards) Tank Division is withdrawn from garrisons on the outskirts of Tianjin, China north into Manchuria in an attempt by 36th Army to achieve sufficient troop density to maintain control of surviving industrial and natural resources.

Unofficially,

The disperesed units of the mobilization-only 158th Motor-Rifle Division, spread along over 200 kilometers from Sarajevo to the Sava River, come under coordinated attack from the remnants of the Jugoslav National Army and Territorial Defense Forces, in no small part thanks to the efforts of advisors (and communications provided by) the Third Battalion, 6th Special Forces Group. The attacks succeed in pinning down the Soviet "occupation force", preventing supplies and reinforcements from moving between garrisons and allowing the Jugoslavs to concentrate forces and pick off the garrisons one by one. The first to fall is the 151st Tank Regiment in Sarajevo, whose commander surrenders at nightfall, begging for humane treatment of his surviving troops. Unfortunately, the assurances he receives from the JNA commander are ignored by his Territorial Defense co-belligerents, and as midnight nears Sarajeov is once again the scene of a bloody massacre the likes of which the Balkans are famous for; the American Green Berets are unable to control their allies and are resigned to "taking a walk away from the unit for a little while".

As the departure date for a reinforcement convoy to Africa arrives, naval authorities are distressed to discover that only half of the planned 20 ships (freighters and tankers, as well as the ships carrying the 30th Marines) have arrived at the sailing port of Hampton Roads, that there is only one escort (the frigate Lockwood) ready; another (the destroyer Richard S. Edwards) back in the yard for repairs to its complicated and troublesome 1950s steam plant, which the remnants of the late-war modern navy has a difficult time finding skilled operators for, not to mention the 750 tons of No. 4 fuel oil she needs for the voyage.

A 15-year old boy from the village of Dorodzan slips away to get help in the predawn hours, after the band of Soviet Army deserters have drank themselves into a stupor.

[chico20854]

February 17, 1998

Nothing in canon for today!

Although very few geologists are in any position to notice, small-scale seismic shocks have become much more prevalent as the battered Earth's crust tries to adjust to the shocks of the multiple ground bursts of the nuclear exchange. While the tremors are too minor to cause any further damage (and in most cases too minor to be noticed by people), they do have the effect of opening up some long-closed oil wells in northwestern Pennsylvania (and elsewhere around the world).

In the upper Midwestern states, the 49th Armored Division has secured dozens of grain elevators and stationed small detachments at over 100 dairy farms as well as maintaining a very active system of patrols and roadblocks. There is initially resentment by the farmers of the military control of the food stocks, but soon rumors begin to spread of the depredations unleashed on farmers by desperate and hungry city-dwellers in other areas of the nation. The hostility to the Texas guardsmen (many from rural backgrounds) begins to dissipate as the farmers and the soldiers reach an understanding that it is better for the troops to take the food for distribution than for hordes of refugees to overrun the farms.

Concerned about the situation back home and facing a hopeless situation, the commander of the Hungarian 53rd Mechanized Rifle Brigade, on occupation in Manchuria, decides to abandon his position and return his command home. The command's Soviet "liaison officers" are arrested and disarmed, with a few sympathetic ones retaining their freedom and preparing forged movement orders.

The drunken rampage/celebration in Sarajevo continues following the capitulation of the Soviet 151st Tank Regiment. Most of the surviving Soviet troops (mostly Moldovan reservists and confused Central Asian farm boys) are sheltered by American and JNA officers, while the Jugoslav troops (mostly JNA enlisted men and Territorial Defense troops) run wild. By dawn fighting has broken out between different groups within the Jugoslav force, with religious/ethnic groups fighting each other and JNA and Territorial Defense units struggling for control of the captured garrison and its few remaining weapons and supplies.

[chico20854]

February 18, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

In Alaska, X Corps launches a counterattack against Soviet forces holding Fairbnks, Alaska's second largest city. (The Soviets took the town in November, expending the last of their offensive firepower, leaving X Corps ensconsed in Fort Wainwright and Eileson Air Force Base on the city's eastern outskirts.) The 11th Airborne Division launches a frontal attack supported by the guns of the 197th Field Artillery Brigade while the troops of the 2nd Infantry Brigade (Arctic Recon) slip around the city to the sorth to cut off the Soviet force.

