On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[chico20854]

A nit that nobody in Canon picked up: there is no Al Qatif AB. The closest field to that town is King Fahd IAP to the west (about 15 miles). Either that, or Dhahran RSAFB/IAP. I have a set of TPC charts for the Gulf region and Iran, and I'm surprised GDW's writers didn't notice there was no base (King Fahd IAP was under construction when RDF Sourcebook was published-it hosted A-10s in 1990-91 during ODS but was a bare base). CVW-10 could go to either King Fahd or to Dhahran if in Saudi, or to Sheikh Isa in Bahrain.

I did actually look at that, sorry I didn't explain. Supposedly the (unfinished in 1996) King Fahd IAP is technically located in the "city limits" of Al Qatif. I took the liberty of re-styling that into GDW's Al Qatif Air Base. My concept is that the pair of 13,000 runways were complete (as at least a portion of them had been used in ODS, as you noted, and with several more years that is, I believe, reasonable) and the other infrastructure (tower, power, water, fuel pipelines) had been largely completed by 1996 when things started looking hairy across the way in Iran. The US and Saudis secretly agreed to shift the construction of the civil airport into an alternate headquarters for 9th Air Force. The terminal building construction was halted, the materials, equipment and workforce being redirected into a number of dispersed, hardened facilites, the partially completed terminal building re-puposed to housing administrative and support functions as well as housing. As 1996 wears on some of these facilities are filled with prepositioned equipment, as mentioned more generally in RDF SB.

My master map of airfields is here!

[Homer]

There were always some head scratchers in cannon. Like the absence of the 29th ID(L), 2 ID stationed at Cam Ranh Bay in the 2E American CVG, and the presence of a TX NG (3-143 IN) battalion in 5 ID(M).

Ive chalked part of it up to the increased difficulty of getting information pre-internet, and partly to trying to project a plausible scenario without getting to a situation approximating oeThe Road.

[chico20854]

August 22, 1997

In North Korea, the US 2nd Infantry Division links up with the lead battalions of IX Corps, concluding its two-week long march south through enemy-held territory.

Unofficially,

The Native Canadian Ranger Regiment intercepts and eliminates a third Spetsnaz team in the northeastern Canadian Arctic, this one near the Pelly Bay air defense radar site.

The British Ministry of Defense evaluates the report received from the Falklands. After consultations with the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary once again calls the Argentine ambassodor in and demands the immediate withdrawal of Argentine forces. Once again, the ambassador professes ignorance but transmits word to Buenos Aires.

Heavy trucks arrive in the 13th Army area to load tanks and armored vehicles for transit to the nearest railheads, over 250 km to the north in Mongolia.

In the isolated Torun Pocket, cut off behind NATO lines since June, the commander of the 4th Guards Tank Army reorganizes his remaining units, disbanding the 41st Independent Tank Regiment and 510th Independent Guards Tank Regiment and assigning those units' surviving tanks and crews to the 20th and 25th Tank Divisions, respectively.

The Warsaw Pact offensives, supported by tactical nuclear strikes on NATO supply dumps and static artillery positions, continue to make slow progress. East of Bialystok, Poland, lead regiments of the 7th Tank Army attempt to force a breakthrough along the boundary between II British Corps and the American V Corps. The British, under pressure from the 23rd Army on its northern flank and spoiling attacks from a mixed force of KGB, MVD and Army troops to its front, have little to commit to their southern flank. The American corps tries to cover the area with its 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment and attack helicopters from the 12th Aviation Brigade, but the long frontage and need to remain dispersed to avoid a nuclear strike mean that there is more a screen than a front line in the area and the Soviet troops gain several additional kilometers of ground.

The American freighter Santa Isabel, which dropped away from Convoy 418 after experiencing engine problems (the ship was built in 1967) is attacked and sunk by a Soviet raider, the destroyer Ostorozhnyy. The destroyer, even older than its quarry, was recently reactivated and sailed from the Kola after the conclusion of the Allied offensive and slipped through the GIUK Gap in ice flows near the Greenland coast.

After a rushed three weeks, the Portugese 15th Infantry Regiment's operational battalion arrives at the Lisbon Naval Station, where three American transport ships (the Cape Domingo, Pioneer Crusader and Cleveland Freedom) are awaiting to transport the 1st Mechanized Brigade to Turkey.

