On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[chico20854]

October 7, 1997

Nothing in canon for today. Unofficially,

The light frigate USS Camp is delivered in Panama City, Florida and manned by USCG personnel. The tanker Chikaskia is delivered in Newport News, Virginia and placed into naval service, manned by a mix of naval and civilian sailors.

Polish civil defense authorities resist the demands from high Party officials to enter the still-burning ruins of Warsaw to put out fires and begin rescue and restoration work. The General in charge of civil defense responds that the area is still too radioactive, is infested with unexploded ordnance from the recent siege and that his remaining overworked troops (many have been press-ganged into Army service as engineers and infantrymen) are better used restoring less-heavily damaged areas of the country.

Reorganized troops of the 35th Army in North Korea are able to resume some offensive action following the nuclear attack on their supply lines. The pontoon bridges have been replaced by a more primitive method - forced-labor by North Korean civilians taking loads across the river in small boats and rafts.

The Virginia group is finally able to establish a solid enough situation to engage the suspected Soviet boomer east of Greenland. A helicopter from the cruiser, piloted by Lt. Hans Brupp, drops a B-57 nuclear depth charge on the contact, identified by postwar research as the Yankee Notch-class cruise missile sub K-423, sinking it.

Romanian troops in Bucharest are forced out of the train station by a massive Soviet counterattack that is supported by a combined force of Su-130 assault guns and 2S3 152mm self-propelled howitzers firing in direct-fire mode. The fierce Soviet firepower sets the building ablaze and the roof collapses, forcing the remaining defenders into the tunnels under the building.

Bulgarian and Greek troops link up east of Skopje, Macedonia, having defeated or run off the last Jugoslav defenders in the southeastern portion of the nation.

[chico20854]

October 8, 1997

Nothing official for today!

R-5D spy plane number 6 is delivered in Palmdale, California.

Naval experts across the US are frantically searching old warehouses and back lots of naval bases and arranging visits to museum ships across the country as the naval ship repair organization struggles to come up with the parts to complete the reactivation of three Essex-class carriers - the Oriskany, Bennington and Hornet and the Independence-class light carrier Cabot as well as repair damage to the aged carriers Lexington and Midway, which have returned to the US in need of major repairs to systems that have been out of production for decades.

Allied troops finally begin to evacuate the ruined city of Hamhung, North Korea after weeks of pounding from Soviet forces and their ragtag North Korean allies. The fighting has left the city a mostly depopulated ruin, with the meagre industrial capacity leveled and the port clogged with wreckage and sunken craft.

A hasty reorganization occurs among units of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, which happen to be located in the UK. The 112th Tactical Fighter Group, evacuated from Jugoslavia and equipped with 9 A-7Ds, is effectively disbanded. Its subordinate 146th Tactical Fighter Squadron hands over its aircraft (and associated ground crew and experienced pilots) to the 132nd Tactical Fighter Wing (Iowa Air National Guard) in Germany, the only other A-7 unit in the Western European Theatre. The 146th is then re-designated an Air Refueling Squadron and assigned to the Pennsylvania Air Guard's 171st Air Refueling Wing at RAF Fairford. Simultaneously, nine KC-767 tankers, which have been gradually arriving in theatre and assigned on an ad-hoc basis to other 171st ARW squadrons, are transferred to the 146th, allowing planning, support and maintenance of the type to be centralized in a single organization.

Building on the strikes on Soviet rail lines in September, NATO executes a round of nuclear strikes on Czechoslovakian transportation sites and petroleum pipelines. In this round of attacks, Ground Launched Cruise Missiles fired from the UK substitute for deep-strike aircraft, which have suffered heavy losses over the nearly year of action. The attacks hit railyards, bridges, tunnels and highway junctions that are vital to transferring the relative trickle of supplies to the Western TVD.

The 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment, surrounded in central Poland, endures another round of intense Soviet artillery attacks. The unit is dispersed in rough terrain to avoid creating a lucrative target for a Soviet nuclear strike, but supplies are running low and most of the regiment's armor is immobilized due to lack of fuel. The regiment's air cavalry squadron, depleted by the drive from East Germany into the Ukraine, has evacuated to the west, temporarily bringing the 116th Armored Cavalry Regiment's air cav unit up to near-full strength.

