On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[chico20854]

July 19, 1997

Nothing official for today! Unofficially,

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

Jury selection concludes in the Terminal Illness riot trial.

Strategic Reserve Stockpile SRS-17374-2, located in the Appalachians in Pennsylvania, is sealed up by the contractor and the workers flown back home to Southern California. Strategic Reserve Stockpile SRS-17374-2, underneath St. Paul, Minnesota, is closed, and the soldiers of the 105th Engineer Group and 30th Engineer Brigade (both North Carolina National Guard) are urged to complete the secret projects they are working on as well.

The Soviet assault on China continues, with a Scud missile striking Songyuan as one of the freshly raised divisions is detraining from its journey to the front. In a further affront, specially modified Tu-16 Badger bombers of the 1339th Heavy Bomber Regiment fly a "ferry mission" to Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam (where engineers have repaired the runway after the Allied attack in January). As they overfly southern China, they drop to low level and use spray dispensers to spread fungal spores over rice paddies, infecting the fields with rice blast. The USS Olympia passes under the North Pole and begins hunting for Soviet SSBNs under the polar ice cap. It is transferred from the Pacific Fleet to the Atlantic Fleet.

The Luftwaffe's Flugkrpergeschwader 1 (1st Missile Wing) evacuates its quick reaction alert (QRA) site at Bodelsberg in Bavaria as Italian troops fan out across Bavaria. The heavily escorted convoy moves northwest, occupying an empty Bundeswehr ammunition dump at Riedlingen some 120 km away.

SACEUR orders a halt to the advance into the USSR; units are to engage in local attacks only to straighten the front line.

Italian troops clash again with territorial troops on the outskirts of Munich as the Luftwaffe and BND rush to evacuate assets amid a flood of panicked refugees fleeing the fighting.

In Austria, Hungarian and Italian troops clear the foothills west of Graz of Austrian territorial troops and decide not to continue the advance into the high alpine regions.

The final battalions of the US 10th Mountain Division arrive at the Stuttgart International Airport as the unit's first battalions take up defensive positions west of Munich.

In the first use of nuclear weapons at sea, a SH-60F from the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (the only American carrier operational in the Atlantic Ocean at the time) drops a B-57 depth charge on a Soviet submarine detected approaching the battle group. The 10-kiloton device detonates at a depth of 150 feet, crushing the target (while also disrupting the battle group's sonar picture for hours due to turbulence in the waters, and the destroyer Peterson's sensitive fixed AN/SQS-53 sonar array is damaged by the intensity of the blast). While postwar records do not identify which submarine was hit, there were three boats that were at sea at the time that were not heard from after that time - the Victor III-class K-502, the Alfa-class K-463 and the Kilo-class B-466.

Udine falls to Jugoslav troops as the garrison and civilian population of Trieste are frantically evacuated by sea; Jugoslav commanders are happy to let the evacuation occur, harassed by light naval elements, permitting higher quality JNA units to move west.

As support troops rush to establish secure lines of communications and coordinate with allied IPA troops, 3rd Brigade, 101st Air Assault Division makes another leap north, capturing the town of Chadegan.

The Pakistani line south of Lahore finally begins to crumble after days upon days of Indian human-wave attacks.

[chico20854]

July 20, 1997

Nothing in canon for today! Unofficially,

A civilian militiaman west of Del Rio, Texas shoots two Mexican immigrants, killing one of them, a 17-year old from Oaxaca in southern Mexico.

A KC-135R tanker of the 92nd Aerial Refueling Squadron, call sign "Elephant 11", operating in heavy overcast over the Pacific accidentally collides with a Soviet Tu-16N Badger tanker performing the same mission. Although Elephant 11 is heavily damaged the crew manages to return to Boeing-King County AP, while the Tu-16N crashes attempting to land at Shemya, Alaska; thus making Elephant 11 and her crew the first and only tanker crew with a confirmed air-to-air kill.

Around the Western world the panicked and hurried evacuations of urban areas has largely halted as it becomes apparent that the nuclear exchange, after a week and a half, has not escalated to the strategic level that many had feared. Many people return to their homes and jobs in urban and suburban areas, although with a better idea of what is required to evacuate and what awaits them. Many who are able to remain in rural areas away from likely nuclear targets do so; the summer school break allow smany families to remain at their vacation homes.

The Royal Navy commissions another corvette, HMS Eskimo. Like its sister HMS Ashanti, the ship was under construction for the Malaysian Navy at the outbreak of the war, but the Royal Navy took over the contract and had the ship finished.

The main body of the Soviet force on Iturup in the Kuriles surrenders. The remaining defenders of the island - a platoon of security troops at the remote Vetrovoye air base - flee aboard an An-26 transport to Sakhalin Island.

The secret American airfield in the Karakum Desert - nicknamed Shangri-La by the airmen stationed there - now has nearly a million gallons of fuel and a stock of spare parts and conventional munitions (flares, chaff and the like) and is placed in a semi-caretaker status, with approximately 50 support and security personnel present.