The American carriers John F Kennedy and America continue their attacks on Italian naval targets.

The Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Ministry of Defense discovers that the electronics plant in Tblisi, Georgia that is supposed to be manufacturing the new guidance packages for the SS-23 missiles is still awaiting the production drawings, which due to an administrative error, were never sent from Moscow. They predict that they can have a prototype together in 10-12 weeks. The Colonel-General is quite upset, to say the least. The Tblisi plant has reallocated its production line to producing radars for Su-27 interceptors in the interim.

[chico20854]

I have a bunch more teed up, but no time to post them! And I want to get the Balkans and CENTCOM filled out a little more. More tomorrow!

[chico20854]

There were always some head scratchers in cannon. Like the absence of the 29th ID(L), 2 ID stationed at Cam Ranh Bay in the 2E American CVG, and the presence of a TX NG (3-143 IN) battalion in 5 ID(M).

Ive chalked part of it up to the increased difficulty of getting information pre-internet, and partly to trying to project a plausible scenario without getting to a situation approximating oeThe Road.

The 29th wasn't formed at the time they were publishing. Two of the brigades are in the 46th ID... one of the head-scratchers of forming new divisions out of independent National Guard brigades! There a bunch of others, like the timing of the TDM, were SAC bases targeted or not, a lot of the backstory in RDF Sourcebook re:Israel and Syria and more...

Given what they had to work with, however, I applaud what they got out. The amount of material that has appeared online since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, machine translation and the passage of time have given us the luxury of being able to see what they got right and got wrong!

[Targan]

I've been wondering about various radiological issues that would have arisen for other countries after China got plastered with nukes. I assume that due to the prevailing winds, plenty of radioactive fallout would have precipitated onto North and South Korea and Japan, and to a lesser extent eventually the US and Canada. The Soviets certainly didn't hold back once they started nuking China. Plenty of dirty ground bursts I'm sure.

[Homer]

Given what they had to work with, however, I applaud what they got out. The amount of material that has appeared online since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, machine translation and the passage of time have given us the luxury of being able to see what they got right and got wrong!

Agree. Sources of information were not as abundant or accessible (How many libraries had a full and current set of Jane's, or the "Army Green Book"). In addition, some information was much more controlled. Pretty impressive, considering.

[chico20854]

August 23, 1997

Nothing in the canon for the day.

The 47th Infantry Division retreats east from the Anchorage area, with its cavalry squadron (the 1st Squadron, 194th Cavalry (Minnesota National Guard)) and 682nd Engineer Battalion detached to man a blocking position to prevent Soviet forces advancing north from Valdez from cutting the division's evacuation route east into the Yukon. The 2nd Infantry Brigade (Arctic Recon) is retreating under heavy Soviet pressure northward along the Mat-Su Valley, hoping to delay the linkup of Soviet forces advancing out of Anchorage with those that came across the Bering Strait.

1st Byelorussian Front, opposite the US V Corps, with the 3rd, 5th and 7th Tank Armies, continues its pressure on the US V Corps. While the front's tanks are mostly less modern T-64s, T-80s and T-74s, the collapse of the Chinese front has allowed additional reinforcements and supplies to flow to the front, allowing it to push back the exhausted American (and Canadian) troops, strung out at the end of a long supply line from Dutch and German ports far to the west. To the south, 1st Western and Reserve Fronts, with two Polish and three Soviet armies under command, push back Third German Army.

photo
In beseiged Warsaw, rations for civilians are cut again, to 1200 calories per day for adults and 600 calories for children under 15.

The ferry Beauport, carrying a cargo of replacement vehicles for British troops, is struck by a mine in the North Sea and sinks.

The 173rd Airborne Brigade has completed its redeployment from Sicily and launches the first of its raids, with two companies from 3-325 AIR raiding Tympaki Air Force Base in Crete. The paratroops land before dawn and are supported by gunfire from the battleship Wisconsin, which not only seals off the area but inflicts major damage on Greek infrastructure all along the southern Cretan coast. The airborne force evacuates after four hours; the final C-130 to depart does not carry troops but instead drops a modified BLU-82 7.5-ton bomb on the runway to crater it and render it useless to the Greeks.