The destroyer USS John Rodgers is sunk in the Aegean Sea by a torpedo from the Greek Type 209 sub Proteus as it escorts the battleship Wisconsin towards the Turkish Straits.

The first Bulgarian reconnaissance units arrive opposite the Turkish defensive line west of Istanbul. The Turks have managed to throw up a somewhat formidable defensive line in a few days, assisted by a massive number of civilian volunteers who are less than eager to see Soviet troops in their fine city. To the northwest, the Soviet 810th Naval Infantry Brigade embarks on a collection of naval amphibious and small civilian merchant ships in the Danube Delta.

XVIII Airborne Corps units are hard pressed to hold off the Soviet assaults on their front lines. The 101st and 9th Divisions rely on Iranian allies to defend their fixed base areas while the combat troops rely on their superior mobility to strike at the Soviets' flanks and rear and exploit the speed and superior mobility of their lighter force structure.

[chico20854]

October 9, 1997

Students of St George's Medical University in Grenada complete their vaccination drive against "the flu"; over 90% of the island's surviving population has received the jab, although one third of the prewar population has succumbed to the disease.

The Dutch 105th Recon Battalion is withdrawn to the Netherlands for refit following heavy losses to the Italian air force and army in southern Germany.

Unofficially,

The Army staff at the Pentagon authorizes the immediate raising of 20 medium and heavy truck companies to help address the growing shortage of transportation capacity in the theaters of war. Each medium company will field 60 Mack 8-ton trucks, while the heavy companies will be equipped with 96 tank transporters, military conversions of civilian heavy trucks that are underused by the Army but being produced in adequate numbers to equip the new units.

In reserve in a series of dispersed camps in central Germany, the American 75th Field Artillery Brigade is re-equipped following its transfer of its remaining MLRS launchers - it receives a full contingent of Lance missile launchers. Many of the senior officers and NCOs of the brigade's MLRS battalions are familiar with the older system and begin a series of rapid training classes to bring the junior troops up to speed on the short-range rockets. The new launchers are accompanied by four light infantry companies to serve as guards for the launchers and their nuclear warheads (all the conventional missiles were expended by allies months ago).

The last American troops (bar a handful of isolated pre-designated stay behind parties) evacuate Ingolstadt, while the main body of VII Corps withdraws into the uplands dividing the Danube and Main valleys. VII Corps' engineer brigade - the 7th - prepares obstacles to reinforce the natural barrier of the steep-sided and deep Altmhl River Valley. Pact forces in Poland keep up their relentless advance, with NATO forces aggressively counterattacking any Soviet or Polish units that achieve breakthroughs. Often these take the form of a tactical nuclear strike at the base of a Pact salient, followed by a vigorous armored thrust to cut off the forward elements.

The German destroyer Molders, operating in the Baltic protecting coastal shipping and providing air defense along the northern Polish coast, is attacked by a trio of Frontal Aviation Su-24s. The destroyer shoots two of them down but is hit by three AS-10 missiles from the last one, setting it afire and adrift.

The Wisconsin surface action group continues its foray into the Aegean Sea, covered by aircraft from the John F. Kennedy, whose squadrons have been augmented by aircraft and pilots from the damaged America. The Greek Navy makes an appearance, but after sighting the battlewagon (and losing a pair of destroyers to its guns) they flee to remote harbors and bays until the overwhelming power of the American group moves on. Once beyond Crete, the battleship and its escorts unleash a volley of nuclear-tipped TLAM cruise missiles, which strike all four of Greece's refineries, incinerating them and forcing Greece to rely on fuel imported overland from Bulgaria (which, in turn, is reliant on crude supplied by ports in the Black Sea which were struck several weeks ago by American nuclear weapons.

[chico20854]

October 10, 1997

The 6th ACCB and 82nd Airborne Division, in Saudi Arabia, are reported combat ready. The 82nd has been in reserve since May, and the 6th since August. During that time, they had absorbed the bulk of what few replacements had been sent from the US. The 6th ACCB had been able to replace some of its aircraft and aircrew losses.

