On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[chico20854]

June 7, 1998

The reinforcements, aircraft, armored vehicles and ammunition that arrived in the convoy in May allow US forces in Kenya, who had been short of
supplies, to resume offensive operations against the Somalis and Sudanese in the north.

Unofficially,

The lieutenant governor of Tennessee receives word from federal authorities that, due to the strategic importance of the bridges over the Mississippi River and other transportation links, the federal government is willing to commit resources to bolster state defense forces to secure the city of Memphis. The 2nd Regiment, Tennessee State Guard, which is occupying a series of roadblocks and refugee camps along the Interstate 40 corridor between Nashville and Memphis, is identified as the nearest and most readily available unit.

The violence over the border continues, with a bloody dawn massacre of Mexican refugees by renegade state guardsmen of the 1st Texas Brigade.

In Mexico City, there is heavy military traffic throughout the city as midnight approaches.

The Soviet 16th Army continues its pursuit of the retreating VII US Corps, with the 19th and 20th Guards Tank Divisions augmented by the 57th GMRD's 51st Guards Tank Regiment advancing slowly towards the town of Uffenheim, defended by the American 1st Infantry Division.

[chico20854]

June 8, 1998

A PRI-PPS alliance seizes power in Mexico. It immediately issues secret orders for an invasion of the U.S.

The replica USS Constitution picks up American POWs from a wrecked Bulgarian freighter.

Unofficially,

The commanders of the Presidential Guard Brigade and Brigada Ciudad Mexico are replaced by PRI loyalist lieutenant colonels and by nightfall the armed standoff in the streets of the capital has ended as the new regime displays a firm hand.

Specialist Cutler is loaded aboard a KAMAZ supply truck alongside other American POWs (along with a pair of German Territorial Army deserters that had been swept up in Ansbach) for evacuation from the combat zone.

Bundeswehr intelligence analysts note that many recently arrived Soviet conscripts are equipped with non-standard body armor, some dating to the 1950s, others wearing bulletproof vests designed for MVD police use. Soviet troops are also appearing at the front wearing Second World War SSh-39 helmets, phased out of production in 1942.

The Hungarian 53rd Mechanized Brigade, having paused for several weeks gathering food and fuel, resumes its westward journey. The brigade reconnaissance company sends out several patrols to the Krasnoyarsk area, seeking a useable and lightly defended bridge over the Yenesei River.

[chico20854]

June 9, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

Mexican units rush towards the border as the Mexican Army establishes command and control structures for the invasion of the US: 2nd Army is responsible for operations west of the Sierra Madre Occidental, 3rd Army for operations in New Mexico and west Texas and 4th Army for operations in eastern and central Texas. American intelligence agents in the border region, mainly from the Drug Enforcement Agency, have been inactive for some months and in any case would be unable to relay news of the troop movements to the Joint Chiefs, such is the state of both communications and command and control within the US government at this stage. The DIA station chief in Mexico City was killed in anti-American rioting earlier in the year and has not been replaced; the three-man CIA team in the capital is absorbed with trying to determine who holds the reins of power, investigating rumors that the PPS-PRI alliance may have the support of narcotrafficers. The CIA team attributes the sudden disappearance of Mexican Army APCs and troops to their returning to barracks, not noticing that the 1st and 2nd Mechanized Brigades are in fact loading onto railcars on the city's outskirts, or that the parachute brigade is moving to the international airport, where a stream of transports is arriving.

The Soviet 41st Army receives a trainload of reinforcements from the USSR. It includes another two dozen T-34 tanks from deep storage near the Urals, which are assigned to the 62nd Tank Division, partially replacing the heavy losses it sustained in the capture of Erbach an der Donau. The train from home also brings fresh replacement troops, over 200 young men from Uzbekistan, some of whom even speak Russian.

The commander of the John F Kennedy battle group, deeming the Soviet air threat greatly diminished, detaches the cruiser USS Gettysburg to conduct an anti-surface sweep through the Ionian Sea and islands, responding to rumors of enemy naval and merchant traffic through the Corinth Canal. The remainder of the battle group continues to patrol the central Mediterranean at low speed to conserve fuel, maintaining a single aircraft aloft during daylight hours with additional planes on deck, armed and ready to respond to any enemy activity.

[chico20854]

June 10, 1998

Another day with nothing official. Unofficially,

The Mexican troop movements continue; the mechanized and motorized units relying the rail network to move their vehicles, while infantry units make use of requisitioned civilian trucks and buses. The many months of fuel rationing hampers this effort, as the civilian sector has been largely fuel starved, leaving many theoretically available vehicles inoperable from disuse and lacking drivers.