NATO scrambles to assemble a coherent defense of Bavaria as Italian troops reach the city limits of Munich. The US Army Fourth Army, a pre-war Army responsible for mobilization of reserve component units from the Midwest, Rocky Mountain and Northern Plains states that had eployed to Europe in May to control units in the rear area, is assigned overall command of Allied efforts. The US XX Corps takes command of the US 6th and 10th Infantry Divisions as well as a handful of engineer, artillery and MP units, mostly redeployed from Norway, while the Dutch I Corps joins the German 15th Jaeger Division (the former VI Home Defense Command) and the Danes. The German effort adds in the more militarized elements of the Bavarian police - the Bavarian Border Police and the State Police's rapid-response force. More substantial reinforcements come in the way of I British Corps, which begins moving its heavy divisions south from positions further north on the Czech border.

To the east, additional Soviet troops (the 47th Motor-Rifle Brigade from Ufa in the Urals, the 16th Artillery Division from northwest of Moscow and the 96th MRD, a category C division from Kazan) arrive at the front. The tactical nuclear exhange continued with the first use of a nuclear-armed ATACMS missile, aimed at the 1st Guards Tank Army headquarters' communications center, identified by a US Army EH-60 ELINT helicopter.

Allied naval forces in the Mediterranean step up operations against the Italians, Greeks and their Soviet allies. NATO shipping has been cut off in the eastern Mediterranean between the still-closed Suez Canal and Italian domination of the Sicilian Channel. American hydrofoils accompany an amphibious task force eastward from Gibraltar while the USS John F Kennedy and America battle groups, low on munitions, begin a series of aggressive anti-surface sweeps from their operating area off the Egyptian coast.

The first battalions of the 5th Marine Division begin loading aboard ships in the Hampton Roads area. The roads in the area are crowded with military convoys as trucks begin moving the M60A4 tanks, M113s and M109s of the 46th ID's 36th Armored Brigade to piers from their staging areas at Fort Eustis; the vehicles are being shipped to Europe, where they will be parcelled out to replace losses in National Guard divisions.

A massive tank battle breaks out on the plains north of Shiraz, Iran as the advance of the Iranian 3rd Armored Division and the 1st Australian Brigade is countered by the 45th (my 32nd) Army, which commits the 69th and 15th (my 78th) Tank Divisions to hit the Allied force in the flank. The lead Soviet regiments slice behind the lead Iranian brigades, cutting them off, but are in turn attacked in their southern flank by the Iranian division's reserve brigade while the Australian brigade swings to face the lead Soviet regiments. As dusk falls the desert is a vast, confused battle, covererd in smoke from burning vehicles and dust kicked up by tracks, gunfire and artillery.

To the north, lead battalions of the 9th Infantry Division (Motorized) push beyond the positions siezed by the 101st Air Assault Division, continuing XVIII Airborne Corps' drive northward.

US Navy leaders in Washington place the damaged frigate Bagley as number 3 on a list of damaged vessels to be returned to the US via heavy lift ship, anticipated for mid-October.

[chico20854]

July 21, 1997

On Grenada, a group of Constables, assisted by retired SGM Dan Rojos and a few other retired American NCOs, surround the hideout of the Bunny Woolsey gang, a particularly brutal and ruthless gang. The gang is wiped out in the subsequent firefight, although the group's leader, the notorious criminal psychopath Bunny Woolsey, is not identified among the dead.

2nd Squadron, 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment, detached to V Corps to provide additional screening for the Warsaw perimeter, is struck by a tactical nuclear weapon while at an assembly point for resupply and refit, nearly annihilating the unit.

Unofficially,

The prosecutor in the Terminal Illness-Boston Common riot trial presents hours of footage of rioting; the defense's objection that none of the footage shows the defendants is overruled.

The US Congress repeals the assault weapons ban of 1994, allowing civilians to once again purchase new military-style semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity magazines. The actual impact of the repeal is minimal, since nearly all small arms production is devoted to the war effort.

Allied progress in North Korea slows as units run low on supplies. The limited road network is in poor condition and it (like the ports) suffered from months of Allied air attacks. The main road and rail lines in the west run through Pyongyang, which is still the object of intenst fighting as the South Korean IX Corps (composed of four reserve infantry divisions) and XI Corps (with three additional reserve divisions) push back the fanatical defenders, who believe (despite non-stop South Korean psyops broadcasts) that they are defending the Kim family.

Reconaissance units of II British Corps cross the Neman River in Byelorussia, skirting the eastern half of the city of Grodno, seeking a weak point in Soviet lines, which consist almost entirely of KGB Border Guards. As Scimitars and Scorpions of the 13th/18th Royal Hussars move east, they run into the T-80s of the newly arrived 96th MRD and quickly retreat back across the river, where the Chieftains of The Royal Hussars (Prince of Wales Own) offer heavier covering fire.

In Warsaw, Panzergruppe Oberdorff intensifies its attacks along the eastern edge of the city. The force, mostly composed of British and German troops (including two former East German NVA divisions), makes progress, with the 5th Panzer Divison's recon battalion slipping a patrol into the Praga neoghborhood, where they can observe the Wisla River and the flow of Pact defenders into the southeastern area of the perimeter.

The fighting in Bavaria continues as the Italian 4th Alpini Corps, facing increasing numbers of NATO troops to its north and west, tries to both sustain its drive into Munich and form a cohesive front line.

In Austria, the combined Czech-Soviet force (the Soviet 21st Army and the Czech 2nd Army) batters against the final Austrian defensive line, east of Linz as Hungarian troops shift west. Hungarian internal troops, poorly trained and equipped (but all that are available), attempt to establish control over the city of Vienna, abandoned by the government on the first day of the Pact invasion and passed through by Pact troops advancing from Slovakia and Hungary.

