On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[Targan]

Impressive productivity, Chico. I've enjoyed your On This Day series immensely since you started it.

[chico20854]

October 19, 1997

The American Heliumair Industries leadership has prepared an emergency plan, which is to flee Cincinnati and fly southwest, stopping at California and Hawaii if necessary, then proceed on across the Pacific to Australia, a trek of slightly more than 10,000 miles. Australia, it is thought, will be a relatively safe haven during the coming holocaust no matter how serious the nuclear exchange. And with the supplies stored in Columbia's belly, the Heliumair colony will provide the Australians with a valuable technological treasure... one which will, perhaps, provide a nucleus for rebuilding civilization. The reactor propulsion system is not installed, but its component parts and fuel are loaded onto the ship to supply power at their
destination. With electrical power, machine tools, and people who know how to use them, almost anything can be accomplished.

In late 1997 the escalating exchange of tactical nukes in Europe brings a renewed bombing scare to the continental US. Mike Brummley, CEO of Heliumair Industries, makes the decision to go. Forty-eight technicians, scientists, employees, and company officers and their families, 119 people in all, board the airship Columbia in the afternoon. As soon as it is dark Columbia takes to the air, travelling at low altitude to avoid commercial air lanes and inquisitive government radar. The pilots rotate through four-hour shifts.

The Silesian town of Chrzanow is hastily abandoned when civil defense authorities note the danger from fallout from the nuclear strikes on nearby Bytom and Katowice.

Unofficially,

As the Soviet 20th Guards Army, which was part of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany before the war, prepares to travel back to Europe from China, its 58th Independent Tank Regiment is disbanded to bring other units in the command up to strength.

Allied forces along the North Korean coasts enjoy the support provided by naval gunfire, the USS Missouri off the west coast and USS Des Moines along the east coast. The gunfire is especially appreciated as supplies of artillery ammunition for batteries ashore becomes scarce, the massive stockpiles built up in prewar years exhausted and new production (both in South Korean factories short of drafted workers and with those in the US trying to support a worldwide war) unable to keep up with the prodigious consumption. For now the supply of small arms ammunition remains adequate, although both ROK and US training commands have begun to use .22LR adaptors in basic trainee's M16s to stretch the supply of 5.56mm.

The 937th Engineer Brigade is transferred from the US V Corps to the nearby XI Corps. A construction rather than combat engineer unit, upon arrival in the former East Germany it begins preparing winter quarters and defensive positions along the western shore of the Oder River.

The destruction of the isolated 43rd (my 274th) Motor-Rifle Division in the town of Szczecinek continues as German infantry advance on the town while the defenders are hampered by German artillery fire directed from spotters within the town. At midday a squadron of German PAH-1 anti-tank helicopters arrive, providing pinpoint fire on targets throughout the town, and at dusk the Soviet commander orders a breakout of remaining troops.

The defensive line along the Warta, created with a series of ground bursts, is abandoned, the defenders at risk of being outflanked. The damage from the creation of the line, however, will linger for several years.

In one of the last major convoy battles of the war in the Atlantic, Soviet forces attack Convoy 302 southwest of Iceland. The attack is by a rare (for this stage of the war) Soviet "wolfpack", composed of three nuclear and one conventional attack submarine and a cruise missile submarine (the Oscar II-class K-329), which fires a nuclear SS-N-19 in an airburst over the convoy's approximate center. The attack subs are able to penetrate the convoy's screen by avoiding the widely-spaced escorts (dispersed to avoid nuclear strikes) and have a heyday among the thundering merchants, sinking eight ships and damaging six more before slipping away. One of the nuclear boats, the Victor I-class K-398, is unlucky enough to get caught during its egress by a helicopter from the Canadian frigate Fredericton; it calls in a responding P-3 from VP-11 which sinks the Soviet boat with a B-57 nuclear depth charge. The sub is the sole Soviet loss, while over 150,000 tons of badly needed equipment and supplies are lost to the Allies.

Romanian and American troops in the southern Carpathian Mountains welcome the 53rd Guards Motor Rifle Division to the Dej area by overrunning one of the Soviet division's outposts before its troops have a chance to fortify it, melting away before the division's rapid response force can arrive.