The Canadian military effort against the secessionist Quebecois has largely halted. A French aid convoy is reportedly en route, but the primary reason is the inability of the Canadian Army to continue the offensive with an assault crossing of the St. Lawrence River. Its few combat engineers lack bridging equipment or boats sufficient to cross the over 2-mile wide river.

RainbowSix reports that the western part of Cornwall begins to receive refugees from chaotic conditions elsewhere in the UK. Some of them meet Marcus Rose, a former Major in the Parachute Regiment, who offers them self-defense training.

Specialist Cutler and the other POWs captured in Ansbach, Germany are transferred to a boxcar for further evacuation. At nightfall the train heads east, taking the roundabout route through Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia to the USSR.

[chico20854]

June 11, 2998

The replica USS Constitution calls in Porta Delgado, Azores.

Lead elements of the Mexican Army cross the border in force along five major axes - from Tijuana into San Diego, into California's Imperial Valley, into Arizona south of Tucson, against El Paso for a drive on Albuquerque, New Mexico, and on a broad front along the Rio Grande in Texas.

[The following is a mix of canon and unofficial material]

The California assault is carried out by the 2nd Army, which sends the Ensenada Brigade across the border, overrunning the startled Border Patrol agents and squad of California State Guardsmen on duty at the busy San Ysidro border crossing point. Within an hour they have overrun the border post and the nearby Naval Outlying Landing Field Imperial Beach and by sunset they have covered most of the 14 miles between the border and the city of San Diego.

The Mexican 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment crosses the border overland a few miles to the east, while in the predawn hours the Marine Parachute Regiment lands (the first two companies by parachute, the last two later in the day air-landed) on Naval Air Station Miramar. They overcome the USN security troops, mechanics, pilots and technicians stationed there, destroy the few remaining aircraft that are based there and seizing the remaining fuel supplies before they can be destroyed. The 1st Mechanized Brigade remains in reserve to exploit any breakthroughs or reinforce any units that need it.

In the central sector of the 2nd Army sector, Brigade Mexicali crosses the border at Calexico and overruns the USMC air station at El Centro. When the truck-borne infantry catches up with the brigade's 18th Motorized Cavalry Regiment at the air station the cavalry once again leaps forward, capturing the parched fields of the Imperial Valley. The Nogales Brigade crosses into Arizona, sending mechanized detachments north along Interstate 19 towards Tucson while deploying flank security detachments to protect its right flank from the 111th Military Intelligence Brigade at Ft. Huachuca.

Throughout the 2nd Army sector the advance is assisted by local guides, local ethnic-Mexican criminal gangs, some of which defended Mexican refugee camps and others allied with the narcotrafficing gangs that have operated in the region for years. Handsomely rewarded drug lords have made an arrangement with the PPS-PRI alliance in Mexico City to assist in the invasion in exchange for the right to "repatriate" the wealth of the captured territory.

In West Texas the 3rd Army crosses the Rio Grande. The Ciudad Juarez Brigade invades El Paso, pushing through the crowded built up area to try to capture Fort Bliss in a coup-de-main. The Torres Motorized Cavalry Brigade advances to the west, moving cautiously up Interstate 10 to try to surround the base from the northwest. It only advances a mile and a half when it encounters the first ambush by state guardsmen of the 9th Texas Brigade, losing a French-built VBL armored car. The ambush is quickly suppressed with some heavy weapons fire and the use of a Milan anti-tank missile, but the cavalry's momentum has been broken by the soldiers' desire to avoid more ambushes, three of which are encountered in the next two miles. The Chihuahua Brigade crosses the Rio Grande nearly 200 miles to the southeast, at the Presidio, Texas border crossing. Largely unopposed, the brigade advances up Highway 67 towards Odessa, commandeering civilian vehicles to enhance its mobility.

The 4th Army invades on a broad front further east in Texas. The Monterrey Brigade crosses the border at Laredo, immediately encountering the state guardsmen of the 1st Texas Brigade, who just days earlier were massacring unarmed Mexican civilians. The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment remains on the Mexican side of the border, ready to lunge forward up Interstate 35 towards San Antonio and Austin once the infantry clear the Texan blocking force. To the west, the Monclova Brigade crosses the Rio Grand at Eagle Pass, where much of the unit turns northwest to face the combined might of the 3rd Texas Regiment and the trainees of the USF basic training wing at Laughlin AFB.

The fiercest resistance comes along the Gulf Coast, where the Matamoros Brigade and 2nd Mechanized Brigade cross into Brownsville and McAllen, respectively. Brownsville is garrisoned by the sailors of the USS Makin Pre-Commissioning Unit. The mechanized troops' advance to Highway 77 is stalled by resistance from the cadets and cadre of the Marine Military Academy, a private military school in Harlingen, who are fiercely defending their campus and blocking traffic on the highway.

