On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[chico20854]

April 1, 1998

Nothing official for today. Unofficially,

Farmers in Nebraska are dismayed by the ground conditions. As the normal planting season begins, the soil is too cold and dry for the process to begin, and every day brings added pressure from the tens of thousands of evacuees on their land to eat the carefully husbanded seed that should be on its way into the ground.

16th Army, on occupation duty in southern Germany, assigns the 24 T-62 tanks and 100 of the new replacements that arrived on a recent train from the USSR, to the 19th Guards Tank Division, bringing it up to 80 tanks and 8,500 men.

The last US Army industrial equipment - backup generators, machine tools and building-mounted cranes - arrives in central Germany north of Frankfurt, from the Franco-Belgian occupied zone. The few remaining US Army troops and civilian employees in the zone are now involved with collecting "engineer materials" (mostly fencing, barbed wire, pipe and copper wire) from the last of dozens of kasernes, depots and stations located in the zone. Informally, they are also trying to eat as much of the French-supplied food as possible, hoping to return to Germany with several pounds of calories stored.

The crew of the Second World War-vintage American freighter Occidental Victory, which has been in harbor in Portland, Oregon since concluding a voyage from Korea, abandons the ship as the last of the food in the ship's lockers runs out.

The mobilization-only 106th Motor-Rifle (my 232nd Rear Area Protection) Division is ordered to prepare for movement to the front in Austria from its home station in west-central Ukraine, where it has been performing anti-partisan duties. The division commander begins an effort to gather (the locals would characterize it as horde) food, fuel and transport in preparation, as well as inducting by force a number of teenage boys and men in their 40s, depriving local collective farms of badly-needed workers

The transfer of USAF air assets to Kenya from Europe and the Mediterranean has largely been completed despite the poor weather in Africa. To provide command and control of the airlift squadrons, two new commands are stood up - the 139th and 164th Tactical Airlift Groups. Assurances are received that additional personnel to stand these commands up will be aboard the long-delayed reinforcement convoy.

[chico20854]

April 2, 1998

In Angola, the Cubans have managed to reorganize their forces after the nuclear attacks of the previous year on new defensive lines but their fight against UNITA and their new South African allies is not going well as they begin to run short on fuel, spare parts and munitions.

Unofficially,

Anti-American rioting in Mexico peters out as eaily identifiable symbols of America have all been damaged or destroyed, locals return to trying to eke out an existence, and the flow of Mexican evacuees from Texas and Arizona slows.

Soviet transportation planners complete another link in their effort to support the ongoing European war effort when they complete a repairs to a rail route between Ploesti, Romania and Miskolc, Hungary, which is already a junction in a cobbled-together continuous rail route between Ukraine and occupied souhern Germany through Austria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The development allows the Soviet occupation authorities to ship refined petroleum from Ploesti's remaining remnant refining capacity to the front in Germany. As yet the rail lines into Poland across the Carpathians remain inoperable.

The Norwegian sail training ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl arrives in Montevideo, Uruguay. Its captain and first mate go ashore, after clearing customs, to try to obtain a cargo of grain for its home port of Bergen.

The aircraft carrier USS John F Kennedy, in one of the last naval air raids of the war, strikes the Italian air base at Grazzanize near Naples. The base had been used in March to launch airstrikes that crippled the Bizerte refinery in Tunisia. The American raid hits the sole remaining radar and fuel tank farm with conventional munitions, knocking them out in preparation for the second strike, 15 minutes later, that inflicts massive damage from a lone F/A-18 dropping a 150-kiloton B61 bomb that lands 14 meters off the runway.

[chico20854]

April 3, 1998

The 1st Marine Division begins anti-marauder operations from Bandar Abbas. The British contribute two Gurkha battalions from their MEFF (Middle Eastern Field Force) to assist the American and Iranian forces.