In Iran, the isolated troops of the 1st Marine Division continue to hold the airfield complex at Yadz, supported by vigorous counterattacks on the surrounding 40th Army by the isolated troops as well as the 3rd (my 4th) Marine Division operating north of Bandar Abbas. Heavy air support keeps the Soviet forces from massing to overwhelm any particular sector, and the surrounded division's centrally stationed mobile reserve (built around the two tank battalions, light armored recon and amtrack battalions) is able to respond quickly to enemy attacks. Nightfall begins a parade of transport aircraft into the pocket, bringing in food and ammunition and evacuating the wounded, while KC-130 tankers drain their tanks into the airfields' to support the division's operations.

The Soviet Minister of Agriculture reports that the amount of food grown will be adequate to support the nation but warns that completing the harvest and distributing it is going to be a severe challenge given the lack of trucks and manpower.

The Argentine submarine Salta is dispatched from the Mar del Plata naval base to the Falkland Islands to retreive the naval commando force that has been operating on the islands for several weeks. Orders are radioed to the team to cease patrolling and remain in place until the submarine arrives to retrieve them. A SAS team arrivies in the islands and begins to search for them.

[chico20854]

August 24, 1997

Another day that canon is silent on... Unofficially,

Soviet troops in Alaska begin a reshuffle, with fresh units being committed in central Alaska and others shifted south.

The Prime Minister and Cabinet return to Downing Street. Despite the return of the Government to London, the 11 regional command centers remain fully manned and operational.

In the Japanese-occupied Kurile Islands of Iturup and Kunashir a population transfer is occurring. Along with the evacuation of Soviet POWs, recently arrived Japanese government officials begin evacuating civilians who do not have family ties to the area (defined as at least one family member living in the islands in July 1945 prior to the Soviet seizure). The same flights and voyages that are carrying evacuees off the islands are also carrying "tourists", Japanese citizens that were evicted by (or fled) the Soviets and their descendants. To the dismay of the Soviet citizens, many of the "tourists" begin assessing various homes and businesses, apparently with the intention of settling in the newly reconquered territory. The government officials have no comment on the plan.

Along the northern end of the front line of the Polish-Soviet border 2nd Western Front goes over on the offensive from the Kaliningrad enclave. A Polish-led task force cuts off the US Marine garrison of Baltiysk while the rest of 1st Polish Army (reinforced with Soviet and Polish border guards and the Baltic Fleet's Division Baltiysk) drives the Danish Jutland Division out of Soviet territory. The 3rd Guards Shock Army and 2nd Guards Tank Army also attack southward against the US III Corps and VII German Korps, who use their massive mobility and firepower (both conventional and nuclear) to blunt the attacks and hold their ground.

In southern Germany, the Italian Army has run out of steam as the last of the nation's prewar stocks of fuel, ammunition and spare parts has been largely depleted. Italian industry is still in the process of mobilizing, and the industrial mobilization process (which would be chaotic in the best of circumstances given the state of Italian government and industry) is slowed by the country's isolation from its former NATO partners, who are NOT going to assist it with transport, raw materials or critical components. The Soviets offer to step in, but their assistance is a far cry from what NATO provided.

A helicopter from the escort carrier USS Langley, operating in the Norwegian Sea, detects the Soviet Delta I-class SSBN K-171 moving southbound at 5 knots. Within 10 minutes a swarm of five SH-3 Sea King helicopters are overhead; the boomer is located and sunk by four Mk-46 air-dropped torpedo hits. It is the third Soviet boomer sunk in August.

In Egypt, the commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade receives word that his request for air-droppable armor has been approved; L Company, 73rd Armor is being activated at Fort Bragg. Unfortunately, due to the widespread losses in the LAV-75 force the unit will be equipped with obsolescent M551 Sheridan light tanks.

XVIII Airborne Corps continues its slow withdrawal through the Zagros Mountains, with the 101st Air Assault Division launching a string of airmobile assaults on the advancing 4th Army as it crawls through the Zagros Mountains, pushing back the highly mobile 9th Infantry Division (Motorized). Allied Pasdaran guerrillas harrass the Soviet transport and supply troops with repeated pinprick attacks on the Soviet rear, slowing their progress.

