On this day 25 years ago

[chico20854]

May 30, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

Despite the desire of X Corps commanders to complete the pursuit of retreating Soviet forces back to Anchorage, they are unable to do so. The command is effectively frozen in place by lack of supply, cut off from overland connection to the rest of the US and Canada by Soviet forces in Yukon, landlocked, and with air supply nonexistent. The corps' soldiers are sustaining themselves by hunting, trapping and fishing as well as relying on the generosity of grateful civilians.

RainbowSix reports that a number of Warsaw Pact prisoners, led by Captain Nikolai Konev, a Spetsnaz officer captured in Norway, break out of the Okehampton POW Camp in Devon.

Having completed the unloading of stores, fuel, lubricants and the portion of the cargo consisting of foodstuffs from the shattered Freedom-class transport Rhode Island Freedom, authorities in Kokura, Japan establish radio contact with US 8th Army officials in Korea informing them that the ship's cargo of vehicles (nearly entirely composed of 3/4 and 5/4-ton trucks) are available for the Americans to pick up at their leisure.

Sunrise finds the lead regiments of the 19th Guards and 20th Tank Divisions cautiously advancing across open ground outside Ansbach, Germany, under constant harassing fire from American cavalry scouts and field artillery. The understrength tank battalions advance along the same frontage that prewar doctrine dictates for full-strength units, avoiding concentrations that would render them attractive to NATO tactical nuclear strikes; the American defense is severely hindered by the near-total depletion of anti-tank missile stocks. Within the town, the commanders of the 1st and 36th Infantry Divisions issue orders for their MP companies to escort excess support and service units out of the city, while shifting hard-pressed infantry battalions to prepare defenses on the flanks. A relieved Specialist Cutler is assigned to create a hardened fighting position in the basement of a gasthaus on the city's eastern edge; he is overjoyed to discover an untapped keg of beer in the cellar. The work is quickly abandoned as he enjoys some of Germany's finest, despite his deep affection for his native Pittsburgh's Iron City.

The DIA first identifies Nhaziern Khazi's band of marauders, one of hundreds of such groups they are tracking the existence of.

[chico20854]

May 31, 1998

Another day with nothing in canon. Unofficially,

42nd Infantry Division deserter Nathan Snyder has found himself a girlfriend within the Hells Own marauder gang in New York - the gang's informal leader's little sister.

In Lodz Poland, Professor Kristof Cikowski makes a presentation of his idea to a joint committee of other electrical engineering professors and the university's Communist Party leadership. They view his concept skeptically and are reluctant to allocate scarce resources to his project, but reluctantly authorize him and two graduate students to be exempt from mandatory civil works duties, which normally consume over 20 hours of labor each week, and permit him to scavenge the campus for electronic materials and parts that may be useful in his project.

North of Ansbach, Germany the lead regiments of the 19th Guards and 20th Tank Divisions link up, cutting off most of the American 1st and 36th Infantry Divisions in the town. Specialist Cutler's fire team leader and squad leader are killed by a Soviet mortar barrage, leaving him unsupervised. He retreats to the safety of the cellar and the welcoming tap of the keg it shelters. Responding to the envelopment, V US Corps begins movement south from its winter quarters to the northwest around Fulda. 16th Army rushes troops forward to reinforce the encircling force, denying the commander of the 19th Guards' 99th Reconnaissance Battalion's request to pursue the retreating American support elements. The Soviet force is becoming increasingly constrained by supply shortages, however, with artillery commanders having to ration rounds and the deputy commander for the rear scouring the territory they are occupying for German tank trucks (military or civilian) to augment the Army's to move fuel to forward troops.

To the west of Ansbach, 41st Army and the Italian 3 Corps have captured the town of Esslingen, outside Stuttgart.

The American cruiser USS Virginia departs Stanley in the Falklands Islands, its fresh water tanks full and with a slightly better rested and fed crew. The weather is awful as the full South Atlantic Winter buffets the region.

American advisors detached from the 101st Air Assault Division assist newly-trained Iranian troops of the 9th Airmobile Brigade in their first offensive operation. The IPA force makes a dawn air assault from a collection of UH-1s and various other variants (two-engine Bell 212s and four-rotor Bell 412s, from a variety of manufacturers) on a marauder stronghold in the mountains northeast of Bushehr. The raid is successful, with light Iranian casualties and nearly half the sleeping bandit force captured alive.

[chico20854]

June 1, 1998

The replica USS Constitution obtains a cargo of food and general supplies for the population of the Azores.

Unofficially,

map
The day finds the military in the continental US widely spread on disaster relief, internal security and food distribution duties. There are less than three division equivalents of fully equipped combat troops (the 49th AD, 42nd ID and 194th and 197th Brigades), three other trained divisions (the 4th AD, 17th AbnDiv and 46th ID) and a number of independent regiments and brigades that are trained but lack equipment and a wide range of training units as well as scattered military police and engineer units supporting civilian government functions.

