On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[chico20854]

November 12, 1997

The nuclear exchange finally reaches the Persian Gulf region when Soviet ICBMs target the oil export facility at Kharg Island in the Gulf.

Unofficially,

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

North Korean troops infiltrate the South Korean lines southwest of Wonsan and secure a solid blocking position, cutting off the South Korean division (a reserve division) holding the sector. The Soviets take advantage of the unit's isolation, pounding it with a half dozen nuclear weapons and it disintegrates. Soviet and North Korean light troops bypass the shell-shocked South Koreans and pour through the gap in the lines and reach the coastal road, cutting Wonsan off.

The light frigate USS Newell is delivered in Pascagoula, Mississippi and manned by a mix of USN and USCG personnel.

The US Navy continues its reactivation of mothballed combatants, with the recommissioning of the USS Decatur DDG-31, an aged guided-missile destroyer. (When it decommissioned in 1983 its name was released, ultimately used for a new USS Decatur, DDG-73. That ship was sunk in December 1996, making the name available for once again for the 1950s-built ship).

The judge presiding over the court martial of the former commander of the USS Missouri, in a long opinion detailing the long history of the JAG Corps in combat over many centuries, nonetheless notes the unprecedented threat that the trial is operating under and approves the change of venue to Bremerton, Washington.

Meanwhile, the officer's former command and its sister ship New Jersey remain off the coast of Sakhalin, pounding additional targets. The Soviet Pacific Fleet takes advantage of the opportunity to dispatch a number of resupply vessels to the beleaguered Aleutian Front.

The Dutch 9th Amphibious Combat Group launches a raid on a Soviet mobile air defense radar site west of Utska, Poland in its combat debut.

In southern Germany, the British I Corps continues its attack on the Soviet 14th Army. Supported by Allied tactical aircraft and a nuclear strike on the Soviet supply lines, the corps makes gains and by nightfall has the city of Nuremberg in sight.

The US Navy dispatches a trio of P-3 Orion patrol aircraft from Ascension Island in an attempt to locate the Soviet raider that attacked McMurdo Station, Antarctica the prior week. The task is nearly impossible, with tens of thousands of miles of iceberg-clogged ocean to search.

The lead battalions of the Soviet 7th Army arrive in the region south of Tabriz, deploying cautiously to try to locate the American paratrooper force.

British infantry arrive at the front in Belize, where their LAW80 anti-tank rockets and Milan platoon are able to halt the small Guatemalan armored force (a platoon of M41 Walker Bulldog tanks and a contingent of V-100 APCs) that had proved critical in defeating the light infantry of the Belizian Defense Force. As the sun sets, the first British artillery arrives within range; its aged M-56 pack howitzers (pulled from storage and rushed to Belize) the first fire support the BDF has enjoyed in this short war.

[cawest]

so will the Brits or Belize, recover any of the Guatemalan M41 Walker Bulldog tanks. if they do so who will crew them just recovering the turrets and co-aux much less the main guns could be useful..

[Ursus Maior]

The Danish had an interesting M41 improvement fielded during the late Cold War: the M41 DK-1 featured a NBC protection system, an external laser rangefinder, and thermal imaging equipment. They also came with skirts and stowage, if I remember correctly.

[chico20854]

so will the Brits or Belize, recover any of the Guatemalan M41 Walker Bulldog tanks. if they do so who will crew them just recovering the turrets and co-aux much less the main guns could be useful..

I think it is unlikely just given the composition of the British and BDF force. The British battalion is a Territorial Army unit pulled from home defense duties. They have mostly Land Rovers with maybe a handful of Bedford trucks, but nothing powerful enough to tow a disabled light tank while their maintenance team lacks the tools, expertise, manpower and spares to work on it. Belize is a poor country so I think it is unlikely that there would be much similar capacity on the civilian side. If they retain control of the battlefield!

With that said, it might be possible for one or more of the knocked out tanks, if they didn't burn, to be emplaced as pillboxes at key points, or even in the jungle yards from where they were stopped.

[chico20854]

November 13, 1997

Nothing in canon for today!

The seventh R-5D hypersonic spy plane is completed in Palmdale, California.

Irish forces in Northern Ireland have linked up with IRA paramilitaries in South Armagh but have made no real move to drive out the UDR and RUC garrison of Armagh, the county town. The Irish force has not attempted operations on this scale ever and is struggling to maintain momentum while learning how to support and sustain an effort this large.