[chico20854]

August 25, 1997

Following months of intense action in the unforgiving desert environment, the helicopters of the 6th ACCB are suffering from lack of maintenance and attrition while the pilots and ground crews are beyond exhausted. As XVIII Airborne Corps is pushed out of the Zagros onto the coastal plains, fixed-wing attack aircraft are able to provide more effective support and the corps command orders the 6th to Saudi Arabia for rest and refit.

Unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship Louisville Freedom is delivered in Beaumont, Texas and the Phoenix and Sacramento Freedoms in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

2nd Brigade, 49th Armored Division, Texas National Guard, completes Rotation 97-11 at the National Training Center at Ft. Irwin, California and is declared combat ready. It loads its equipment on railcars for the Chicago Port of Embarkation, where shipping is being massed in relative safety.

As students return to their schools, they resume an in-class drill that had fallen by the wayside for many years - "duck and cover" drills to respond to nuclear attacks. It is a sad reflection of the reality of the world.

IX and I US Corps continue to give up ground in Korea as supplies grow scarce and the Soviet Yalu Front incorporates more and more North Korean stragglers (and even civilians, who are almost all either NKPA reservists or members of the Patriotic Red Guard) into its ranks. Behind the front lines, however, massive flows of civilian refugees flee south, having enjoyed just a few weeks of exposure to South Korean propaganda and fearing the deprivation of life in war-ravaged North Korea.

The 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment is driven out of Bialystok by the 7th Tank Army's 3rd Guards Tank Division. The regiment's 58th Engineer Company leaves a farewell gift behind in the city: a 15-kiloton W45 Atomic Demolition Munition, which reduces the city center to rubble. Two hours later V Corps' 142nd Field Artillery Brigade (Arkansas National Guard) strikes the airport on the city's southern outskirts with a 12-kiloton W33 8-inch tactical nuclear shell, preventing the Soviets from using it.

The remaining aircraft of the Marineflieger, CVW-19 aboard the USS Coral Sea in the Baltic and the USMC's 2nd Marine Air Wing line up to provide an umbrella of attack aircraft over the evacuation of the embattled 5th Marine Division (reinforced by the German 18th Coast Defense Regiment and the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade) from the city of Baltiysk, where they have been cut off by Polish troops who hold the shore of the lagoon and a strong blocking position along the narrow barrier island between their enclave and Poland. Under the air cover a flotilla of Allied shipping, of all sizes and nationalities, loads troops and what heavy equipment can be loaded aboard, transporting them to the ruined docks of Gdynia 55 miles across the Gulf of Gdansk. The defense of the city's perimeter is bolstered by naval gunfire support, with a task force built around the heavy cruiser Newport News and the American destroyers Coontz and Nicholson.

On the southern end of the Polish front, the highly motivated but poorly equipped troops of the Polish 3rd Army advance down (west along) the valley of the Wisłok River, reaffirming control of the southeastern Polish oilfields (the area had been lightly patrolled by German troops, who in recent weeks have been reluctant to venture into the hills to the north).

The USS John F Kennedy and USS America move closer to the Ionian Sea, launching a series of sorties under EMCOM (emissions control - all radars, radios and other electronic emmitters turn off) and low level into the Adriatic Sea to judge the level of Greek, Italian and Albanian air defense activity over the sea; if there is minimal resistance the route will be exploited for transit of transport aircraft into Jugoslavia and Romania.

Helicopters of the 94th (my 57th) Air Assault Brigade roam out over the Arabian Sea, sinking several dhows (small coastal sailing craft) and a bigger prize, the Pakistani freighter Kaghan carrying a cargo of supplies and replacements for the Pakistani mercenary detachments in Saudi Arabia and the Iranian Gulf Coast.

[chico20854]

August 26, 1997

Canon is silent on the day. Unofficially,

The Joint Chiefs are presented the results of the worldwide military personnel study initiated three weeks ago. It notes that to date the Navy has taken casaulties equal to 15.5% of its prewar strength, the Air Force 17.8%, the Army 38.2%, the Marine Corps 39.7% and the Coast Guard 17.4%. Losses in July were spread more or less proportionally across the branches, between the naval battles off Kamchakta and the Kola, the initiation of nuclear warfare and offensives in Iran, Korea, Norway and the Central Front. Each branch's training establishment is operating at full capacity. Looking forward, industrial production is insufficient to keep up with equipment losses, resulting in an excess of trained personnel in all branches. The Army and Marine Corps have the greatest ability to absorb recruits in the absence of newly produced equipment, serving in light infantry roles, while excess Naval, Coast Guard and Air Force inductees are more likely to be used in security and support roles. The report reingites the debate that had been placed on hold earlier, with the Army Chief of Staff and General Green, Commandant of the Marine Corps once again arguing for a greater allocation of recruits and authority to expand their training establishments. After nearly an hour General Cummings intervenes, declaring that resolution will have to come from the Department of Defense's political leadership.

