On this day 25 years ago

[chico20854]

January 30, 1998

Following the Army's lead, Headquarters, Marine Corps, directs the formation of additional troop units from training and support staff at various installations. The 30th Marine Regiment is the first of these, raised from some of the final classes of trainees at Camp Lejeune and Parris Island and their drill instructors, troops withdrawn from Guantanamo and a detachment from FAST Company, Atlantic. Reflecting its unusual heritage, it is assigned a new regiment number rather than one from the Corps long history. It is equipped with whatever vehicles and armor is available, most of which are training vehicles that have seen considerable use.

The replica USS Constitution takes on a cargo in Capetown, South Africa in exchange for a resupply of food and spare parts.

The 101st Air Assault Division's aviation elements are withdrawn to Saudi Arabia for rest and refit. Few replacement aircraft are available, (unofficially) although the Saudis are generous in permitting American maintenance contractors (many of whom are military retirees) and their facilities (and, unknown to their hosts, spares) to work on the American aircraft.

Unofficially,

The Red Army has always operated on a much more austere logistic basis than NATO forces, and in the aftermath of the nuclear exchange Soviet units are largely left to their own devices for support. In the Balkans, many Soviet units simply disintegrate in the face of a hostile local population and lack of resupply from home, but in Central Europe they are able to remain cohesive. This is due, ironically, in part, to the use of captured NATO supply dumps, the support of the local population and the benefit of RGVK (the Soviet High Command)s prioritization of the Western TVD to the limited extent that central direction has any effect.

The US Navy tanker Platte, laden with fuel oil and diesel from merchantmen laid up in Stavanger to the south, arrives in the Vestfjord, where the carrier battle groups built around the USS Roosevelt and Eisenhower have been sheltering. While the nuclear-powered carriers require no conventional fuel, their escorts do and have nearly run dry, with only one ship operating, guarding the entrance through the minefields into the fjord. The Platte begins refilling those ships' tanks, the first resupply from the logistic system since December 20. (Some bartering and purchases of food from local villages had occurred since then, completely unauthorized by any higher command).

[chico20854]

January 31, 1998

Arrests for hoarding become commonplace. Most residents of Pittsburgh that had fled the city (and other similar cities) have returned home

Unofficially,

NATO Corps are lined up from the Baltic to French-Swiss Border in the following order: II MEF, III German, XI US, VII German, XXIII US, V German, XV US, I German, II UK, VII US, IV German, Danish Expeditionary Force, XX US Corps. I UK, III and V US Corps and II, VI, VIII, X, XI and XII German Korps are in the NATO rear area rebuilding, on relief duties or facing Franco-Belgian troops along the Rhine

The 15th Motor-Rifle (my 78th Tank) Division, badly mauled in Operation Pegasus II, is a shadow of its former self and is sent back to Chardzhou, Turkmenistan for rest and refit.

In New South Wales, Australia, the premier authorizes the reorganization of federal and state police, augmented by private security guards, into a new force, designated the Main Force Patrol, to combat rampant crime in rural areas and along the state's highways.

[chico20854]

February 1, 1998

As part of the reorganization of US Navy and Coast Guard forces on the US East Coast, the Cape May Coast Guard station (which supported a small detachment of aircraft and smaller craft, as well as seerving as the Coast Guard's primary basic training base) is re-designated CMNB, Cape May Naval Base.

Elsewhere in southern New Jersey, the inmates of the Leesville State Prison revolt, gaining control of the facility and a small stash of weapons from the guard force. They hold 50 guards and staff members as hostages.

Unofficially,

In rural western England, the Spetsnaz team led by Colonel Mikhail Tumanski has sought shelter for the winter in one of the unit's safe houses prepared in prewar times by the GRU. The team, down to four men, has adequate supplies of (tinned) food, a well and warm clothing. It has not been in contact with GRU headquarters in many weeks and would, in the future, have a hard time doing so as their batteries and cypher pads are both running low.

With bunkers of their escorts once again partially full, the Roosevelt and Eisenhower battle groups depart the Vestfjord off Norway's west coast. The carriers' planes are nearly grounded as the jet fuel tanks are almost empty; the strike group's commanding officer orders that only a single S-3 Viking patrol aircraft be aloft at any time, such is the shortage of fuel.