Unofficially,

The Mexican Air Force operates in the skies overhead. The sole fighter squadron, the 401st, with eight flyable F-5 aircraft, supports 4th Army's ground troops with rocket and gunfire as well as bombing fixed emplacements, to little effect overall. The 402nd Squadron, operating in the west, flies close support missions assisting the paratroops at Miramar with its ancient T-33 trainers, while 3rd Army is nominally supported by several squadrons of turboprop PC-7 armed trainers, which struggle to avoid the heavy anti-aircraft defenses of Fort Bliss, home to the US Army Air Defense Center and School.

In all sectors, the American response is weak and uncoordinated. Almost uniformly they are surprised by the arrival of Mexican units and out of position to mount a coherent defense. The troops are poorly supplied - those on civil relief and internal security missions have but a single magazine of ammunition, many Navy and Air Force training units only have enough small arms for a third of their troops, food and fuel are scarce and combat units are in most cases awaiting deployment overseas, with vague promises that heavy weapons and equipment will be provided in theatre. The Mexicans have achieved strategic and tactical surprise, leaving the Joint Chiefs struggling to form a response.

In Germany, having had two days to integrate the reinforcements and replacements, the 62nd Tank Division is ordered back into action as 41st Army attempts to surround (rather than overrun) the city of Stuttgart.

The USS Virginia crosses into the Pacific Ocean, braving fierce winter storms in the treacherous waters of Cape Horn. Despite the potential shelter of the channels to the north in Tierra del Fuego the cruiser's captain decides to remain offshore, unwilling to risk his ship in constrained waters where it would be vulnerable to attack or interdiction from ashore.

[chico20854]

Sorry I'm a few days behind. As you can imagine, today's post required quite a bit of legwork!

Enjoy!!!!

[The Zappster]

Please don't apologise. Your work is outstanding and well worth the wait. Carry on and many many thanks.

[chico20854]

June 12, 1998

Nothing official for the day. Unofficially,

Throughout the world, nearly all of the carefully husbanded reserve stockpiles assembled so carefully and at great expense in the months and years leading up to the nuclear exchange have been emptied. Even the most ambitious plans were for at most 90 days of supplies of food, fuel and strategic materials; by this point it has been nearly a year since the first nuclear weapons were used and over seven months since the attacks on the Soviet, British and American homelands. Most of the few remaining stockpiles are intact because they have been lost or because various small groups are maintaining tight control over their contents, usually for nefarious purposes.

Ex-corporal Nathan Snyder, now a marauder in New York City's Hells Own gang, leads a group of six other gang members (including his girlfriend, the gang leader's younger sister) in an attack on an isolated New York State Guard outpost. The attack succeeds in killing three guardsmen and driving the others off, yielding the dead militiamen's M1 Garand rifles and ammunition, steel helmets and a cache of food and a TA-1 field phone.

2nd Mexican Army's assault on California continues, with Brigade Ensenada reaching the San Diego Naval Base's southern perimeter, which has been hastily reinforced by armed sailors from the San Diego Recruit Training Command. The Mexican Air Force flies six additional companies of paratroops in Miramar Naval Air Station; the growing airborne force aggressively pushes combat patrols out in all directions. One of these patrols, which has set up ambush positions along Interstate 15, intercepts a USMC convoy headed into the city. The convoy of trucks carries over 100 tons of ammunition from the range complex at Camp Pendleton, ordered hastily loaded by recruits training at the rifle ranges and rushed to arm the recruits training at MCRD San Diego. The trailing 5-ton truck, commanded by an aggressive Corporal who lost an eye during 1st MarDiv's evacuation of Yadz and manned by three privates, escapes the ambush and takes back roads onto the base, bringing nearly 300,000 rounds of 5.56 ball ammo to the the defenders. The truck, however, does not carry any grenades, anti-tank weapons, linked ammo for machineguns or SAWs, mines or grenade launcher ammunition.

The Mexican 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment has reached Interstate 8, blocking what little traffic the limited fuel supply permits. The Mexicali Brigade's cavalry regiment continues northward, with lead elements arriving in Palm Springs, while its 8th and 78th Infantry Regiments turn east to deal with the American forces at MCAS Yuma and the garrison of the National Training center at the Yuma Proving Ground.

The Nogales Brigade's advance on Tucson continues, facing light resistance from scattered law enforcement officers, armed civilians and veterans, while warily watching its eastern flank lest the 111th Military Intelligence Brigade emerge from its garrison at Fort Huachuca.