The Joint Chiefs, who have had plenty to do from the moment they took charge, become aware of the new orders concerning the First Maritime Defense District. Flaherty hadn't consulted them. Eventually, minutes of the day reveal that the President, who had committed suicide, had executed some sort of orders regarding the Coast Guard and Navy chains of command in New England.

The major decision the Joint Chiefs make today, however, is to cut the allocation of food provided by military units to civilians to 1200 calories a day, in response to dwindling reserves and the arrival of fresh food in many gardens across the country.

The group of escaped POWs from the Okehampton POW camp splits up, with most of the men following Captain Konev. He decides to head to the safety of the Dartmoor Forest.

With Pact forces continuing their advances in southern Germany, the Royal Canadian Air Force decides to evacuate its remaining base in the region, at BadenSoellingen. (The RCAF base at Lahr was obliterated by a Soviet SS-20 IRBM in November). The USAF dispatches a C-130 of the 180th Tactical Airlift Squadron (Missouri Air National Guard) to evacuate the stockpile of tactical nuclear bombs and the American security element; its departure flight is escorted by the remaining six flyable CF-18s (F/A-18s) of 439 Squadron RCAF. A convoy of ground vehicles leaves at dusk, carrying ground crews, command staff and what tools and spare parts can be hastily gathered.

In surrounded Ansbach the American troops that are veterans of the long retreat across Poland coach the young replacements about how to break out of Soviet encirclement; the terrified Specialist Cutler, obviously drunk, retreats to the safety of his cellar as Soviet mortar barrages disrupt the defenders' activity.

The largest of the Italian-supported puppet armies in Jugoslavia, the Croatian Nationalist Army, musters two brigades as the Italians begin a mass conscription campaign that drafts boys and men from age 14 to 65.

[chico20854]

June 2, 1998

The United Brotherhood of Fishermen seize Cape Cod.

Unofficially,

The reaction to the news of the cut to food allocations is quick and violent. Rioting breaks out in areas around the nation as desperate civilians attempt to seize the food that the military is refusing to deliver. In California, Texas and Arizona the rioting is directed at refugee camps sheltering tens of thousands of Mexican refugees, who are (unfairly) blamed for "stealing the food that rightfully belongs to Americans". The attacks on the refugee camps turn into massacres, as overwhelmed security forces are unable (and in some cases unwilling) to protect their charges.

The American breakout from Ansbach starts at dawn. VII Corps' composite cavalry force composed of the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry and 36th Cavalry Squadron (Composite), outside the pocket on the east side and the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, outside on the west, launch probing attacks to discover the weakest points along the encircling forces line. 2nd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry achieves success against the 19th Guards Tank Division, and is able to identify its opponent as the 37th Guards Tank Regiment, locating its headquarters as it becomes apparent that the Soviet force is nearly immobile. (It turns out that the regiment's force of T-62 tanks is, in fact, nearly out of fuel, the convoy of trucks dispatched to refuel them lost in the German countryside). The regimental headquarters' location is quickly passed up the chain of command and within 15 minutes it is hit by a 1.1-kiloton artillery round fired by a 8-inch howitzer of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Artillery, assigned to the 210th Field Artillery Brigade. The American cavalry force, reinforced by the 1st Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (attached from V Corps) launches an attack in the immediate aftermath of the strike and within an hour makes contact with the 1st Infantry Division's 4th Battalion, 37th Armor. Under an umbrella of supporting artillery fire from the massed artillery batteries of VII Corps, reinforced by guns of the 135th Field Artillery Brigade (Missouri National Guard) from 4th Army, the two encircled divisions evacuate the city.

As the final Bradleys leave the burning town, a terrified Specialist Randolph Cutler decides that the evacuation is too perilous and that he is best off in the gasthaus basement with its stockpile of food and quarter-keg of fine Bavarian lager.

The Shiraz state munitions plant in Iran opens a new facility on the outskirts of the city, turning out one ton of TNT high explosive daily.

[chico20854]

June 3, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

As the Joint Chiefs learn the sordid details of MacDowell's coup they have far bigger fish to fry. MacDowell still obeys orders (albeit not always from the Commandant of the Coast Guard or Atlantic Fleet Headquarters) and is maintaining control of a useful cantonment where so many others have simply melted away or turned warlord. The orders granting MacDowell his unique command are never altered.

A luxury hotel complex in Acapulco, Mexico hosts a gathering of shadowy power brokers who seek to take advantage of the situation to enrich themselves and end the chaos that threatens to overtake the entire nation.

The Danish Expeditionary Corps and IV German Korps fall back on Stuttgart under pressure from 41st Army and the Italian 3rd Corps.