King Charles returns to Buckingham Palace.

At Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany the 481st Tactical Fighter Squadron turns over the last of its surviving F-16C fighters to its sister squadron the 480th in anticipation of the imminent receipt of AT-38 jets. The armed trainers are familiar to the pilots (who uniformly did their initial fast jet training on the type) and deemed fast and agile enough to survive in the air over Germany and Poland. While much less capable than the F-16s, they allow the 52nd Tactical Fighter Wing to resume flying close air support missions while its remaining F-16s are committed to air defense and nuclear strike missions.

The Polish 3rd Army turns north, attacking up the Wisłoka Valley towards the rail and road junction at Tarnow.

V US Corps is under heavy pressure from the Soviet 3rd Guards Tank Army to its front as 7th Tank Army advances to its north (in the widening gap between it and the British II Corps) and 5th Guards Tank Army pushes along the south, trying to drive a wedge between the Americans and VI German Korps defending Lublin.

The American attack submarine USS Olympia locates the Foxtrot-class B-34 snorkeling near the surface west of Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic and sinks her with a pair of Mk 48 torpedoes.

The Sierra-III class sub K-231 slips into the Atlantic through the Straits of Gibraltar by transiting under a NATO merchantman.

The John F Kennedy and America air wings follow up on the prior day's sorties, striking air defense radars and missile sites on the Greek island of Corfu and in southwestern Albania.

The Argentine submarine Slata arrives off West Falkland to retrieve the naval commando team. There is dissent within the team, with two of the senior NCOs, who had been captured by the British in 1982 as young Marine conscripts, disobeying the commanding officer's orders to withdraw. The senior NCOs want to strike at least a symbolic blow at the British to avenge the loss of their peer and salve their battered sense of machismo about having to "slink away in the darkness". The issue is violently resolved when the commander shoots one of the rebellious sailors in the head, then orders the other and the junior troops to drag the body to the boat. By dawn the second Argentine landing in the Falklands has ended.

[chico20854]

August 27, 1997

As a result of the third interception of Spetsnaz teams in northeastern Canada, the decision is made to leave one battalion-equivalent (10 teams) of the Native Canadian Ranger Regiment in the east.

Unofficially,

With its supply lines under threat, Third German Army orders a general withdrawal, ordering V German Korps to defend Tarnow from the Poles, XI US Corps to hold Rzeszow, VII US Corps to stage a fighting withdrawal to the Wisla at Sandomierz and Tarnobrzeg and Panzergruppe Oberdorff to maintain a screen to the north between it and the southern extent of First German Army's VI German Korps, which is holding Lublin against 1st Guards Tank Army.

The last US Marines and German troops are evacuated from Baltiysk, and as the naval task force retreats over the horizon the USS Newport News levels what remains intact in the city (it had been nuked by the Soviets on August 12) with an 8-inch tactical nuclear round.

III US Corps withdraws from the Soviet border into far northeastern Poland; the broken terrain of the Masurian Lakes region is used to the American's advantage, as the many chokepoints created by the topography are easily defended by small detachments, and present lucrative targets for tactical nuclear weapons once abandoned.

The 41st Army is brought west from reserve positions near Vienna to reinforce the Pact effort in Bavaria, leaving the 2nd Czech Army on occupation duty.

The 197th Field Artillery Brigade, which has remained in Norway rebuilding following the collapse of the Murmansk offensive, has received enough guns to field six howitzers per battery. (A full-strength battery fields eight howitzers).

The first of two convoys carrying the Portugese 1st Mechanzied Brigade departs Lisbon, bound for Turkey. Six other ships are in the Lisbon area loading the remainder of the brigade and 30 days of supplies.