Allied forces in eastern North Korea scramble to try to dislodge the enemy troops that are blocking the road south of Wonsan while the naval command once again hastily organizes a fleet to evacuate the surrounded force should that prove necessary.

Meanwhile, in South Korea the Soviet nuclear strikes are disrupting the war effort. Production at South Korean munitions plants has largely halted as their workforces join tens of thousands of civilians fleeing urban areas for the perceived safety of the countryside. The refugee flows result in massive traffic jams that block northbound military supply convoys. The nation's Combat Police and Civil Defense forces are overwhelmed; desperate Combat Police commanders try to clear the roads with gunfire. The effort instead results in panicked civilians, wild rumors and roads blocked by abandoned and shot-up vehicles.

The former commander of the USS Missouri and his defense team are evacuated from Japan aboard a US Navy C-9 aircraft, accompanied by a USN guard detachment.

The battleship task force off the Russian Far Eastern coast moves around the north coast of Sakhalin and slashes into the ferry route between the island and the mainland. After sinking two ferries, they move to demolish the ferry ports on both ends of the route with gunfire from their 16-inch and 5-inch guns.

The British I Corps continues its counter-offensive in southern Germany, reinforced with artillery and the US 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment from the adjacent US VII Corps. The British 2nd Infantry Division passes through the 1st Armoured Division's lines to enter the city of Nuremberg, engaging the retreating Soviet and Czech occupation force.

Soviet occupation forces in the Balkans continue to suffer from widespread local resistance from NATO-supported partisans. The remnants of the Jugoslav and Romanian armies and local defense militias, the American 71st Airborne Brigade and Green Beret detachments all undertake constant raids on isolated outposts and supply convoys, partly out of a desire to continue to resist and partly to capture food, fuel and ammunition. The USAF and CIA fly low level supply flights supporting isolated friendly detachments, and Special Forces A-teams call in lucrative targets for sea-based nuclear weapons in the Mediterranean. All this unrest causes the Southwestern TVD to recall major elements of the Southern Front from Thrace to bolster the occupation forces further north.

The Allied airborne force in Iran continues its move south, capturing the town of Bukan as the final elements of the 82nd Airborne Division prepare to abandon their last positions in Tabriz. The division's engineers supervise the demolition of the air base's runway, fuel tanks, hangars and other key infrastructure; they have already dismantled the secondary airstrip they had established shortly after arriving in the area.

The fallout of the unrest in the Politburo continues, with the resignation or sidelining of all the remaining members of the so-called peace faction. One of the members who fled the capital, GOSPLAN head Yuri Sigayev, is arrested in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on charges of economic sabotage of the war effort.

[chico20854]

November 14, 1997

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

The twin light frigates Howard D. Crow and Petit exit the Gulf of St Lawrence to commence their first mission, an escort of Convoy 310.

The 108th Armored Cavalry Regiment is ordered held at the Yuma Proving Ground pending allocation of adequate equipment prior to movement to a theater of war. The regimental commander is grateful for the opportunity for his command to engage in additional training prior to deployment. His adjudant polls commanders for recommended personnel changes, relieving those who the recently-completed NTC rotation has demonstrated as not being up to the task and promoting those that demonstrated potential.

Due to an atmospheric anomoly possibly caused by the nuclear exchange, a radio message from the 139th (my 119th) Motor-Rifle Division is received at the Headquarters, 1st Far Eastern Front. The 139th, a poorly trained and equipped mobilization-only division thought lost since July, reports that it is deep in the Chinese interior and has been reduced to a battalion in strength. It is the last contact the Red Army has with the unit.

In North Korea, the evacuation of Allied forces in Wonsan becomes more chaotic as panicking civilians rush aboard the motley collection of fishing boats, tugs, small freighters and amphibious craft that the ROK naval command has commandeered into an evacuation fleet. Offshore, the guns of the USS Des Moines augment the embattled defenders of the city's perimeter; the heavy cruiser strikes a heavy blow when its onboard helicopter locates the commander of the Soviet 247th Motor-Rifle Division (using an unsecured radio) and wipes him out with one of the ship's tactical nuclear rounds. Despite the loss, the 247th holds its blocking positions, although the unit's planned attacks on the southern perimeter fail to launch.