VII US Corps, having broken out of Ansbach, retreats through Wurzburg as 16th Army commits the relatively fresh 93rd Motor-Rifle Division to join the 20th Tank Division in pursuit.

In Ansbach, troops of the 57th Guards Motor-Rifle Division search the now-quiet city block by block; the search is slow as the veteran troops search for booby traps as well as booty from the wealthy West German homes and businesses. Specialist Cutler remains in his cellar, hopelessly drunk and oblivious to the situation outside.

The cruiser USS Virginia, patrolling the approaches to the Cape of Good Hope, overtakes one of the Soviet trawlers that escaped the carnage that the ship and the South Africans inflicted on the massed South Atlantic Soviet fishing fleet. The nuclear-powered ship draws alongside and sends a boarding party aboard, which seizes the trawler's cargo of (more) frozen fish as well as lubricants and much of the trawler's fuel, leaving only enough for the Soviet crew to limp into the nearest Argentine port where they will likely be interdicted.

[chico20854]

June 4, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

In the aftermath of the effective final collapse of the civilian federal government, there are no remaining USDA officials to raise the alarm that, as the spring planting season comes to an end, only 40 million acres (seven percent of the 521 million acres planted in 1997) have been planted, mostly on small farms that are more fuel-intensive than large tracts. (This is not entirely a negative, as the smallholdings are more advantageous for working by the masses of refugee labor that are providing much of the power for the American farm of 1998).

In Northern Ireland the fighting between Catholic Republicans (supported by the armed fighters of the IRA and Irish Army) and largely Protestant Loyalists (represented on the battlefield by the British Army Ulster Defense Regiment, the civilian Royal Ulster Constabulary and a loose alliance of armed loyalist militias), which has been largely stagnant for many months as neither side can muster sufficient troops and firepower for offensive operations, rumbles to life. The resumption of fighting does not immediately result in any changes of territory held but does increase the misery and suffering of the province's population.

Following up on successful Pact attacks elsewhere along the wide front in southern Germany, the Hungarian 2nd Corps launches an attack on the British II Corps, which is deeply embedded in Nuremburg. To the east, the battered German I Korps withdraws from Bayreuth, abandoning the city to the advancing Czech 1st Army.

In southern New South Wales the Ned Kelly gang launches another raid. Mirroring its original namesake, the group hits the bank in the small rural town of Jerilderie, making off with over AUS$50,000 in cash (of questionable value).

[chico20854]

June 5, 1998

Canon is silent on the day. Unofficially,

The bubonic plague continues its spread through the western US, with outbreaks in Colorado, New Mexico and Nebraska. One of those infected is the FEMA advisor to the Joint Chiefs, whose deputy assumes his duties until he returns to good health.

Anti-Mexican rioting continues in American states that border Mexico as nativists execute a campaign of extermination. Several camps housing Mexican refugees are unexpectedly defended by recently arrived armed men, variously rumored to be Mexican Army troops and members of private criminal armies loyal to various drug cartels.

RainbowSix reports that much of the agricultural land in the Country of Lincolnshire consists of former marshland known as the Fens, which were drained during the 18th and 19th Centuries. Lying just a few meters above sea level, prior to the war the fens were protected from flooding by a series of embankments and over 250 pumping stations; now a lack of electricity means most of these pumping stations have ceased to operate, leaving the fens exposed to the risk of flooding.

A dazed and dirty Specialist Cutler ventures out of his cellar in Ansbach and wanders the deserted and still-smoldering town. Not being entirely within his wits, he is soon surprised by a patrol of the 57th Guards Motor-Rifle Division and captured before he can get a shot off.

In response to the cutoff of trained replacements from the US, XVIII Airborne Corps establishes a small airborne school at Ad Damman, Saudi Arabia to turn out airborne-qualified troops for the 82nd Airborne Division and other supporting units.

[chico20854]

June 6, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

Anti-Mexican rioting continues in Texas and California, with pitched battles raging between armed Mexicans and informal American militias in California's Imperial Valley and near Del Rio, Texas. Both sides are armed with small arms, mostly civilian hunting and semi-automatic weapons. Casualties are modest on both sides, although the civilian death toll is breathtaking, with fighting raging in crowded camps that have not been evacuated by either side, the Mexican defenders wanting the civilians to remain as cover and the nativist militias aiming to exterminate the refugees.

Arriving at Dartmoor Forest in Devon, Captain Nikolai Konev and his group of escaped POWs, desperate for food, weapons and shelter, fall upon a small caravan park, overwhelming the few lightly armed men (and two women) and seizing the trailers, the small supply of food and the men's guns.