Following the attack on Ankara, Turkish resistance at the Catalca Line west of Istanbul begins to crumble. The Soviet 810th Naval Infantry Regiment lands along Istanbul's Black Sea coast and rushes inland, capturing the Istanbul airport's control tower and cargo complex. With Soviet troops in their rear and after receiving repeated Soviet and Bulgarian hammer blows, the Turkish defense line west of the city collapses. Advancing Soviet troops are opposed by isolated groups of stragglers, diehard nationalists holding out in Istanbul's west end, and NATO aircraft, mostly American but with a significant Turkish presence, overhead.

The 1103rd Assault Gun Regiment, assigned to Transcaucasian Front, is destroyed when the unit's vehicles, immobilized by lack of fuel, are located by an American Special Forces team which called in attack helicopters and strike aircraft. The mass of Soviet vehicles is raked by guns and rockets and within a half hour the 1103rd had ceases to exist.

Army engineers complete repairs to the Tabriz air base, allowing C-17s and C-130s to land and disgorge vehicles and supplies more efficiently than airdropping.

[chico20854]

October 20, 1997

The airship Columbia crashes in the Ozark Mountains in the early hours of the day. Columbia's altimeter is an old model which worked by reading air pressure, replacing a more modern laser altimeter which had been removed several days before because of a technical fault. The pilot knows about the change; the air pressure altimeter gives altitude from sea level rather than from the ground, a fact which has to be taken into account by the pilot during flight. Lack of sleep, the strain of handling the unfamiliar airship in the darkness, and the fear that he might at any moment be blown from the air by a stray nuclear explosion all contribute to pilot error. As the airship approaches the Ozark Mountains, the severe low-pressure zone of a nearby, rapidly building thunderstorm causes the altimeter to give consistently higher readings than it should. The mountainous region of northern-central Arkansas averages 1,500 to 2000 feet above sea level with peaks reaching to 2300 feet or more. Columbia rises to 2800 feet to clear the mountains, but at 2800 feet in that low-pressure weather cell her altimeter reads 3400 feet. The pilot, not wishing to go too high, cuts back on the power to bring the ship lower. Columbia flies into the side of a mountain, effectively ending her journey 9,500 miles short of her goal. Damage is surprisingly light. The airframe is twisted and damaged enough that Columbia will never fly again, but her cargo is intact, and only three people (engineers working among the gas cells, who had fallen on impact) are killed. Her speed, fortunately, is low enough, and the angle of collision shallow enough, that she merely bulldozes a path through a patch of pine timber and comes to rest in the heavily wooded semi-wilderness between Harrison and Osage, Arkansas. New American soldiers are there, guns drawn, almost before the Heliumair people had crawled clear of the wreckage.


Unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship Omaha Freedom is delivered in Portland, Oregon and the tanker Aucilla is delivered in Erie, Pennsylvania.

The 292nd Motor-Rifle Division, a mobilization-only division from the Siberian Military District formed from the faculty and student body of the Tomsk Higher Command School of Communications, has advanced over 450 kilometers from its start line in Inner Mongolia. The division's vehicles have run out of gas and is out of radio contact with headquarters. The division commander, General Piskunov, forms a laager of the vehicles and heavy weapons and leaves it under the command of his deputy and continues the advance on foot, taking most of his young charges with him.

As Allied forces in North Korea continue to give ground, Soviet troops of the 35th Army enter the norther outskirts of Pyongyang.

The 85th Tank Training Regiment, which despite its name is a veteran formation with years of combat experience in China, arrives in Poland, assigned to the 11th Guards Tank Division, replacing one of that division's battered regiments. The survivors of the 43rd (my 274th) Motor-Rifle Davison reach friendly lines; less than 700 survive.

An article in Der Spiegel blows open the German government's covert efforts to obtain more armor for the embattled Bundeswehr. The article reveals that there have been secret shipments of Leopard II tanks from Switzerland (which was producing the type under license), TAM tanks from Argentina and BMPs from Israel. The revelations cause considerable controversy, more in the supplier countries (who fear their neutrality being revealed as compromised), nearly leading to the fall of the Swiss government.