Unofficially,

The light frigate USS Howard D. Crow is delivered in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin and manned by USCG personnel. The troop transport General Patch is reactivated from reserve in Philadelphia and towed, without a crew, south to the Chesapeake Bay, where it is anchored in St. Mary's, Maryland (at the mouth of the Potomac River) to serve as evacuee housing.

The 72nd Field Artillery Brigade's brief rest in the eastern Netherlands comes to its conclusion, the rest was brief, as it is rushed to the front in southern Germany under the command of XX Corps, helping to halt the Pact advance out of Bavaria.

The USS Virginia, hunting for Soviet subs in the western Norwegian Sea, is attacked by its quarry, the Akula-class attack submarine K-154, one of the most advanced subs in the Northern Fleet. The nuclear-powered cruiser is damaged by detonation of a torpedo warhead that struck Virginia's towed decoy; the blast damages one of the cruiser's rudders and causes leaks in the port propeller shaft. The sub goes on to attack another combatant in the hunter-killer group - the frigate Joseph Hewes, which is blown apart by two Soviet torpedoes.

The end comes for the Romanian government in Bucharest. The commander of the Southwestern TVD declares "we finally have all the rats cornered" and orders a rapid withdrawal of Soviet and Bulgarian troops from central Bucharest, followed shortly thereafter by five artillery-fired tactical nuclear strikes centered on the massive Palace of the People and the surrounding government and historic districts. The strikes result in massive civilian casualties (much like in Kiev, Warsaw and Minsk) and the final collapse of the Romanian government.

Romanian resistance to Soviet occupation, however, continues. Soviet, Bulgarian and Hungarian troops in the country are quickly discovering that the population remains hostile and it is best to travel in large, heavily armed groups and that the highlands of the Carpathians are strictly off limits to any force that is not well stocked with ammunition and with ready air support.

The Greek junta further tightens rationing of gasoline and diesel fuel, effectively reserving all remaining stocks for military use. Rolling blackouts accompany the shutdown of over 1.2 gigawatts of electrical generating capacity that are taken offline as remaining fuel oil stocks are requisitioned to sustain military operations.

US Air Force Europe is stripped of six squadrons of C-130s, which begin a transit to Saudi Arabia via Spain and Egypt. Military Airlift Command likewise dispatches multiple squadrons of C-17s and C-141s to the CENTCOM area of responsibility.

[chico20854]

October 11, 1997

The 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment, surrounded in southern Poland for over a week, expends the last of its vehicles ammunition in blasting a hole in the lines of the Polish and Soviet troops that have cut it off and begins to break out on foot, abandoning its vehicles.

Unofficially,

The Freedom ship Oklahoma City Freedom is delivered in Galveston, Texas.

In an attempt to slow the flow of weapons and reinforcements into China, the Soviets strike the port of Hong Kong with a 10kt bomb dropped by a Su-24. The strike is sufficient to halt operations at the port, sinking the large containership Newport Bay at its berth, destroying the operations center and convincing the surviving stevedores (the world's most productive) that their work is not worth the risk to their lives.

In North Korea, Allied troops continue to gradually give ground under pressure from Soviet nuclear strikes and a relatively-well supplied 30th and 35th Armies.

The American attack submarine Olympia sinks the Soviet troop transport Alla Tarasova, which is ferrying personnel from Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic, with a trio of Mk-48 torpedoes.

The Bulgarian Army makes an unsuccessful attempt to storm the Turkish defensive lines outside Istanbul. The Turkish outer pickets fall back in the face of Bulgarian armor (mostly composed of older T-55s and T-62s, with a sprinkling of T-34s thrown in to bring numbers up), luring the Pact tanks into an elaborately prepared urban armor ambush, with Turkish anti-tank teams located in basements and upper floors of multi-story buildings to attack the tank's weak spots. Only a scattered handfuls of survivors of the Bulgarian 104th Tank Regiment make their way back to friendly lines.

[chico20854]

October 12, 1997

Two battalions of Rangers and 82nd Airborne Division pathfinders are dropped into the Tabriz area. Accompanying them is the young female American journalist Fanya Ayn Wilkerson, who films the spectacular airborne assault upon Tabriz. The eerie grey-green of her low light-level mini-cam as she films the ghostly arrival of 6000 paratroopers descending in silence upon the sleeping city jolts the nation on the six o'clock news when it airs.