Unofficially,

The fighting in Alaska heats up as additional troops on both sides are fed into the battle along the road to Anchorage. X Corps contributes the troops of the 115th Field Artillery Brigade, operating as dismounted infantry, to the force alrready containing the 10th Mountain (my 11th Airborne) Division and 2nd Infantry Brigade (Arctic Recon), facing the Soviet 2nd Arctic Mechanized Brigade and 110th Guards Motor-Rifle Divison.

The elite Dutch marines of the 1st Commando Group arrive at the port of Den Helder. The town's naval base has been destroyed by Soviet bombers, but the marines are able to land their small freighter and contact remnants of the naval garrison.

Swedish naval staff, operating from a hardened command post ashore, detect an unidentified submarine in the waters southwest of Goteborg and dispatch a combined surface and air fleet to intercept the intruder. The boat is classified as a nuclear-powered attack boat and permission to engage is given; after a thirty-minute localization and pursuit the boat is sunk by a pair of hits by air-dropped torpedoes. Only some months later is the submarine identified as the American USS Sea Devil, on a mission to infiltrate agents into the Soviet Baltic states and Leningrad area.

The Hungarian 53rd Mechanized Rifle Brigade, having completed its crossing of Lake Baikal, finds itself stranded in the chaotic countryside near Irkutsk. It had counted on using seized railcars to travel across the vast distances of Siberia and Russia on its way home, but was forced to abandon them (and much of the carefully gathered fuel in the tank cars) by a blockage of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Irkutsk, the vicinity of which was blasted by American nuclear bombers in November and December, has little suitable rolling stock, forcing the Hungarians to send out search parties along the rail lines in the region, in many cases encountering heavily armed bands of deserters and marauders.

[Homer]

Awesome as always! Keep it up.

[chico20854]

April 4, 1998

The stresses of wartime combined with long periods underwater causes the crew of the Soviet nuclear missile submarine Barrikada to crack under the strain. The resulting mutiny results in the death of the captain and most of the officers. The reactor chief and his technicians (all but two of which are junior officers) shut down the boat's reactors at the first sign of trouble. They die fighting the mutineers, but not before one of their numbers manages to send a partial message describing the boat's fate (but not its position).

The replica USS Constitution attacked by coastal pirates off Lagos; the ship puts up full sail and leaves the pirates behind at 15 knots.

Unofficially,

The Soviet GRU manages to launch a long-range reconnaissance aircraft to determine conditions in North America. (The loss of reliable communications with its satellite constellation and limited reporting from its agent network, struggling to survive, forces the GRU to expend the valuable resources involved with a manned flight). A Tu-95MR "Bear-D" reconnaissance aircraft, restored to service after being damaged by a Norwegian F-16 in the early days of the war, performs the mission, launching from Kipelovo airbase north of Moscow. It proceeds over the North Pole, "sniffing" for electronic emissions as it crosses Canada and enters American airspace over North Dakota at 35,000 feet. Its onboard SIGINT system detects NORAD radar and radio transmissions, as well as the communications between the interceptor base at Duluth, Minnesota and the F-15A fighter of the 148th Fighter Interceptor Group scrambled to shoot it down. The Bear commander immediately turns north and retreats and the interceptor sent after it is unable to close the distance between it and the fast Soviet bomber. After 18 hours in the air the plane lands back in Russian, having succeeded in one of the most successful and daring reconnaissance missions ever flown by the Soviet air force.

The British Government's regional government headquarters for the East Midlands, which evacuated its bunker in Skendleby in Lincolnshire in February, finally goes back online at its new location at RAF Waddington.

RainbowSix reports that the last B-52 sortie from RAF Fairford in Southwestern England takes off, launching strikes on Pact artillery concentrations east of the Oder River in Poland before turning northwest for a long flight to return the aircraft to America.

The 486th Tactical Missile Wing, a prewar Ground-Launched Cruise Missile unit, which evacuated the occupied zone from dispersal sites around its home station of Woensdrecht Air Base in the Netherlands (taking a considerable number of Dutch allies, military and civlian with it), resumes operational duties with its dozen remaining missiles after re-establishing secure, reliable communications with 17th Air Force headquarters. Taking a different approach to dispersal, the wing hides the four loaded TELs (Transporter-Erector-Launcher vehicles) in four separate buildings in the small town of Zeewold, east of Amsterdam.