The Soviet 2nd Guards Artillery Division is withdrawn from the Kola Peninsula to the Leningrad area.

The Jugoslav advance in northeastern Italy is halted when advancing troops reach the fortified banks of the Tagliemento River, fiercely defended by Italian reservists occupying bunkers, dug-in tank turrets and pillboxes covering minefields.

The Battle of the Valley continues in central Iran as the Allied advance is halted by the Soviet 40th and 45th (my 32nd) Armies and tanks run amok in a vast cauldron of tanks, guns, dust and smoke. The clouds over the battle prevent visual identifcation of tanks, neutralizing the Allied airpower advantage. The Allied effort is reinforced by the commitment of the US 48th Infantry Brigade (Mechanized) (Georgia National Guard), whose M1A1 tanks possess the theater's best thermal sights. On the other end of the spectrum, the Soviet 69th Tanks Division (a mobilization-only unit) commits two regiments of Second World War-era T-34/85 tanks. The ancient relics perform surprisingly well, able to inflict significant damage on enemy tansk with flank and rear shots, which the confused nature of the battle permits.

Elsewhere in Iran, the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment (Light) and Iranian 18th Armored Division finally begin to capture ground from the 7th Army, which is increasingly starved of supplies as the situation elsewhere deteriorates.

[chico20854]

July 22, 1997

The British 6th Division is assigned to the Chinese 31st (my 3rd Group) Army in northwestern North Korea.

Unofficially,

The family of the 17-year old killed on the Mexican border appears on Mexican national TV. The grieving mother cries out "My son only wanted to go to America to work, so we could have money to eat. But this Yanqui shot him like a dog!"

Colonel Tumanski's stakeout of the GLCM deployment locations bears fruit, when an advanced party of C Flight, 11th Tactical Missile Squadron moves into one of the locations he had identified in February. Within an hour a convoy of 22 vehicles arrives, including four of the GLCM launchers, each loaded with four nuclear-tipped missiles. Tumanski's observation team calls for reinforcements, which arrive two hours later, by which time the Air Force Security Police have hardened their perimeter with barbed wire and claymore mines. The commandos attack anyhow, and while losing six of their ten remaining men, the Spetsnaz team succeeds in destroying one of the launchers (and the missiles aboard it) before having to flee the area.

Given the increasing scope of Soviet nuclear warfare, the Japanese War Cabinet decides to postpone the proposed Phase Two and Phase Three of their campaign to regain the Kuriles and southern Sakhalin Island.

The Italian Army diverts troops of 5th Corps - the Pozzuolo di Friuli Armored Brigade and the Gorizia Mechanized Brigade - from the Austrian front to contain the Jugoslav advance in the northeast.

The guns of the 17th Artillery Division, released from STAVKA reserve, fire their first shots from west of Lutsk, Ukraine as 1st Guards Tank Army launches a counterattack against Panzergruppe Oberdorf as that formation pauses inside Soviet borders.

NATO responds to the nuclear attack on the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment with a pair of artillery-fired munitions fired at the elite 120th Guards Motor-Rifle Division, which was massing to counterattack near Brest. The strikes hit the division's main command post and the control center for its 1045th Guards Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment, leaving it vulnerable to the next several hours of relentless (conventional) air attacks which savage the divisions gathering masses of armor.

The LSK (former East German Air Force) disbands in JG-3 (Jagdgruppe 3, fighter group), its sole remaining MiG-29 unit, as its stocks of spare parts for the aircraft have been expended and cannibalization has run its course. The remaining pilots are dispersed to other NATO air force training courses as instructors in Warsaw Pact tactics while much of the ground staff are reassigned to other roles; the least qualified (or useful) end up escorting convoys in Poland or defending airfields.

The US Navy releases SEAL Team Four to Sixth Fleet. It is flown to Rota, Spain via priority airlift.

The 112th Tactical Fighter Wing (Pennsylvania Air National Guard) in Tuzla, Jugoslavia receives a reinforcement flight of six A-7Ds, formerly from the 156th Tactical Fighter Group (Puerto Rico Air National Guard) in Panama. They are delivered by a roundabout route that ultimately included a daring low-level night flight over the Adriatic Sea.

The evacuation of Trieste is halted, and Jugoslav commanders discover that the evacuation fleet brought in reinforcements, the elite San Marco Marine Regiment.

The Victory ship Wayne Victory is fully unloaded in Bandar Abbas, departs to Muscat, Oman.

The Battle of the Valley concludes as the exhausted combatants pause to replenish diminshed stocks of fuel and ammunition. Allied forces retain control of the battlefield, while the 32nd Army's tank divisions retreat to the northwest and 40th Army, the main body of which had withdrawn northward during the battle, falls back to the airport complex of Yadz. The mobilization-only 69th Tank Division, reduced to one third strength and largely equipped with T-34s, is forced to rally on the northwest edge of the battlefield, within sight on Allied scouts. As the afternoon turns to evening a mighty artillery and aerial barrage is released on the well dispersed division, covering the hapless division with cluster bomb and ICM bomblets and laying FASCAM minefields throughout the division's area. Behind the cover of the barrage the 1st Marine Division resumes the northward drive that the battle had paused, using superior night-fighting equipment to continue the advance through the night.