Demonstrating the disarray within the USSR, a dozen Ts100 processors for MiG-29 radars arrive at the Chortkov airbase in Ukraine, which, before it was struck by an American nuclear bomb in September, supported Su-25 attack aircraft and has never operated MiG-29s.

The small fleet of amphibious ships carrying the 30th Marines anchor off the Hampton Roads port complex, accompanied by the Coast Guard patrol craft . The force has but three helicopters, single UH-1N, CH-46E and CH-53Es that were being retained for training use at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina.

After two days of scrambling through the rural no mans land between Allied and Soviet lines, the 15 year-old boy from the village of Dorodzan encounters Allied troops - a patrol of Circassians guerrillas accompanied by an American advisor from the 7th Special Forces Group. To the young man's disappointment the patrol does not divert from its planned patrol route to liberate the town, but gives him food, water and directions to friendly lines as well as reporting the situation in his home village to higher headquarters.

[chico20854]

February 19, 1998

The 6th Marine Division, after a year-long training cycle culminating in a full-division live fire combined arms exercise, is declared operational and begins deploying to Korea.

Unofficially,

The Arctic troops of the 2nd Infantry Brigade (Arctic Recon)(Alaska National Guard) make slow progress moving cross-country over the frozen tundra south of Fairbanks while the remainder of X Corps continues its attacks on Soviet positions in the town. The weather clears enough for A-10s of the 18th Tactical Fighter Squadron to make an appearance overhead, clearing out a Soviet artillery battery that had concealed itself in a sawmill complex on the city's western edge.

Only two days after leaving their positions in Manchuria, the staff of the 1st Far Eastern Front notices that the Hungarian 53rd Mechanized Rifle Brigade is not responding to radio calls.

An A-6 Intruder aircraft from the USS Kennedy battle group, supported by two others configured as tankers, strikes the Soviet submarine support base at Patros, Greece, following receipt of rumors about a nuclear submarine being prepared for a patrol in the Mediterranean. The lone aircraft arrives over the Greco-Soviet base at low level at 4 am, successfully dropping its load of a single B61-8 345-kiloton nuclear bomb. Its all-female crew of LtJG Pamela Shore and LtCdr Susan Williams escape thanks to a retarding parachute, which allows the low-flying bomber to duck behind the low hills that surround the city before the bomb detonates. The blast wrecks the submarine tender Magomed Gadzhiev, the upper works of the submarines B-164 (Foxtrot-class), B-854 (also a Foxtrot-class), the Tang-class B-546 and the Whiskey-class S-231 and rolls the Victor II-class SSN K-371 over, flooding her through a hatch in the sail left open by the war-weary watchman.

[chico20854]

February 20, 1998

The replica USS Constitution arrives in the Cape Horn area, discharging cargo for Capetown and picking up several American servicemen to replace crewmen lost to malaria.

Unofficially,

X Corps' offensive in Fairbanks makes slow progress as American paratroops carefully blast Soviet troops out of individual buildings. The 11th Airborne Division has few armored vehicles and its supporting artillery batteries are short of ammunition. Adding to the difficulty of the operation is the fact that the battlefield is still occupied by friendly civilians, requiring precision fires against enemy targets rather than more indiscriminate use of area-effect munitions to clear entire sectors.

The final American fighter aircraft of the war is completed, a F-20 Tigershark built at the Beechcraft aviation plant in Wichita, Kansas. Originally intended for delivery to South Korea, the aircraft is instead flown to Dover AFB, Delaware, Air Force authorities hoping that it can be partially disassembled, loaded aboard a C-5 transport plane and delivered to the CENTCOM AOR.

The next round of attacks against the embattled 158th Motor-Rifle Division in Bosnia begins. The Jugoslav forces have moved a platoon of four T-34/85 tanks captured from the division's 151st Tank Regiment from Saarajevo to outside the division's headquarters in Zenica, where they begin to systematically enage the position's strongpoints with precision heavy fire.

[chico20854]

February 21, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

The 402nd Field Artillery Brigade gets in its first firefight, between one of the brigades platoons and the militia of the small town of Chillicothe, Texas. The soldiers retreat, leaving five dead behind.

The fighting in Fairbanks continues as the desperate troops of the Soviet 147th (my 261st) Motor-Rifle Division give up positions in the citys downtown, shifting the focus of resistance to the railroad yard and industrial area on the north side of the Chena River.