In a highly unusual operation, a pair of NATO's most modern diesel submarines - HMS Ursula and HNLMS Bruinvis - penetrate the defenses of the Murmansk fjord and attack the Soviet Gadzhiyevo Naval Base. They succeed in sinking three moored submarines - the reactivating Whiskey-class boats S-286 and S-381 and the Kilo-class Vologodskiy Komsomolets, but their greatest success is in collapsing entrance to one of the tunnels drilled into the mountainside, trapping two Delta-class SSBNs, the K-487 and K-472, inside.

The USSR launches a flurry of attacks on NATO air bases in Turkey in a bid to knock them out of the war. Konya Air Base is struck by two SS-12 Scaleboard missiles armed with nuclear warheads. The attack devastates the base's infrastructure and destroys the rump headquarters of the 487th Tactical Missile Wing as well as the wing's technical support elements and three Ground Launch Cruise Missiles and their launchers. The bases at Batman, Erhac, Eskisehir and Afyon are also hit, while the Dutch air defense battery at Incirlik manages to shoot down an incoming SS-12 with a Patriot missile. The attacks are generally successful in destroying the bases' infrastructure and in some cases cutting the runway; however they are not intense enough to crack open hardened aircraft shelters. Nevertheless, the loss of the other bases facilities and effect on the airmen's morale is sufficient to reduce the NATO air presence over the country to a nuisance rather than a threat to Soviet operations.

The commander of the 302nd Guards Tank Regiment, all that remains of the 341st (my 22nd Guards) Tank Division in central Ukraine, issues orders to prepare to depart for the front in the Balkans. He is shocked when his junior officers report that the enlisted men are mutinous and are unlikely to follow his orders. He demands a meeting with a delegation of the men.

[chico20854]

October 21, 1997

Major General Aleksandr A. Vostokov is named commander of the 19th (my 145th) Motor-Rifle Division, at the request of Transcaucasian Front commander Suryakin. Vostokov had previously served as Suryakin's Chief of Staff.

In Boston Harbor, the sail frigate USS Constitution celebrates its bicentennial.

The US 25th Infantry Division (Light) is hit by six Soviet tactical nukes, taking heavy casualties and disintegrating while retiring back to the ROK under heavy pressure.

The 4th Marine Amphibious Brigade is moved south to the Baltic Sea and disbanded, reverting to 2nd Marine Division control along with the 6th Marine Regiment.

Unofficially,

The Freedom ship Norfolk Freedom is delivered in Galveston, Texas.

FEMA completes the stocking of another emergency stockpile, SRS-17374-2, at [REDACTED] in the Alleghany Mountains of Pennsylvania.

The first units of 20th Guards Army arrive at the terminus of the rail lines into Poland, between Lvov and Lutsk, Ukraine. They quickly detrain, scurrying to cover as rapidly as possible to avoid detection by NATO overhead reconnaissance, and after dark continue their transit westward under their own power, with only a handful of tanks moving via tank transporter.

The remnants of the 43rd (my 274th) Motor-Rifle Division are evacuated to Byelorussia to rebuild.

Following the destruction of their wing headquarters, the two remaining flights from the 487th Tactical Missile Wing - Cobra Flight with five missiles and four launchers and Echo Flight with four missiles and launchers - in dispersal areas over 75 miles from the smoking ruin of their headquarters - decide to head to the nearest large, intact and secure USAF facility, the Incirlik Air Base. The units are dependent on higher headquarters for the detailed radar mapping data required for the missiles to find their targets; the destruction of Konya airbase has made it impossible for the missiles to be targeted. Prewar plans, when the unit was still stationed in Italy, called for backup support to come from the two GLCM wings in the UK. Unfortunately, the flights in the field are unable to establish secure communications with those units; their commanders hope Incirlik will have that capability.

The 216th Motor-Rifle Division, mauled by fanatical Pasdaran resistance in December and recalled to Baku, Azerbaijan for reconstruction, is ordered back into Iran to attack the American airhead in Tabriz. Almost immediately after crossing the border the division becomes engaged by pro-NATO Kurdish guerrillas supported by Green Berets of the 5th Special Forces Group; the division nonetheless advances, but slowly as it fights a series of small skirmishes along its route of advance.