The Pakistani Army commits one of its "strike" corps, the Second, (composed of mechanized units with a higher proportion of professional troops and better equipment) to try to halt the Indian advance. The attempt is less than successful, as the attacking Indian infantry (like the Chinese in 1996) simply disperse away from the armor, closing in behind them.

[pmulcahy11b]

July 22, 1997

NATO responds to the nuclear attack on the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment with a pair of artillery-fired munitions fired at the elite 120th Guards Motor-Rifle Division, which was massing to counterattack near Brest. The strikes hit the division's main command post and the control center for its 1045th Guards Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment, leaving it vulnerable to the next several hours of relentless (conventional) air attacks which savage the division's gathering masses of armor.

Just a point of interest: The Artillery gunners call nuclear artillery rounds "golden bullets" due to the color of the fuze sections. They otherwise look like standard shells except for the labeling.

[cawest]

with the battle of the Valley over. i could see first Iranian support units and then Allied supply people looking for parts or to see if they can recover combat units of all types. i could see an INF being okay with a t-34 with a recovered quad 14.7 or 23mm also maybe something like a t-100s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34_variants#/media/File:T-100-latrun-2.jpg

[chico20854]

July 23, 1997

Nothing official for the day! Unofficially,

The former commanding general of the Army Training and Doctrine Command, relieved of command in June after multiple scandals, is charged with dereliction of duty and conduct unbecoming an officer.

The prosecution in the Terminal Illness riot trial rests.

As the Chinese government struggles to retain some semblance of control over its rapidly disintegrating army, it decides to do what it can to throw the Soviet advance off guard. Seeing that the only area that Chinese forces are not in retreat is the force in North Korea, it commits the 15th Airborne Army (consisting of three lightly equipped but well-trained airborne divisions) to action in the growing Chinese bridgehead across the Yalu.

The USS Midway arrives in the Gulf of Alaska, and almost immediately its S-3s detect a submarine contact about 350 miles west of Juneau. The report is relayed to the attack submarine USS Baton Rouge, attached to the battlegroup, and the USS Houston, hunting in the region. Both attack submarines head for the contact area and the Houston intercepts a Soviet Delta III-class nuclear missile boat, and after several hours of a game of cat and mouse, succeeds in putting a torpedo in her. The Baton Rouge, in turn, encounters a suspected Akula-class attack submarine, and also succeeds in at least damaging it with a torpedo. The Baton Rouge is damaged in turn by a torpedo intercepting a towed decoy at close range, forcing her to disengage and head home. Post-war, the Delta III is identified as the K-44, which was severely damaged but made it back to Fokino, and the Akula is identified as the K-322, which was apparently sunk by the Baton Rouge, as it made no further contact.

In western Ukraine, 1st Guards Tank Army's attack makes modest progress as Panzergruppe Oberdorff, deprived of the paratroopers of the 27th FallshirmJaeger Brigade and worn out by months of nearly continuous combat, nearly runs out of momentum. The dispersed frontage and long cable runs between antennas and command posts required to minimize damage from Soviet tactical nuclear weapons require more soldiers to secure. Resupply is problematic at this distance, with ammunition from America traveling across the Atlantic, through German or Dutch ports, onto battered rail lines through war-damaged East Germany and Poland to a field ammunition facility on the east bank of the Wisła before being loaded onto trucks for the journey across eastern Poland and to a corps-level supply dump just over the Ukrainian border. Once there, the anxious ordnance troops are eager to get the rounds forward, afraid that a large stock of munitions will present a juicy target for Soviet attackers of many flavors.

In central Poland, German troops of I Korps (the 1st GebirgsJaeger Division, the 5th Grenzjaeger Division and 3rd Panzer Division) make another attempt to eliminate the Torun Pocket, which holds significant portions of the Polish 4th Army and Soviet 4th Guards TankArmy and 22nd Army.

The Danish 2nd Zeeland Mechanized Brigade enters in action in Bavaria, arriving in the city of Augsburg just moments before troops of the Italian Tridentina Alpine Brigade. The Danes are able to feed companies into the battle piecemeal, keeping the more lightly equipped Italians off-balance.

American troops in the battle for Warsaw continue their slow slogging drive into the city. Troops of the 1st Battalion, 160th Infantry (part of the 40th Infantry Division) drive the Polish defenders of the former Fort Służew, a still heavily protected remnant of the city's 19th century defenses and prewar home of the highest ranking generals in the Polish Army.

As trains arrive in Pushkin, a suburb of Leningrad, carrying elements of the 2nd Guards Artillery Division, those guns that are serviceable and the most experienced troops are diverted to a holding area. Within hours they are loaded back onto railcars and begin the short journey through the Baltic Republics to the Polish border, transferred to the 149th Guards Artillery Division, which has suffered from months in action.

The Jugoslav army's 14th Engineer Regiment supports an assault crossing of the Tagliemento River by infantry of the 228th Motorized Infantry Brigade. The attack, at dusk, is broken up by Italian MLRS rocket fire, which disrupts the marshalling area on the east bank of the river, while Italian light attack aircraft (the G.91s of the 32nd Stormo) suppress the guns of the Jugoslav 14th Artillery Regiment, aiming at the muzzle flashes in the darkness.

The Victory ship Wayne Victory arrives in Muscat, Oman, empty.

