On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[chico20854]

January 28, 1998

The 82nd Airborne Division, worn out after months behind enemy lines during Operation Pegasus II and several weeks of internal security duties along the north coast of the Persian Gulf, is withdrawn to Saudi Arabia for R&R.

The student body of the US Air Force Academy, outside Colorado Springs Colorado, is converted to a troop unit, designated the Cadet Brigade. The brigade takes over the remaining weapons and equipment left at Fort Carson by the 4th Infantry Division when the 4th was airlifted to Europe in October of 1996.

Unofficially,

Thge 4th Virginia State Guard Regiment deploys a surplus Second World War-era M18 Hellcat tank destroyer, rearmed with unit machineguns and used by the regiment alongside three converted bank armored cars as a (completely unauthorized by command) so-called armored platoon.

A US Army resupply convoy in northwestern East Germany stops at a MP roadside checkpoint en route from its latest supply run, (relatively) laden with food, ammunition and fuel. Once stopped the MPs order the troops out of their vehicles, and soon they find themselves surrounded by more US troops in uniforms that can best be described as, at best, disorderly and unauthorized. They are ordered to drop their weapons as it becomes apparent that the roadblock is not, in fact, MPs but deserters, in this case a band of the US Army criminal band that calls itself 5th Squad. The minority members of the surrounded troops are offered admission to the group, which several accept, and the rest are stripped of their equipment and weapons, bound and gagged and driven several miles away, where they are dropped off in a remote patch of forest to fend for themselves. The haul secured by 5th Squad is enough to keep the gang fed and supplied throughout the rest of the winter.

Belgian troops (esppecially Dutch-speaking ones) are assigned primary responsibility for coordinating the evacuation of US and British assets from the Franco-Belgian occupied zone, taking over from French Army units which, in several cases, have strained relations with the NATO commanders involved. The Belgian troops are considered generous by the isolated American units, which appreciate the provision of ample fine Belgian ales.

The layup effort in the fjords outside Stavanger concludes with the stripping of perishable supplies, ammunition, fuel and lubricants from the last ship (the American freighter Cape Catoche). The crews and most of the supplies return to the Baltic aboard the Danish corvette Beskytteren and a trio of oilfield supply ships while the US Navy oiler Platte takes the salvaged fuel north along the Norwegian coast.

[chico20854]

January 29, 1998

Corpus Christi, Texas has been abandoned. The blasts at the end of November left 40,000 dead and 100,000 injured. Thousands more - no estimate is ever made - died in the weeks that followed from starvation, disease, and the effects of severe burns and radiation sickness.

Unofficially,

In Korea, the 163rd Armored Cavalry Regiment is withdrawn behind the lines and given priority in fuel allocation so it can act as a mobile armored reserve to smash enemy breakthroughs.

The final USAF Europe aircraft depart bases in the French-occupied Rhineland, landing shortly thereafter at nearby bases in central and northern Germany. They are laden with as many munitions as can be carried and topped off with as much fuel as they can carry.

French, Belgian, German and American engineers, each working in their own sectors (and with Americans handling the interfaces between nations) complete repairs to the CEPS pipelines across (and under) the Rhine, and shortly before midnight fuel resumes flowing into tank farms in central Germany.

The oiler Platte continues its voyage north, travelling out of sight of the Norwegian mainland.

photo
A third group of excess merchantmen departs the Heligoland Bight in the North Sea, headed for layup at Cromarty Firth in northern Scoland. It travels at 10 knots to reduce fuel consumption and allow a quartet of offshore oil rig boats to keep up with the formation, which is escorted by the Canadian "destroyer" Assiniboine. (Most NATO navies would classify it as a frigate.)

American paratroops and their Romanian allies overrun a Soviet outpost in the small Transylvanian town of Deda, ridding the area of Soviet occupation forces and, to the increasing dismay of Soviet leaders, cutting two rail lines from the USSR into the Balkans.

[chico20854]

January 30, 1998

Following the Army's lead, Headquarters, Marine Corps, directs the formation of additional troop units from training and support staff at various installations. The 30th Marine Regiment is the first of these, raised from some of the final classes of trainees at Camp Lejeune and Parris Island and their drill instructors, troops withdrawn from Guantanamo and a detachment from FAST Company, Atlantic. Reflecting its unusual heritage, it is assigned a new regiment number rather than one from the Corps long history. It is equipped with whatever vehicles and armor is available, most of which are training vehicles that have seen considerable use.