XX US Corps, consisting of the 6th and 10th Infantry Divisions (Light) and 43rd Infantry Division (US Army Reserve) and various artillery, engineer and support units, has been pushed back into the Black Forest by the Italian Alpini of 4th Corps. Italian troops have cut the American corps off, although they are unable to make much forward progress in the dark and rough wooded terrain.

Specialist Cutler is beaten by his Soviet counterparts and forced to take them to the cellar where he was hiding throughout the battle. The motor-riflemen take the remaining supplies and Cutler's rucksack, sleeping bag and other personal gear and other items of value from the building, then turn him over to the rear detachment for processing as a prisoner of war.

RCAF CF-18s appear in the skies overhead, operating from their new location at the Dortmund civilian airport. American F/A-18s of the Warlords of VMFA-451, assigned to support II MEF, score a lucrative air-to-air kill when a flight of four fighter-bombers races east, intercepting and shooting down a Soviet AN-26RT ELINT aircraft that was loitering over Poland collecting intelligence on NATO positions along the Oder River.

[chico20854]

June 7, 1998

The reinforcements, aircraft, armored vehicles and ammunition that arrived in the convoy in May allow US forces in Kenya, who had been short of
supplies, to resume offensive operations against the Somalis and Sudanese in the north.

Unofficially,

The lieutenant governor of Tennessee receives word from federal authorities that, due to the strategic importance of the bridges over the Mississippi River and other transportation links, the federal government is willing to commit resources to bolster state defense forces to secure the city of Memphis. The 2nd Regiment, Tennessee State Guard, which is occupying a series of roadblocks and refugee camps along the Interstate 40 corridor between Nashville and Memphis, is identified as the nearest and most readily available unit.

The violence over the border continues, with a bloody dawn massacre of Mexican refugees by renegade state guardsmen of the 1st Texas Brigade.

In Mexico City, there is heavy military traffic throughout the city as midnight approaches.

The Soviet 16th Army continues its pursuit of the retreating VII US Corps, with the 19th and 20th Guards Tank Divisions augmented by the 57th GMRD's 51st Guards Tank Regiment advancing slowly towards the town of Uffenheim, defended by the American 1st Infantry Division.

[chico20854]

June 8, 1998

A PRI-PPS alliance seizes power in Mexico. It immediately issues secret orders for an invasion of the U.S.

The replica USS Constitution picks up American POWs from a wrecked Bulgarian freighter.

Unofficially,

The commanders of the Presidential Guard Brigade and Brigada Ciudad Mexico are replaced by PRI loyalist lieutenant colonels and by nightfall the armed standoff in the streets of the capital has ended as the new regime displays a firm hand.

Specialist Cutler is loaded aboard a KAMAZ supply truck alongside other American POWs (along with a pair of German Territorial Army deserters that had been swept up in Ansbach) for evacuation from the combat zone.

Bundeswehr intelligence analysts note that many recently arrived Soviet conscripts are equipped with non-standard body armor, some dating to the 1950s, others wearing bulletproof vests designed for MVD police use. Soviet troops are also appearing at the front wearing Second World War SSh-39 helmets, phased out of production in 1942.

The Hungarian 53rd Mechanized Brigade, having paused for several weeks gathering food and fuel, resumes its westward journey. The brigade reconnaissance company sends out several patrols to the Krasnoyarsk area, seeking a useable and lightly defended bridge over the Yenesei River.

[chico20854]

June 9, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

Mexican units rush towards the border as the Mexican Army establishes command and control structures for the invasion of the US: 2nd Army is responsible for operations west of the Sierra Madre Occidental, 3rd Army for operations in New Mexico and west Texas and 4th Army for operations in eastern and central Texas. American intelligence agents in the border region, mainly from the Drug Enforcement Agency, have been inactive for some months and in any case would be unable to relay news of the troop movements to the Joint Chiefs, such is the state of both communications and command and control within the US government at this stage. The DIA station chief in Mexico City was killed in anti-American rioting earlier in the year and has not been replaced; the three-man CIA team in the capital is absorbed with trying to determine who holds the reins of power, investigating rumors that the PPS-PRI alliance may have the support of narcotrafficers. The CIA team attributes the sudden disappearance of Mexican Army APCs and troops to their returning to barracks, not noticing that the 1st and 2nd Mechanized Brigades are in fact loading onto railcars on the city's outskirts, or that the parachute brigade is moving to the international airport, where a stream of transports is arriving.

The Soviet 41st Army receives a trainload of reinforcements from the USSR. It includes another two dozen T-34 tanks from deep storage near the Urals, which are assigned to the 62nd Tank Division, partially replacing the heavy losses it sustained in the capture of Erbach an der Donau. The train from home also brings fresh replacement troops, over 200 young men from Uzbekistan, some of whom even speak Russian.