The commander of the 302nd Guards Tank Regiment meets with the rebellious enlisted men, who explain that while they are loyal Soviet citizens, that they have already been attacked by and survived American nuclear weapons. Given that the nuclear conflict has only grown since then, they are unwilling to place their lives at risk yet again, but are willing to support other units that have not done their part and support the Soviet war effort. When the general objects, he is "arrested" by the men and escorted out of the unit's area of control, told that anyone approaching with orders for the division to move to the front will be met with gunfire.

[chico20854]

October 22, 1997

The effect of Operation Pegasus II is catastrophic to the Soviets. The steady stream of supplies and replacements dries up. The Soviet 24th Guards (my 60th) Motorized Rifle Division literally runs out of gas while assaulting the US 24th ID's positions around Ramshir. American planes and artillery destroy most of the Soviet's vehicles and a quick counterattack finishes them as a unit.

The British 6th Division, also attached to the Chinese 31st (my 3rd) Army along the North Korean-Chinese border at the mouth of the Yalu River, suffers heavy losses from follow-up Soviet tactical nuclear strikes. (Unofficially) As the Americans withdraw south towards friendly lines under heavy pressure, the British force retreats to the ports of Dandong, China and Sinuiju, North Korea, at the mouth of the river.

The nuclear exchange in Europe continues unabated. NATO targets the city of Radom with a pair of submarine-launched ballistic missiles fired from beyond Scotland, with a yield approaching 2 megatons. (Unofficially, Three of the warheads are aimed at the Radom Sadk3w Air Base, tearing apart the massed helicopters of the 37th Air Assault Brigade; others hit transport junctions and industrial facilities in the city.)

Unofficially,

The light frigate USS Joyce is delivered in Tacoma, Washington and manned by USCG personnel.

Three additional Army truck companies are stood up - two using recalled retiree leadership and recent trainee drivers and the third using trained and experienced drivers transferred from Air Force bases in Texas.

In the predawn hours the lead troops of the 20th Guards Army's 38th (my 27th Guards) Motor-Rifle Division cross the frontier into Poland.

The USS Olympia, off the North Cape on its way south, is ordered to launch its Tomahawk cruise missiles (a mix of conventional and nuclear armed variants) against an array of targets in northwestern Russia. (The most notable is the chemical weapons production facility in Kineshma, which was struck with a pair of missiles).

STAVKA directs 1st Ukrainian Front, on occupation duty in Romania, to transfer a division to 2nd Southwestern Front to reinforce the Austrian occupation force. Unwilling to divert one of his experienced combat divisions, 1st Ukrainian Front commander Marshall Agayev foists the 155th Motor-Rifle (my 235th Rear Area Protection) Division onto Western TVD. The hapless division (with only two battalions of T-34 tanks and lightly equipped with artillery and staffed with overaged reservists and teenagers shanghaied from local communities) is loaded into boxcars, bereft of vehicles or supplies, and begins a slow and roundabout ride to the front.

[chico20854]

October 23, 1997

Following the loss of the 24th Guards (my 60th) Motor-Rifle Division the prior day when the Soviet force ran out of gas while attacking American troops, the 147th Guards Motor-Rifle Division suffers the same fate while attacking the 101st Air Assault Division around Bushehr. (Unofficially) The American airmobile unit inserts several battalions of infantry in the division rear areas, who then advance towards the coast, rolling up the Soviet unit from behind.

Unofficially,

FEMA completes another racetrack to refugee camp conversion, this one the Flemington Speedway in New Jersey.

The Daily Mail newspaper publishes the results of its investigation of the scandal involving the wealthy and influential evading military service. It concludes that the Guardian's reporting is flawed, and thoroughly debunks the article's reporting and conclusion.

As the front lines of the Chinese 31st (my 3rd) Army disintegrate, the remnants of the British 6th Division (down to 2500 men and a handful of armored vehicles) board three transports and a dozen smaller craft (tugs, fishing boats and the like) in the ports of Dandong and Sinuiju to be extracted from the rapidly collapsing Allied pocket at the mouth of the Yalu.