The population of the Romanian town of Trgu Mureș rises up, overrunning the garrisons of the occupying 146th MRD and massacring their Soviet occupiers/oppressors.

A group of Pasdaran deserters robs a merchant convoy west of the Iranian capital city of Shiraz, drifting away into the Dalu Mountains after stealing food and trade goods.

In Belize, British and Belizian Defense Force troops have completed the roundup of Guatemalan deserters and stragglers as well as sorting through the detrius of the surrendered Guatemalan force. To their delight, they are able to restore to working condition enough vehicles to motorize one of the Belizian infantry battalions as well as return two of the captured M-41 Walker Bulldog light tanks to operable condition. While fuel and reinforcements from the UK ceased, the local economy produces sufficient food to support the population. RAF and British Army air operations have ground to a halt and local military forces are busy securing the borders against bands of bandits and deserters trying to enter the country from Guatemala and neighboring Mexico.

[chico20854]

February 2, 1998

With Port Arthur, Houston, Galveston, and Corpus Christi all destroyed during the nuclear exchange of 1997, Port Lavaca is the largest remaining port along Texas' Gulf Coast. However, a large number of the buildings in town were destroyed during the civil disturbances that followed the nuclear strikes. The nearby town of Point Comfort was the site of destructive looting, riots, and fires that destroyed the towns chemical and aluminum plants. Most of the surviving residents of the town of Sinton, 18 miles from Corpus Christi, flee the town as food supplies run out.

Unofficially,

The Canadian Army's 37 Brigade, hastily formed from Militia units and garrison troops from CFB Gander and CFB Goose Bay in Labrador, begins to transfer troops into Labrador using local craft. To the south, 36 Brigade takes command of Militia units in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, while the Special Service Force headquarters, veterans of the Kola campaign, begins to integrate other active units in the southern Maritimes into it's command.

In the early morning hours Dutch guerrillas (members of the 2nd Marine Amphibious Combat Group) lay a series of anti-tank and anti-personnel mines on the main route out of a French garrison outside Breda. The mines are detonated a few hours later when the occupiers send out their first patrol of the day, ironically tasked to check for mines on the supply route back to the Belgian border. An AMX-10P is lost along with twelve men.

The Soviet Danube Front commander in Bucharest reacts to the loss of communications with the garrison of Trgu Mureș by sending a L-39 trainer/light attack aircraft plane from the 809th Fighter-Attack Regiment on a recon mission over the city. The pilot returns with word of the garrison's apparent demise.

The Iranian 3rd Armored Division, receiving word of the attack on the merchant convoy to the west, dispatches a mounted patrol to the area but finds nothing of interest.

Outside Vilnius, Lithuania, Colonel Česlovas Skrebys, a semi-retired officer that served as the local military commissioner responsible for mobilizing the resources of the area to support the war effort, decides that, in the absence of orders from Moscow, he will retain those resources for the relief of his local area. He moves his headquarters from a damp pre-WW II bunker to the lighter, more pleaseant surroundings of Trakai Castle on a frozen lake.

[chico20854]

February 3, 1998

Some inmates from the Leesville State Prison in southern New Jersey leave the facility, spreading horror and chaos across the area. Most of the inmates remain in the heavily fortified facility, however.

The Soviet 203rd (my 14th) Air Assault Brigade, brought forward in late 1997 to reinforce the 35th Army in North Korea, is caught by American aircraft when assembling for a heliborne attack on the DMZ and suffers heavy losses.

Unofficially,

A French Air Force KC-135 tanker carrying 75 passengers, military officers and senior NCOs, many recent veterans of the fighting in Germany and the Netherlands, arrives at CFB Bagotville in Quebec. The military personnel, unarmed, are to serve as advisors to the rapidly expanding Quebec National Army.

With the failure of the city's water treatment plant and influx of desperate refugees from the devastated countryside, sanitary conditions in Krakow (the largest, most intact city remaining in Poland) deteriorate. The first case of cholera breaks out in a refugee center at the Mydlniki train station on the city's northwestern outskirts.

photo
The city of Trgu Mureș, Romania is punished for its rebellion with an airstrike delivered by the remnants of the 17th Air Army from a quartet of air bases around Bucharest. For three hours wave after wave of MiG-21 fighters and L-39 trainers rocket, bomb and strafe the city center and many miles of concrete-block apartment buildings.