(Unofficially) The US Department of Agriculture signs a series of major procurement contracts at the onset of the nation's fall harvest. The USDA buys over 100,000 tons of grain throughout the country, arranging for much of it to be stored in commercial grain handling facilities and additional amounts to be stored aboard covered barges in the inland waterway system. The purchase serves a dual purpose - to provide FEMA with a ready reserve if the nuclear exchange in Europe is to disrupt commerical food distribution in the US or elsewhere in the world, and (for the third fall in a row) to offset the loss of farmer's income from the cutoff of grain sales to the USSR and its satellites. (Officially) Despite these actions, the glut of food produced results in low prices for the commodities and many farmers hang on to their harvest awaiting higher prices.

Czestochowa, Poland is incinerated by a 150kt blast from an American cruise missile, leaving the city smoking rubble.

Unofficially,

A team from Army Materiel Command, in one of the war's more audacious missions for its personnel, travels to North Kroea to meet with soldiers from the 7th Infantry Division (Light) about their experience with the PAMSS shelter systems. The Palletized Armored Shelter Systems were fielded in early September to the division, offering an improved portable hedquarters environment for combat commands. The response from the units that received the prototype units are mixed - they, to a man (and woman), find them more convienient, comfortable and useful than the array of truck and HMMWV-mounted shelters and tents that PAMSS is intended to replace. The biggest challlenge is their method of transportation - by PLS truck, which is in short supply in light infantry divisions and not assigned to the units that operate PAMSS, requiriing either tasking from a unit that has PLS trucks (which is seldom timely) or assignment of the heavy trucks to the PAMSS command, an inefficient use that also requires another stream of spare parts, heavy wreckers and all the additional logistic burden that comes from adding another vehicle to a unit's table of organization and equipment.

Under the superb leadership of the regimental commander, Colonel Steven Myers, the 107th ACR makes good progress towards rejoining NATO lines in western Poland. They are supported by allied airpower and the unseen efforts of a number of NATO special operations teams that help clear the way for the regiment, which is moving on foot.

The Red Banner Northern Fleet dispatches two surface ASW groups (one from Severomorsk in the White Sea, the other from Ostrovnoy in the remote eastern Kola) to locate and destroy the American submarine which has been marauding the Barents Sea for weeks.

Southern Front deploys additional troops to Istanbul, halting mopping-up operations to clear the last remnants of bypassed Turkish formations in Thrace. The 810th Naval Infantry Brigade moves south in the Black Sea aboard ships, closely following a small flotilla of minesweepers that are clearing a path for them.

[chico20854]

I'm determined to get caught up this week! I really think and hope I can!!!

[ToughOmbres]

Updates

More really good updates per usual and I am really enjoying each one. They are bittersweet in one respect: each update brings us closer chronologically to Thanksgiving Day, 1997...

[chico20854]

October 13, 1997

The 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division (reinforced with the British 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment) and 5th Special Forces Group are dropped into the Tabriz area of northwestern Iran in the second day of Operation Pegasus II.

Polish authorities order the immediate evacuation of the small town of Klobuck, west of Czestochowa, to protect the population from fallout from the strike on the nearby city.

Unofficially,

In what the court's press office characterizes as a "working justice's retreat", the nine justices of the US Supreme Court spend the Columbus Day weekend at a luxury resort in Ashville, North Carolina.

Despite the completion of training all pre-war divisions and brigades, the US Army's Combat Training Centers remain at work, now with newly-raised combat units. The National Training Centers (at three sites in California, Washington and Arizona) and Joint Readiness Training Centers (in Arkansas and Louisiana) have transitioned into supporting a 90-day rotation for new units, with 30 days spent on platoon and company/troop/battery-level exercises, another month on battalion-level and the final month forming combat-ready brigades. (Division staffs are prepared for war with command post exercises at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas).

Troop trains depart northern China with additional reinforcements for the western fronts - the 20th Guards Army, which in pre-war times had been part of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.

The USS Des Moines completes its minor repairs in the Korean port of Pusan, including replacement of the heavy cruiser's gun barrels with ones with new liners, flown into Korea by priority airlift.

