On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[ToughOmbres]

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.

More great updates per usual. It strikes me that even before the TDM the conflict was approaching the broken-back level where each side was heavily damaged yet continued to pursue victory-(this is even before strategic nuclear weapons were flying) More than one pundit "back in the day" posited that a NATO/WP conflict would quickly become just that.

[ToughOmbres]

If I were to start this effort over from scratch I keep myself organized a little differently.

Right now I have about 10 Orbat excel spreadsheets - Pact Ground units, Soviet submarines, NATO cargo ships, the USAF, non-US NATO surface ships, and so on, as well as a pair of location spreadsheets - steel mills, C3I facilities, airbases, SAM sites, ICBM silos, refineries, power plants, etc - one for NATO and one for the Pact. They also contain details about the opposition's nuclear arsenals - range, yield, CEP, numbers built and deployed, etc. I keep notes in all these sheets on what happens with individual entries, ie "nuked 9/19/97" or "sank the Omaha Freedom on 7/19/97 with three torps". I also have draft vehicle guides in various stages of completion, four word docs for the US (Armored divisions, infantry divisions, independent regiments/brigades and corps/army HQs), one for the Soviets and about 6-8 for allies. And then there's all the v1 canon material and documents that some others here have shared to mine.

But its unwieldy to work with... I usually have 6-10 windows open in excel and two to four in Word, plus three google map windows and a wikipedia page, plus acrobat with Janes' Fighting Ships or some such. When I have time to include photos that's another couple windows going on my screen.

So if I was to start this from scratch I would probably construct a military unit database that would have air, ground and naval units from all combatant nations in it. I might also build a location database, or, if I had the technical skill, put it all in to one master file. It would certainly make things easier to work with and maybe prevent foul-ups like two USS John Paul Jones or Newport News!

So just a peak behind the curtain!

Enjoy the weekend!

It is an incredible amount of work and a massive undertaking-it is also very well done and greatly appreciated.

[ToughOmbres]

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.

Another nice touch to mention the SRS/FEMA caches. Very realistic (although I can imagine DLA doing something similar) and a great addition to the timeline.

[chico20854]

Folks, I screwed up the other day. The following section

November 19, 1997

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.

is from Rainbow Six's amazing Alternative Survivors' Guide to the UK.

It's such a great work that I have been leaning on it for much of what I have ging on in the UK. I screwed up by not giving Rainbow the credit he is most certainly due for his work, and I once again apologize!

Please take some time to read through his work. It has a lot more on the UK than I could ever hope to!

Once again, I'm sorry Rainbow! (And if I have picked up somebody else's work in my years of hoovering up timeline info, please let me know so I can get you the credit you are due!).

[chico20854]

November 20, 1997

Dr. Allie Kurtz becomes the CIA representative on the Allied Joint Intelligence Task Force in the CENTCOM area of operations.

Unofficially,

The Essex-class carrier USS Oriskany makes her first catapult launches in decades as she works up to full operating capability. She is joined by two of her escorts, the reactivated destroyer John Paul Jones and the Coast Guard cutter Chase, to begin working on battle group operations.

The KGB team arrives in the predawn hours on the beach south of Dover. They quickly unload their rubber raft's cargo of weapons, supplies and equipment before launching it into the surf; 100 meters offshore one of the team members sinks it and undertakes a perilous swim ashore. They break into an unoccupied holiday cottage and shelter for the day, recovering from the rough crossing in cold weather.

The last Allied front line troops withdraw from Pyongyang, leaving stay-behind parties in well-hidden and -supplied observation posts. In the east, forward detachments of the 30th Army reach the prewar Demilitarized Zone, now adequately occupied by South Korean troops.

The battleship Missouri returns to action, firing on Soviet and North Korean troops attacking South Korean and American marines outside the North Korean naval base complex at Songang-ni.

The Soviet 12th Tank Division prepares for an assault crossing of the Oder near Gorlitz.

