On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[chico20854]

Is that the first ever nuclear strike on the British Isles

I believe so.

[chico20854]

September 18, 1997

NATO tactical missiles strike Byelorussia and the Ukraine, hitting Kiev, Lvov and Odessa, severely weakening the Soviets attempts to build up the western front. The 87th (my 52nd) Tank Division, forming in Kiev, is destroyed in the attack.

Unofficially,

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

The 2nd Squadron, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, lead unit of the US VII Corps, enters action in Ingolstadt, Germany, catching the Soviet 18th Guards Motor-Rifle Divisions 278th Guards Motor-Rifle Regiment off guard as it moves on Ingolstadt, Germany. The veteran cavalrymen rake the columns of Soviet BTRs with withering fire, driving the Soviets off.

Along the Baltic coast, II MEF uses a detachment of LCAC hovercraft to maintain an active withdrawal, using the fast craft and remaining helicopters of the 2nd Marine Air Wing to outflank the attacking Pact forces and disrupt their rear areas. Some of these raids also include covert supply drops or pickups of agents and sympathizers who would be at risk due to their work with the Free Polish Congress.

The lone Vulcan bomber remaining in service, No. 55 Squadron's XH558, crashes on landing at RAF Honington following a refueling mission over the North Sea. While no lives are lost the aircraft is written off as a total loss. Unrest continues in Kosovo and spreads to the ethnic-Albanian population of Macedonia. The local Orthodox population, dominant in the Territorial Defense militias and police forces, try to suppress it, while additional army brigades are rushed to the front to the north.

Soviet tanks reach Belgrade, while the Jugoslav expeditionary force to Romania is tied down fighting the Hungarians (their traditional enemy) to the northeast of the city.

Another NATO capital in the Balkans comes under threat as Soviet and Bulgarian forces link up in the town of Bolontin, completing the encirclement of the city. To the south, Turkish troops, hammered by multiple Soviet nuclear strikes, retreat in a semi-organized fashion; the withdrawal threatens to become a rout.

In Iran, the exhausted troops of the 1st Marine Division are evacuated to rest stations in warehouses near the waterfront at Bandar Abbas, where they have access to hot water, a US Army quartermaster laundry unit, fresh food and cots for the first time in months.

[Matt Wiser]

And no doubt 1st MarDiv echoed what Chesty Puller said during the Chosin days: "We're not retreating, we're just advancing in another direction." I'd also bet that a lot of Iranian civilians-who had a taste of life under the Soviets, went south with them.

[chico20854]

September 19, 1997

The 184th Transportation Brigade is redesignated an infantry brigade and assigned assigned responsibility for security and distribution of foodstuffs in Federal Region III (Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware).

Unofficially,

Colonel Tumanksi's spetsnaz team relocates to a new safe house, an abandoned farmhouse in eastern Hertfordshire. They make the move in a stolen van, which is abandoned on the outskirts of Hertford.

Soviet and North Korean forces subject the city of Hamhung to a furious artillery barrage, hoping to reduce the number of Allied defenders. Persistent chemical agents and nuclear weapons are not used, lest the city's remaining industry and other resources be destroyed.

With Warsaw relieved, the Polish military begins to try to reorganize the battered defenders of Warsaw. The wounded are evacuated from the various makeshift facilities under the city, while combat forces are categorized into various classes, ranging from reassign as replacement to return to support duties. One wounded riot policeman, Captain Czarny, is dispatched to his hometown of Polutsk to recover from his wounds.

In Bavaria the battle for control of Ingolstadt intensifies as the remainder of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment arrives, supported by the guns of the 210th Field Artillery Brigade, relieving the battered German territorial garrison. They face the full weight of the 18th Guards Motor-Rifle Division, reinforced with 21st Army's 211th Guards Artillery Brigade, which launch a renewed assault at dusk. The Allied force holds off the Soviet attack, assisted by the timely intervention of a flight of A-10s from the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing.

In south-central Poland Soviet troops, celebrating crossing the Wisla after hard fighting driving NATO from the outskirts of Lvov, liberate a wine cellar in the town of Sandomierz. The celebration (as many do) gets out of hand, and by midnight a fire has broken out in the historic Sandomierz Castle, heavily damaging the historic structure. The Polish civil defense and fire forces respond and extinguish the fire, saving part of the structure.