[chico20854]

April 5, 1998

Aboard the Soviet missile submarine Barrikada southeast of Svalbard, the surviving mutineers attempt to bring the boat's reactors back online. The sub has been operating on battery power since the reactor chief shut down the reactors at the outbreak of the mutiny.

Unofficially, unfortunately, the mutineers' complement only include two reactor technicians, both junior sailors who regard the reactors almost as if they are demons barely contained by technology just short of magic. They (and the sole remaining, badly wounded and barely conscious junior reactor officer) struggle to safely get the demon to work.

The B-52G bomber of the 2nd Bomb Wing's 62nd Bomb Squadron, which took off yesterday from RAF Fairford in the UK and bombed Pact artillery sites in western Poland, lands at its dispersal site in the continental US, Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi following a long-distance repositioning flight that involved three high-priority aerial refueling missions.

The Eagle Brigade is formed from the various US military security units located in the United Kingdom. Most of the unit's troops are from Air Force security squadrons from the various RAF installations that hosted American aircraft as well as the Ground Launched Cruise Missile (GLCM) wings at RAF Greenham Common and RAF Molesworth. The unit also absorbs the Marine Corps' FAST Company Europe, with its 400 elite urban warfare experts, as well as miscellaneous embassy guards, liaison officers attached to British units and personnel in transit through or recovering from wounds in the UK. The unit's priority is to concentrate the remaining stockpile of US nuclear weapons in the UK into two locations - RAF Sculthorpe and aboard the USS Eisenhower in Portsmouth and protect them in the chaos that is post-nuclear Britain.

In northeastern Poland, Captain Krzysztof Czarny, a decorated veteran of the siege of Warsaw who has been recovering from his wounds in his hometown of Polutsk, takes command of the city's nascent militia as the town faces increasing numbers of armed deserters and stragglers passing through, robbing and killing.

[chico20854]

April 6, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

In an attempt to improve its relative strategic position vis--vis the US, the Soviet command orders an attack on the US missile early warning radar at Thule, Greenland, which the recent reconnaissance flight has indicated is still operational. The target is selected both for its importance as a strategic warning asset and because it is the farthest that the Tu-16 bomber can reach with its onboard AS-6 missile. The missile partially malfunctions, detonating 16,000 feet over the base and with a reduced yield of 100 kilotons, knocking the radar out and lightly damaging the other on base facilities.

A second missile launched by the same aircraft at Keflavik air station in Iceland overshoots that site and detonates over the small town of B1/2jarskerseyri, 7 km away. The 350 kiloton blast inflicts light damage on the base, breaking windows and injuring a few exposed personnel who failed to take cover in the 7 seconds between the detonation and the arrival of the blast wave.

RainbowSix reports that the British Government has decided to evacuate the RAF base at Machrihanish on the tip of the Kintyre Peninsula in Argyll, Scotland. The Royal Navy warship HMS Achilles picks up a small number of British and American personnel still there and makes for Portsmouth.

The Dutch 1st Commando Group, armed with somewhat current intelligence on the Franco-Belgian occupation of Holland, begins scouring the area around Den Helder for small craft that can be used to infiltrate into occupied territory.

On the submerged Barrikada in the Arctic Ocean, the mutinous enlisted men continue to restart even one the reactors. The remaining reactor officer dies of his wounds received during the mutiny. Battery power is running low and the air aboard the boat grows foul as the ventilation system is turned off to conserve power.

The 115th Guards Motor-Rifle Division, a veteran formation that fought NATO troops on the Kola and across Finland before being stripped of men and equipment as the northwestern front died down, is in reserve south of Leningrad, assigned to 11th Guards Army on local security duties. The Army command orders the unit converted to horse cavalry, commandeering the division's few remaining vehicles and providing it with ten cavalry instructors, descendants of historical Cossack families and experienced horsemen.