The 12th Luftjaeger Regiment, a Luftwaffe security unit, is hastily converted into a motorized infantry regiment with the addition of a company of obsolescent M48 tanks, two dozen captured Soviet BTR-152 APCs and requisitioned civilian trucks.

NATO defensive efforts in Poland are increasingly hampered by supply shortages, fed by insufficient German industrial production (made worse by the occupation of southern Germany by Pact forces) and severe damage to Northern European ports. Only minor ports remain undamaged, and air resupply from the UK and North America is unable to move even 10 percent of the needed supplies, if logistic planners could even have an assurance that the airports required were safe from nuclear attack.

On the opposite side of the lines, the Pact forces are equally starved of supplies and Soviet divisions are running low on troops. The NATO interdiction campaign has severely hampered the flow of supplies and replacements into the theater, Czech and Hungarian industry has been almost totally neutralized by nuclear attacks, and production and transportation in the USSR are increasingly being disrupted by strikes, ethnic unrest and disorder. Still, the offensive to drive NATO out of Poland continues.

The remnants of the Turkish civilian government issue a proclamation declaring the imposition of martial law. (Some have speculated that this order was issued under duress, with the politicians under military protection/custody, but the reality is that the military is the sole entity in Turkey that is capable of organizing security and relief. Even then, military rule is largely delegated to the local level).

The team from the Soviet Ministry of Oil and Gas concludes their assessment of the main strategic prize from the conquest of Romania - its oil industry. The assessment is positive, reflecting that both sides strove not to damage it, leaving it largely intact. The team from the ministry notes two urgent needs to bring Romanian production online to support the Soviet war effort - a workforce of experienced and self-reliant employees led by managers that can adapt to the unfamiliar conditions and equipment (Romania having imported some high-technology machinery denied to the USSR), and an adequate security force to protect the oil wells, pipelines, pumping stations, refineries and supporting sites.

[chico20854]

Impressive productivity, Chico. I've enjoyed your On This Day series immensely since you started it.

I was able to get a lot done this week! Glad folks are still reading and enjoying this!

[Claidheamh]

Awesome Stuff!

Really appreciate the effort, Chico - this is great reading and is helping me prep my next campaign.

[kato13]

I was able to get a lot done this week! Glad folks are still reading and enjoying this!

I have never looked forward to Thanksgiving more.

The work is AMAZING.

One question: the "Freedom" class ships you mention, do you have any stats for those (Searches get lost in the LCS void).

[chico20854]

I have never looked forward to Thanksgiving more.

The work is AMAZING.

One question: the "Freedom" class ships you mention, do you have any stats for those (Searches get lost in the LCS void).

Thanks!

There's an article on the Freedom class ships coming out in the next issue of the fanzine, which I understand might be coming out in the next week or so! Stats, backstory, deck plans.

[chico20854]

October 24, 1997

Nothing in canon for the day!

The light frigate USS Kirkpatrick is delivered in Moss Point, Mississippi and manned by USCG personnel, and the tanker Marias is delivered in Baltimore.

In Northern Ireland the IRA begins forming more conventional military units, designating them according to geographic location. The initial units include the Derry Brigade, South Armagh Brigade, Fermanagh Brigade and three brigades in Belfast - the Falls Brigade, Short Strand Brigade and the Ardpyne Brigade. The IRA has had considerable success in asserting control in Derry and in rural areas adjoining the Republic; in Belfast intense battles rage between the Provos and the UDR and RUC, who are assisted (on a as-yet unofficial basis) by Unionist paramilitary bands. The US Navy, whose carrier Enterprise is in the midst of an extensive repair following battle damage off the Kola in the city's shipyard, restricts its personnel to the yard's territory, firmly defended by the ship's Marine detachment supplemented by contingents from the ship's 3300+-strong complement.

The Abraham Lincoln, the sole surviving operational and undamaged carrier in the US Pacific Fleet, returns to the waters off Petropavlovsk. Operating under EMCOM (Emissions Control, with all radar and radio emissions off) the carrier launches a predawn air raid which once again pounds the Soviet port after catching its air defense force off guard. After recovering its aircraft (three F/A-18s and an A-6 are lost) the carrier group turns tail and retreats to the vast empty spaces of the North Pacific.