Pasdaran irregulars attack the isolated and immobilized remnants of the 69th Tank Division, seeking out survivors as well as useful intelligence (such as the 32nd Army code book found on the body of a T-34 tank battalion commander the prior day). The Pasdaran, ironically, suffer nearly as many casualties from the unexploded ordnance and artillery-laid minefields laid by friendly forces as they do from the scattered and shell-shocked remnants of the Soviet division.

The Marines of the 1st Marine Division capture the heights to the south and west of Yadz, driving back exhausted soldiers of the Soviet 40th Army (veterans of the mountain fighting in Afghanistan). From their perches they are able to direct accurate artillery fire and airstrikes on the defenders. (Their air support is especially effective as their supporting squadrons make use of recently recaptured airstrips nearby as well as the spacious Shiraz International Airport).

US Navy leaders divide the crew of the damaged frigate Bagley in Mombasa, Kenya to various duties while awaiting the arrival of a heavy lift ship. Some are assigned to provide local security for the ship and adjacent support activities, some to serve as advisors to the Kenyan Navy while others are flown to other war zones to serve as replacements aboard other ships.

[dragoon500ly]

Was chemical release a trigger

You have to remember that the US considered chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons to all be "weapons of mass destruction."


Officially the U.S. no longer had chemical or biological weapons, so the use of any of these two weapons would trigger a response by nuclear weapons.

[Homer]

You have to remember that the US considered chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons to all be "weapons of mass destruction."


Officially the U.S. no longer had chemical or biological weapons, so the use of any of these two weapons would trigger a response by nuclear weapons.

True, if CWC implementation was followed through, the weapons would be at Johnston Atoll, PB arsenal or elsewhere for destruction. Not sure if the CWC process went down the same way in T2K- could easily see it not happening.

That said, my question was more related to the 55th SRW dispersing earlier than the remainder of the strategic force. Its assets have a pre and post attack C2 and targeting role. I was curious about the the trigger for their dispersal considering it happened in CONUS in advance of the initiation of nuclear warfare and separate of other assets dispersing. Since pact CW use did not trigger a US/NATO nuclear response I wondered if it increased the readiness posture of US strategic forces or if the dispersal was just coincidence.

[chico20854]

July 24, 1997

Following the prior days advances, the US 1st Marine Division captures Yadz and the airfields in the area, driving the 40th Army into the desert to the north.

The Federal Reserve Bank moves 80 tons of gold from its facility in Manhattan to Long Island for safekeeping.

The German 10th Panzer Division is pulled from the Warsaw perimeter, ordered to rapidly redeploy to Bavaria to help stop the Italian invasion.

Unofficially,

A fourth R-5D hypersonic spy plane is delivered from Palmdale, California.

There is another "incident" on the Mexican border where civilians open fire on Mexican immigrants.

Soviet troops in Alaska continue to make slow progress; the American defense line at the base of the Seward Peninsula crumbles away as supplies run low and Soviet hovercraft interdict surface traffic along the Yukon River.
The 11th Airborne Division, which has only a single battalion of Second World War artillery, receives a high-priority airlift of eight M-101 105mm howitzers, part of the contingent of guns retreived from Argentina in the spring.

SACEUR, respecting the North Atlantic Council's guidance to limit use of tactical nuclear weapons to a level directly proportional to that of the USSR, yet needing to augment the ability of his nearly overstretched forces, authorizes widespread deployment of chemical weapons. Heavily escorted convoys soon leave storage sites in western Germany and the Netherlands, mostly heading to nearby air bases where select USAF C-130 squadrons have aircraft waiting.

In the air over Bavaria Allied interceptors continue their battles against the Aeronautica Militare, the Italian Air Force, whose Tornado bombers have wreaked havoc in their dashes over the Alps to strike outnumbered NATO formations. The arrival of the RAF's No. 618 Squadron, with its remaining six Typhoons, American F-22s of the 32nd Tactical Fighter Squadron and RAF Tornado F.3 fighters from No. 23 Squadron, turned the tide in the air, as the AM's 1960s-era F-104Ss are outmatched by the top-of-the-line NATO fighters.

Austrian resistance in the Danube Valley breaks after sustaining days of concentrated Warsaw Pact attacks. The remnants of the 1st PanzerGrenadier Division retreat west to try to augment the defense of Linz, guarded by reservists, while many of the territorials that survived the Pact attacks begin guerilla fighting or head for the safety of the hills and mountains, where Italian and Pact troops dare not go.

SACEUR orders the evacuation of all remaining tactical nuclear weapons from weapon storage sites in Bavaria; some are (by a series of highly classified airlift flights) transferred to Turkey to augment the several dozen B-61 bombs already at four Turkish air bases.

The Soviets strike the American 28th Infantry Division (Pennsylvania National Guard) with a tactical nuclear weapon, a 152mm round that destroys the 28th Signal Battalion's Node Center Switch, one of the links between the tactical radio system and the division- and corps-level Mobile Subscriber Equipment field telephone system. Within two hours the division has activated its backup switch, but the strike leaves the division's troops shaken.

The Italian Army forms a new Corps-level command to oversee the war against Jugoslavia. The command is called Forza Dalmatia and it takes over the units holding the line in the northeast.

XVIII Airborne Corps in Iran makes striking progress as Soviet resistance falters; 45th (my 32nd) Army is capable only of defending Esfahan from IPA attacks while 7th Army is tied down trying to contain the Allied mechanized attack towards Ahvaz; other Soviet formations are withdrawing as quickly as they can.