American carrier aircraft and the F-111Fs of the 495th Tactical Fighter Squadron continue to clear an air corridor over the Adriatic, striking Italian mobile radars and returning to several air bases to impede repair efforts.

The Jugoslav Army has managed to move additional troops to its exposed and vulnerable border sectors, leaving the mountainous center of the country largely bereft of regular troops (but swarming with motivated Territorial Defense part-time troops, under control of the republican governments). The 4th Corps is moved from Sarejevo to the Croatian-Hungarian border and the 17th Corps is moved to the west bank of teh Danube at the Hungarian border. The 9th Corps is moved to the northwest to reinforce the battered 5th Army and further delay the slowing Italian advance from Slovenia. The move leaves the Adriatic coast lightly defended, a risk that the Jugoslav command deems acceptable given the battering the Greek and Italian navies have recevied from the 6th Fleet.

Soviet troops arrive in the outskirts of Dakali, Iran, on the western edge of the Zagros Mountains, having pushed the 9th Infantry Divison and 101st Air Assault Division nearly 750 km south in four short weeks. (American commanders maintain that much of that distance was territory abandoned by overextended American troops, but acknowledge the great distance covered). The exhausted combatants on both sides pause before a battle for the town erupts.

Indian troops in Pakistan launch an offensive in the south, committing nearly 50,000 troops. The Indian command abandons sophisticated plans for an armored thrust that can be exploited, instead planning on using its masses of troops to overwhelm the Pakistani defense. Losses on the first day exceed 5,000 men.

[chico20854]

August 28, 1997

With the border stripped of soldiers, Somali Islamist troops push down into northern Kenya to establish their leaders goal of establishing Greater Somalia. Sudanese Muslim militias and Ethiopian marauders invade as well to grab their share of the spoils. The Kenyans try to slow them down but continue to lose more and more territory each day. A Tanzanian infantry regiment attacks across Lake Victoria and succeeds in seizing Kisumu, overwhelming the small garrison there and forcing the Kenyans to even further stretch their defensive lines around Nairobi.

Unofficially,

Calling into question the prior day's decision, a major Soviet force lands on the coast of British Columbia. The 14th (my 99th) Motor-Rifle Division lands a task force in the Alexander Archipelago, cutting off traffic in the Inside Passage and isolating Juneau from surface traffic. The task force's artillery (a battery of 85mm D-44 guns) catches the Alaska state highway ferry Matanuska passing by, sinking her with several well-aimed volleys. To its south, the 71st Tank Division lands at Prince Rupert, British Columbia and begins moving inland.

The situation in China is unclear, even to Soviet commanders. After over a month of nuclear attacks the Chinese Communist government has collapsed, its few remaining nuclear forces under the control of local commanders out of touch with higher headquarters. Following Soviet attacks on major production, transportation and command centers refugees flee the remaining cities lest they be caught in the next attack. Isolated PLA units are standing and fighting, most notably those remaining in North Korea, which are receiving limited logistical and air support from American and British naval and air forces that still control the Yellow Sea. In Manchuria Soviet forces are cautiously advancing, limited by the flow of POWs and refugees headed for the relative safety of Soviet lines and slowed by the rapid reallocation of fuel, ammunition and supplies to the European theater. In Inner Mongolia, numerous units flung themselves headlong south, outrunning their supply lines and, in some cases, their radio communications with higher headquarters. In central and southern China, where national government authority has collapsed but enemy forces are hundreds of miles away (at least) local Party officials, military commanders and traditional leaders struggle amongst themselves for control of their areas. Life for all Chinese citizens in this situation is disastrous, with the breakdown of transportation networks to move people, fuel and food, dangerous levels of radioactivity from Soviet strikes and rapid emergence of disease on a biblical scale.

At sunrise, the first flight of AT-33B armed trainers lands at Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany. The six aircraft are assigned to the 481st Tactical Fighter Squadron; the squadron's maintenance crews begin working the aircraft over after their long transatlantic flights.

Shortly after midnight a Soviet coast defense missile battery, down to two 4K51 Rubezh (SSC-3) launchers after months of playing cat-and-mouse with Allied aircraft and special forces, launches a volley at the retreating Allied naval task force. One of the missiles is shot down by a missile fired by the USS Coontz, one misses, and two strike - one hitting the Newport News and the other obliterating the Danish corvette Olfert Fischer. The crew of the Newport News gets the fires under control by dawn, but the ship needs to be repaired, so it begins the long voyage back to the US.