The lead regiments of the 38th (my 27th Guards) Motor-Rifle Division reinforce the battered 1st Shock Army east of Wroclaw. The arrival of the hardened veterans of the Chinese campaign is an unpleasant shock to the troops of the American 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized), which are already under considerable pressure.

NATO forces in Poland continue to fall back, with the front line running from Koszalin on the Baltic coast, to the eastern outskirts of Poznan and Wroclaw to the Czech border.

Overcoming scattered and disorganized resistance, Soviet troops reach the Bosporus in Istanbul. Patrols are sent across to the Asian side, but Southern Front's logistic difficulties at the end of a very long supply line, prevent any further advance into Turkish territory. STAVKA concludes that the removal of Turkey from the war has effectively been achieved and redirects remaining scarce resources to more urgent fronts. (The decision also relieves the Soviet authorities from responsibility to administer the vast and populous nation).

Preparations hastily completed, the Dubai shipyard floods its largest drydock to accept the carrier USS Independence.

The 236th Rear Area Protection Division, in the Central Asian Military District, is struggling to secure the supply lines into eastern Iran against the array of bandits, nationalist or Islamic partisans, deserters and draft-dodgers and criminals that are roaming the border regions of the USSR. The importance of this effort is further driven home by the cutoff of the transportation routes between Transcaucasian Front and the Caucasus by Pegasus II, which is forcing more traffic through the vast, lightly populated area.

[chico20854]

October 25, 1997

Another day with nothing in canon!

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

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

The Guardian newspaper publishes an apology for the inaccurate story it ran on the 8th, alleging that the wealthy and influential were evading conscription. Nonetheless, the damage has been done to the perception that conscription in the UK is a fair and impartial process.

The Irish government closes the Donegal Air Corridor, a "unofficial understanding" which permitted British and NATO aircraft to access the Atlantic via a 4-mile long overflight of Irish territory between Belleek, Northern Ireland and Ballyshannon, Ireland.

With increasing Soviet artillery attacks on Poznan (ignoring the protests from their Polish Communist allies), the Polish Free Congress decides to evacuate its provisional capital. As the city's population's reaction varies from panic to mocking, the collaborators and exiles depart the city in a hastily-organized convoy headed for the German border.

The carrier Independence is successfully drydocked in Dubai and experts can begin cutting away damaged portions of the hull.

The 102nd Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron (New York Air National Guard) detaches a trio of helicopters from its home station at RAF Gibraltar to Mombasa International Airport, Kenya. Two of the squadron's HC-130 fixed-wing aircraft accompany the helicopters, refueling them inflight to allow them to transit to Cairo West Air Base in one flight.

[chico20854]

October 26, 1997

The American journalist Fanya Ayn Wilkerson is withdrawn from the Pegasus II airhead along with the remaining rangers and pathfinders.

Unofficially,

The (what was destined to be the) second to last FEMA emergency stockpile is sealed, this one at Ohio Caverns near Dayton.

FEMA officials are dismayed when they receive a report that the new Flemington Speedway evacuee camp in New Jersey has reached full capacity; word of the camp's opening quickly spread and nervous city dwellers from the New York and Philadelphia areas arrived in droves. Local officials are less than pleased, and the local sheriff (who is responsible for security in the camp) claims that the camp has attracted "a mass of neer-do-wells, troublemakers and shiftless folks looking for a handout from our fine community."

Fighting in Belfast intensifies. IRA forces, who in prewar years had amassed an impressive arsenal thanks to KGB support, enjoy an advantage in firepower, widely fielding RPG-7s and light machineguns. Added to this arsenal are weapons captured from Army and police outposts which were overrun in the past week. This firepower, combined with a superiority in young, enthusiastic volunteers, allows the IRA to accomplish a long-dreamed of goal in Belfast - conquest of the Loyalist Shankhill neighborhood, accompanied by a massive displacement of the population and widespread atrocities. The victory allows the Unionist forces to form a coherent pocket in primarily working-class areas from the city center to the northwest, which is surrounded by Loyalist suburbs, which the Catholics have yet to attempt to break into.