The Hungarian 53rd Mechanized Rifle Brgade is able to requisition sufficient railroad rolling stock to load all of its troops and heavy equipment; the commander authorizes the outfitting of several cars with anti-aircraft weapons, armored vehicles and armor to allow the formation (probably to be split into three separate units) to fight its way through opposition.

The attacks against the 158th Motor-Rifle Division expand in scope, with Jugoslav partisan fighters (coordinating with US Green Berets of the 6th Special Forces Group) surrounding all of the division's outposts along the valley of the Bosna River.

The Bulgarian freighter A.B. Buzko, with a partial load of grain and iron ore aboard, arrives in the Greek port of Patros, only to discover that it has been hit by an American nuclear bomber. The ship's captain, unable to reach Bulgarian naval command (the headquarters bunker was struck in the fall and alternate facilities have gone offline in the chaos of post-nuclear Bulgaria), heads back to sea, instructing his radio officer to try to reach any Warsaw Pact naval headquarters.

[chico20854]

February 22, 1998

Another day with nothing in canon. Unofficially,

The fighting continues in Fairbanks, Alaska as the 11th Airborne Division attempts an assault crossing of the frozen-ovver Chena River. With artillery and mortar ammunition running low, the paratroops are forced to cross with little supporting fire and suffer heavy casaulties from Soviet machinegun fire.

Throughout the front lines of 4th and 7th US and 1st, 2nd and 3rd German Armies, engineer troops, having largely constructed nearly adequate winter quarters for troops, are diverted to hardening defensive positions along the front lines as commanders realize that there will be no NATO offensive anytime soon; strong defensive positions allow a longer front line to be held with fewer troops.

The 61st Training Motor-Rifle Division in remote Ashkabad, Turkmenistan (just north of the Iranian border) graduates its last class of trainees. There are too few local civilians to draft (doing so would collapse the local collective and state farms), so the unit dispatches the new trainees to the fighting in Iran and maintains a local garrison dedicated to protection of local order.

[chico20854]

February 23, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

In Alaska, the fighting in downtown Fairbanks continues as American airborne troops attempt to gain a foothold on the north bank of the Chena River and National Guard troops of the 1st and 2nd Arctic Recon Brigades close in on Highway 2, the sole road leaving the city to the west. Troops of the 1st Brigade move slowly and carefully as they advance around the forested slopes of Ester Dome, the mountain that dominates the city's skyline, slowed by temperatures of -50 F.

Pact forces in Poland are slowly rebuilding their logistic structure after the havoc wreaked by NATO occupying forces and nuclear and conventional strikes. A major challenge is the change of railroad gauge along the Polish-Soviet border; the pre-existing change of gauge stations were thoroughly destroyed by NATO engineers before they evacuated the area in August. The Linia Hutniczo-Siarkowa (Metallurgy-Sulphur Line), a Russian-gauge line that reaches nearly 250 miles into eastern Silesia, is the highest priority, although Soviet engineers are unsure of their ability to repair the Wisla bridge at Kolonia, whose western abutments were destroyed by an American atomic demolition munition. The Soviets urge the Polish Communist Party to rally manpower - military, POW, civilian, refugee - to manually unload the few train cars that are arriving from the USSR for further transport to the front.

In the Ionian Sea, the Bulgarian freighter A.B. Buzko makes radio contact with another friendly ship, the Soviet Ignatius Sergeev, which is in the Black Sea. The Soviet captain reports that he has been ordered to Cuba with a cargo of foodstuffs for the isolated Soviet garrison there, but is unsure of being able to pass through the Bosporus. The two captains make a pact - the Bulgarian ship will deliver its cargo of grain to Cuba while the Soviet ship diverts to Bulgaria; both leaders reckon that in these desperate situations that the arrangement makes some lvel of sense.

Party officials in the Tver region north of Moscow, faced with rapidly diminishing food supplies and ever more refugees from Moscow, decide to demonstrate their commitment to the war effort by sweeping the refugee camps for men of military age. The local MVD quickly rounds up nearly 500 men (and some young women in their late teens and 20s) and loads them onto railcars, dispatching them to the front in Europe as reinforcements.

[chico20854]

February 24, 1998

Another day where canon is silent! Unofficially,

The 402nd Field Artillery Brigade returns to Chillicothe, Texas in mass. The brigade deploys two companies of infantry, which overrun the town, burn it to the ground and execute all males between the ages of 14 and 70.