[chico20854]

April 7, 1998

The mutineers aboard the Soviet boomer Barrikada are forced to surface the boat through the ice, as the batteries have been exhausted and the fresh air has run out. The sailors, most of whom have been below decks since the 48,000-ton ship left harbor outside Murmansk in July, rush out on deck to get fresh air and a sight of the sky, clouded as it is.

Unofficially,

Following an unexplained accident at Camp Edwards on Cape Cod and the very substantial loss of facilities and equipment, the 301st Port Security Unit moves its base of operations to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

RainbowSix reports that 44-year old Brigadier Richard Woodley, a Regular Army officer of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, who was assigned to the Regional Government Headquarters at Swynnerton a few miles outside Stoke in Staffordshire, finds himself the senior officer in the region. He claims authority over the whole area on behalf of His Majesty's Government. He is supported by a small group of soldiers and civilians, most notably a man named Ian Price, a former Civil Servant who held the position of Director of Communications at the RGHQ.

Despite the bomb damage inflicted by a B-52 strike earlier in the week, Pact artillery units along the length of the Polish-German border launch a coordinated series of artillery strikes on NATO defensive positions on the western bank of the Oder River. While intended to inflict damage, the attacks are also used to provoke NATO counterbattery fire, revealing the extent of surviving NATO artillery force, their ammunition availability and the speed of its response. Soviet officers are dismayed to discover that the Americans and their German allies have spent the winter months carefully emplacing counterbattery radars and planning counterfire strikes. Within minutes, eight Soviet and Polish artillery batteries that revealed their positions by opening fire are recipients of nuclear-tipped ATCAMS missiles fired by American MLRS batteries behind the lines.

[chico20854]

April 8, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

Soviet forces in British Columbia and Yukon resume their offensive with a landing on Victoria Island by troops of the 76th (my 71st) Tank Division's 415th Tank Regiment and a simultaneous attack southward out of Whitehorse by the 13th Guards Air Assault Division. The Soviet paratroopers face the greatly depleted US 47th Infantry Division and Canadian 40th Brigade, while the 76th (my 71st)'s tanks are faced by poorly equipped and supplied reservists of the Canadian 39th Brigade. The Allied troops are suffering from lack of supplies due to the Albertan government's decision to halt traffic through the province.

After a few months of research and gathering resources, MI5 recruits a volunteer, Martin Russell, to impersonate the late GRU officer Colonel Piotr Bulganin, who killed himself in British Army custody in January.

The French and Belgian armies (now united under a single command but still in the process of integration at the unit level) complete the evacuation of US Army facilities from the occupied areas of Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands that they conquered in January. The return of the last French truck over the Rhine near Karlsruhe marks the end of the controversial agreement reached between the surviving NATO command and the French.

On board the Barrikada, the mutineers continue their efforts to restart the reactors, a task the two 19-year old reactor technicians have only seen done twice before (an evolution in which their responsibility was solely to stay out of the way, standing by to bring the officers tea or any tools needed by the michmany.)

RainbowSix reports that HMS Achilles, carrying evacuees from RAF Machrihanish, is torpedoed by the Soviet Kilo-calss submarine B-888 en route to Portsmouth and goes down with the loss of all hands. The loss of the ship negates the chance for any resolution of rumors that the abandoned airbase harbors a hyper secret US reconnaissance aircraft code named Aurora that made an emergency landing at the base several days before the base was abandoned and remains hidden there. One particular rumor states that the Auroras pilot survived the sinking of the ship and after making it to shore is living and working on a small farm somewhere on the Kintyre Peninsula.

Engineers complete the installation of the portable diesel generator at the Shiraz, Iran munitions plant, allowing it to operate multiple machine tools simultaneously. The additional power provided allows the plant to resume production of Land Rover engine pistons, camshafts and brake pads; while seemingly minor the line represents a source of spare parts for tens of thousands of vehicles in IPA service, whose flow of spares has been cut off by the nuclear exchange. It also allows plant engineers to plan for additional production and allows managers to train new machinists to replace those lost in the war.