The 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment's scouts locate a blocking position thrown up by the Polish 4th Border Guard Brigade and call in supporting strikes. A pair of F-16s, one Dutch and one American, soon arrive and hit the Polish positions with B-61 tactical nuclear bombs, throwing the Polish unit into disarray and allowing the Americans to slip past the disoriented border guards.

The USS John F. Kennedy, HMS Illustrious and battleship Wisconsin continue their patrolling in the Aegean, taking up station between Crete and the Greek mainland. The force attracts considerable attention from light Greek naval units, which are dealt with by a combination of standing air patrols and gunfire from the battlewagon and escorts.

The Greek Army's operations begin to grind to a halt as a result of shortages of fuel, ammunition and spare parts. The nation had been able to sustain a war on the Turkish front, but the addition of the Macedonian operation combined with the Allied naval blockade and destruction of the nation's refineries are more than the fragile Greek economy can sustain. Generals order a halt to offensive operations.

In Romania, active combat in the lowlands has largely ended as 1st Ukrainian Front transitions to an occupation force, Danube Front pivots to complete the defeat of and occupation of Jugoslavia and Southern Front pivots the last of its forces to face the Turks. In the mountains the dispersed companies of the American 71st Airborne Brigade are hardening their positions; in nearly every case they are joined by remnants of the Romanian Armed Forces who are eager to continue the fight against the Soviets and their Hungarian and Bulgarian allies. US Air Force transports attempt daring low-level night airdrop missions to try to provide a minimal level of resupply to the scattered paratroops.

In the freshly divided and largely defeated Jugoslavia, chaos reigns. A Soviet Spetsnaz team assaults the command post of the Jugoslav National Army, and while unable to force its way into the complex it is able to disable the bunker's external communications. In Macedonia an uneasy truce holds between Greek and Albanian troops (in the west) and Bulgarian and Greek troops (to the east). The first truck convoys of looted grain, coal and consumer goods have already reached the Bulgarian border, looted from Jugoslav civilians by Bulgarian officers. The central mountains of Jugoslavaia are essentially a lawless no-man's land, with armed bands of Jugoslavs turning on communities from other ethnic groups. The Italian occupation authorities are pressed by their political leadership to expand the area under their control, but the overstretched Italian Army is unable to fully control the area it has occupied; it resorts to incorporation of ethnic Croatian militias into its forces, looking the other way at the atrocities they commit. The Albanian Army likewise raises ethnic Albanian militias in the areas of Kosovo and Macedonia it controls. The Albanian high command is struggling to support the three divisions it has committed and looks on the militias as useful proxies.

[chico20854]

More really good updates per usual and I am really enjoying each one. They are bittersweet in one respect: each update brings us closer chronologically to Thanksgiving Day, 1997...

Yes, and from there things get even more depressing...

[chico20854]

October 14, 1997

The 2nd and 3rd Brigades, 82nd Airborne Division parachute into the Tabriz area airheads established by the rest of the division as Transcaucasian Front reels from the massive disruption to its supply lines.

Open warfare erupts in Northern Ireland. With no regular army units available, the brunt of the battle on the British side falls upon the police and the Ulster Defense Regiment. Both forces are composed primarily of Protestants, and as a result, they tend to concentrate on the Catholic terrorists - the IRA and the INLA. Protestants and Catholics begin fighting in the streets of Belfast and Londonderry (as it is labeled on the British maps - Catholic Irish prefer to call the city Derry), and many Catholics are killed or forced out. In the border counties of Fermanagh and Armagh, the Catholics seize control, backed by the IRA, and call for military aid from Eire to overthrow the Protestant government.

Rotterdam is struck by Soviet nuclear warheads. (Unofficially) The strikes ignite the oil refinery and sets chemical plants on fire (for the second time in less than a year) and sinks dozens of ships in the port, NATO's busiest. (Officially) The city's security force, the 304th Infantry Brigade, is largely destroyed by the attack, and only scattered survivors escape the firestorm and subsequent chaos.

Unofficially,

The light frigate USS Pettit is delivered in Marinette, Wisconsin and manned by USCG personnel. The tanker Elokomin is delivered in Baltimore and placed in naval service.