Their magazines emptying and their fuel tanks running dry, the battleships Missouri and New Jersey conclude their attacks on Sakhalin Island and the Siberian coast opposite it. They travel south through the Strait of Tartary, heading for friendly Japanese territory. As they depart, a Soviet mobile coast defense missile battery looses a volley of SSC-1 anti-ship missiles at the American force. The escorting Aegis destroyers shoot down all but one, which strikes the frigate USS Gray. The missile's 2000-pound warhead tears the frigate's stern apart and tosses the ship's helicopter about in its hangar, igniting a massive blaze. The ship slips under the waves a few hours later.

The 25th Missile Brigade, a former East German Army Scud missile unit, is down to a handful of (non-nuclear) missiles. (The Soviets never allowed the East Germans access to chemical or nuclear warheads). NATO commanders, busy targeting American-built nuclear delivery systems, are too busy to assign the brigade targets and the German government has the brigade withdrawn to the Ruhr, where its remaining TELs (Transporter-Erector-Launcher trucks) are parked in a disused warehouse.

The American 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment battles to recapture its peacetime headquarters, Merrell Barracks in Nuremberg. The firefight adds to the damage the garrison's buildings proudly displayed (the original damage the result of Allied attacks on the former SS barracks during and immediately after World War Two). The American troopers are enraged to discover that the Soviet occupiers have looted the Regimental Museum, and that several historic artifacts (including Patton Silver, the Dragoon Book and several original oils by Stivers, Troianni, etc.) are missing.

NATO forces have largely evacuated all the territory they captured in the spring and summer invasion of Poland, falling back to mostly derelict defensive positions opposite Oder River crossings they occupied over the prior winter.

In the central Atlantic, the Sierra III-class attack sub K-231 completes over a week's patrolling of a remote area of the ocean, failing to detect any NATO or neutral ship traffic. It relays the news to Murmansk, where the Red Banner Northern Fleet orders the Typhoon-class boomer TK-20 and its Akula-class escort K-461 to the area.

Convoy 306 transits the English Channel after dark, concluding a long voyage that included a drastic diversion south to avoid a massive hole blasted in NATO's defenses of the North Atlantic west of Iceland.

A new head of GOSPLAN, the Soviet planning body responsible for control of the command economy, is named. As an indication of the new direction coming from the Kremlin the nominee is a Party official that has spent most of his career in the branch of the Party responsible for indoctrination and mass mobilization; he has no prior economic or industrial experience.

Belizian and British forces stop another Guatemalan assault along the road from the border to the capital city of Belmopan. The British and Belizian light infantry, guided by the instructors of the British Jungle Warfare School, adopt tactics similar to the Finns, striking road-bound units from trackless wooded terrain, then fading away before the enemy can respond. In the commerical capital, Belize City, the last elements of the British Force, 43 Battery, Royal Artillery, a light air defense unit equipped with captured Soviet ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft guns and obsolescent Blowpipe missiles, arrives.

[chico20854]

November 15, 1997

Nothing in canon for today. Unofficially,

At the ministerial level, NATO political leaders raise a delicate subject - the status of the Jugoslav, Romanian, Turkish and Free Polish delegations, all of whom have had their territory overrun by Pact troops and are largely out of the war. After several hours of uncomfortable discussion the decision is reached to continue to allow them to participate in NATO decision making, as the Alliance still has an obligation to seek those countries' liberation.

The final FEMA emergency strategic stockpile is fully loaded and sealed up. This one, at Cardigan Mountain State Forest in New Hampshire, is the 37th one completed; plans for an additional 13 are ultimately not completed due to the nuclear exchange.

The first Soviet trawlers, patrol boats and small freighters that surged out of Petropavlovsk last week arrive in Anchorage, Alaska, bringing vitally needed supplies to the 25th Corps.

With the KGB network in the UK in tatters after months of hunts by the Army and MI 5, a fresh team of agents is dispatched from Moscow. They are flown to Turin, Italy, where they begin their covert trek to the UK.

The Soviet 30th Army, receiving reports of the numbers of Allied troops fleeing Wonsan and the immense damage to the city being inflicted by the fighting and Allied demolition teams, decides to hasten the capture of the city by detonating a Scud missile above the city. The resulting blast and fire from the 300-kiloton detontation destroys much that is left, swamps many of the small craft in the harbor and hastens the collapse of the defense. As night falls, the commander of the USS Des Moines brings the ship into the outer harbor, where it takes on over a thousand desperate soldiers and civilians who reach the cruiser from small craft or are rescued by the ship's boats.