[chico20854]

July 25, 1997

In Iran, the 101st Air Assault Division launches another predawn air assault, this one against the city of Qom, less than 90 miles south of Tehran and considerer a holy city by Shia Muslims. The assault catches the Soviets off guard, and by dusk the 9th Infantry Division, displaying its remarkable mobility, has pushed its advanced battalions to link up with the 101st. The entire effort is screened by the attack helicopters of the 6th ACCB, which break up a Soviet counterattack before it is even launched.

The Turkish 33rd Infantry Division is assigned to IV (my VI) Corps for internal administrative duties in the city of Zonguldak on the Black Sea coast east of Istanbul. (Unofficially) The division has taken heavy losses over the past several months in action in Bulgaria. Its place on the front lines is taken by the 39th Infantry Brigade and 5th Armored Brigade, both of which have been held in reserve to respond to any Greek landing along the Aegean coast.

Additionally, and unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship Shreveport Freedom is delivered in Beaumont, Texas.

The aircraft carrier Lexington arrives in Mobile, Alabama, where barge-mounted cranes remove the remaining fixed-wing aircraft.

The judge in the Terminal Illness riot trial orders the defense to wrap up its case, citing the desire of many of the jurors to evacuate the city as rumors swirl of expanding nuclear war.

Outside Anchorage, Soviet troops of the 13th Guards Air Assault Division sink the US Coast Guard patrol boat Roanoke Island, which is operating close to shore, supporting defenders from the 47th Infantry Division with its twin 25mm autocannons.

In North Korea, Allied forces, led by the American 163rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, force their way across the Chongchon River 40 miles north of Pyongyang, entering the rough terrain between that river and the Yalu. The People's Liberation Army is less than 50 miles away, making slow progress while the rest of its units in Manchuria disintegrate under repeated Soviet tactical nuclear attacks. (The Far Eastern TVD is using, on average, eight warheads a day, striking units as small as battalions as well as logistic and communications sites, airfields and headquarters.)

The USS Midway's air wing appears in the skies over the Cook Inlet in Alaska; thanks to local residents' efforts to pass word from behind the lines the attack aircraft are able to accurately hit the 13th Guards Air Assault Division's main supply dump, severely limiting the division's ability to continue its advance on Anchorage.

American troops make the first use of chemical weapons on the central front when a battery of M109 howitzers from VII Corps conduct an "artillery raid" in Ukraine. The battery rushes forward, halting less than a half mile behind the front line positions held by the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment and fire 32 M110 mustard gas rounds (four rounds per gun) at a railroad siding a little over 18 km away. (The railroad siding is being used by the 1st Shock Army to unload ammunition; the use of a persistent blister agent assures that the site will be rendered unusable for several weeks). The guns "shoot and scoot" - departing the front line immediately after firing to evade Soviet counterbattery fire.

Italian troops reach the center of Munich, pausing to snap photos of themselves with the Glockenspeil on the town hall in the Marienplatz. German territorial troops had been ordered to withdraw rather than have the historic city center be destroyed in urban fighting. The Luftwaffe evacuates the last of its troops, aircraft and supplies from the Erding airbase outside the city, joining those evacuated from the Lechfeld air base a few days before at Baden-Soellingen, a Canadian air base in southwestern Germany that the RCAF has only been using as a support facility, its remaining F/A-18s in action far to the east over Poland and the USSR.

XX US Corps halts the Italian advance to the west along the base of the Alps, holding the line of the Iller River, which forms the western border of Bavaria.

The Austrian defense of Linz collapses and the government evacuates, along with all available Bundesheer forces, to German territory, pursued by Czech and Soviet troops. Along the front in Poland and the western USSR the front remains largely static as both sides try to regroup, resupply their exhausted forces and dig in to protect themselves from a possible tactical nuclear strike.

US Navy and Air Force aircraft (operating from Turkish bases) try to blast clear a corridor through the few Bulgarian air defenses, opening a transit route into Romania and Jugslavia. The route is only useable by military transports flying under escort at medium altitude (out of the range of Bulgarian anti-aircraft guns), but it allows the resumption of regular resupply of the 71st Airborne Brigade and support of embattled Jugoslavia and Romania.

The final elements of the 5th Marine Division complete loading at Little Creek, Virginia and set sail as part of Convoy 158, which also carries the equipment of the 36th Armored Brigade (to be parceled out as loss replacements upon arrival in Germany) and what replacement vehicles and munitions that can be scraped together from around the US.

The first shipment of steel plate from the burned-out battlecruiser Rossiya arrives in Nikolaev for installation aboard the helicopter carrier Leningrad.

[chico20854]

July 26, 1997

Nothing official for today. Unofficially,

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

3rd Brigade, 11th Airborne Division completes JRTC-2 Rotation 97-9, is declared combat ready and immediately loaded onboard aircraft for transfer to the front in Alaska alongside the remainder of the division.

The commander of Long-Range Aviation and the Minister of Agriculture proudly report to the Politburo that they have now sprayed over 25,000 hectares of Chinese rice fields with rice blast spores, ensuring that any harvest in southern China will be poor.

The Soviet 28th Army's 50th Guards Motor-Rifle Division enters the city of Nanning in southeastern China after a Tu-22M Backfire drops a TN-1000 30kt bomb on the defenders outside the city. The roads in all directions are flooded with refugees fleeing it and other cities nearby.

