On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[Targan]

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

In my last campaign Major Po's group picked up a USAF F-15 pilot in Poland and he remained with them all the way back to CONUS. He'd fired an ASAT missile back in '97 too. Was posted to Europe as a replacement in a fighter squadron and ended up behind the lines when his F-15 fell out of the sky due to a catastrophic component failure.

[chico20854]

April 22, 1997

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

Unofficially,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[chico20854]

April 23, 1997

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

Unofficially,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[pmulcahy11b]

Chico, did you ever think of, many years from now when it's done, of compiling all this into a book and putting up on DriveThru or even Amazon

[Ewan]

Chico, did you ever think of, many years from now when it's done, of compiling all this into a book and putting up on DriveThru or even Amazon

I've started to cut and paste the various entries into Word with the intention of getting it printed and bound for my own personnel use.

All in it real fleshes out the war and leads to a number of mini campaigns such as the SAS unit in Leningrad.

[Targan]

April 23, 1997Rifleman Goreng Nassang wins the Victoria Cross for manning a GPMG against overwhelming Soviet forces, enabling his platoon to escape.

No mention that it's a posthumous award. Rock on Rifleman Nassang!

[chico20854]

Chico, did you ever think of, many years from now when it's done, of compiling all this into a book and putting up on DriveThru or even Amazon

I'll see! From this vantage point it looks like it may be difficult to get much on a daily basis for later in 98 and 99. Right now my goal is to have one item a day for those years. 2000 is a little easier because I can build backstory for the summer offensive and canon provides some recent history for various small towns in Poland I can build off of. I already have built up the voyages of the replica USS Constitution as well, for example.

[chico20854]

No mention that it's a posthumous award. Rock on Rifleman Nassang!

To give credit where it's due, he is Malcolm Pipes' creation. We will see more of him!

[chico20854]

IAll in it real fleshes out the war and leads to a number of mini campaigns such as the SAS unit in Leningrad.

I'm happy that you are able to use this, that is exactly the sort of thing I hoped people would be doing!

[chico20854]

April 24, 1997

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

Unofficially,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[chico20854]

April 25, 1997

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

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

Unofficially,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Homer]

This is great! Really detailed, well researched, and plausible.

I do have a question on National Guard and Reserve mobilization. Most of the combat units are running through rotations at either the National Torture Center or Just Relieve The Commander. Are they using their own equipment or CTC stocks CTC puts a lot of wear on vehicles and the units are going direct from the CTCs to SPOEs/APOEs.

Keep up the great work!

[Louied]

Chico,

Great stuff! I just want to be pedantic in one thing....The UDR
The Ulster Defense Regiment was not part of the TA. They existed on a separate Corps Warrant for service in the Province of Ulster. From the documents I have the plan on TTW (Joint Theatre Plan 335) was for ALL (except one) the regular Bns in NI to go transfer back to the mainland UK. Their ATGW Pls would be sent to BAOR and the rest of the Bn would become the Regional Reserve for several Districts. The Omagh based regular Bn would stay in NI to become the Regional Reserve for the Province. The UDR would be called up for active (full time) service in its entirety (IIRC about 8,000 men and woman in 1989). The UDR would then conduct MHD and IS duties in Ulster. Many UDR Bns had anywhere between four to eight coys on paper, so I could see them forming additional Bns.
Incidentally, I have not found anything on TTW roles for the three regular Bde HQs in NI.....HOWEVER....under some on paper plans regarding COGRAM (Creation of a General Reserve After Mobilization) they were earmarked to provide cadres to establish two Bdes as MHD Reserve for UKLF.

[chico20854]

April 26, 1997

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

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

Unofficial:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[chico20854]

This is great! Really detailed, well researched, and plausible.

I do have a question on National Guard and Reserve mobilization. Most of the combat units are running through rotations at either the National Torture Center or Just Relieve The Commander. Are they using their own equipment or CTC stocks CTC puts a lot of wear on vehicles and the units are going direct from the CTCs to SPOEs/APOEs.

Keep up the great work!

Thanks! The reserve component units going through the combat torture centers use a mix of loaner vehicles (primarily trucks, HMMWVs, M113s, Brads, M88s and M1-series tanks) and their organic vehicles. The units that have M60A4 tanks or LAVs have to use their own, and the equipment pools at the various bases only have a single battalion of M109 howitzers, so any reinforcing artillery needs to bring their own vehicles. Spoiler alert, the newly-formed units that are training up at the centers during the TDM ultimately go into combat with the loaner vehicles, which (as I know from personal experience!) are pretty much the most worn-out vehicles in the Army... a wear value of 8 just leaving the motor pool (at best)!