Soviet forces all along the front launch a day of coordinated attacks in an effort to dilute the efforts of the few remaining NATO tactical aircraft. The day's actions are somewhat successful, with advances in excess of 5 km on average, but the effort results in the expenditure of three days worth of supply deliveries. Many of the Allied aircraft that do respond, however, are armed with nuclear bombs as ELINT and reconnaissance teams desperately try to locate artillery and rocket batteries and headquarters.

In Bavaria, the Italian Army has drawn almost to a halt as depleted stocks of munitions and spare parts cripple its mechanized troops and its elite light infantry is unable to replace losses from earlier in the campaign. Platoons and squads of paramilitary Carabinieri troops, withdrawn from internal security duties at home, are increasingly shuffled to the front to serve as replacements; at least they are trained troops, unlike many new arrivals at fronts around the world at this stage of the war.

The first flight of workers from the Baku oil fields arrives in Ploesti, Romania. They were grabbed without any prior notice from their work sites and loaded onto an Aeroflot airliner for a harrowing low-level flight to Romania. Upon arrival, KGB and Communist Party officials give them a brief "inspirational" feat before ordering them to immediately get the unfamiliar plant back to maximum production.

The remnants of the battered Convoy 302 limp into European ports. Due to overcrowding in the few more lightly damaged ones (all medium to small in size, the largest ones - Hamburg, Bremen, Rotterdam and Bremerhaven - having been heavily bombarded or targeted by nuclear weapons), several ships have to remain at anchor in the North Sea or English Channel. One, the former East German freighter Hettstedt, is sunk by a drifting mine off Vlissingen, Netherlands.

The 241st Rear Area Protection Division is activated in Novosibirsk, Siberia, from the cadre and students of the MVD officer school in that city. Once formed, STAVKA intends to use it to assist the MVD with putting down the increasing number of uprisings and mutinies within the USSR. The MVD command objects to the Army takeover of its formation, sparking a harsh rebuke from STAVKA, which replies that if the MVD Internal Troops were doing their job maintaining order that the Army wouldn't need to.

[chico20854]

October 27, 1997

Nothing in canon for today!

In response to the continuing losses in Europe and the SACEUR decision to try to hold the Oder River line between Poland and East Germany, the Army command authorizes the release of the 353rd Engineer Group (Combat) (US Army Reserve) to Europe. The unit begins moving its equipment to Corpus Christi, Texas for movement overseas.

On the front line in Poland, NATO troops launch local counterattacks to keep their Pact opponents from consolidating the prior day's gains.

The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment joins the 107th in reserve in central Germany as they recover from their periods isolated behind enemy lines in Poland. Unfortunately, replacement armored vehicles are in short supply. US Army Material Command in the US has been dispatching a wide array of tanks to the European theater - LAV-75s, Cadillac-Gage Stingrays, M-60A4s and M1s of all models (the older ones either stripped from the test and training establishments or returned to service after battle damage repairs). It is up to exhausted logisticians at US Army Europe to allocate these vehicles (as well as the trickle that are returned to service after repairs from the severely damaged repair facilities in theatre) to the units that need them most, balancing the need with their current fleet and ability to maintain them. (i.e., most M-60A4s go to National Guard divisions that originally had them or had them in the 1992-5 time period, hoping that those units mechanics have memory of how to maintain the type). In this situation, the ACRs in the rear area are of lower priority for replacement vehicles than units still at the front.

The Bavarian defense is bolstered by the efforts of German territorial Wallmeister (rampart master) troops. These are Bundesheer soldiers trained in demolitions, obstacle creation, and key infrastructure denial. They use military painted civilian vehicles, and assigned their area of operations on a long term basis, allowing them to blend in thoroughly if needed. Armed with small arms, they travel with demo, tools, etc. At this stage of the war, they also make use of propositioned caches of demo and prepositioned obstacles designed as part of the existing infrastructure.

Along the high ground between the Danube and Main River valleys, VII Corps' defense is proving successful against a depleted and exhausted Soviet 21st Army.