Colonel Skrebys moves to establish a "security force" in his area. He issues orders to the Senior Lieutenant in charge of the 278th Local Rifle Company (the security force for the truck salvage and repair station established in a furniture factory on the south side of the town) to redeploy his four BTR-70s to defend the town (one at each entrance and one at the castle) and meets with the mayor to coordinate defense of the town, which has a small militia force formed of men over 50, equipped with World War Two-capture Mauser rifles and other aged small arms.

[chico20854]

February 4, 1998

In western New York, Lieutenant Governor Julia Annesetto takes personal charge of the area while the governor tries to handle the eastern region of the state. Local county militias, along with state police units and the Fort Drum military staff, form a more-or less unified command, although they are too few in number to watch the borders and provide internal security.

Unofficially,

In California, the command staff of the 5th California Brigade arrive at the headquarters of the 221st MP Brigade to coordinate operations and deconflict areas of responsibility. Halfway through the agenda, the State Guardsmen are surprised when the facility's guards enter the room and place them under arrest. The meeting is quickly recast as a field court martial, and the commander, executive officer, adjudant, intelligence and operations officers as well as many of the senior NCOs are charged with multiple counts of murder, fraud, robbery and other crimes in connection with the "death squad" the state guard unit had operated in the prior months. Meanwhile, a MP contingent surrounds the State Guard unit's scout platoon outpost outside Bakersfield; intelligence gathered pointed to the unit as being the "trigger men" executing the brigade commander and staff's orders to eliminate leftist professors, union activists, immigrants and troublesome journalists and other individuals. A firefight breaks out, but the MPs quickly overrun the base with their M-750 armored cars. As midnight approaches, the trial concludes and all the defendants are found guilty.

The soldiers and civilians (both American and what Germans remain) of the 21st TAACOM begin resumption of work to repair and return to service various damaged armored vehicles that have been evacuated from the Mainz Depot (actually a complex of several sites), also using tools and parts that have been brought out of the French occupied zone. Additional truckloads of materiel continue to arrive each day, but the demand for repair is so high that work must resume as quickly as possible. Some refugees from the nearby Dead Zone are brought in to assist in unloading the trucks and supporting the workers.

In a storm in the North Atlantic, the light frigate (prewar Coast Guard Medium Endurance Cutter) Escanaba capsizes when hit broadside by a rouge wave. The top-heavy craft rolls over and is soon headed for the bottom.

In the USSR, central authority continues to degrade. Local party cadres proclaim loyalty to the central authorities, but with the breakdown in communications they are frequently on their own. On the one hand, that freedom allows the cadres to take advantage of the opportunity to benefit themselves, but it also places them in a situation where, if and when accountability is restored, they can be held accountable for their actions instead of being able to claim they are carrying out the orders of some higher official. In such a situation, they generally choose to undertake some actions that can demonstrate their support for the war effort, while simultaneously looking out for their own welfare. The welfare of the local population is of distinctly lower priority, a situation that had prevailed for many decades preceding the war. Transportation of anything from the interior of the USSR is extremely difficult with the collapse of the rail network (powered by diesel and electrical generation), truck transport (limited and also diesel dependent) and even the simple barriers of numerous north-south running rivers between the Urals and the front (the Don, Volga, Dniester and Dnieper, crossings of which had been targeted by American strikes).

[chico20854]

February 5, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

Leaders of French and Belgian political parties from across the idelogical spectrum meet at Verasailles to discuss the situation in their countries and the way forward. There is a "very robust" discussion, with a wide array of voices opposed to the invasion of the Rhineland - Flemish leaders incensed at the treatment of their fellow Dutch speakers, Communists and Socialists opposed to "another capitalist war", nationalists upset at the idea of cooperation between France and Belgium.

A week after formation, the 1st Battalion, 30th Marines (an element of the newly-raised 30th Marine Regiment) has completed formation at Camp Leujeune, North Carolina and begins movement overland to Wilmington, North Carolina for deployment to Africa.