With a quick stop at the ROK Navy's ammunition pier, the USS Des Moines returns to sea in the Sea of Japan. Once out of Korean waters, helicopters from the ammunition ship USS Pyro land on the cruiser's stern and a work party unload a half-dozen 12-kt W33 tactical nuclear rounds for the ship's main guns.

The 107th Cavalry Regiment's fighting withdrawal is sped along by the capture of a column of trucks from the rear area of the Soviet 1st Shock Army. The fuel bowsers are used to keep a relay of the cargo trucks going, transporting the trailing cavalry troops to the lead and then returning for more.

The first Soviet ASW group (from Ostrovnoy) arrives in the vicinity of the USS Olympia and begins hunting her, using active sonar to drive the American boat towards a new minefield.

The Pact renews its attacks on the Turkish defensive positions west of Istanbul. The initial attacks come from two divisions of Bulgarian Construction Troops, paramilitary formations composed of Gypsies, ethnic Turks and those judged too politically unreliable for military service, supported by Soviet assault guns of the 367th Guards Assault Gun Brigade (who have a secondary mission to machinegun the Bulgarians if any are to try to flee the battlefield). The assault is met with furious Turkish resistance, and it fails entirely after US Air Force F-16s of the 363rd Tactical Fighter Wing arrive overhead, hitting the supporting artillery batteries with four 60-kiloton B-61 tactical nuclear bombs.

The repair of the damaged tanker Starlight Gigant in Dubai is completed, freeing up the drydock it occupies, the only one in the region capable of holding the USS Independence.

[chico20854]

October 15, 1997

The commander of the German 1st Panzer Division is killed (unofficially) when Soviet electronic reconnaissance units locate his command post vehicle and relay its location to a battery of 2S7 203mm guns, which rapidly plaster the area with high explosive rounds. His deputy, Brigadier General Helmut Korell, assumes command.

The Tabriz airhead is declared secure and raids throughout the Soviet rear area begin.

The 6th Air Cavalry Combat Brigade stages forward to Bandar-e-Khomeyni from Saudi Arabia to support the airhead near Tabriz. The brigade has received the bulk of the few replacement aircraft that have arrived from the US and (unofficially) is operating at over two-thirds of authorized strength.

Unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship San Francisco Freedom is delivered in Beaumont, Texas and the Kansas City Freedom in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

The light frigate USS Sellstrom is delivered in Newport, Rhode Island.

On the extreme western end of the Chinese Front, the commander of the 39th Army directs the 292nd Motor-Rifle Division to drive south into the Chinese interior and not to stop.

Bremen International Airport is hit by a 250-kt Soviet warhead. The headquarters, maintenance facility and most of the 64th Tactical Airlift Squadron is destroyed.

The 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment, having covered nearly 100 km with captured Soviet trucks, abandons them (their gas tanks drained) and resumes its slower movement on foot.

The second Soviet ASW group, rushing north from the White Sea after the USS Olympia (which the Soviets have had intermittent detections of on fixed seabed sensors), arrives in the sub's vicinity, coordinating with the other group and one of the few remaining land-based ASW aircraft.

A difficult day for Soviet troops in the Balkans. In an operation coordinated by the 6th Special Forces Group, rail lines across the region are cut and dozens of supply convoys in the mountains of Jugoslavia and Romania are ambushed. The intensity and huge breadth of the attacks are paralyzing, and of such a huge scale that the few Soviet units specifically dedicated to anti-partisan warfare (mostly airborne troops augmented by a handful of KGB Border Guard detachments) are unable to effectively respond. The attacks not only cripple Soviet operations for days, the flurry of radio traffic from panicked Soviet formations allows an orbiting RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft to pinpoint numerous headquarters and troop locations for further attacks.

Civilian tugs begin towing the damaged USS Independence from the dock in Muscat, Oman to Dubai.

After weeks of delay, bureaucracy and equipment shortages, the 321st (my 252nd) Motor-Rifle Division begins movement from its home stations to the front in Romania. American reconnaissance satellites spot the divisions movement (to maintain control it moves in closely-spaced regimental columns) and within hours the formation is the unwelcome recipient of five air-launched cruise missiles which ravage the unit.