In Canada, the Quebecois force on the eastern front continues its offensive, delayed to allow time for reinforcement and training. Using a hodgepodge fleet of fishing and recreational boats as well as three ferries pressed into service, they make an amphibious landing that quickly overwhelms the loyalist force along the Labrador-Quebec border and cuts the coast road between the border guard force and the main base at Goose Bay.

The 53rd Hungarian Brigade completes the outfitting of several railcars as gun platforms, with armor to protect against shrapnel and light small arms fire (sufficient to stop an AK-47 bullet, but not a PK machinegun or heavier). It begins loading aboard the trains; most of the troops are housed in boxcars or aboard a suburban commuter train; the brigade's engineers drain the fuel from several damaged locomotives and an underground fuel tank into a tank car placed at the center of the formation. Simultaneously, the unit mechanics strip the local railroad maintenance shop of tools and spares that may be needed. The local authorities are powerless to object, the town (Naushki in eastern Siberia) being overrun with heavily armed Hungarians, nearly all of whom are unable to speak Russian and interteract with the local civilians.

The new destroyer USS Howard, which was commissioned in Maine in September and entered a period of training before entering active service, finally completes its shakedown training and enters port at Mayport, Florida for minor refit and resupply prior to commencing active service.

Third US Army directs its sole subordinate MP brigade, the 16th, to coordinate with the paramilitary Iranian National Security Force, on efforts to secure the supply lines between ports on the Persian Gulf and forward positions in the Zagros Mountains. The MPs are provided the remnant of the Australian Expeditionary Brigade (reorganized into two nearly-full strength battalions and a robust headquarters and support element) to deal with the most heavily armed bandits and deserter groups.

[chico20854]

February 25, 1998

Nothing official today!

Six A-37 light attack jets which have been reactivated from retirement for transfer to Colombia are requisitioned while awaiting arrival of Colombian pilots at Columbus AFB, Mississippi. The base commander authorizes the release of pilots and a single crew chief for each aircraft and sufficient fuel for each aircraft to fly to Chambers Field at Norfolk Naval Station, Virginia.

The commander of the 2nd Far Eastern Front reluctantly orders the dispatch of the veteran 27th (my 90th Guards) Tank Division to to the western front.

The crew of the destroyer USS Howard is distressed when it discovers the dire conditions ashore in northeastern Florida. The naval base is crowded with shattered survivors of the nuclear attacks on the Atlantic Fleet's other southern bases - Charleston, Kings Bay and Norfolk - both human and floating. The base is held by a heavy security force, holding off masses of desperate refugees fleeing the chaos elsewhere in the state.

In Lithuania, a platoon from the MVD's 357th Convoy Regiment is dispatched to deal with the insubordinate occupier of Trakai Castle, Colonel Česlovas Skrebys. The detachment, survivors of the desperate drive to evict American and British troops from the republic, is but 17 men strong, with a pair of worn out GAZ-66 trucks and a single Second World War-era SG-43 machinegun.

[chico20854]

February 26, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

Quebecois forces in Labrador advance northwest and inland, heading for the NATO air base at Goose Bay. They are largely unopposed.

In Alaska, the Soviet defending force has been largely pushed out of the industrial area north of downtown Fairbanks, shifting the focus of Soviet resistance to the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where the remannts of the 147th (my 261st ) Motor-Rifle Divison's reconniassance battalion and anti-aircraft regiment have fortified the school buildings and cleared resupply and reinforcement routes through the campus' steam tunnel system.

The 199th Infantry Brigade arrives at the Korean port of Ulsan, one of the few remaining South Korean ports. It begins its transit to the III MEF area of operations.

The USS Howard's supply officer is crestfallen when she discovers (and verifies) that there is no fuel available at the Mayport, Florida naval base (or further inland, in Jacksonville) to enable the ship to depart. There also is little ammunition available to arm the ship, with some rounds for the ship's guns and torpedoes for its torpedo tubes and helicopters (a single SH-2G Seasprite rather than the two SH-60s she is designed for). The ship's complement is pressed into service as a security force ashore, despite the captain's insistence that his warship needs desperately to get into action at sea.