At dawn a firing squad of the 221st MP Brigade executes the commander and staff of the 5th California Brigade. Officers of the 221st MP Brigade disperse throughout the state guard unit's area of operation to take command of the unit; in some places the troops accept the new command and in an isolated few more firefights break out. The Army troops, better trained and equipped and with armored vehicles on call, dominate these engagements and by noon the state guard unit is under federal control, with the consent of the governor in San Jose.

The Freedom Ship Colorado City Freedom arrives at Bremerhaven, Germany with a cargo of vehicles, ammunition and spare parts. Troops from the 7th Theater Army Area Command meet the ship at the dock and take custody of its precious cargo. It is escorted to a central storage and processing facility, to be doled out as needed to support the highest priority operations in US Army Europe.

The Roosevelt and Eisenhower battle groups split as they approach the North Sea, headed for the shelter of a friendly port but not wanting to voerburden any one port with the tens of thousands of sailors aboard the ships and their escorts. The Eisenhower turns towards Iceland and the Roosevelt transits the west coast of the UK.

As the rains in East Africa continue to fall military operations slow to a crawl, roads transformed into muddy quagmires and aircraft unable to locate drop zones in the continual overcast. In Mombasa, the destroyer Morton receives repairs to minor damage incurred in its long and perilous voyage from the US West Coast in preparation for its next long voyage.

[chico20854]

February 6, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day! Unofficially,

Troops of the 11e rgiment parachutiste de choc, an elite unit assigned as the direct action arm of the French DGSE, surround the Palace of Versailles and arrest those French and Belgian political leaders which had expressed opposition to the invasion of the Rhineland.

The 402nd Field Artillery Brigade (Training), a OSUT unit (one station unit training unit that took in raw recruits, put them through basic training and an artillery gunnery course before graduation) trains its last pre-exchange draftees at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The unit is assigned operational tasks, albeit as infantry as the few artillery pieces used for training are left on post, there being little need for artillery. The brigade is tasked to oversee distribution of food and fuel in southwestern Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle. These duties initially consist of convincing skeptical and semi-hostile farmers, ranchers and small town residents to take in refugees from the cities of Texas and simultaneously hand over crops, livestock and crude oil.

Restructuring of US Army units in Germany continues as the flow of replacement troops has come to a halt. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, like many other units, deactivates subordinate units (in this case, the 2nd and 3rd Squadrons) in order to form a single nearly full-strength unit.

Its survey mission complete, the Coast Guard cutter Thetis returns to Bandar Abbas, Iran, completing its survey mission to Diego Garcia, which was hit by a Soviet missile in December. The survey party concludes that the airstrip remains intact and can be made useable with a few weeks' work by an engineer platoon, but that basing aircraft there would require reconstruction of facilities destroyed in the blast. The harbor remains an attractive anchorage despite several sunken ships; there is ample room for over a dozen additional vessels.

[chico20854]

February 7, 1998

Canadian troops in New Brunswick and Newfoundland launch attacks on Quebec in a move to eliminate the separatist movement in Quebec once and for all and bring Quebec back into the Confederation. On the southern front Canadian troops attack from New Brunswick. On the northern front, a hodgepodge force from Newfoundland, wwhich has been ferried into Labrador, crosses the border into northwestern Quebec.

Realizing that nuclear attacks on the UK likely disrupted GRU operations, MI5 decides to take a gamble and infiltrate the GRU network in Britain.

Unofficially,

The first deaths from cholera occur in the Mydlniki train station in Krakow; the disease is spreading rapidly among the thousands of desperate refugees in the overcrowded and unheated station.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt battle group sails into Portsmouth harbor on England's south coast. The group's arrival brings the local Royal Naval command thosands of allied sailors and their powerful fleet (which, however, is extremely low on fuel and ammunition), but also the burden of thousands of additional bellies to fill alongside those of refugees from London and southern England.

In Northwestern Iran, 7th Army tries to re-establish control of the largely Kurdish region. While American regular forces departed the region in December, A-Teams from the 5th and 7th Special Forces Group remained behind, amply supplied from caches established during Operation Pegasus II, and closely integrated with friendly Kurdish guerilla bands, who were experienced fighters even before the war broke out thanks to years of resistance to the Persian-dominated central government in Tehran.