The commander of the US 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, seeing other units receive new companies from the US, pleas for additional troops to rebuild his battered unit, which is still at only 35 percent of authorized strength after months of action. He writes: "It is essential that 3rd ACR receive the requested persoonel and equipment to returnt the unit to full strength. However, even if we had all our personnel and mission capable equipment today we would still not be able to return to action because of our losses of senior leaders (sergeant through colonel) and our training status. We have been unable to train above squad level, and even training at squad level is limited by severe shortages of equipment. We have lost a large majority of our trained leaders and soldiers and gained few. None of the new personnel have conducted tactical training with the regiment's units. In addition, we have critical shortages in low density MOSs. 3rd ACR currently has four trained NBC specialists and most troops have no supply personnel; 2d Squadron's S-4 (Supply Officer) is an E-4 with 13 months in service. I have an aggressive training plan that will result in trained squadrons by March and a combat ready regiment by June, but in order to execute it I need the regiment filled with adequately trained personnel and mission-ready equipment."

The Wisconsin surface action group continues its rampage though the Aegean Sea and turns northeast, heading for the Turkish Straits. Lacking friendly air cover and given the near-destruction of enemy air forces in the area, the group proceeds with all of its radars on full power. Consequently, fixing the group's location, course and speed is relatively easy for Soviet ELINT aircraft orbiting over the Black Sea. They relay the information to Moscow and within 45 minutes a SS-20 IRBM is fired by the 19th Missile Regiment near Sumy in the Ukraine. The missile lands 600 meters from the battleship, sending her and her group to the bottom. (The reverberation of the shock wave from the blast off the shallow seabed did greivous damage to the escorts out of the direct range of the blast).

CENTCOM receives several companies of reinforcements from the "Bravo Company Transfer", with the 14th ACR and 48th Infantry Brigade receiving companies from the 13th ACR and 197th Infantry Brigades in the continental US.

In Soviet Georgia, workers at the Tbilisi Electronics plant begin the low-rate production of improved SS-23 guidance packages. The first prototype, completed a few weeks before, is rejected by Moscow because it is too heavy, a result of the unavailability of the proper lightweight alloy from the war-burdened Soviet economy. The initial series production lacks the proper metals as well. Deliveries of SS-23 missiles continue to be on hold while the new guidance packages are produced.

Unwilling to give up on the attempt to overrun Belize, the Guatemalan high command orders the Navy into action. The force, composed of a half-dozen or so patrol boats in the Caribbean and seven companies of marines (nationwide) needs several days to organize for an assault on Belize's many coastal villages and outlying islands.

Meanwhile, the front along the sole road between the two nations remains stalemated, with Guatemalan Army troops struggling to maintain their morale in the face of supply shortages, the shock of facing competent opposition and the constant fear of British attacks emerging from the jungle.

[chico20854]

November 21, 1997

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

The helicopter repair and maintenance center in Corpus Christi, Texas completesits first conversion of a US Navy TH-57 training helicopter into a OH-58 battlefield observation model for service at the front. The conversion was relatively minor, fitting additional avionics and weapons mounts, replacing the windscreen with a flat model as well as a coating of IR and radar-absorbent paint and a general update of aged components. A C-5 Galaxy awaits at the Naval Air Station to fly the "new" aircraft to Iran.

The American attack submarine USS Olympia arrives in Holy Loch, Scotland after a patrol that took it from Pearl Harbor, under the North Pole and into the Barents Sea.

The KGB team in the Dover area splits up into teams of one or two members, dispersing across the UK to begin tracking developments in wartime Britain.

Deep in the Chinese interior, the 292nd Motor-Rifle Division continues its advance on foot. In the month since it abandoned its vehicles (which were out of gas) the unit has advanced another 450 kilometers.

The freighter Kansas Freedom reaches Diego Garcia, carrying a load of JP-5 fuel, food and other essentials. The staff on the island begin storing the cargo discharged by the ship's cranes.