The defense of Zagreb against attacking Italian forces disintegrates as increasing numbers of troops desert or go over to the Italian side, convinced by psy-ops efforts to join the nationalist cause in fighting for an independent Croatia.

The Italian San Marino marine brigade captures the Croatian port of Rijeka; the defending 13th Corps disintegrates as Jugoslavia seems to be disintegrating; the most aggressively commanded brigade had been lured out of the city to pursue a retreating Italian carabinieri force, an Italian feint to draw the Jugoslav mechanized force into open ground where Italian artillery and airpower could tear it apart.

Operation Golden Fleece - the 29th US Infantry Division (Maryland and Virginia National Guard) and detachment from the 4th Marine Division lands near Aden, South Yemen, supported by the guns of the USS Salem, and quickly captures the international airport, while 3rd Brigade's 1/175th Infantry parachutes on the nearby Al Anad airbase, fighting off fierce counterattacks from Yemeni and Soviet airmen and South Yemeni Army troops. The attack is the 29th's second amphibious assault, having been one of the lead divisions on Omaha Beach in 1944.

The Indian offensive in the south, which has cost over 25,000 casualties, begins to make progress. The Indian high command orders its expansion to the Kashmir sector.

[chico20854]

September 20, 1997

The Soviets respond to the nuclear attacks on Kiev, Lvov and Odessa with attacks on NATO ports and command facilities. Bremerhaven and Bremen are targeted with SS-20 missiles (Hamburg has already been so heavily damaged by conventional strikes that a nuclear strike is considered unnecessary); by a fluke the warhead aimed at Bremerhaven lands 12 km northwest of the city, inflicting minor damage.

In Warsaw, the arrival of Soviet troops and lifting of the siege is followed almost immediately by a flood of refugees fleeing the heavily damaged city. Among the tens of thousands of civilians fleeing the heavily damaged city are the family of a Wisla tug boat captain, Adam Rataj, who head for the (relative) safety of Lublin.

Unofficially,

In Alaska, the Soviet offensive has slowed as supplies grow more scarce and the weather cools, with the first snowfalls on 25th Corps units approaching Fairbanks. X Corps uses the lull to try to reorganize its widely dispersed and intermixed units.

The fighting for Ingolstadt continues, with additional American and Soviet units entering the fray.

The US Army in Europe is facing a manning crisis after 10 months of combat. The training system in the US is providing nearly 4000 newly trained privates every week, which is roughly enough to make up for losses at the front, but is unable to provide adequate mid-level leaders - staff sergeants and captains and above. The training system attempts to identify soldiers with leadership potential, and units are quick to act on such soldiers, promoting them to corporal within months (or even weeks) of arrival, but such instant NCOs lack the years of experience and judgement that are the hallmark of the American NCO corps. The flow of experienced soldiers from the inactive reserve has ended, depriving units of potential mid-grade NCOs, and the pre-war ROTC and West Point cadets have all been sent to the front as lieutenants. In Europe, the 7th Army Training Command re-establishes some of its training classes at prewar barracks in northern Germany (away from Pact troops advancing through Bavaria), including battle staff NCO, air assault and combat lifesaver classes and standing up an officer candidate school for high-potential soldiers already serving in Europe, using a modified National Guard OCS curriculum. Some NCOs that distinguish themselves in action receive battlefield commissions, but many battalions still suffer from attrition in their mid-grade NCOs and officers.

The American submarine Olympia is still searching for a Soviet SSBN but it has slipped away.

F-15s of the 57th Fighter Interceptor Squadron operating over the Norwegian Sea intercept a Soviet Tu-22M2DP southbound, shooting it down and protecting the streams of NATO transport aircraft between Europe and North America.

The 48th Infantry Brigade (Mechanized) (Georgia National Guard), launches another counterattack on the 201st Motor-Rifle Division from the outskirts of Bandar Abbas, slowing 40th Army's effort to concentrate against the Bandar Abbas perimeter.