[chico20854]

February 8, 1998

Quebecois forces abandon Sherbrooke, relocating their capital north to Quebec City as Canadian troops from New Brunswick approach.

In the US, the nationwide relocation effort is abandoned as being wasteful of fuel. In retorspect, its main effect has been to create large bands of homeless wandering throughout the country.

The Soviet ballistic missile submarine Barrikada rendezvouses with a submarine resupply vessel in the north Atlantic. The ship brings orders to the submarine that it is to remain on station in the North Atlantic until 15 March, then return home.

Unofficially,

The 1st Battalion, 30th Marines closes on the port of Wilminton, North Carolina and secures the port area while loading its paltry amount of equipment aboard the transports Minnesota Freedom and the Maltese-flagged Clipper Santos.

With the front in Central Europe growing calm and teams getting increasingly exhausted and low on supplies, the Headquarters, 20th Special Forces Group issues a recall order for teams that are able and willing to attempt the journey to the unit's new headquarters in Frstenberg, East Germany (the prewar Soviet 2nd Guards Tank Army headquarters complex).

In central Jugslavia the 158th Motor-Rifle Division finds itself in an increasingly untenable position. The division's regiments are strung out along the road and rail route between the Sava River and Sarajevo, holding a series of isolated outposts along the bottom of the Bosna River Valley, with the division headquarters in the steel mill of the Bosnian town of Zenica. The situation outside the small garrisons grows increasingly desperate as Jugoslav partisans and bandits begin to attack traffic along the route and the Soviet bases as well. The commanding generals requests for aerial resupply are laughed off and the divisions 151st Tank Regiment, oeholding Sarajevo, finds itself under siege in the citys downtown, subject to murderous enemy fire from the high ground overlooking the city.

[chico20854]

February 9, 1998

In the fighting in Canada's eastern front, Quebec fights an offensive war and manages to defeat the Canadian Army units attacking from Labrador. On the southern front, Quebecois forces withdraw to defensive lines along the north bank of the St. Lawrence River, preventing the Canadian Army from advancing any farther north.

Colonel Denise Richilieu accepts the position of head of the DGSE (the French intelligence service) in the Persian Gulf region.

Unofficially,

In central Germany, 7th Army Training Command recevies an influx of resources and personnel at its new location of Giessen, prewar home of the multiple logistics sites and the 42nd Field Artillery Brigade. (The command's premier peacetime facilities, the Hohenfels and Grafenwohr training areas and the NCO Academy in Bad Tolz, have all been overrun by Pact and Italian troops). The personnel, mostly former drill sergeants or MOS instructors reassigned from other units in Germany, are formed into training groups to retrain excess Air Force and Naval personnel (as well as selected Army combat service support troops) as infantry or artillerymen prior to reassignment to depleted Army combat units.

The commander of the 158th Motor-Rifle Division, in Zenica, Bosnia, forms a relief column to break through to his isolated 151st Tank Regiment in Sarajevo. The task force is built around troops of the 158th's 246th Independent Recon Battalion and 506tth Motor-Rifle Rgiment, with engineers and BM-14 rocket launchers attached.

Lithuanian Party authorities from Vilnius, Lithuania send a courier to Trakai to inquire why the normal monthly contingent of draftees has not been dispatched.

[chico20854]

February 10, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

French and Belgian parliamentary leaders (follow the arrest of dissenters) in Versailles reach agreement in concept for the unification of the two nation's governments, tentatively to be titled the Belgian-Franco Confederation. They break their marathon session (they have been meeting at Versailles for over five days and long nights) to return to their capitals to seek buy-in from their respective fellow political leaders and to detail civil servants to begin working on the details of the agreement.