An A-team from the 20th Special Forces Group (National Guard) locates the Soviet 5th Pontoon Engineer Regiment's bivouac area and the growing equipment park containing much of the remaining tactical bridging equipment from Pact units throughout Poland. The team radios the find in to the group headquarters, which dispatches a Green Light Atomic Demolitions Munition team to the area. The strike team arrives shortly before dawn and, covered by the men of the first team, emplace it in between the tent sites and motor pool. The subsequent blast effectively wipes out the massed equipment and the specialist troops, severely limiting Western TVD's ability to ferry anything other than an assault echelon across the Oder.

The American light frigate USS Marchand begins its first operational voyage, an anti-submarine sweep of the approaches to Norfolk, Virginia.

The 234th Rear Area Protection Division, a unit composed of Romanian-speaking Moldovan reservists that performed well in quelling resistance to the Soviet 14th Army's occupation of southeastern Romania, is assigned to 26th Army and transferred to Jugoslavia.

The nuclear exchange continues in the Persian Gulf region, with USAF F-15Es taking a break from air defense to block the road junction south of Mashdad, Iran, where roads from Turkmenistan and Afghanistan join and continue to Tehran. Thanks to the efforts of the 82nd Airborne Division the road is one of the main routes for Transcaucasian Front to obtain supplies.

[Targan]

November 20, 1997The Wisconsin surface action group continues its rampage though the Aegean Sea and turns northeast, heading for the Turkish Straits. Lacking friendly air cover and given the near-destruction of enemy air forces in the area, the group proceeds with all of its radars on full power. Consequently, fixing the group's location, course and speed is relatively easy for Soviet ELINT aircraft orbiting over the Black Sea. They relay the information to Moscow and within 45 minutes a SS-20 IRBM is fired by the 19th Missile Regiment near Sumy in the Ukraine. The missile lands 600 meters from the battleship, sending her and her group to the bottom.

Whoops. Hopefully there were lessons learned there.

[bash]

Whoops. Hopefully there were lessons learned there.

Let me just crest this hill and present a profile, what's the worst that can hap

[ToughOmbres]

Whoops. Hopefully there were lessons learned there.

Indeed. Hate to see the BB Wisconsin go down in the timeline.

[chico20854]

November 22, 1997

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

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

FEMA commissions another evacuation center, this one a winterization and expansion of the campground at Vermont's Grand Isle State Park in Lake Champlain. The facility should be able to accomodate 1500 evacuees from Burlington, Vermont, Plattsburgh, New York or even more distant cities in New England. More controversially, the site is a mere 70 miles from Montreal; local emergency planners worry that the state may be burdened with supporting foreigners, even if they are allied civilians.

The battleship USS Missouri, operating in the Yellow Sea, is damaged by a conventional torpedo (one hit) in the bow from the Victor III-class attack submarine K-244 and heads for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii for repairs.

The British and American forces outside Nuremburg shift over to a defensive deployment, in many cases occupying defensive positions long planned for employment in the decades-long effort to defend West Germany from a Warsaw Pact invasion.

In Western Poland, corps commanders question the utility of holding bridgeheads over the Oder, pointing out that the NATO forces are in no condition to repeat the spring and summer's conquest of Poland and that the threat of infiltration and small size of the bridgeheads require troops to minimize dispersal, creating a lucrative target for Soviet nuclear weapons. The prior day's attack on Western TVD's bridging assets reduces the Pact's ability to threaten an assault crossing of the Oder as well, all arguing for a withdrawal from most of the positions east of the Oder-Niesse line.

In western Bavaria, the commander of XX Corps, facing off against exhausted Italian alpini mountain troops, requests reinforcements of artillery, engineers and modest armor forces to take advantage of the enemy's weakness and recapture territory. Unfortunately, 4th Army has no assets to send to the sector, such is the shortage of replacements, fuel, ammunition and spares.