[chico20854]

September 21, 1997

Greek and Albanian forces invade Jugoslavia, and the Jugoslav Army begins to break up. (Unofficially) The Albanians commit their 1st, 10th and 11th Divisions to capturing Kosovo while their 4th and 24th Divisions advance over the mountainous terrain into western Macedonia. The Greek A, B and C Corps move into southern Macedonia. Both nations claim their interventions are to secure the rights of their ethnic minorities in Jugslavia from Slavic oppression.

The Freedom ship Baltimore Freedom is delivered in Galveston, Texas. The light frigate USS Marchand is delivered in Baltimore, Maryland and manned by USCG personnel.

Soviet forces secure a toehold in the outer eastern suburbs of Ingolstadt, which is subjected to near-constant artillery and air attack by VII US Corps. As the fight absorbs more and more American resources and attention, the commander of the 21st Army, Colonel General Boris Aristov, moves his tank division, the 15th Guards, to the northeast of the town, positioning it to capture the town of Neustadt an der Donau, its crossings over the Danube and Bavaria's largest refinery outside the town.

The Sierra III-class sub K-231, unable to locate an American nuclear missile submarine, consoles itself with a support target, the submarine tender Simon Lake, which is returning to Kings Bay, Georgia after supporting a SSBN in the mid-Atlantic. The area is almost immediately flooded with P-3s from nearby Jacksonville.

The NATO convoy in the Mediterranean reaches Izmir, Turkey and begins unloading the vehicles and men of the Portuguese 1st Mechanized Brigade. Ships carrying ammunition and replacement vehicles wait their turn at the city's docks.

The Pakistani Army scrambles to contain the new Indian offensive in the northern Kashmir sector. It commits one of its last reserve formations, the (at this point only somewhat mechanized) II Corps to counter a breakthrough south of Lahore. Pakistani leaders scrape together additional paramilitary troops from the poorly controlled western areas of the nation to shore up the thinning lines in the south.

[chico20854]

That's all I will have for a while, taking some time off to go play in the woods and enjoy some cooler weather!

[cawest]

will we get the stats for the mod Bear. sonar and old style depth charges/heghogs spitgot mortars.

[pmulcahy11b]

...and enjoy some cooler weather!

It's great, isn't it Even down here in San Antonio, it seems like Fall came early this year!

[Targan]

It'll just get warmer here, with a typically brutally hot Christmas to look forward to.

[chico20854]

It's great, isn't it Even down here in San Antonio, it seems like Fall came early this year!

Well, camping the night of the first freeze of the year was less than fun! We had been in the 80s the week before; it was more of a psychological shock and not being properly prepared than being truly terribly cold!

[chico20854]

September 22, 1997

In an attempt to slow Warsaw Pact forces and cripple the road and communication networks, the British submarine HMS Victorious fires three of its 16 Trident II missiles at a variety of targets in Poland. One of the missiles is aimed at Warsaw - three at the city center, a fourth at Okecie airport, the fifth at the suburb of Wlochy to the west and the sixth at the southern spur of suburbs on the east bank of the Wisla. Two other warheads strike military units to the southeast of Warsaw, (unofficially: the two other missiles hit targets in and around the cities of Bialystok and Kielce. The Polish government had just begun the process of returning to the capital, reoccupying underground bomb shelters that survived the siege.)

Czech and Italian troops begin a renewed offensive in southern Germany.

Unofficially,

Soviet forces and their North Korean allies make another concerted effort to capture Hamhung, North Korea. They take heavy casualties from the American cruiser Des Moines and American carrier airpower.

Several Soviet warheads target at Tempelhof airport, Berlin, Germany, virtually destroying the US 10th Air Force's Headquarters (as well as much of what remained of the city after the Second Battle of Berlin).

The Czech-Italian offensive in Bavaria also includes the Soviet 21st Army's drive to secure Ingolstadt and the Danube crossings to the northeast. An American E-8 JSTARS radar aircraft detects the armor of the Soviet 15th Guards Tank Division massing for the attack on Neustadt an der Donau and within 45 minutes the Soviet division is on the receiving end of a hailstorm of NATO conventional and tactical nuclear bombardment. The disciplined Soviet tankers launch their assault despite the destruction of much of their supporting artillery and command structure, but the planned coup de main has become a slog.