The replica USS Constitution takes on a cargo in Capetown, South Africa in exchange for a resupply of food and spare parts.

The 101st Air Assault Division's aviation elements are withdrawn to Saudi Arabia for rest and refit. Few replacement aircraft are available, (unofficially) although the Saudis are generous in permitting American maintenance contractors (many of whom are military retirees) and their facilities (and, unknown to their hosts, spares) to work on the American aircraft.

Unofficially,

The Red Army has always operated on a much more austere logistic basis than NATO forces, and in the aftermath of the nuclear exchange Soviet units are largely left to their own devices for support. In the Balkans, many Soviet units simply disintegrate in the face of a hostile local population and lack of resupply from home, but in Central Europe they are able to remain cohesive. This is due, ironically, in part, to the use of captured NATO supply dumps, the support of the local population and the benefit of RGVK (the Soviet High Command)s prioritization of the Western TVD to the limited extent that central direction has any effect.

The US Navy tanker Platte, laden with fuel oil and diesel from merchantmen laid up in Stavanger to the south, arrives in the Vestfjord, where the carrier battle groups built around the USS Roosevelt and Eisenhower have been sheltering. While the nuclear-powered carriers require no conventional fuel, their escorts do and have nearly run dry, with only one ship operating, guarding the entrance through the minefields into the fjord. The Platte begins refilling those ships' tanks, the first resupply from the logistic system since December 20. (Some bartering and purchases of food from local villages had occurred since then, completely unauthorized by any higher command).

[chico20854]

January 31, 1998

Arrests for hoarding become commonplace. Most residents of Pittsburgh that had fled the city (and other similar cities) have returned home

Unofficially,

NATO Corps are lined up from the Baltic to French-Swiss Border in the following order: II MEF, III German, XI US, VII German, XXIII US, V German, XV US, I German, II UK, VII US, IV German, Danish Expeditionary Force, XX US Corps. I UK, III and V US Corps and II, VI, VIII, X, XI and XII German Korps are in the NATO rear area rebuilding, on relief duties or facing Franco-Belgian troops along the Rhine

The 15th Motor-Rifle (my 78th Tank) Division, badly mauled in Operation Pegasus II, is a shadow of its former self and is sent back to Chardzhou, Turkmenistan for rest and refit.

In New South Wales, Australia, the premier authorizes the reorganization of federal and state police, augmented by private security guards, into a new force, designated the Main Force Patrol, to combat rampant crime in rural areas and along the state's highways.

[kato13]

January 31, 1998
In New South Wales, Australia, the local governor authorizes the reorganization of federal and state police, augmented by private security guards, into a new force, designated the Main Force Patrol, to combat rampant crime in rural areas and along the state's highways.

Quite possibly my favorite detail so far.

[Homer]

January 28, 1998
The 4th Virginia State Guard Regiment deploys a surplus Second World War-era M18 Hellcat tank destroyer, rearmed with unit machineguns and used by the regiment alongside three converted bank armored cars as a (completely unauthorized by command) so-called armored platoon.

FWIW VMI maintained a cadet manned platoon of M48 tanks and a 105mm howitzer section for instructional purposes at least through the mid 80s. The Foreign Material Intelligence Battalion (Aberdeen Proving Ground) and NTC maintained "petting zoos" of primarily threat systems while JRTC and the ADA school operated hinds, hips, hoplites and colts. In addition a number of the vehicles on display at the APG's "Mile of Tanks" and the Fort Knox Patton Museum were in good automotive order with some of the Patton museums vehicles being moved out of their display bays for special events. There were also some tanks stored in the back lots at Knox; I saw a Swedish S, Chieftain, and Leopard I parked in a motorpool off Main Range Road during the 90s.

[Ewan]

Quite possibly my favorite detail so far.

Yes a nice homage to Mad Max

[Targan]

In New South Wales, Australia, the local governor authorizes the reorganization of federal and state police, augmented by private security guards, into a new force, designated the Main Force Patrol, to combat rampant crime in rural areas and along the state's highways.

I'm assuming your intention there is to have the head of the parliamentary government taking that action That would be the Premier of New South Wales (the leader of the ruling party in each Australian state is called the Premier, or Chief Minister in the Northern Territory and in the Australian Capital Territory). Premiers are the equivalent of state governors in the US.