[chico20854]

October 16, 1997

XVIII Airborne Corps and I MEF launch limited counterattacks to tie down Soviet troops.

Unofficially,

With the increasing risk of nuclear attack, the deployment of the 301st Port Security Unit from New England to Korea is put on hold.

The first two new truck companies are stood up - the 476th at Fort Eustis, Virginia and the 297th (Heavy) at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

Colonel Tumanski's Spetsnaz team scores another (minor) victory, overrunning a Royal Observer Corps outpost and seizing communications gear and documents for their examination.

Berlin-Schoenfeld International Airport is struck by Soviet tactical nuclear weapon, destroying the headquarters of the 917th Tactical Airlift Wing (Air Force Reserve) but few aircraft, several of which are serving in Iran while many of the rest had been dispersed following the initiation of tactical nuclear warfare in July.

The American XI Corps launches a counterattack on the Soviet 1st Shock Army, which has been pursuing it all the way from the Ukrainian border. The 50th Armored Division (New Jersey National Guard) advances through the blast zone of a series of artillery-fired strikes, exploiting the disruption of those strikes and an ATACMS-N strike on the army's rear headquarters and creating a gap between the 2nd Guards Motor-Rifle Division and the 60th Tank Division. With the guardsmen holding the flanks, a task force rushes eastward, linking up with the outer pickets of the 107th Armored Cavalry Regiment. The task force quickly loads up the exhausted cavalry troopers into its trucks and APCs and the entire formation retreats back to friendly lines near the German border by dawn on the 17th.

The Battle of Svyatoi Nos. 30 miles off the eastern tip of the Kola Peninsula, the American attack submarine Olympia is under attack by two surface anti-surface groups, boxed in with shallow water to the west, a minefield to the east and a surface group to the north and south. The American boat is out of anti-ship missiles, and takes the bold move of launching its remaining torpedoes at the attacking ships while launching a series of three (all it had on board) Sea Lance-N missiles in sequence to blast a path through the minefield. The move is successful, the torpedoes sinking the pursuing destroyer Admiral Golokovo (the Red Banner Northern Fleet's last modern surface combatant) and two corvettes and allowing the American submarine to slip away.

A group of experts from the Soviet Ministry of Oil and Gas arrive in Romania to begin assessing the condition of the Romanian oil industry and the potential to exploit it to support Soviet war aims. Soviet troops are protecting the refineries and patrolling the major oil fields but the occupation authorities have been unable to round up the industry's former workforce, who they are loathe to trust with such a strategic asset in any case.

[chico20854]

October 17, 1997

NATO nuclear strikes target an array of industrial sites in Silesia to ensure that the Polish communist government cannot mobilize them. (The speed of the German Third Army's withdrawal from the region did not permit a thorough demolition of the sites). The Bytom-Katowice-Sosnowiec-Chorzow-Zabrze industrial conurbation is leveled by 2 megatons from a submarine-launched ballistic missile and Gliwice by a trio of 200 kt bombs.

Unofficially,

The light frigate USS Harveston is delivered in Panama City, Florida and manned by USCG personnel.

Stavka orders the battered 58th Air Assault Brigade to redeploy from Manchuria, where it has largely been on occupation duty, to Austria, to help secure the restive mountains. The unit, which lost its BMD armored airborne fighting vehicles in the 1995-6 campaigns, is able to rapidly redeploy aboard Aeroflot airliners, with its heavy equipment filling a number of Military Transport Aviation's carefully husbanded An-22 and An-124 heavy lifters.

The Whiskey-class submarine S-392, returning from a successful patrol in the Bering Sea (where it sank an oiler and the frigate USS Davidson during the 2nd Battle of Kamchatka) strikes a mine while returning to its homeport of Petropavlovsk. It is never determined if the mine was Soviet or American.

1st Shock Army throws its 321st Motor-Rifle Division at XI Corps' attack force, now nearly back to its start lines. The veteran American troops savage the Soviet division, which was formed of Zampolits in training, Ukrainian workers and peasants, prisoners rushed to the front on oecombat parole, the MVD guards who escorted them to the front and whatever other semi-able-bodied men that could be found on the streets of Lvov, poorly equipped and exhausted from months of fighting across Poland. As the Soviet formation falls back to friendly lines, XI Corps' 151st Field Artillery Brigade (South Carolina National Guard) hits the exposed infantry with a trio of W82 "neutron bombs" that rip the formation apart.