The carrier USS Oriskany completes loading of stores and spares and begins her first voyage in 20 years.

In Singapore, the Freedom-class cargo ship Kansas Freedom is loaded with over 100 tank containers loaded with JP-5, the final cargo that can be hastily assembled for a voyage to Diego Garcia to replace what was en-route to the island garrison aboard the Galveston Bay, sunk last week.

The American battleship force arrives in Hakodate, Japan, where it refuels and the US Navy ammunition ship USNS Mount Hood can more rapidly transfer some of the nation's rapidly dwindling stock of 16-inch shells to the battlewagons.

The Dutch 9th Amphibious Combat Group, recovered from its raid on a Soviet air defense radar, assumes a position along the front lines on the western shore of the Szczecin Lagoon.

Refugee flows disrupt Central Europe as thousands of desperate Poles try to cross into Germany ahead of avenging Communist authorities; the flow of civilians on foot slows down NATO military traffic to and from the Oder bridgeheads. On the opposite side of the lines the Polish communist authorities are carrying out several campaigns simultaneously - a hunt for collaborators and spies, a drive to mobilize civilians to make emergency repairs to the war-ravaged nation's transportation, industrial, power and water systems, and mass relocation of the surviving population into areas that can sustain them as well as be carefully watched by loyal forces. To the west, a steady stream of German and Dutch civilians, fleeing nuclear attacks (or the potential of a nuclear attack) on their home, heads for the Belgian and French borders. The French and Belgian authorities conduct a careful screening of the refugees, but the basic humanity of the French and Belgian populations demands that the aged, young and helpless be granted refuge from a horrible situation.

Aircraft from the USS John F Kennedy battle group continue to range over Jugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria and Italy, striking a variety of industrial, communications and transportation targets and enemy troop concentrations with nuclear bombs.

To the east, the USS Nassau and USS Wisconsin withdraw from the southern Turkish coast, unable to meaningfully influence the situation ashore, where the remnants of 16th Air Force continue to fly attack missions from Incirlik Air Base, stiking Soviet targets in the Balkans, Transcaucasia and interdicting Soviet shipping in the Black Sea.

While the first ships of Convoy 306 arrive off ports in the North Sea, ships from Convoy 304 are still at anchor awaiting unloading berths at the remaining intact European harbors.

The new head of GOSPLAN delivers an address to the organization's staff and representatives of the various central ministries associated with industrial production. His speech calls for greater efforts from the workforce, calling on managers to inspire their workers to superhuman efforts in devotion to the victory of the workers in the worldwide class struggle. Privately, most of the laisson officers are disgusted, noting that his address fails to offer solutions to the myriad real problems faced by the Soviet economy - the cutoff of foreign trade, the loss of millions of workers to the war, nuclear attacks wiping out Kiev, Minsk and numerous other western cities, widespread ethnic and worker unrest, countrywide shortages of basic materials and much more.

The Guatemalan high command, dismayed by the Army's lack of progress in Belize, orders the air force and navy to get involved in the fighting. The Air Force redeploys several of its A-37 light attack aircraft and helicopters to airfields in the northeast, while the elite airborne force is rallied from its scattered garrisons (where they have been fighting Communist guerrillas) to the capital.

[shrike6]

The "Light Frigates" that keep on popping about is this ship class notional If so are we going to see the stats printed in a future issue of the newsletter like the Freedom class

[chico20854]

November 16, 1997

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

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

The KGB agent team departs Turin and is driven to a remote sector of the Franco-Italian border, where the six new spies are able to cross undetected on foot in the darkness.

With the eastern end of the Allied line in disarray - as exhausted and demoralized South Korean troops fall back to the safety of the prewar DMZ - Allied forces in the west, under intense pressure by the Soviet 35th Army, begin to withdraw from the Kaesong River line. I and IX US Corps engineers have surveyed surviving prewar North Korean fortifications between Pyongyang and the DMZ, identifying some positions that can be used to hold off the advancing Soviets and their North Korean allies/clients.

The Chief of Staff of the 25th Infantry Division (Light), the senior surviving officer, begins reforming the unit at Camp Casey and Camp Hovey, facilities used by the 2nd Infantry Division in peacetime. The unit is initially assigned only survivors of the division's escape from encirclement and tactical nuclear strikes; 8th Army's G-1 (Personnel Officer) has determined that the best use of new replacements is to maintain the strength of units on the line rather than trying to rebuild the shattered 25th.