Salvage specialists clear the entrance to the Danish port of Esbjerg that had been blocked by the Romanian freighter Ilfov, which had been sunk by Soviet bombs in an air raid over the summer. This effort clears a major obstacle to clearing the growing backlog of loaded ships in the North Sea. The backlog grows larger with the arrival of Convoy 310, which brings another 48 ships loaded with cargo.

Over the Baltic, an A-7E of the US Navy's VA-66, a survivor of the USS Coral Sea's air wing operating from the Danish Air Force Aalborg Air Station, intercepts a Soviet A-90 Orlyonok Ekranoplan craft flying at low level, ferrying a load of supplies into Poland. (Such is the desperate situation of the Pact forces; the craft carries a mere 28 tons of cargo). The A-7 diverts and downs the craft with several bursts of 20mm gunfire. Upon his return to base, the pilot is incensed that the squadron intelligence officer is uncertain as to credit the pilot with a "kill" (taking him closer to being an Ace) or with sinking a surface craft.

The 173rd Airborne Brigade in Kenya continues its fierce attacks on Tanzanian forces near Mombasa, defeating a planned Tanzanian attack before the forces can even get organized for an offensive.

[pmulcahy11b]

November 22, 1997

Upon his return to base, the pilot is incensed that the squadron intelligence officer is uncertain as to credit the pilot with a "kill" (taking him closer to being an Ace) or with sinking a surface craft.

That is an interesting conundrum there...

[bash]

*checks calendar*

*tugs collar*

Ooof.

[chico20854]

*checks calendar*

*tugs collar*

Ooof.

Keep in mind that Thanksgiving Day 1997 was on the 27th. Don't worry, I'm ready!

[chico20854]

November 23, 1997

Nothing official for today. Unofficially,

Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Sauronski decides that the strategic situation is growing increasingly intolerable, with the US, UK and Canada continuing to churn out tanks, troops, guns and aircraft with inpunity, while the USSR has suffered the loss of Kiev and Minsk and is faced with diminishing prospects of restoring East Germany to Soviet control. Accordingly, he directs that the nation's nuclear forces prepare to execute a strike on the American and British homelands, to decapitate their Capitalist regimes and create a favorable situation for a worker's uprising, or at least demand an end to the capitalist war of aggression. To prevent the attack from igniting an all-out apocolyptic response on the Soviet homeland, the attacks are to use no more than 15 missiles.

Janet Clancy, daughter of Vice President Pemberton and her father set out on their annual multi-day Thanksgiving cross country ski trip to the family's cabin in North Cascades National Park, Washington. Taking advantage of the cold weather, they travel on the frozen Lake Chalen to the isolated hamlet of Stehekin, accompanied by her Secret Service bodyguard, a former Marine sergeant that learned to ski at the Mountain Warfare Training Center in the Sierra Nevadas. The bodyguard is armed with his issue SIG-Sauer P229 pistol and a M-4 carbine. When they arrive at the cabin they are greeted by another agent and the family's cook, who arrived the day prior via snowmobile.

Soviet troops in Manchuria revolt when they receive word that they are to be sent to the front in Europe. The men feel that they have alreeady won a war for the Soviet Union and that the many reservists, rear area troops and other able-bodied men who did not contribute to victory in China should spend time at the front before they once again risk their lives. The men are heavily armed combat veterans, and the revolt must be handled delicately.

The American carrier Oriskany reaches a new milestone - its first full squadron sortie evolution, when VA-175 launches a training strike (in support of Marines training at Twentynine Palms, California) and returns to the ship.

NATO forces in Poland hold on to the Oder bridgeheads against growing Soviet pressure. The opposiiton is mostly Soviets, the Polish Army being diverted to support the Border Guards in the hunt for pro-NATO partisans, stay-behind parties and collaborators that may have betrayed the Communist Party.