VII German Korps, the last NATO unit on the border with the Russian Kaliningrad enclave, evacuates to a more defensible line to the south, maintaining a tight linkage with the American III Corps to its east. The close terrain is of equal advantage to the Germans as the neighboring Americans, giving time for the German corps support troops to make a final salvage sweep through the region to secure spare parts, salvagable replacement vehicles and munitions to sustain the former East German Army 3rd Army, which the corps is the remnant of.

The Soviet 50th Tank Division, a mobilization-only unit from the Carpathian Military District, is attached to the Polish 3rd Army as a stiffener. The 50th is badly understrength, with only two battalions of tanks in each tank regiment and its motor-rifle regiment relying on requisitioned trucks from farms, factories and mines of Ukraine. Its artillery is of Second World War vintage, but the division is graced with a capable and charismatic commanding general, K.V. Beregovoi, whose honesty and sense of duty had exiled him in prewar days to command of a reserve division.

As SOSUS reports the transit of a Soviet submarine westbound leaving the Mediterranean (which American P-3s are unable to localize and attack), CINCIBERLANT authorizes the mining of the Straits of Gibraltar. An inbound and westbound lane are maintained for friendly shipping and for neutrals that accept a local pilot.

STAVKA directs the transfer of the 16th Army, which started the war in Hungary, was bloodied in Romania early in the year before being withdrawn for the invasion of Austria, back to Hungary in preparation for an upcoming effort to crush the NATO force in the Balkans before the Allies can rush reinforcements through the re-opened Mediterranean.

In Iran, as supplies in the surrounded airhead of Yadz continue to diminish (despite the herculean efforts of transport aircraft and helicopter pilots) and the front lines retreat farther south, the commander of the 1st Marine Division orders his subordinate commanders and their staff to begin preparations for a breakout to rejoin the rest of I MEF along the coast.

[chico20854]

August 29, 1997

Noting official for the day!

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

The first units of the 70th Guards Motor-Rifle Division begin loading their less-damaged vehicles aboard train cars in southern Mongolia for transit to Europe.

In North Korea, the American 23rd Infantry Division (Light) has its supply lines cut as it serves as the rear guard of the IX Corps retreating from the road and rail hub of Hyangsan in the mountainous center of the country.

Due to the chaotic situation behind the lines, the overburdened and ineptly run Soviet rail system finally delivers the last troop train containing the 9th Guards (my 32nd Guards) Tank Division to the front in Western Ukraine, where it joins 1st Guards Tank Army.

The 481st Tactical Fighter Squadron flies its first close air support sorties since early July, in support of the 10th Mountain Division's defense against the Italian 4th Alpini Corps in southwestern Germany.

The last American conventional troops depart Ukrainian territory as XI Corps withdraws westward; special operations forces remain behind, seeking targets for NATO nuclear weapons, organizing and assisting pro-NATO partisans and desperately searching for Soviet nuclear weapons and their delivery systems.

CIA operatives note the transit of trains carrying armored vehicles across the Dnieper River north of Zaporozhye. Within hours the trains have been located by American spy satellites.

The first flight departs Frankfurt, Germany carrying excess command and support personnel from the 40th Infantry Division, which has been reduced to one brigade by nuclear attacks earlier in the month.

Rifleman Goreng Nassang, VC, still with the 1/7th Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Rifles in Iran, uses his trusty GPMG in defense of his company's position helping to hold the transport hub of Sirjan, Iran. He uses his gun in indirect fire mode; when combined with other guns from his platoon they catch a company of dismounted infantry from the 108th Motor-Rifle Division's 180th Motor-Rifle Regiment and inflict heavy casaulties and disrupting the Soviet attack.

The Royal Navy patrol craft Leeds Castle arrives off Port Stanley in the Falklands Islands. The ship had been pulled from its South Atlantic patrol ship duties earlier in the war, but the threat of Argentine adventurism has called for its return to the area.