The German government endorses efforts already underway by the Land (state) governments of Saarland, Rheinland-Pfalz, Burden-Wurttemberg and Nordhein-Westfalen to establish refugee housing facilities west of the Rhine River to host the numerous internally displaced people that are flowing west to avoid the fighting. The move frees some federal facilities - barracks and empty depots, among others - for use to house refugees, as well as providing funding and more support from the German Red Cross.

The Italian Army, facing increasing NATO resistance, begins routing additional mechanized forces into Germany, through the overloaded mountain passes as well as the more circuitous route through Vienna and up the Danube Valley. Hungarian troops of the 1st Corps remain in Austria, securing Pact supply lines and launching raids into areas where Austrian stay-behind units are still active.

The Soviets hit the the airbase at Biała Podlaska, with its 10,000-foot runway and adjacent rail line and highways with a nuclear-tipped SS-21 missile, disrupting the vital logistic hub for the central sector of the NATO front.

The commander of the Soviet 23rd Army, appalled at the materiel condition of the newly-arrived mobilization-only 73rd Tank Division (half the requisite number of tanks (all worn-out T-54s), a third the required number of APCs and heavy mortars instead of howitzers, with only one battalion of D-1 howitzers left over from World War Two) brings it up to full strength by raiding the stockpile of the 233rd Rear Area Protection Division, seizing its T-34s, and stripping the MVDs 347th Guard Regiment of its best men and APCs so the 73rd will have a nearly full complement of motor-rifle troops. Even so equipped, the army commander keeps the formation in reserve, only using it for the initial exploitation of any breakthroughs lest it encounter counterattacking modern NATO armor.

Danish mine warfare forces clear a path to the burned-out hulk of the USS Iowa. A salvage party is landed on the bow from a helicopter; they quickly establish that the battleship had detonated two mines while adrift. The stern of the ship has been burnt out from the fires that followed Polish kamikaze attack, so it appears that towing the massive ship from the bow will be most feasible. That will, however, require additional mine clearing to create room to turn the ship around.

Convoy 158 is joined by three Freedom ships - the Austin, Birmingham and Oklahoma - which have departed Philadelphia loaded with munitions and vehicles newly produced by American war industries.

The Victory ship Wayne Victory begins loading a cargo of aluminum ingots in Muscat, Oman.

XVIII Airborne Corps and CENTCOM support units scramble to keep up with the combat units which have advanced 350 miles in a month and are fighting on a front line that stretches over 1000 miles through harsh desert and mountains in a war-torn country thousands of miles from home. Meanwhile, the combat units' effectiveness is gradually diminishing, as replacements are slow to arrive and the rapid advance drive the soldiers to exhaustion.

Soviet naval architects in Nikolaev are confounded, trying to figure out how to graft the steel that arrived from Leningrad the prior day onto the hull of a different ship. The battlecruiser's steel is thicker, of a different alloy and already bent to conform to the original ship's hull form. (One complains privately to a peer that "only in the Soviet Union would the leadership make such a ridiculous decision!").

The Boeing Skyfox light attack jets make their combat debut (at least in American employment) in Colombia as yet another town - brego, in the east - is under threat of being overrun by a mixed force of Marxist guerillas, Venezuelan Army troops and Cuban advisors. The aircraft performs admirably, using a mix of gun pods, napalm tanks and cluster bombs to disrupt the attack.

[chico20854]

July 27, 1997

After weeks of battering the Soviet 7th Army, the US 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) captures Ahvaz.

Unofficially,

A patrol of the Canadian Native Ranger Regiment intercepts a Spetsnaz group near the Iqaluit air base on Baffin Island in the northeastern Canadian Arctic. The Soviet group is eliminated in the subsequent firefight, when the native group calls in reinforcements, including a strike by the F-16s stationed at the base.

Despite the setbacks, the 13th Guards Air Assault Division (reinforced with a battalion group of survivors from the 130th Air Assault Brigade) and the 1st Arctic Mechanized Brigade break through the last substantial defense line outside Anchorage, held by a force of the 172nd Infantry Brigade, 2nd Infantry Brigade (Arctic Recon) and 47th Infantry Division.

The American supply ship USS Sacramento, rushing at 25 knots from the nuclear aircraft carrier strike group to the logistic support fleet orbiting in the eastern Sea of Japan passes over the Soviet submarine Kilo-class B-486 lurking submerged at 250 feet. The Soviet commander takes the opportunity, shooting two wake-homing torpedoes at the speeding oiler. One is distracted by the ship's Nixie decoy but the other one hits, bursting the seals around the propeller shafts. The onrushing water floods the ship's engine room and extinguishes the boilers, and a UH-46 replenishment helicopter, being moved into the ship's hangar, is tossed on its side by the shock and bursts into flame. With the power out, efforts to save the vessel fail and it slips beneath the waves.

The last of the fresh Danish units, the 1st Zeeland Mechanized Brigade, arrives at the front in Bavaria after a hasty transfer from northwestern Poland. It joins its sister Danish formation in the defense of Augsburg.

A R-5D Aurora hypersonic spy plane, aircraft #2, explodes over the Norwegian Sea, likely as a result of a catastrophic fuel system failure.