Both sides armies are in a dire condition. The remnants of both combatants air forces are largely grounded by lack of fuel. At sea, the remaining naval combatants, also out of fuel, have nearly all returned to port. More importantly, as far as NATOs armies in central Europe are concerned, the cargo ships that ferried the ammunition, fuel, spare parts and replacement equipment have ceased sailing. (Even if they had fuel, there is little cargo available for them to carry, as war production in America and the UK has largely come to a halt after EMP bursts and the collapse of the transportation system). The German, Dutch and Danish economies produce little war materiel due to the lack of electrical power and raw materials, and general disruption and insecurity. The prewar logistic stockpiles in western Germany and the Netherlands have been depleted in the Battle of Germany and Operation Advent Crown, and the stockpiles of the armies in the field were targeted during the nuclear exchange or abandoned during the long retreat across Poland. Further, with the collapse of the German government, military units are now responsible for distributing food and fuel in their local areas, and have largely depleted their remaining supplies by the late winter.

The relief column of the 158th Motor-Rifle Division is unable to depart from the base in Zenica because the convoy carrying fuel from further down the valley has been delayed by heavy partisan activity and poor winter weather. In Sarajevo the 151st Tank Regiment loses a T-34/85 to an anti-tank mine while trying to return to the unit's base after successfully duelling a Jugoslav recoilless rifle in the hills; the regiment is down to a week's short rations and two day's vehicle and heating fuel.

The US Navy-owned (but civilan-manned) tanker USNS Paul Buck completes loading a cargo of 225,000 barrels of refined petroleum products at the refinery in Bizerte, Tunisia. The US government paid the refinery owner what would normally be considered an exorbinant amount for the cargo, successfully outbidding the French and Italian governments' representatives for the cargo.

In Trakai, Lithuania, the courier from the regional Party committee is received by Colonel Skrebys, the local military commissioner, who informs them that the requested draftees are instead being used for local defense and that, if in some time in the future the area has excess personnel of military age, he will dispatch them "with all due haste" to republican authorities. Skrebys then dismisses the courier and has him escorted out of the area. The courier notices that the castle is guarded by uniformed troops.

[chico20854]

February 11, 1998

The South St. Petersburg Defense Force, a grange-style resistance group, is organized by surviving property owners in the southern third of the city.

Unofficially,

Additional guerrilla attacks break out across occupied Dutch territory south of the Rhine. The remnants of the military government have coordinated the attacks by teams from the 2nd Amphibious Combat Group and the 104th Reconnaissance Battalion (a long-range deep penetration unit) against six separate French and Belgian installations. The attacks succeed in forcing the defending troops to lock down, allowing other Dutch agents and resupply activities to move freely in much of the occupied region.

The layup of ships at Cromarty Firth in northern Scoland concludes, with over 35 excess tankers and freighters stripped of food, fuel, lubricants, weapons and ammunition and many spare parts. The Canadian "destroyer" Assiniboine, which escorted the convoy to Scotland, departs, accompanied by the oilfield supply tugs Robu Seahorse and James Palmer, carrying the salvaged materiel and the ships' crews.

At sundown the resupply column that the commander of the 158th Motor-Rifle Divison is waiting on to launch his relief effort for the besieged 151st Tank Regiment finally arrives at the Zenica steel mill, the division headquarters. The dreadfully-equipped unit has minimal night fighting capability, so the troops of the relief column are sent to bed early prior to an early morning departure.

The commander of 22nd Support Command, the logistic organization supporting Third Army in the Persian Gulf, concerned about the long-term availability of fuel and other supplies for CENTCOM, receives permission from General McLaren to establish a floating fuel reserve at Diego Garcia. USNAVCENT (5th Fleet) is directed to identify a suitable excess supertanker (there are several at anchor in the Gulf), prepare it to serve as a storage vessel (cleaning tanks that had carried crude oil in preparation for refined products, storing containers of extra supplies on deck and augmenting the crew quarters and onboard repair facilities) and transfer it to Kharg Island, where it will gradually be filled with diesel, jet fuel and gasoline that can be spared from the small stream still being produced by Saudi, Bahrainian and Iranian refinery facilities.

[chico20854]

February 12, 1998

Another day with nothing in canon. (You'll be seeing a lot of this going forward!)

Teams from the California State Guard's 1st Medical Brigade are spread out all across the state, administering to the wounded from the nuclear attacks in the Bay Area and Los Angeles-Riverside area, trying to provide dayto-day health care in evacuation camps and administer to the increasing flow of Mexican refugees which continue to cross the border every day.