Another naval action rages in the Baltic Sea as desperate Soviet commanders push a convoy of large merchantmen south, heading for the devastated harbors of Gdansk and Gdynia. The American carrier Coral Sea, which has been operating in the western Baltic for months, launches its remaining squadron of F/A-18s armed with unguided munitions (cluster bombs, iron bombs and rockets) to damage the Soviet convoy, which is escorted by a pair of aged destroyers and several frigates and corvettes. As the American attack aircraft wheel above the convoy's ships, strafing the merchantmen, a squadron of German missile boats arrives at high speed, adding their firepower to the effort. As their missiles are expended (many of them entered the action with only one or two aboard) they weave through the convoy at high speed, attacking the Soviet ships with deck mounted guns and even machineguns. As the Allied force departs, a single Marineflieger (German Naval Air Force) Tornado flies overhead and drops a B-61 tactical nuclear bomb, which bursts in the air over the convoy.

The carriers USS John F Kennedy and HMS Illustrious move close to the Turkish coast east of Crete in an effort to evacuate Allied citizens from the disorder that is rapidly spreading across the battered country. Helicopters from the carriers evacuate stranded personnel, while the carriers' fighters provide cover for a stream of airliners that are bravely evacuating civilians to airports in Egypt and Israel. 6th Fleet's request for additional helicopter carriers from SACLANT is approved, but they are all days away from the Mediterranean. CENTCOM refuses to release its amphibious ships, which would entail a voyage around Africa as the Egyptian effort to clear the Suez Canal is hopelessly delayed.

The 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment launches a successful raid on outposts of the Soviet 4th Army, forcing that formation to burn thousands of gallons of diesel fuel when it dispatches a tank regiment to reinforce the incursion.

The first strike mission is flown by a R-5D Aurora hypersonic spy plane, striking the tank rebuild facility in Kiev, Ukraine with a B-61-11 nuclear bomb. (The facility had survived the general attack on Kiev in September, and the plant had continued operations using workers who had been evacuated to the factory's "workers rest camp" 75 km from the city, brought in daily on surviving commuter trains.

Detachment 1, 102nd Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron resumes its journey to Kenya, departing Cairo West Air Base at dawn.

[chico20854]

October 28, 1997

In a further blow to Transcaucasian Front, the 346th (my 155th) Motor-Rifle Division is caught in an airmobile ambush by the IPA's 9th Airmobile Brigade as the Soviet force is hunkered down, low on fuel, ammunition and supplies, in the Zagros Mountains southwest of Shiraz. The unit takes heavy casualties and is nearly destroyed.

Unofficially,

The light frigate USS Leopold is delivered in Mobile, Alabama and manned by a mix of USN and USCG personnel.

In Northern Ireland, the IRA forces in Derry are suffering setbacks as the UDR and their Loyalist allies rally and force the Unionists back from the city center, cornering them in the historic "Free Derry" area in the Bogside neighborhood. In Belfast, the IRA-dominated Nationalist force has established a functioning shadow government to rule the Catholic enclave, which is still hemmed in by British troops. The pleas of the British force's commander to Westminster for reinforcements and armored vehicles are met with the response that none are available, so severe is the situation on the Continent.

The battleship USS New Jersey makes another sweep along the Aleutians, screened by USAF air defense fighters operating out of the Pacific Northwest (with tanker support) and with a tag-team of USN and USCG patrol aircraft providing surface search. The grouping is highly successful, allowing the New Jersey Surface Action Group to locate and sink seven Soviet supply vessels trying to sneak forward to resupply isolated Aleutian Front units.

Panzergruppe Oberdorf, formed in April to lead Third German Army's assault into northern Silesia, has returned to (former) East German territory and is disbanded. Most of its American units (the 5th Infantry Division, the 116th Armored Cavalry Regiment and the 46th Engineer Brigade) are assigned to the American XI Corps, which is holding a sector east of the group's. General Oberdorf is assigned to lead the Schleswig-Holstein Territorial Command, responsible for security and reconstruction of the West German Baltic coast and the region between Hamburg and the Danish border.