The Freedom-class ship Springfield Freedom diverts from the North Sea into the British port of Felixstone for discharge of its cargo of vehicles (mostly new M939 5-ton trucks but also a quartet of M-1A2D tanks and several dozen old M-561 Gama Goats. They spend only a few hours ashore before being loaded onto the USS Boulder, a LST that can land vehicles on beaches.

As the orders to strike the US and UK are received by the leadership of the Strategic Rocket Forces, Long Range Aviation and Navy, planners begin to pull together the concept for the operation. (Existing plans largely cover an all-out strike on the West using all available weapons). They will be fully prepared to execute in three days.

[chico20854]

November 24, 1997

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

Having given the orders for an attack on the United States and UK, Premier Sauronski departs Moscow for the secret underground command center at Zhiguli Mountain near Kuybyshev. He is accompanied by his mistress, favorite son and small entourage to avoid attracting attention. His departure, of course, is noted by the KGB, whose Chairman Yangel, departs shortly thereafter for the safety of the bunker complex under Kosvinsky Mountain in the Urals.

The 2nd Brigade, 17th Airborne Division is declared combat ready after completing Rotation 97-11 at JRTC-2 at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. It is held at the base pending receipt of equipment and a decision from the Joint Chiefs as to where it will be sent.

The front along the DMZ in eastern Korea is static as 30th Army suffers from severe supply shortages and a lack of replacements for the heavy losses it has sustained in the long advance from the Soviet border. Allied lines in the central mountains are slowly receding to the prewar DMZ, while Allied mechanized forces in the west (mainly a handful of South Korean mechanized brigades and the 163rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (Montana National Guard)) south of Pyongyang are slowing 35th Army's reconquest of North Korean territory with frequent lighting mechanized raids on the Soviet advanced detachments. Meanwhile, South Korean stay-behind parties continue to identify Soviet supply convoys for interdiction strikes.

NATO troops along the Oder become increasingly nervous as each day passes without a Soviet attack on their bridgeheads. They spend the time furiously digging ever-deeper protective shelters, which hopefully will save them from the nuclear attacks they can't help but fear are coming shortly.

With the loss of the Wisconsin battle group in the Aegean to a Soviet missile strike, the commander of the John F. Kennedy carrier battle group departs Sigonella, Sicily and requests permission from 6th Fleet to shift his area of operations to the Tyrrhenian Sea north of Sicily and west of the Italian Peninsula. The Navy detachment ashore, caring for the damaged carrier America, once again requests an update on what to do, having largely repaired what they are able to do with the resources on hand.

The LST USS Boulder beaches itself at high tide at Scheveningen, Netherlands and drops its ramp to unload the vehicles it loaded the day before from the Springfield Freedom. Dutch motor-transport units are waiting with tank transporters to move the four M1A2D tanks, while the Gama Goats are loaded onto flatbeds and the 5-ton trucks are taken over by a detachment (composed of German civilian employees) sent by the US Army's 21st TAACOM.

photo
The F-15E strike aircraft of the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing return to the skies over eastern Iran, this time en route to the road leading from Herat Afghanistan. Mujaheddin fighters and their American CIA advisors reported the departure of the 682nd "Uman-Warsaw" Independent Motor-Rifle Regiment from Afghanistan to reinforce the battered 40th Army. A few hours later the F-15Es appeared overhead, ripping the column apart with an 80-kiloton B-61 bomb.

The Guatemalan Navy makes it's entry in the war with Belize when a force of six patrol boats, constituting all the craft in the Caribbean that can be made seaworthy, appears off the town of Dangriga, the largest town in southern Belize. They enter the yacht/fishing harbor and discharge two platoons of heavily armed Marines, overpowering the three confused policemen that had arrived to investigate. The Marines seize the police car and a number of civilian vehicles and head inland, securing the nearby road junction, cutting off the southern portion of the country and the direct road from the south to the capital.