The USAF's 313th Tactical Fighter Squadron flies the first operational mission in a former Belgian F-16A. The aircraft takes off from the squadron's new base at Jever in northern Germany, flies a low-level path along the Baltic coast towards Szceczin, passsing over the FEBA (Forward Edge of the Battle Are) east of that Polish city before turning south, flying a course parallel to and 50 km east of the Oder River. The aircraft's photographic pod scours the area for Pact troop concentrations, artillery and missile batteries, logistic sites or headquarters, hoping that fatigue and the snow on the ground will help defeat some of those unit's camouflage. It turns west near Zielona G3ra, Poland, dropping its ordnance load of four 500-pound bombs on a previously identified radio repeater site in 2nd Polish Army's rear before crossing the river and returning to its base. While seemingly routine, the flight is not without risk, between the aircraft's uncertain maintenance and prior flight history, the breakdown of air defense coordination between NATO units (the pilot sights some small arms fire headed skyward as he crossed over the German front line) and the (remote) possibility that the Poles or Soviets may have an interceptor airborne over the front lines or have obtained additional surface-to-air missiles.

The dreadfully supplied and equipped relief column from the 158th Motor-Rifle Division, led by the division commander himself, finally departs its base in Zenica, Jugoslavia as the first light of day brightens the horizon. The column of trucks is lead by a pair of PT-76 light tanks, with a handful of BTR-40 APCs and a WW II-vintage American M-16 anti-aircraft halftrack captured from the Turks scattered along the column as gun trucks. The convoy covers 15 km before it is stopped by a downed bridge. As the engineers are brought forward to emplace a temporary one the entire column comes under fire from enemy troops in the heights overlooking the valley. The engineers are unable to work under such fire, and the M-16, the column's most effective means of suppressing the dismounted enemy (with four .50-caliber machineguns), soon runs out of ammunition. The beleagured troops dig in, seeking shelter from hastily dug fighting positions and the nearby village's surviving structures (and even remnants of structures).

Communist Party officials in the remains of Vilnius, Lithuania are furious when they learn of Colonel Skrebys' statement. He is expelled from the Party while word is passed to Moscow of his betrayal, requesting military forces to deal with him.

[chico20854]

February 13, 1998

Nothing official for today. Unofficially,

Having taken longer to gather resources and sufficient recruits, the headquarters, 2nd Battalion and various support units of the 30th Marines completes its formation and begins loading aboard the tank landing ships USS Boulder and Schenectady and the small (former East-)German coaster Johstadt, which have shallow enough drafts to make their way up the river to the small port at Port Royal, adjacent to the unit's home station of Parris Island, SC. Additional troops are ferried by landing craft to the USS Spiegel Grove (I have the USS Hermitage), an antiquated (built in 1956) amphibious assault ship pulled out of mothballs at the outbreak of the war.

Following up on the prior day's flight, the 50th Tactical Fighter Wing launches a raid on Pact military targets in western Poland. Eight F-16s (of a variety of models) take off from Jever Air Base in northern Germany and cross the Jutland Peninsula before heading out over the Baltic, turning south over Bornholm Island to cross the Polish coast. With two aircraft laden with AMRAAM and Sidewinder missiles flying at 10,000 feet as top cover, the rest of the flight stays at low level before splitting into three two-ship teams to strike various targets identified by yesterday's sortie and other methods (radio direction-finding and agents on the ground). One team hits the road junction at Świebodzin with cluster bombs, one strikes a suspected artillery battery with more cluster bombs and the final flight strikes the radio relay site attacked the day before. Within an hour all eight aircraft have returned safely.

The Dutch container ship Nedlloyd Van Neck, carrying a partial cargo of foodstuffs, clothing and used cars from Latin America, strikes a mine in the North Sea northwest of Vlissingen and sinks.

As the situation of the 151st Tank Regiment in Sarajevo grows more desperate (the last of the fuel is being stretched to hopefully last another day), the relief column south of Zenica remains surrounded, unable to advance or withdraw. The division commander's pleas for support from 26th Army and Southern Front are approved, and as the long and desperate afternoon for the surrounded Soviet troops drags on a single MiG-21 flies overhead. The pilot is unable to identify any enemy positions through the overcast and drops his bombs on empty forest before returning to base.