Australia's states do each have a Governor, but that's the Crown's representative and Governors' responsibilities are largely ceremonial. Likewise the Commonwealth of Australia has a Governor General, again largely ceremonial (although in at least one infamous case the Governor General did dismiss the government of the day, ousting Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in 1975 and sparking a constitutional crisis).

I can't imagine a scenario where the state police and local federal police would take orders from a state governor and not from the democratically elected state government.

[chico20854]

February 1, 1998

As part of the reorganization of US Navy and Coast Guard forces on the US East Coast, the Cape May Coast Guard station (which supported a small detachment of aircraft and smaller craft, as well as seerving as the Coast Guard's primary basic training base) is re-designated CMNB, Cape May Naval Base.

Elsewhere in southern New Jersey, the inmates of the Leesville State Prison revolt, gaining control of the facility and a small stash of weapons from the guard force. They hold 50 guards and staff members as hostages.

Unofficially,

In rural western England, the Spetsnaz team led by Colonel Mikhail Tumanski has sought shelter for the winter in one of the unit's safe houses prepared in prewar times by the GRU. The team, down to four men, has adequate supplies of (tinned) food, a well and warm clothing. It has not been in contact with GRU headquarters in many weeks and would, in the future, have a hard time doing so as their batteries and cypher pads are both running low.

With bunkers of their escorts once again partially full, the Roosevelt and Eisenhower battle groups depart the Vestfjord off Norway's west coast. The carriers' planes are nearly grounded as the jet fuel tanks are almost empty; the strike group's commanding officer orders that only a single S-3 Viking patrol aircraft be aloft at any time, such is the shortage of fuel.

The population of the Romanian town of Trgu Mureș rises up, overrunning the garrisons of the occupying 146th MRD and massacring their Soviet occupiers/oppressors.

A group of Pasdaran deserters robs a merchant convoy west of the Iranian capital city of Shiraz, drifting away into the Dalu Mountains after stealing food and trade goods.

In Belize, British and Belizian Defense Force troops have completed the roundup of Guatemalan deserters and stragglers as well as sorting through the detrius of the surrendered Guatemalan force. To their delight, they are able to restore to working condition enough vehicles to motorize one of the Belizian infantry battalions as well as return two of the captured M-41 Walker Bulldog light tanks to operable condition. While fuel and reinforcements from the UK ceased, the local economy produces sufficient food to support the population. RAF and British Army air operations have ground to a halt and local military forces are busy securing the borders against bands of bandits and deserters trying to enter the country from Guatemala and neighboring Mexico.

[chico20854]

I'm assuming your intention there is to have the head of the parliamentary government taking that action That would be the Premier of New South Wales (the leader of the ruling party in each Australian state is called the Premier, or Chief Minister in the Northern Territory and in the Australian Capital Territory). Premiers are the equivalent of state governors in the US.

Thanks! I didn't have the time to do the research trying to get something up for the weekend. (I did, howver, verify that NSW is a state and not a province and that there are no local police forces, just state and federal. I didn't see that Mad max was filmed in Victoria until after the post went up. Can't win em all!) I've gone back and edited it to premier.

[chico20854]

February 2, 1998

With Port Arthur, Houston, Galveston, and Corpus Christi all destroyed during the nuclear exchange of 1997, Port Lavaca is the largest remaining port along Texas' Gulf Coast. However, a large number of the buildings in town were destroyed during the civil disturbances that followed the nuclear strikes. The nearby town of Point Comfort was the site of destructive looting, riots, and fires that destroyed the towns chemical and aluminum plants. Most of the surviving residents of the town of Sinton, 18 miles from Corpus Christi, flee the town as food supplies run out.

Unofficially,

The Canadian Army's 37 Brigade, hastily formed from Militia units and garrison troops from CFB Gander and CFB Goose Bay in Labrador, begins to transfer troops into Labrador using local craft. To the south, 36 Brigade takes command of Militia units in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, while the Special Service Force headquarters, veterans of the Kola campaign, begins to integrate other active units in the southern Maritimes into it's command.

In the early morning hours Dutch guerrillas (members of the 2nd Marine Amphibious Combat Group) lay a series of anti-tank and anti-personnel mines on the main route out of a French garrison outside Breda. The mines are detonated a few hours later when the occupiers send out their first patrol of the day, ironically tasked to check for mines on the supply route back to the Belgian border. An AMX-10P is lost along with twelve men.