Soviet railroad troops from around the USSR are rushed to the west to begin restoring the rail links severed by Operation Barnyard Tiger the week before as well as B-2 Stealth bomber attacks on the Trans-Siberian Railroad.

The commander of the PVO (Air Defense Force) 14th Air Army, responsible for defending the skies over eastern Siberia, is shot after another B-2 incursion over the Trans-Siberian.

The attack submarine USS Olympia hears a snorkeling Soviet boat in the Barents and diverts to investigate. Only at the last moment does it discover that the noise is a decoy in a minefield.

The Albanian Army's drive into Kosovo and Macedonia makes slow progress, more from lack of competence and leadership on the Albanian's part than from effective Jugoslav resistance. (The almost-overwhelmingly Serbian territorial defense forces fight savagely, but are poorly coordinated and their rear areas under attack from ethnic Albanian guerillas).

The Italian Army is likewise unable to take advantage of collapsing Jugoslav resistance in Croatia; logistic difficulties and poor coordination between Grupo Dalmatia and command in Rome hamper any concerted drive out of the newly captured city of Zagreb.

Soviet collective and state farms are exerting a maximum effort to bring in a bountiful harvest. The increase in private plots in the spring has boosted production, but the harvest is challenging due to shortages of fuel, trucks and labor (despite the diversion of tens of thousands of Allied POWs to the fields to augment the nation's school children and pensioners sent to long days of work in the fields).

[chico20854]

September 23, 1997

Nothing in canon for today.

American authorities complete the stocking of another reserve stockpile, this one located in San Francisco's abandoned Fort Mason railroad tunnel. This is the city's second stockpile, following the covert positioning of thousands of tons of food, fuel and supplies on Alcatraz Island. These urban stockpiles are controversial within FEMA, who fear that they will be quickly discovered and looted by desperate residents.

South Korean troops from the 21st Infantry Division launch a midnight counterattack on the Soviet 30th Army, kicked off with a 20kt W-33 8-inch round fired from the USS Des Moines on the headquarters of the 266th Motor-Rifle Division's 430th Motor-Rifle Regiment, which had overextended itself in the prior day's assault on the city. The disorganized Soviet troops fall back in to their starting positions by dawn.

The US VII Corps commits its carefully husbanded reserve battalions to the defense of Neustadt an der Donau, while the German territorial command releases the 63rd Security Regiment (which had been relieved a week earlier by VII Corps) to once again bolster the defense of Ingolstadt. Soviet forces in the town gain almost 200 meters of territory in the day's fighting, while to the north the 15th Guards Tank Division is hampered by orders to leave the massive refinery complex intact and the fierce defense offered by the US 36th Infantry Division.

More generally, Pact forces in Europe begin to feel the bite from the severing of rail lines from the USSR. It has now been a week since Operation Barnyard Tiger severed the rail lines from the USSR and Soviet forces have largely expended the supplies they had on hand and that had already crossed the Nema-Bug-Dneister Rivers. Units that have not crossed the Wisla are ordered to remain in place, freeing fuel for other units and giving NATO forces temporary but well-needed breathing room.

A R-5D hypersonic spy plane, Airframe #4, is lost when one of the airplane's booster rockets detonates on ignition.

The German containership Herm Kiepe arrives in the small German port of Brunsbttel, at the mouth of the Elbe and western end of the Kiel Canal. The ship's master is reluctant to risk the ship's safety by bringing her into a larger port.

The Indo-Pakistani War takes on more and more of an early 20th century character as both sides' armor and aviation assets are attrited away. Their main arms suppliers, the UK and USSR (for India) and China and the US (for Pakistan) have no munitions to spare for their clients and their domestic industries are by no means able to make up for the prodigious consumption of the fighting forces.

[pmulcahy11b]

Well, camping the night of the first freeze of the year was less than fun! We had been in the 80s the week before; it was more of a psychological shock and not being properly prepared than being truly terribly cold!

In a couple of weeks, it'll be that time of year here when you have to run the air during the day and the heat at night -- ack, bills!

[Homer]

Well, camping the night of the first freeze of the year was less than fun! We had been in the 80s the week before; it was more of a psychological shock and not being properly prepared than being truly terribly cold!

At least the bugs were down