A major naval action erupts in the eastern Baltic as a force of NATO (East and West German, Norwegian and Danish) patrol boats intercept a Soviet reinforcement convoy headed from Leningrad to beleaguered Kaliningrad. Under jamming cover provided by a pair of American B-52s of the 379th Bomb Wing, the fast attack craft blast past the escorting missile boats and corvettes, launch a volley of missiles at the convoy flagship (the cruiser Admiral Zozulya) and rake the transports with gun, missile and torpedo fire. They escape with the loss of only two boats - the former East German Hans Coppi and the West German Dachs.

In the Mediterranean, the US carrier task force (Task Force 60) turns its attentions to Italy, striking the Lecce-Galatina, Casale and Grattaglie air bases. Meanwhile, the F-111s of the 495th Tactical Fighter Squadron strike the Italian Decimomannu Air Force Base in Sardinia. The Italian Air Force leadership is forced to pull squadrons from the German theater to defend the south of the country, leaving its forces in Bavaria vulnerable to attack from Allied airpower there.

To further disrupt Allied efforts, the Soviets launch an attack on eastern Turkey, driving on the city of Kars. The 42nd Corps, reinforced by KGB border guard units, cross the border at three points - from Akhaltsikhe in Georgia, across the Armenian border from Leninabad on a broad front, and along the highway from Tabriz, Iran. The Turks are caught off guard, the understrength border guard units fighting fiercely but outgunned by fresh Soviet troops. Nearly all Turkish air support is devoted to the fighting in the west, largely leaving the USAF units (the depleted 149th Tactical Fighter Group, down to 11 F-16As) to oppose the Soviet attack.

Pakistan, desperate to halt the flood of Indian infantry and prevent the breakthrough near Lahore from becoming a massive gap in its front line, commits several battalions of its paramilitary Frontier Constabulary, hastily relocated from the northwestern portion of the country.

[ToughOmbres]

Do you think by now in the conflict Portugal's Mechanized Brigade which was IRL earmarked for NATO would have entered combat or been retained in Portugal

[chico20854]

July 28, 1997

The Soviet counteroffensive in Poland begins with the Battle of Brest where the 1st German Army is hit by the 3rd Guards and 8th Guards (my 30th Guards) Tank Divisions.

GRU and Spetsnaz teams penetrate American lines in Iran. They locate and attack US 3rd Army Headquarters, killing General Barbaneri, his chief of staff, and the commander of the 3rd Army. The raiders are all captured or killed, but in one stroke, CENTCOM and the 3rd Army are left leaderless as the Soviets begin their counteroffensive.

Unofficially,

Lead elements of the 3rd Brigade, 11th Airborne Division arrive at Ladd Army Airfield, Alaska. Their arrival is too late to halt the retreat of X Corps' northern grouping, which is withdrawing towards Fairbanks under pressure from the Soviet 25th Corps, and in the south the defense of Anchorage collapses. The Air Force evacuates Elmendorf Air Force Base and X Corps orders remaining Army units to evacuate in two directions. The 172nd Infantry Brigade and 47th Infantry Division are ordered to retreat east, defending the approaches to the Canadian border, while the 2nd Infantry Brigade (Arctic Recon) withdraws northeast to Fort Greely.

NATO counters the Soviet nuclear attack on the 26th against the logistics hub of Biała Podlaska with a nuclear ATACMS strike against the rail junction of Kovel, where six important rail lines converge (many of which are feeding reinforcements and supplies into the region). The Soviets use a tactical nuclear round to blast a hole in the German defense line outside Brest, but discover that the scientists are right - the 2.5 kt 152mm artillery round destroys only two platoons of tanks, thanks to the hardened nature of the vehicles and the emplacements that combat engineers have dug them in to.

In Warsaw, NATO forces continue to press towards the city center against fierce resistance. British and German troops have reached the Prage neighborhood, and artillery forward observers have visual sighting of the Wisla River, enabling artillery attacks on the fleet of small boats that have supplanted the bridges (which are exposed to random NATO interdiction fire) as the major means of transport across the river. East German VOPO (riot police loyal to Communism) troops begin public executions of those suspected of hoarding food, deserting the city's defense forces, or even expressing views critical of the (absent) Polish or Pact leadership.

F-111Fs of the 495th Tactical Fighter Squadron strike the Italian naval base at La Maddalena, Sardinia. The 8th Marine Expeditionary Brigade embarks aboard additional amphibious shipping - the assault carriers Iwo Jima, Wasp and Saipan and their groups - in Gibraltar and Rota, Spain.

The Italian Fotza Dalmatia, reinforced with the Mantova Mechanized Brigade, diverted from occupation duty in Austria, launches a major counterattack to drive the Jugoslav forces out of northeastern Italy.

Soviet forces (the 19th Motor-Rifle Division) break through Turkish defenses north of Kars, Turkey but are unable to advance rapidly due to nearly continuous ambushes by small detachments of Turkish mountain troops. To their east, the other Soviet division, the 42nd Motor-Rifle (a training unit hastily committed to action), reinforced with the 39th KGB Border Guard Brigade and generous artillery support, attacks the Turkish 14th Mechanized Brigades sector. The line of Turkish defensive outposts along the broder is obliterated by massed heavy artillery fire and the 14th's deployment to the field is disrupted by vehicles that would not start and crews that have not trained together. By the end of the day the 42nd has advanced over 10 miles into Turkey, blessed with more favorable terrain than the division to the north.