[chico20854]

April 9, 1998

The Mengistu regime in Ethiopia finally collapses as he is overthrown by his generals, who execute him and his ministers publicly. The new government comes to an accommodation with the remaining rebel forces and the civil war comes to an end. The few remaining Soviet personnel in the country are hunted down and killed over the next several weeks, ending the last vestige of the Soviet presence in the Horn of Africa. With the fall of the Mengistu regime the Eritrean rebels finally achieve a full victory against Ethiopia and achieve their independence. Even with the war ending the area is far from peaceful as marauders from Ethiopia and the Sudan continue to raid into Eritrea.

Unofficially,

Planting of the oat, wheat, canola and barley crops begins in Nebraska, a week late because of the long, cold winter of 1997-8.

Canadian troops on Victoria Island make desperate pleas for anti-tank weapons to counter the Soviet T-34/85s that they have nothing to stop.

RainbowSix reports that 29-year old Major Natalia Y. Ivanova, a GRU operative, is infiltrated into southern England by submarine. Born to an East German mother and a Russian father who is a serving General in the Red Army, Ivanova is fluent in five languages (including English, French, and German), and is an utterly ruthless young woman who is completely loyal to the Soviet Union. She manages to establish herself in Portsmouth under the alias Lisa Ross, the identity of a RAF Tornado Navigator who was shot down over Eastern Poland in the spring of 1997. Captured by the GRU and interrogated under torture, the Soviets ae able to create a false identity based on her life before she joined the RAF. Ivanova participated in several of Ross interrogations, and ultimately executed the Englishwoman herself.

Western TVD command, after analyzing the response of NATO artillery to the recent Pact artillery barrage and receiving a report from the chief of engineers on the status of assault bridging (most was lost in the campaigns across Poland and much of what remained was destroyed by tactical nuclear strikes on assembly areas in the fall), decides that an offensive on Germany will have to be launched from occupied territory in southern Germany or from Czechoslovakia. Soviet forces in Czechoslovakia proper are relatively scarce, and given the recent completion of rail links from Ploesti and Ukraine into southern Germany that seems the most favorable region for a continuation of the effort to drive capitalist imperialists from Europe. Accordingly, orders are issued to prepare a spring offensive and direct supplies and reinforcements to 1st Southwestern Front.

As the mutineers aboard Barrikada realize that the reactor technicians are not going to be able to restart the submarine's nuclear reactors they hold a "Soviet" (all hands meeting) to determine their next steps. Some advocate for continuing to restart the reactors, some urge heading for the nearest land (Svalbard to the northwest) over the frozen sea while a few are in favor of heading south, dragging life rafts in their storage containers along, and making way for the USSR across the open sea to the south. The debate rages late into the night.

[chico20854]

April 10, 1998

Canon is silent on today. Unofficially,

In west-central Wisconsin, the members of the Ho-Chunk tribe close off the approaches to the town of Hatfield to all non-native people. They declare the area the core of their new tribal territory; the many vacation homes in the area offer housing for native people from throughout the area.

The Soviet drive out of the Yukon is reinforced when troops of the 62nd (my 245th) Motor-Rifle Division link up with Soviet troops advancing from Alaska; the 62nd has travelled inland from the rugged coast.

Opposite the Pact forces in southern Germany, NATO forces, under command of 4th US Army, complete repositioning after a complex series of moves to deploy the Danish Expeditionary Force into positions vacated in January when the Dutch I Corps was rapidly withdrawn to fight the Franco-Belgian invasion of their homeland. The Danes have had to reach deep into their well of personnel and equipment to find sufficient troops to hold their sector south of Ulm. All along the front NATO troops are unexpectedly provided with massive amounts of fencing and barbed wire to reinforce their defensive positions - materiel withdrawn to Germany from American bases in the occupied territory west of the Rhine. Some troops use the chain link fence to outfit their vehicles with anti-RPG cages, hoping that a screen of wire fencing might deflect or detonate Soviet HEAT warheads before they can contact a vehicle's armor.