[chico20854]

August 30, 1997

Nothing in canon for the day (that I'm using... GDW has the 5th Marine Division entering combat in Korea today; I have the 5th in action in Poland at this point). Unofficially,

3rd Brigade, 49th Armored Division (Texas National Guard) completes Rotation 97-10 at NTC-2 at the Yakima Training Center and, as the last brigade in the division to complete a NTC rotation following its retraining and re-equipment with the Abrams/Bradley weapons systems, the entire division is declared combat ready, nearly a year after mobilization.

The 11th Infantry Brigade is declared combat ready after completing Rotation 97-10 at JRTC-2 at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas and transferred by road to Tinker AFB, Oklahoma for immediate deployment to Korea.

The 22nd Motor-Rifle Division, relocated from central Alaska, takes advantage of the cover provided by the 99th Motor-Rifle Division to undertake a follow-up landing at Skagway, Alaska. The weak guard company there is quickly overrun and Soviet troops begin advancing east into British Columbia towards Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon Territory 110 miles away.

Army engineers complete construction of a secure storage facility in Glady, West Virginia, in an abandoned railroad tunnel and FEMA begins stocking it with food, weapons, generators, clothing, tents and other supplies.

Poor weather over much of the Korean Peninsula returns to the mountains of central North Korea, preventing Army and Air Force transport units from flying resupply missions to the encircled 23rd Infantry Division (Light). Special Operations aircraft have the ability to reach the isolated 23rd, but to its commander's frustration, are assigned to other missions. (Although widely criticized by the division's veterans in the years following the war, the few MC-141s, MC-130s, MH-53s and MH-60s in the theater are not able to transport even 10 percent of the tonnage of supplies the 23rd needs on a daily basis).

VII US Corps is subjected to multiple, repeated attacks from two Soviet armies - the veteran 8th Guards and the 1st Shock, a relatively fresh formation composed of some of the Red Army's finest parade divisions and other units from around Moscow. The battle, as the Americans retreat from the Ukrainian border, sees both sides slinging nuclear weapons at the other's rear areas as the front-line troops press close to each other to prevent the other side from using nukes on them.

The USS John F Kennedy and America conclude four days of strikes on the Italian and Greek air defenses over the Adriatic as F-14s of VF-33 escort a flight of six C-17s of the 20th Airlift Squadron into Tuzla Air Base, Jugoslavia carrying supplies and munitions for the 112th Tactical Fighter Wing (Pennsylvania Air National Guard).

A task force of fast transports leaves Gibraltar carrying munitions, vehicles and spares for the beleaguered Jugoslav and Romanian armies. Sixth Fleet task forces are stripped of escorts to protect the convoy, while the battleship Wisconsin surface action group prepares for a sortie into the Adriatic.

The Albanian Army reports that it has more or less completed its mobilization, having called up over a quarter million reservists to bring their forces up to full strength. The effects on the economy are, convieniently, not mentioned, especially since the Albanian economy has consistently been the worst in Europe.

The 487th Tactical Missile Wing fires 24 missiles into Ukraine; PVO missiles and interceptors shoot down seven while crossing the Black Sea, and three others are shot down over Ukraine. Two malfunction, and a dozen explode over central Ukraine, where the trains carrying the 341st (my 22nd Guards) Tank Division are en route to Romania.

The final supply route into Shiraz is cut when troops of the 1st (my 9th) Army's 145th and 147th Motor-Rifle Divisions link up south of the city, and the second siege of the city begins. The city's government, having experienced a prior siege, is relatively well prepared - food has been stockpiled and many non-essential civilians evacuated to the coast.

The Soviet Air Defense Force (the PVO) makes a concerted effort to intercept a R-5D Aurora hypersonic spyplane. After an agent in the US alerts Moscow of an Aurora carrier taking off, the PVO sets up an airborne ambush. A line of MiG-31 interceptors is established at 100km intervals over the Urals, cruising at 40,000 feet and loaded with experimental infra-red seeking AA-13 AAMs, while outside Moscow the remaining Su-47s of the 91st Fighter Regiment scramble. The effort is detected by the NSA's ELINT satellites, which alert the Aurora before it is launched. The alert prompts the execution of the pre-briefed alternative flight plan over Central Asia, exiting over western China and looping northward across the Pacific for recovery.

The Argentine submarine Salta returns to the Mar del Plata naval base and the commando team disembarks. The rebellious senior NCO is sent to the brig to await court martial.