The commander of the John F Kennedy battle group, deeming the Soviet air threat greatly diminished, detaches the cruiser USS Gettysburg to conduct an anti-surface sweep through the Ionian Sea and islands, responding to rumors of enemy naval and merchant traffic through the Corinth Canal. The remainder of the battle group continues to patrol the central Mediterranean at low speed to conserve fuel, maintaining a single aircraft aloft during daylight hours with additional planes on deck, armed and ready to respond to any enemy activity.

[chico20854]

June 10, 1998

Another day with nothing official. Unofficially,

The Mexican troop movements continue; the mechanized and motorized units relying the rail network to move their vehicles, while infantry units make use of requisitioned civilian trucks and buses. The many months of fuel rationing hampers this effort, as the civilian sector has been largely fuel starved, leaving many theoretically available vehicles inoperable from disuse and lacking drivers.

The Canadian military effort against the secessionist Quebecois has largely halted. A French aid convoy is reportedly en route, but the primary reason is the inability of the Canadian Army to continue the offensive with an assault crossing of the St. Lawrence River. Its few combat engineers lack bridging equipment or boats sufficient to cross the over 2-mile wide river.

RainbowSix reports that the western part of Cornwall begins to receive refugees from chaotic conditions elsewhere in the UK. Some of them meet Marcus Rose, a former Major in the Parachute Regiment, who offers them self-defense training.

Specialist Cutler and the other POWs captured in Ansbach, Germany are transferred to a boxcar for further evacuation. At nightfall the train heads east, taking the roundabout route through Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia to the USSR.

[chico20854]

June 11, 2998

The replica USS Constitution calls in Porta Delgado, Azores.

Lead elements of the Mexican Army cross the border in force along five major axes - from Tijuana into San Diego, into California's Imperial Valley, into Arizona south of Tucson, against El Paso for a drive on Albuquerque, New Mexico, and on a broad front along the Rio Grande in Texas.

[The following is a mix of canon and unofficial material]

The California assault is carried out by the 2nd Army, which sends the Ensenada Brigade across the border, overrunning the startled Border Patrol agents and squad of California State Guardsmen on duty at the busy San Ysidro border crossing point. Within an hour they have overrun the border post and the nearby Naval Outlying Landing Field Imperial Beach and by sunset they have covered most of the 14 miles between the border and the city of San Diego.

The Mexican 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment crosses the border overland a few miles to the east, while in the predawn hours the Marine Parachute Regiment lands (the first two companies by parachute, the last two later in the day air-landed) on Naval Air Station Miramar. They overcome the USN security troops, mechanics, pilots and technicians stationed there, destroy the few remaining aircraft that are based there and seizing the remaining fuel supplies before they can be destroyed. The 1st Mechanized Brigade remains in reserve to exploit any breakthroughs or reinforce any units that need it.

In the central sector of the 2nd Army sector, Brigade Mexicali crosses the border at Calexico and overruns the USMC air station at El Centro. When the truck-borne infantry catches up with the brigade's 18th Motorized Cavalry Regiment at the air station the cavalry once again leaps forward, capturing the parched fields of the Imperial Valley. The Nogales Brigade crosses into Arizona, sending mechanized detachments north along Interstate 19 towards Tucson while deploying flank security detachments to protect its right flank from the 111th Military Intelligence Brigade at Ft. Huachuca.

Throughout the 2nd Army sector the advance is assisted by local guides, local ethnic-Mexican criminal gangs, some of which defended Mexican refugee camps and others allied with the narcotrafficing gangs that have operated in the region for years. Handsomely rewarded drug lords have made an arrangement with the PPS-PRI alliance in Mexico City to assist in the invasion in exchange for the right to "repatriate" the wealth of the captured territory.

In West Texas the 3rd Army crosses the Rio Grande. The Ciudad Juarez Brigade invades El Paso, pushing through the crowded built up area to try to capture Fort Bliss in a coup-de-main. The Torres Motorized Cavalry Brigade advances to the west, moving cautiously up Interstate 10 to try to surround the base from the northwest. It only advances a mile and a half when it encounters the first ambush by state guardsmen of the 9th Texas Brigade, losing a French-built VBL armored car. The ambush is quickly suppressed with some heavy weapons fire and the use of a Milan anti-tank missile, but the cavalry's momentum has been broken by the soldiers' desire to avoid more ambushes, three of which are encountered in the next two miles. The Chihuahua Brigade crosses the Rio Grande nearly 200 miles to the southeast, at the Presidio, Texas border crossing. Largely unopposed, the brigade advances up Highway 67 towards Odessa, commandeering civilian vehicles to enhance its mobility.