The Kansas Freedom sails from Singapore with a cargo of vitally needed supplies for Diego Garcia. The ship is relying on speed and a routing away from normally travelled sealanes, along with occasional overflights from friendly maritime patrol aircraft, for protection on the way.

As Pact forces close on the Oder River bridges become ever more important. NATO forces strike several of the Wisla crossings in an attempt to slow the flow of supplies and reinforcements to the front, while Western TVD tries to assemble remaining tactical bridging assets for the planned upcoming assault crossing of the Oder.

With Merrell Barracks in Nuremburg secure, the Colonel of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment receives confirmation that the regiment's artifacts are in fact missing. He assigns the entire unit a secondary mission to recover them; the officers raise a bounty of nearly $5,000 for their recovery. The regimental Command Sergeant Major offers his own special package of sweeteners - exemption from the guard and duty rosters, choice assignments within the regiment as well as certain material rewards - to the bounty. The regimental commander offers an on-the-spot one grade promotion to any soldier below the rank of 1st Lieutenant, Chief Warrant Officer or Staff Sergeant that recovers the items.

The soldiers of the 353rd Engineer Group (Combat) return to Fort Hood, Texas following two weeks of leave. Nine soldiers desert.

In Chernigov, Ukraine the 42nd Guards Training Tank Division, its leadership and some of its equipment returned from the Romanian Front, accepts its first contingent of new trainees, teenagers from eastern Ukraine whose teachers and local military commissions have identified as exhibiting leadership or technical potential. The division aims to take the raw talent and transform them into "instant sergeants" or tank or artillery crewmen for the Southwestern TVD.

In Belize, the day is another one of stalemate as the Guatemalan commanders struggle to sustain their troops with food and ammunition following the prior days' action and British and Belizian forces improve their defensive positions.

[chico20854]

The "Light Frigates" that keep on popping about is this ship class notional If so are we going to see the stats printed in a future issue of the newsletter like the Freedom class

No, they're additional Coast Guard Bear/Famous-class medium endurance cutters, delivered with the defense features the USCG cutters were designed to be augmented with in wartime - a towed array sonar, two quad Harpoon launchers, some additional electronics and a LAMPS-1 SH-2 helicopter instead of the Dauphin. While they were disliked IRL as poor sea boats and there were questions about the ships' stability if all that armament was fitted, I posit that they were put back into production anyway, as they were cheaper and offered some decent capability while small enough to be produced at second-tier shipyards, such as the many smaller yards along the Gulf Coast that primarily build offshore oilfield support boats in peacetime.

[shrike6]

No, they're additional Coast Guard Bear/Famous-class medium endurance cutters, delivered with the defense features the USCG cutters were designed to be augmented with in wartime - a towed array sonar, two quad Harpoon launchers, some additional electronics and a LAMPS-1 SH-2 helicopter instead of the Dauphin. While they were disliked IRL as poor sea boats and there were questions about the ships' stability if all that armament was fitted, I posit that they were put back into production anyway, as they were cheaper and offered some decent capability while small enough to be produced at second-tier shipyards, such as the many smaller yards along the Gulf Coast that primarily build offshore oilfield support boats in peacetime.

I'll admit I scanned through a couple of months of entries after surgery to catch back up and probably missed where you put that. Interesting though, not a bad way to add more ships during wartime.

[cawest]

I think it is unlikely just given the composition of the British and BDF force. The British battalion is a Territorial Army unit pulled from home defense duties. They have mostly Land Rovers with maybe a handful of Bedford trucks, but nothing powerful enough to tow a disabled light tank while their maintenance team lacks the tools, expertise, manpower and spares to work on it. Belize is a poor country so I think it is unlikely that there would be much similar capacity on the civilian side. If they retain control of the battlefield!

With that said, it might be possible for one or more of the knocked out tanks, if they didn't burn, to be emplaced as pillboxes at key points, or even in the jungle yards from where they were stopped.

its your story, but the M41 comes in at 23tons. a 25ton wrecker (its standard for semis) could pull one. i don't think that they will have many, but it could be a way to fluff some being recovered if not totally returned to service. could be a good money sink for the goverment.

[chico20854]

November 17, 1997

The American paratroops receive some welcome assistance from Kurdish irregulars in the Orumiyeh area.