SEALS from SEAL Team 4 severely damage the Italian tanker Norvegia G at anchor off Bizerte. The ship's double hull would defeat most demolition charges, forcing the commandos to attach the charges to blow out the propeller shaft seals & and ignite a fire in the accomodation block. The ship and its escort, the corvette Sfinge, had been positioned to transport the cargo from the local refinery that the US has just loaded aboard the USNS Paul Buck. An attempt to attach limpet mines to the Sfinge is thwarted by alert sentries aboard the ship.

The MVD detachment sent to Trakai, Lithuania to force Colonel Skrebys to comply with the orders of Party authorities (and eliminate him if he refuses) scouts out the town, noting that defensive works have been thrown up, manned by armed defenders. Recalling earlier reports that Skrebys had armored personnel carriers, the detachment commander calls for additional forces before launching his attack.

[chico20854]

February 27, 1998

Nothing official for the day!

As word of the Chillicothe Massacre spreads, active resistance to the 402nd Field Artillery Brigade from the local population stops, allowing the unit to provide a trickle of supplies to XIII Corps headquarters and the Milgov capital throughout 1998 and 1999.

West of Fairbanks, the 1st and 2nd Infantry Brigades (Arctic Recon)(Alaska National Guard) link up, cutting the sole remaining land route out of the city. The battered guardsmen, however, are suffering greatly from exposure and a dreadful shortage of food, ammunition and shelter.

In Krakow, the disease outbreak among the refugee population has killed thousands and spread to the city's population. Losses among medical professionals are high, and the situation is made worse by the general lack of food and heating fuel. In central Germany, the last French-supported convoys arrive with cargo from US Air Force bases in the occupied zone; the evacuation of Army bases will take some time longer.

The American tanker USNS Paul Buck arrives in Bremerhaven, Germany, loaded down with a load of Tunisian diesel fuel. The ship's cargo is fed into the NEPS (Northern European Pipeline System) for transfer further south; as much as Allied naval commanders want the fuel to return their ships to sea and Army commanders are eager to restore the mobility of armored formations, the vast majority of the ship's 237,000-barrel cargo will be used to move food reserves to the desperate German population and allow operational repositioning of battered units into reserve positions where they can rebuild.

The MVD detachment sent to Trakai, Lithuania receives word that it will receive air and artillery support for its attempt to drive the renegade Colonel Skrebys and his followers from the town's castle. The riot policemen, overjoyed at the news, take up positions in nearby woods while awaiting word of how to contact the promised support.

[chico20854]

February 28, 1998

French and Belgian civil servants have resolved the major issues regarding the unification of the two nations; Belgian territories will be treated as additional departments of France, as will (eventually) the occupied areas of the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Germany. Belgian officials will be transferred to Paris, and some ministries (Transport and Solidarity and Health) will relocate to Brussels, a co-capital that the unified legislature will meet in at least four months a year. The French franc will be legal tender in both nations, and Belgian francs will be converted over at a favorable exchange ratio.

The first of three two-aircraft flights of A-37 Dragonfly attack planes arrives in Norfolk, Virginia. The planes are prepared for shipboard transport and towed to the nearby pier.

Polish units begin experimenting with distilling alcohol from edible grains and waste vegetable material for fuel, since Polish oil production is minimal (especially given the devastation inflicted by the prior years campaigns) and the Warsaw Pact command has placed Polish units low on the priority list for provision of fuel and other resources from the trickle that arrives from the USSR.

Outside Trakai, Lithuania, the MVD troops wait for further information from higher headquarters on what support it will receive and how to communicate with it. As the morning turns to afternoon, the troops become increasingly disheartened as no contact is made. Shortly after 3 p.m., a pair of Su-25 attack planes from the 76th Guards Shturmovik Regiment fly overhead, releasing a volley of S-8 80mm rockets at the castle; 20 minutes later a lone Su-17 fighter-bomber overflies the town and drops a pair of 200-kg iron bombs. Both strikes are made with no prior coordination (the MVD troops do not have the proper radios) and have little effect other than alerting the defenses of the town. The annoyed commander orders his troops to rally and attack the town nonetheless, taking the lead. They are advancing across open ground towards the town when the artillery support arrives, a volley of long-range 180mm gun fire (from the mobilization-only 70th Artillery Division's 438th Cannon Artillery Regiment), which tears the attacking force to shreds. The attack, obviously, fails, and the three survivors are captured by the town's defense force. Two agree to join it, and the third is hanged from the castle's battlement at dusk.