The 4th Army invades on a broad front further east in Texas. The Monterrey Brigade crosses the border at Laredo, immediately encountering the state guardsmen of the 1st Texas Brigade, who just days earlier were massacring unarmed Mexican civilians. The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment remains on the Mexican side of the border, ready to lunge forward up Interstate 35 towards San Antonio and Austin once the infantry clear the Texan blocking force. To the west, the Monclova Brigade crosses the Rio Grand at Eagle Pass, where much of the unit turns northwest to face the combined might of the 3rd Texas Regiment and the trainees of the USF basic training wing at Laughlin AFB.

The fiercest resistance comes along the Gulf Coast, where the Matamoros Brigade and 2nd Mechanized Brigade cross into Brownsville and McAllen, respectively. Brownsville is garrisoned by the sailors of the USS Makin Pre-Commissioning Unit. The mechanized troops' advance to highway 77 is stalled by resistance from the cadets and cadre of the Marine Military Academy, a private military school in Harlingen, who are fiercely defending their campus and blocking traffic on the highway.

Unofficially,

The Mexican Air Force operates in the skies overhead. The sole fighter squadron, the 401st, with eight flyable F-5 aircraft, supports 4th Army's ground troops with rocket and gunfire as well as bombing fixed emplacements, to little effect overall. The 402nd Squadron, operating in the west, flies close support missions assisting the paratroops at Miramar with its ancient T-33 trainers, while 3rd Army is nominally supported by several squadrons of turboprop PC-7 armed trainers, which struggle to avoid the heavy anti-aircraft defenses of Fort Bliss, home to the US Army Air Defense Center and School.

In all sectors, the American response is weak and uncoordinated. Almost uniformly they are surprised by the arrival of Mexican units and out of position to mount a coherent defense. The troops are poorly supplied - those on civil relief and internal security missions have but a single magazine of ammunition, many Navy and Air Force training units only have enough small arms for a third of their troops, food and fuel are scarce and combat units are in most cases awaiting deployment overseas, with vague promises that heavy weapons and equipment will be provided in theatre. The Mexicans have achieved strategic and tactical surprise, leaving the Joint Chiefs struggling to form a response.

In Germany, having had two days to integrate the reinforcements and replacements, the 62nd Tank Division is ordered back into action as 41st Army attempts to surround (rather than overrun) the city of Stuttgart.

The USS Virginia crosses into the Pacific Ocean, braving fierce winter storms in the treacherous waters of Cape Horn. Despite the potential shelter of the channels to the north in Tierra del Fuego the cruiser's captain decides to remain offshore, unwilling to risk his ship in constrained waters where it would be vulnerable to attack or interdiction from ashore.

[chico20854]

June 12, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

Throughout the world, nearly all of the carefully husbanded reserve stockpiles assembled so carefully and at great expense in the months and years leading up to the nuclear exchange have been emptied. Even the most ambitious plans were for at most 90 days of supplies of food, fuel and strategic materials; by this point it has been nearly a year since the first nuclear weapons were used and over seven months since the attacks on the Soviet, British and American homelands. Most of the few remaining stockpiles are intact because they have been lost or because various small groups are maintaining tight control over their contents, usually for nefarious purposes.

Ex-corporal Nathan Snyder, now a marauder in New York City's Hells Own gang, leads a group of six other gang members (including his girlfriend, the gang leader's younger sister) in an attack on an isolated New York State Guard outpost. The attack succeeds in killing three guardsmen and driving the others off, yielding the dead militiamen's M1 Garand rifles and ammunition, steel helmets and a cache of food and a TA-1 field phone.

2nd Mexican Army's assault on California continues, with Brigade Ensenada reaching the San Diego Naval Base's southern perimeter, which has been hastily reinforced by armed sailors from the San Diego Recruit Training Command. The Mexican Air Force flies six additional companies of paratroops in Miramar Naval Air Station; the growing airborne force aggressively pushes combat patrols out in all directions. One of these patrols, which has set up ambush positions along Interstate 15, intercepts a USMC convoy headed into the city. The convoy of trucks carries over 100 tons of ammunition from the range complex at Camp Pendleton, ordered hastily loaded by recruits training at the rifle ranges and rushed to arm the recruits training at MCRD San Diego. The trailing 5-ton truck, commanded by an aggressive Corporal who lost an eye during 1st MarDiv's evacuation of Yadz and manned by three privates, escapes the ambush and takes back roads onto the base, bringing nearly 300,000 rounds of 5.56 ball ammo to the the defenders. The truck, however, does not carry any grenades, anti-tank weapons, linked ammo for machineguns or SAWs, mines or grenade launcher ammunition.

The Mexican 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment has reached Interstate 8, blocking what little traffic the limited fuel supply permits. The Mexicali Brigade's cavalry regiment continues northward, with lead elements arriving in Palm Springs, while its 8th and 78th Infantry Regiments turn east to deal with the American forces at MCAS Yuma and the garrison of the National Training center at the Yuma Proving Ground.