Unofficially,

The freshly resupplied troops of the Soviet 25th Corps launch an attack on X US Corps' positions outside Fairbanks, Alaska, kicked off with a pair of tactical nuclear artillery rounds. The attack forces the American troops back; to protect the vulnerable civilian population from a winter of privation in the freezing Arctic weather X Corps abandons most of the city without a fight, falling back to defensive positions at Fort Wainwright and Eileson Air Force Base on the city's east side.

The KGB agent team destined for the UK links up with a sympathizer controlled by the KGB's Nice cell, who picks them up in his commercial van (carrying a variety of weapons, surveillance gear, supplies and communications equipment) and begins to travel to Normandy.

HM Government orders an acceleration of the annual technical inspection of the UK Steam Reserve, a collection of decommissioned steam locomotives kept in ready storage at various sites around the UK for emergency post-nuclear service. (They are entirely mechanical, immune to the effects of Electro-Magnetic Pulse and are not reliant on refined petroleum for fuel).

South Korean Special Forces troops sheltering in the remote mountains of North Korea identify a Soviet supply convoy heading south and report the movement. A nearby F-16 of the ROK 162nd Tactical Fighter Squadron arrives shortly thereafter and blankets the trucks with cluster bombs, depriving the 30th Army of much of what it needs to fight for two days.

The USS Des Moines arrives in the South Korean port of Pohang and discharges its massive load of passengers evacuated from Wonsan, North Korea.

The battleship USS Missouri heads back to sea, heading for the Yellow Sea to support the embattled Allied forces fighting in North Korea.

With final pre-deployment checks completed (a quick medical check, confirmation of wills and issuing personal weapons), the troops of the 353rd Engineer Group (Combat) (US Army Reserve) board a pair of requisitioned 747 jetliners at Fort Hood Army Airfield and depart for Europe.

The Guatemalan Air Force enters the war in Belize after several days of preparation. (The Air Force had been left out of planning because of inter-service rivalry, with the Army commander overly confident that his forces would be able to overrun Belize without Air Force assistance, clearing the way for future political advancement as a victorious general). Demonstrating the lack of coordination between the Army and Air Force, a flight of A-37s, flying at low level and 95 mph, flies down the road from the Guatemalan border. The pilots are unable to identify the camouflaged British positions, so they turn to the alternative target, the BDF headquarters in Belmopan. That facility is protected by a pair of emplaced machineguns, which succeed in distracting the pilots in their strafing run and damaging one of the slow-moving converted trainers. The sorties achieve very little of any consequence, and the skies over Belize are clear for the rest of the day.

[chico20854]

November 18, 1997

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

The 8th Armored Cavalry Regiment completes Rotation 97-11 at NTC-2 at the Yakima Training Center and is declared combat ready.

The carrier USS Oriskany suffers an engineering casualty and lies dead in the water for 12 hours off the Catalina Islands.

Another KGB agent meets with the van driver at a highway rest stop south of Nantes, France and takes over driving the KGB team's van to the English Channel.

South Korean troops of the ROK VIII and III begin to rebuild a defense line along the prewar DMZ along the east coast of the Korean Peninsula. Military Police block all roads leading south and maintain active patrolling of the countryside (along with the patrols of the civilian police), sweeping all stragglers and deserters up and directing them to the battered units furiously rebuilding the prewar defensive positions.

Polish government authorities try to summon the remnants of their four territorial pontoon regiments to replace some of the bridges across the Wisla destroyed by NATO strikes and replace the tactical and assault bridges that Soviet and Polish Army units have thrown across the river, freeing those assets up for use in the upcoming planned Oder assault. Western TVD designates a site north of Świebodzin as the concentration site for the bridging and the troops to operate them, under the umbrella command of the Soviet 5th Pontoon Engineer Regiment.

The NATO counterattack from Nuremburg peters out as the British I Corps and US VII Corps' fuel tanks begin to run dry, a consequence of the destruction of the petroleum import facilities in Rotterdam and repeated nuclear strikes on pumping stations and tank farms of the Central European Pipeline System, the backbone of the NATO fuel distribution network in Germany.

The Greek Type 209 submarine Proteus attacks an American resupply convoy supporting the USS John F Kennedy battlegroup south of Crete. The modern, quiet diesel boat is fortunate to have the convoy''s escort pass overhead without detecting it, placing it in position to launch torpedoes from all eight tubes. Three ships are hit - the frigate USS Antrim, ammunition ship USNS Santa Barbara and the aged oiler USNS Kawashiwi. All three ships end up going under, the oiler taking 17 hours to succumb to fire.