The Soviet Danube Front commander in Bucharest reacts to the loss of communications with the garrison of Trgu Mureș by sending a L-39 trainer/light attack aircraft plane from the 809th Fighter-Attack Regiment on a recon mission over the city. The pilot returns with word of the garrison's apparent demise.

The Iranian 3rd Armored Division, receiving word of the attack on the merchant convoy to the west, dispatches a mounted patrol to the area but finds nothing of interest.

Outside Vilnius, Lithuania, Colonel Česlovas Skrebys, a semi-retired officer that served as the local military commissioner responsible for mobilizing the resources of the area to support the war effort, decides that, in the absence of orders from Moscow, he will retain those resources for the relief of his local area. He moves his headquarters from a damp pre-WW II bunker to the lighter, more pleaseant surroundings of Trakai Castle on a frozen lake.

[chico20854]

February 3, 1998

Some inmates from the Leesville State Prison in southern New Jersey leave the facility, spreading horror and chaos across the area. Most of the inmates remain in the heavily fortified facility, however.

The Soviet 203rd (my 14th) Air Assault Brigade, brought forward in late 1997 to reinforce the 35th Army in North Korea, is caught by American aircraft when assembling for a heliborne attack on the DMZ and suffers heavy losses.

Unofficially,

A French Air Force KC-135 tanker carrying 75 passengers, military officers and senior NCOs, many recent veterans of the fighting in Germany and the Netherlands, arrives at CFB Bagotville in Quebec. The military personnel, unarmed, are to serve as advisors to the rapidly expanding Quebec National Army.

With the failure of the city's water treatment plant and influx of desperate refugees from the devastated countryside, sanitary conditions in Krakow (the largest, most intact city remaining in Poland) deteriorate. The first case of cholera breaks out in a refugee center at the Mydlniki train station on the city's northwestern outskirts.

photo
The city of Trgu Mureș, Romania is punished for its rebellion with an airstrike delivered by the remnants of the 17th Air Army from a quartet of air bases around Bucharest. For three hours wave after wave of MiG-21 fighters and L-39 trainers rocket, bomb and strafe the city center and many miles of concrete-block apartment buildings.

Colonel Skrebys moves to establish a "security force" in his area. He issues orders to the Senior Lieutenant in charge of the 278th Local Rifle Company (the security force for the truck salvage and repair station established in a furniture factory on the south side of the town) to redeploy his four BTR-70s to defend the town (one at each entrance and one at the castle) and meets with the mayor to coordinate defense of the town, which has a small militia force formed of men over 50, equipped with World War Two-capture Mauser rifles and other aged small arms.

[chico20854]

February 4, 1998

In western New York, Lieutenant Governor Julia Annesetto takes personal charge of the area while the governor tries to handle the eastern region of the state. Local county militias, along with state police units and the Fort Drum military staff, form a more-or less unified command, although they are too few in number to watch the borders and provide internal security.

Unofficially,

In California, the command staff of the 5th California Brigade arrive at the headquarters of the 221st MP Brigade to coordinate operations and deconflict areas of responsibility. Halfway through the agenda, the State Guardsmen are surprised when the facility's guards enter the room and place them under arrest. The meeting is quickly recast as a field court martial, and the commander, executive officer, adjudant, intelligence and operations officers as well as many of the senior NCOs are charged with multiple counts of murder, fraud, robbery and other crimes in connection with the "death squad" the state guard unit had operated in the prior months. Meanwhile, a MP contingent surrounds the State Guard unit's scout platoon outpost outside Bakersfield; intelligence gathered pointed to the unit as being the "trigger men" executing the brigade commander and staff's orders to eliminate leftist professors, union activists, immigrants and troublesome journalists and other individuals. A firefight breaks out, but the MPs quickly overrun the base with their M-750 armored cars. As midnight approaches, the trial concludes and all the defendants are found guilty.

The soldiers and civilians (both American and what Germans remain) of the 21st TAACOM begin resumption of work to repair and return to service various damaged armored vehicles that have been evacuated from the Mainz Depot (actually a complex of several sites), also using tools and parts that have been brought out of the French occupied zone. Additional truckloads of materiel continue to arrive each day, but the demand for repair is so high that work must resume as quickly as possible. Some refugees from the nearby Dead Zone are brought in to assist in unloading the trucks and supporting the workers.

In a storm in the North Atlantic, the light frigate (prewar Coast Guard Medium Endurance Cutter) Escanaba capsizes when hit broadside by a rouge wave. The top-heavy craft rolls over and is soon headed for the bottom.