The soviet aboard the Barrikada continues, growing more acrimonious. There is no single leader among the mutineers, and factions have arisen among the crew, based largely along ethnic lines (between Russians and Ukrainians, there being few Balts, Central Asians or Caucasians deemed politically reliable enough to serve aboard one of the Soviet Navy's most advanced boomers) and department (weapons, engineering, bridge and steward). All of the alternatives has serious drawbacks, and adding to the challenges the crew faces, one of the frigid storms that are common this time of year sweeps through.

In the Balkans, troops of the US 6th Special Forces Group are able to establish a communications link with the headquarters of the US 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean. Before the batteries on the long-range radio are depleted, the Green Berets relay the locations of six Soviet regimental and divisional command posts in Jugoslavia and Romania and receive an assurance that those targets will be struck between 24 and 48 hours in the future, giving the Green Berets and their local guerrilla allies time to clear the immediate vicinity of the Soviet garrisons.

Chaos reigns on the streets of Ethiopian cities as the military attempts to establish control of the shattered nation.

[chico20854]

April 11, 1998

The first gangs form in Erie, Pennsylvania to seize by force what shelter, food and fuel the authorities can no longer provide. Soon the gangs are fighting each other, contributing to a precipitous decline in the population as violence, starvation and disease take their toll. Some civilians flee south while others risk the perilous voyage across the lake to the imagined safety of Canada.

As the floods subside American and Kenyan forces launch an offensive to drive the occupying Tanzanian Army from Kenyan territory south of Nairobi.

The mutinous crew of the Barrikada abandons ship, heading out on foot. Some (mostly Russians) head northwest for the nearest land, the Svalbard Islands. (Unofficially, the rest (overwhelmingly Ukrainians) heads south, dragging the ship's life rafts across the ice to make the passage across the Barents Sea to the Kola Peninsula.

Unofficially,

As promised, 24 hours after receiving target coordinates, 6th Fleet launches a flight of six Tomahawk cruise missiles at Soviet targets in the Balkans. Fired by the cruiser USS Normandy, destroyer USS Caron and sub USS Montpelier (two missiles each), the low-flying nuclear missiles hit the headquarters of the 9th Motor-Rifle Division and the 259th Motor-Rifle Division's 133rd Motor-Rifle Regiment. One of the missiles crashes prior to impact, and in another the warhead fizzles, yielding 1.2 kt rather than the 150 kt it was set for.

[chico20854]

April 12, 1998

Reacting to a disturbing increase in anti-Soviet partisan activity, the 6th (my 5th Guards) Tank Division is withdrawn from positions deeper in China to Manchuria, bolstering the Soviet occupation of one of the world's more intact industrial areas.

Unofficially,

After a journey of many weeks, characterized by roundabout routings, discomfort and frustration, the train carrying the Joint Chiefs and the rump national military command staff arrives in Colorado Springs from the Alternate National Military Command Center at Raven Rock, Maryland. Upon arrival the Joint Chiefs take over a historic hotel and resort complex as their combined residence and headquarters, while most of the staff begin operations out of the Air Force Academy. The 24-hour command and communications center is located at the NORAD headquarters at Cheyenne Mountain, which survived a Soviet near-miss in November. Security in the city is tight thanks to the presence of security troops from the Cadet Brigade (the former Academy Corps of Cadets) and the graduates of training battalions from the 100th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, who, in the absence of transportation to combat zones overseas, are on local duties.

A second Polish horse breeding farm is started in eastern Poland, this one near the town of Bełżyce, 20 km southwest of Lublin, where much of the remaining Polish government (and military command) has assembled.

The resupply convoy headed to AFRICOM finally draws around the Cape of Good Hope, remaining out of sight of land to avoid being sighted by anyone ashore.