The 353rd Engineer Group (Combat) (US Army Reserve) arrives at Einhoven Airport, the Netherlands. The group commander is livid when he learns that the ship flagged to carry his unit's equipment (the large sealift ship USNS Sisler) has experienced engine trouble and is not expected to load for another 10-12 days. His unit is moved to several holding camps outside Amsterdam to acclimatize.

In midmorning, the Guatemalan Air Force appears over Belize once again. This time the A-37s are escorting a mixed bag of helicopters carrying paratroops to assault the Belize International Airport. The helicopters land, disgorging their paratroops into a hail of withering fire from the defending force of Belizian reserve infantry and British headquarters and support troops. The A-37s loitering overhead are unable to distinguish friendly from enemy ground troops and are forced to resorting to strafing the parked transport and liason aircraft that constitutte the Belizian Defense Force's Air Branch. Within four hours the last Guatemalan troops are surrounded; most chose to surrender rather than be killed. Five Guatemalan UH-1-type helicopters are lost in the assault.

[chico20854]

November 19, 1997

Lieutenant Commander Michael Sacks, U.S. Navy, wounded in one of the earliest actions of the war, is released from the Naval Hospital at Bethesda, Maryland.

Unofficially,

Various sources report an increased possibility of a Soviet nuclear attack on the UK. The Prime Minister, having received considerable criticism for his rushed evacuations during previous false alarms since July and reluctant to panic the population, is reluctant to order another full implementation of Operation Peripheral. Instead, after some discussion it is decided that the Royal Family will leave London for their estate at Sandringham in Norfolk, accompanied by the Home Secretary. As a precautionary measure, other senior members of the Government quietly leave the Capital for secure locations throughout the southeast of England.

Eluding authorities with a skillful application of cash, a fishing boat departs Dieppe with the KGB agent team destined for the UK aboard.

The 7th Infantry Division (Light) receives four infantry companies and a 105mm artillery battery as reinforcements from the 193rd Infantry Brigade in Panama, part of the "Bravo Company Transfer" initiated the week prior.

Her propulsion system working again, USS Oriskany continues her workups, landing A-4s of VA-175.

In Europe, the recipients of the "Bravo Company Transfer" are the 43rd Infantry Division (from the 46th), the 3rd Armored Division (from the 49th) and the 8th Infantry Division (receiving companies from the 194th Armored Brigade).

As allied units return to East Germany the opportunity presents itself for soldiers, exhausted by months of fierce combat and whose units have suffered greatly, to become separated from their units, either intentionally or not. Military Police units establish screens to round up these wayward soldiers and return them to duty, either in their own units or some other nearby, understrength unit.

With the interruption to its supply of fuel and ammunition from yesterday's attack on its replenishment group, the John F Kennedy battle group is forced to scale back operations over Turkey and the Balkans and head to the central Mediterranean for replenishment. The battleship Wisconsin increases its activity in the region, beginning a foray into the Aegean raiding Greek positions in the islands. (Her supply of Tomahawk land-attack missiles has been depleted and the launchers cannot be reloaded underway).

To support the 82nd Airborne Division, a nearly constant flow of C-130s and smaller transport aircraft ferry supplies into northwestern Iran, landing on hastily constructed airstrips, straight stretches of highway or dropping them from low level. This situation creates a plethora of targets for Soviet fighters, demanding a concerted effort to maintain an Allied combat air patrol over the area. Saudi officials are unwilling to extend their F-15 and Tornado force so far from home territory, as are most of its GCC allies. The Iranian Air Force contributes what sorties it can, and over the objections of their commanders the F/A-18s of the 1st and 4th Marine Air Wings make an appearance over the region. The final force brought in is the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing, whose F-15E strike fighters possess superior air-to-air capabilities to those of the dedicated F-15C interceptors of the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing. This diversion, however, decreases the interdiction effort directed to keeping up the pressure on Soviet supply lines.

More unrest troubles the USSR as peasants in the Vologda region refuse to hand over the produce from their private plots to authorities, noting that their local collective farm did its best to fulfill its norms even in the face of no spare parts for the (overaged and worn out) tractors and cutbacks in fertilizer and fuel.