The Nogales Brigade's advance on Tucson continues, facing light resistance from scattered law enforcement officers, armed civilians and veterans, while warily watching its eastern flank lest the 111th Military Intelligence Brigade emerge from its garrison at Fort Huachuca.

The fighting in El Paso continues, with the Ciudad Juarez Brigade's troops maneuvering room limited by the desire to avoid the blast damage zone from the Soviet strike on the El Paso refinery in December. The limitation provides the garrison commander time to reinforce the basic training companies from the base with anti-aircraft weapons systems from the Air Defense Center and School; the Diana systems' 25mm guns and the 20mm PIVADs provide massive direct firepower to the otherwise lightly equipped infantry. The Torres Motorized Cavalry Brigade is still tied up with the Texas State Guard's 9th Brigade, which has retreated to high ground dominating the northern exits to the city.

The remote town of Marfa, Texas falls to the Chihuahua Brigade's 10th Motorized Cavalry Regiment; the 20th Motorized Cavalry Regiment is closing on the town while the horsemen of the 30th Cavalry Regiment provide screening for the brigade's three battalions of infantry, who are advancing on foot through the scorching desert heat.

Further east in Texas, the Monclova Brigade, reinforced by informal militias from refugee camps at the Eagle Pass Auxiliary Airfield and Laughlin Air Force Base's auxiliary field, wheels northwest along Highway 277 to move on Del Rio and its garrison of Texas State Guardsmen and the trainees and staff at the USAF basic training center at Laughlin.

The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment drives the 1st Texas Brigade out of the town of Laredo, inflicting heavy casualties on the Texans who have no means of halting the Mexican armored vehicles. The 2nd Mechanized Brigade has hit a roadblock when trying to advance through Harlingen, with unexpectedly fierce resistance from the cadets of the Marine Military Academy, who have fortified their campus over the preceding months. An advanced detachment's DN-V Toro armored personnel carrier falls victim to an improvised anti-tank mine, and the Mexican attempt to rescue the crew is thwarted by cadet machinegun fire. The brigade's commanding general (the Mexican Army, with more than 500 generals, has generals commanding brigades) orders a halt to forward progress while the situation can be evaluated. The Matamoros Brigade has linked up with the remaining inhabitants of the largest two refugee camps in Brownsville and cleared out several outposts of sailors from the Makin Island. At dusk the brigade's troops have the five-story high partially completed amphibious assault ship, still on land at the shipyard, in sight and place it under harassing fire.

The skies over the southwestern US are a little more active. The Mexican 401 Squadron's F-5Es fly photoreconnaissance missions at dawn, overflying sites as far north as the outskirts of Dallas, and after lunchtime fly a second sortie in support of 4th Army, striking runways and barracks at Laughlin Air Force Base. The 6th Air Defense Artillery Brigade commander at Fort Bliss authorizes the use of all anti-aircraft missiles on base against the PC-7 turboprop light attack aircraft that are harassing movement on the base; the shootdown of one of the aircraft two hours later by a Patriot missile marks the low point on the value of missile-to-target tradeoff but succeeds in convincing the Mexican pilots to be much more conservative in their behavior over the lines. 402 Squadron's aged T-33 trainers spend the day scouting for reinforcements headed for the San Diego area, attacking some Marines at Camp Pendleton and strafing the flight lines at NAS North Island and Camp Pendleton. American aircraft make their first appearance over the battlefield, with a flight of four AT-38 trainers from Holloman Air Force Base's 433rd Tactical Fighter Training Squadron dropping 250-lb bombs on the Torres Cavalry Brigade, a mission guided by spotters with the Texas State Guard. The mission is partially successful, but one of the trainers was nearly downed by an American Roland missile fired by an enthusiastic gunner at Fort Bliss which mistook the fast, low-flying fighter for a Mexican F-5.

In Colorado Springs, the Joint Chiefs struggle to get a clear picture of the situation. Communications with the combat zone are spotty at best and no remaining national-level intelligence collection assets (satellites, aircraft) are oriented towards the border. The units of the strategic reserve are fully committed to domestic duties and shortages of fuel limit the options for response. By the end of the day the first centrally-directed assets are preparing for movement towards the combat zone, as the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing at Hill AFB, Utah arms and prepares two flights of F-16s for transfer to Tinker AFB, Oklahoma. A courier is dispatched by light plane (a USAF Academy Cessna T-41 trainer) to Fort Irwin, California with orders for the 177th Armored Brigade and 1st Brigade, 4th Armored Division to move south to contain the invasion.

Naval commanders in San Diego use the array of harbor craft to ferry civilians, dependents and non-combatant personnel from the naval base to the Marine Corps base, returning with armed boot camp graduates who are rushed to the base perimeter or to throw up blocking positions on the narrow spit of land south of the Coronado Naval Base.