In the USSR, central authority continues to degrade. Local party cadres proclaim loyalty to the central authorities, but with the breakdown in communications they are frequently on their own. On the one hand, that freedom allows the cadres to take advantage of the opportunity to benefit themselves, but it also places them in a situation where, if and when accountability is restored, they can be held accountable for their actions instead of being able to claim they are carrying out the orders of some higher official. In such a situation, they generally choose to undertake some actions that can demonstrate their support for the war effort, while simultaneously looking out for their own welfare. The welfare of the local population is of distinctly lower priority, a situation that had prevailed for many decades preceding the war. Transportation of anything from the interior of the USSR is extremely difficult with the collapse of the rail network (powered by diesel and electrical generation), truck transport (limited and also diesel dependent) and even the simple barriers of numerous north-south running rivers between the Urals and the front (the Don, Volga, Dniester and Dnieper, crossings of which had been targeted by American strikes).

[chico20854]

February 5, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

Leaders of French and Belgian political parties from across the idelogical spectrum meet at Verasailles to discuss the situation in their countries and the way forward. There is a "very robust" discussion, with a wide array of voices opposed to the invasion of the Rhineland - Flemish leaders incensed at the treatment of their fellow Dutch speakers, Communists and Socialists opposed to "another capitalist war", nationalists upset at the idea of cooperation between France and Belgium.

A week after formation, the 1st Battalion, 30th Marines (an element of the newly-raised 30th Marine Regiment) has completed formation at Camp Leujeune, North Carolina and begins movement overland to Wilmington, North Carolina for deployment to Africa.

At dawn a firing squad of the 221st MP Brigade executes the commander and staff of the 5th California Brigade. Officers of the 221st MP Brigade disperse throughout the state guard unit's area of operation to take command of the unit; in some places the troops accept the new command and in an isolated few more firefights break out. The Army troops, better trained and equipped and with armored vehicles on call, dominate these engagements and by noon the state guard unit is under federal control, with the consent of the governor in San Jose.

The Freedom Ship Colorado City Freedom arrives at Bremerhaven, Germany with a cargo of vehicles, ammunition and spare parts. Troops from the 7th Theater Army Area Command meet the ship at the dock and take custody of its precious cargo. It is escorted to a central storage and processing facility, to be doled out as needed to support the highest priority operations in US Army Europe.

The Roosevelt and Eisenhower battle groups split as they approach the North Sea, headed for the shelter of a friendly port but not wanting to voerburden any one port with the tens of thousands of sailors aboard the ships and their escorts. The Eisenhower turns towards Iceland and the Roosevelt transits the west coast of the UK.

As the rains in East Africa continue to fall military operations slow to a crawl, roads transformed into muddy quagmires and aircraft unable to locate drop zones in the continual overcast. In Mombasa, the destroyer Morton receives repairs to minor damage incurred in its long and perilous voyage from the US West Coast in preparation for its next long voyage.

[chico20854]

February 6, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day! Unofficially,

Troops of the 11e rgiment parachutiste de choc, an elite unit assigned as the direct action arm of the French DGSE, surround the Palace of Versailles and arrest those French and Belgian political leaders which had expressed opposition to the invasion of the Rhineland.

The 402nd Field Artillery Brigade (Training), a OSUT unit (one station unit training unit that took in raw recruits, put them through basic training and an artillery gunnery course before graduation) trains its last pre-exchange draftees at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The unit is assigned operational tasks, albeit as infantry as the few artillery pieces used for training are left on post, there being little need for artillery. The brigade is tasked to oversee distribution of food and fuel in southwestern Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle. These duties initially consist of convincing skeptical and semi-hostile farmers, ranchers and small town residents to take in refugees from the cities of Texas and simultaneously hand over crops, livestock and crude oil.

Restructuring of US Army units in Germany continues as the flow of replacement troops has come to a halt. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, like many other units, deactivates subordinate units (in this case, the 2nd and 3rd Squadrons) in order to form a single nearly full-strength unit.

Its survey mission complete, the Coast Guard cutter Thetis returns to Bandar Abbas, Iran, completing its survey mission to Diego Garcia, which was hit by a Soviet missile in December. The survey party concludes that the airstrip remains intact and can be made useable with a few weeks' work by an engineer platoon, but that basing aircraft there would require reconstruction of facilities destroyed in the blast. The harbor remains an attractive anchorage despite several sunken ships; there is ample room for over a dozen additional vessels.