The 134th Guards Motor-Rifle Regiment, the remnant of the 45th Guards Motor-Rifle Division that survived the Kola Campaign, is pulled back to the Leningrad area, where it is felt the presence of loyal veterans would help the MVD maintain order.

The first sub-units of the 53rd Guards Motor-Rifle Division arrive in Romania. The weak Category C division from the Kiev Military District took so long to get ready for deployment that it missed active fighting against Romanian Army units. The division is assigned to 6th Guards Tank Army, serving as the occupation force for the city of Dej.

The damaged American aircraft carrier USS Independence arrives in Dubai, where shipyard workers, assisted by US Navy sailors, are preparing the giant drydock there to accept the ship.

The dazed and confused survivors of the 321st (my 252nd) Motor-Rifle Division are distributed to other units in 1st Ukrainian Front.

[chico20854]

October 18, 1997

The residents of Pyskowice, Poland flee their town in the aftermath of the nuclear strikes on the nearby Bytom-Katowice industrial region. They hide from the fallout in nearby coal mines. The population of the nearby town of Tychy seek shelter from the radiation in the railway tunnel that runs underneath their town. The (Communist) Polish government orders the closure of the Gliwice Canal to avoid the potential of radioactive contamination of the Oder River.

Unofficially,

Two additional truck companies are stood up, also at Fort Eustis, Virginia and Fort Leonard Wood. Responding to the continuing need for support troops, the Army Staff directs the activation of a dozen additional hospitals and a wide array of specialist ordnance units to maintain the wide array of systems the wartime army is fielding. Unfortunately, both kinds of units require large number of highly trained soldiers, which the training base will struggle to produce in hastily.

The German III Korps scores a notable success in its defense of the town of Szczecinek, Poland. The Korps lays a trap for the leadership of the 23rd Army by having the 220th Panzergrenadier Division (much reduced by months of combat and trying to limp by on a mix of Soviet and German vehicles) conspicuously evacuate the town. The Soviets take the bait, dispatching a combat group built around nearly half of the 43rd (my 274th) Motor-Rifle Division to seize the town. The Germans then spring the trap, surrounding the town with kamfgruppes from the 1st and 12th Panzer Divisions which cut the Soviet division off and subsequently defeat the reinforcements dispatched by the Soviets to relieve them. While those battles rage north and east of the town, the 220th returns to action, with artillery fire directed by stay-behind parties hidden throughout the town.

COMSUBLANT is informed that the Olympia will be terminating its patrol, transiting to Holy Loch, Scotland. The boat's skipper states that his crew is exhausted and his ship is out of torpedoes and anti-ship missiles. The damaged USS Virginia arrives in Hampton Roads, Virginia and enters the shipyard for repair.

Order breaks down in Turkey after Ankara is hit by a trio of Soviet SS-N-3c cruise missiles launched from the Juliette-class submarine K-67. Each missile carries a 350-kiloton warhead; they are relatively inaccurate and end up destroying large areas of the city.

The Soviet air forces score a rare victory in the skies over Iran, when a carefully orchestrated operation results in the shootdown of an American U-2 reconnaissance plane. The aircraft was orbiting over the northern end of the Persian Gulf, protected by a flight of F-15 interceptors from the 71st Tactical Fighter Squadron, 1st Tactical Fighter Wing and under the radar coverage of a Saudi E-3 AWACS aircraft. Soviet forces send a regiment-sized force after the spy plane, drawing off the F-15s and clearing the way for a PVO (Soviet air defense force) MiG-25, traveling south at high speed from Soviet airspace. The high-flying MiG is able to execute one successful pass at the high-flying (70,000 feet) spy plane, which is restricted to a very specific speed range to remain stable. The loss of the U-2, which was providing real-time ground radar data to commanders below, deprives CENTCOM of one of a handful of sensor platforms that have been essential in locating Red Army formations before they reach Allied lines.