Local military authorities in Karshi, Uzbekistan order the mobilization of the 151st Motor-Rifle Division, a mobilization-only unit that has access to the somewhat depleted contents of 15 warehouses full of military equipment in the city's northern outskirts. They hope that the unit will both relieve the area's many idle young men of the temptation to turn to banditry and provide a force to maintain security (as well as possibly means to resist unreasonable demands from the center).

[chico20854]

April 13, 1998

Nothing official for today. Unofficially,

Another incident occurs along the Mexican border, when an armed militiaman (the Texas State Guard denies that he is a member of any of their units, being a Kansas resident) opens fire on a family crossing the Rio Grande River northwest of Laredo, killing both parents and three of their four children, all under the age of 10.

In Alaska, the 10th Mountain (my 11th Airborne) Division makes slow progress, reaching the lower slopes of the Alaska Range (the mountain range of which Mount McKinley is the highest) after the Soviet 25th Corps is pushed back after weeks of fighting.

RainbowSix reports that a riot breaks out at Albany Prison on the Isle of Wight. Many of the prisoners are suspected subversives arrested by the Security Service at the start of 1997, who now find themselves sent to either Albany or Camp Hill, dependent on which Category they are classed as (medium risk prisoners at Abany and low risk at the Camp Hill prison). The Parkhurst prison remained Category A (high security), and received a number of prisoners who were transferred there from other facilities after the nuclear exchanges. Built to hold just over 1700 prisoners, over two thousand four hundred men are now confined in the three facilities. The rioting quickly spreads from Albany to Parkhurst; although they are armed with a variety of weapons, the warders are heavily outnumbered.

Two additional troop trains arrive in Salzburg, Austria from Moldova and Ukraine, carrying (unwilling, poorly trained and equipped) recruits for 1st and 2nd Southwestern Fronts.

A fierce winter storm slides south from the North Pole towards the Kola Peninsula. The storm is accompanied by extremely cold temperatures and heavy snowfall (it is fierce by pre-war standards, but the nuclear detonations of the prior six months have made the cold winter of 1997-8 much worse than normal). The mutinous sailors from the Soviet submarine Barrikada, who have travelled only 8 of the over 200 miles to the nearest settlement, huddle together for warmth in the lee of an ice ridge. Seven die of frostbite.

Near Esfahan, pro-NATO guerrillas, under the leadership of Sirjan Khorrasani, shoot down another aircraft, an AN-24 transport carrying the Chief of Staff of the 45th (my 32nd) Army, using the second of two SA-14 MANPADS they captured some weeks before.

The Hungarian 53rd Mechanized Brigade, which has escaped the Irkutsk area, receives word of its next obstacle, the crater created by an American nuclear warhead at Taishet, a small Siberian town that derived strategic importance from the junction of the Trans-Siberian and Baikal-Amur Mainline Railroads, the only two routes across Siberia.

[chico20854]

April 14, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

RainbowSix reports that, while casualties in the prison riots on the Isle of Wight are heavy on both sides, gradually the prisoners begin to gain the upper hand. The surviving warders plead for reinforcements as they retreat to the relative safety of the Camp Hill complex.

The storm continues to rage over the Barents Sea and Arctic Ocean, preventing the mutineers from the Barrikada from making any progress. The second group (the Ukrainians), 20 miles to the south, has the benefit of life rafts to shelter under; nonetheless over a dozen of the sailors (in both groups) succumb to the weather.

Taking advantage of the disarray of Soviet occupation forces in Jugoslavia, the Jugoslav Army reopens its prewar hardened underground command post outside Han Pijesak, Bosnia, which has been secured by a skeleton staff for many months.

The 106th Motor-Rifle (my 232nd Rear Area Protection) Division begins a trek to the front in Austria. Promised transportation never arrives, forcing the division to move largely under its own power using up resources gathered by the unit over prior weeks.

In Pretoria, South Africa a car bomb detonates at lunchtime in a crowded downtown area, killing 23 civilians and a mixed-race policeman.