Mexican naval squadrons sortie from Veracruz in the Caribbean and Acapulco in the Pacific. Each task force contains a single LST and several auxiliaries loaded with Marines for follow-on landings to support the efforts along the coastlines.

The American cruiser USS Gettysburg, operating independently in the Mediterranean, strikes a defensive mine while conducting a gunfire raid on the Greek airbase at Araxos after failing to find any Greek surface craft other than small fishing boats and other small civilian craft. The AEGIS cruiser begins to rapidly take on water, and as midnight approaches the ship settles beneath the waves.

[chico20854]

June 13, 1998

The School Brigade at Fort Bliss, which has served as served as a chain-of-command parent organization for a variety of training units assigned to the Air Defense School for training and activation, is activated as a troop unit, complete with infantry battalions out of the local basic training barracks, artillery from the New Mexico National Guard, and the 1-124 Cavalry Squadron (Texas National Guard) from Waco. The Air Defense Center naturally provides an abundance of air defense units, including a Patriot missile battalion, a battalion of composite air defense weapons, and the 5-62 ADA. The brigade uses its available mix of weapons to create unorthodox operational units. Infantry drawn from basic training camps at Fort Bliss is attached to ADA gun batteries (PIVAD and Diana) to create heavy machinegun combat teams. Because the brigade has no organic field artillery, it relies heavily on infantry mortars and develops its own doctrine for employment of ADA gun systems in the indirect fire role.

Unofficially,

Additional Mexican C-130 transports land at Miramar Naval Air Station, bringing in reinforcements to the airborne force that seized the base. Interestingly, the planes land with only a thin reserve of fuel aboard, refueling from the hydrants on the base before returning home. Upon arrival back in Mexico, the aircraft transfer most of the fuel remaining to the base's fuel system - the Mexican Air Force has started to stretch its fuel supply by using captured American stocks.

In San Diego, the frigate USS Donald B Beary is reactivated (it has been partially deactivated as the supply of fuel diminished, its crew assigned to food distribution duties ashore) and immediately engages the Mexicans with its 5-inch gun; the short-range direct-fire is devastatingly effective. Mexican troops hidden among shoreside buildings return fire, riddling the lightly-armored warship with hundreds of holes from small arms fire. When available visible targets are all engaged and the ship's magazine running down the ship withdraws a few miles north to the large shipyard, where a hastily assembled crew of workers joins the ship's company in repairing some of the damage.

Elsewhere in the Battle of San Diego, Mexican troops of the Ensenada Brigade fail in their first direct assault crossing of the Sweetwater River into the southern portion of the naval base; however the brigade has used the engagement to slip the 8th Motorized Cavalry Regiment past Navy outposts further east. The motorized cavalry sweeps deeper into the city, taking advantage of the cover provided by the dense urban buildup.

In eastern Texas, Mexican progress is slow. 401 Squadron's F-5s are diverted from close air support missions to attack grounded aircraft on the ground at Bergstrom AFB outside San Antonio, succeeding in destroying a pair of B-1Bs that have been sheltering there since December. In Brownsville the Matamoros Brigade drives the crew of the USS Makin back over 250 meters in fierce house to house fighting; one of the Americans killed is Rodney Cutler, twin brother of Specialist Randolph Cutler, who catches a sniper's bullet when running for cover. In Harlingen, the troops of the 2nd Mechanized Brigade continue to discover unpleasant surprises from the cadets of the Marine Maritime Academy when it is discovered that one of the school's alumni has provided his alma mater with weapons not authorized to any Junior ROTC units, most notably a M50 Ontos light anti-tank vehicle as well as various .50-caliber rifles to supplement the four M-60 machineguns the school cadre sweet talked a friendly logistician into providing for "educational purposes." The Ontos uses its six 106mm recoilless rifles to make quick work of a pair of AMX-13 light tanks, once again forcing the Mexican brigade to suspend follow-on attacks.

The 868th Tactical Missile Training Squadron is ordered to withdraw from its home station of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona to Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, in advance of advancing Mexican forces.

On New York's Upper East Side, marauder Nathan Snyder asserts himself as being the custodian of the gang's small cache of weapons and food.

The Danish Expeditionary Corps is driven out of Stuttgart by the Soviet 41st Army after Italian troops of the 3rd Corps advance on the Rhine, having severed the connection between the Danes and the now-isolated XX US Corps. IV German Korps, holding the line between the Danes and the US VII Corps, retreats to the north; German commanders have to restrain their troops from engaging in a scorched earth withdrawal, promising that they will be back soon. XII German Korps troops, brought forward from reserve near Limburg, occupy defensive positions along the Main River west of Wurzburg, control of which has been ceded by the overstretched and exhausted US VII Corps.