The fighting in El Paso continues, with the Ciudad Juarez Brigade's troops maneuvering room limited by the desire to avoid the blast damage zone from the Soviet strike on the El Paso refinery in December. The limitation provides the garrison commander time to reinforce the basic training companies from the base with anti-aircraft weapons systems from the Air Defense Center and School; the Diana systems' 25mm guns and the 20mm PIVADs provide massive direct firepower to the otherwise lightly equipped infantry. The Torres Motorized Cavalry Brigade is still tied up with the Texas State Guard's 9th Brigade, which has retreated to high ground dominating the northern exits to the city.

The remote town of Marfa, Texas falls to the Chihuahua Brigade's 10th Motorized Cavalry Regiment; the 20th Motorized Cavalry Regiment is closing on the town while the horsemen of the 30th Cavalry Regiment provide screening for the brigade's three battalions of infantry, who are advancing on foot through the scorching desert heat.

Further east in Texas, the Monclova Brigade, reinforced by informal militias from refugee camps at the Eagle Pass Auxiliary Airfield and Laughlin Air Force Base's auxiliary field, wheels northwest along Highway 277 to move on Del Rio and its garrison of Texas State Guardsmen and the trainees and staff at the USAF basic training center at Laughlin.

The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment drives the 1st Texas Brigade out of the town of Laredo, inflicting heavy casualties on the Texans who have no means of halting the Mexican armored vehicles. The 2nd Mechanized Brigade has hit a roadblock when trying to advance through Harlingen, with unexpectedly fierce resistance from the cadets of the Marine Military Academy, who have fortified their campus over the preceding months. An advanced detachment's DN-V Toro armored personnel carrier falls victim to an improvised anti-tank mine, and the Mexican attempt to rescue the crew is thwarted by cadet machinegun fire. The brigade's commanding general (the Mexican Army, with more than 500 generals, has generals commanding brigades) orders a halt to forward progress while the situation can be evaluated. The Matamoros Brigade has linked up with the remaining inhabitants of the largest two refugee camps in Brownsville and cleared out several outposts of sailors from the Makin Island. At dusk the brigade's troops have the five-story high partially completed amphibious assault ship, still on land at the shipyard, in sight and place it under harassing fire.

The skies over the southwestern US are a little more active. The Mexican 401 Squadron's F-5Es fly photoreconnaissance missions at dawn, overflying sites as far north as the outskirts of Dallas, and after lunchtime fly a second sortie in support of 4th Army, striking runways and barracks at Laughlin Air Force Base. The 6th Air Defense Artillery Brigade commander at Fort Bliss authorizes the use of all anti-aircraft missiles on base against the PC-7 turboprop light attack aircraft that are harassing movement on the base; the shootdown of one of the aircraft two hours later by a Patriot missile marks the low point on the value of missile-to-target tradeoff but succeeds in convincing the Mexican pilots to be much more conservative in their behavior over the lines. 402 Squadron's aged T-33 trainers spend the day scouting for reinforcements headed for the San Diego area, attacking some Marines at Camp Pendleton and strafing the flight lines at NAS North Island and Camp Pendleton. American aircraft make their first appearance over the battlefield, with a flight of four AT-38 trainers from Holloman Air Force Base's 433rd Tactical Fighter Training Squadron dropping 250-lb bombs on the Torres Cavalry Brigade, a mission guided by spotters with the Texas State Guard. The mission is partially successful, but one of the trainers was nearly downed by an American Roland missile fired by an enthusiastic gunner at Fort Bliss which mistook the fast, low-flying fighter for a Mexican F-5.

In Colorado Springs, the Joint Chiefs struggle to get a clear picture of the situation. Communications with the combat zone are spotty at best and no remaining national-level intelligence collection assets (satellites, aircraft) are oriented towards the border. The units of the strategic reserve are fully committed to domestic duties and shortages of fuel limit the options for response. By the end of the day the first centrally-directed assets are preparing for movement towards the combat zone, as the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing at Hill AFB, Utah arms and prepares two flights of F-16s for transfer to Tinker AFB, Oklahoma. A courier is dispatched by light plane (a USAF Academy Cessna T-41 trainer) to Fort Irwin, California with orders for the 177th Armored Brigade and 1st Brigade, 4th Armored Division to move south to contain the invasion.

Naval commanders in San Diego use the array of harbor craft to ferry civilians, dependents and non-combatant personnel from the naval base to the Marine Corps base, returning with armed boot camp graduates who are rushed to the base perimeter or to throw up blocking positions on the narrow spit of land south of the Coronado Naval Base.

Mexican naval squadrons sortie from Veracruz in the Caribbean and Acapulco in the Pacific. Each task force contains a single LST and several auxiliaries loaded with Marines for follow-on landings to support the efforts along the coastlines.

The American cruiser USS Gettysburg, operating independently in the Mediterranean, strikes a defensive mine while conducting a gunfire raid on the Greek airbase at Araxos after failing to find any Greek surface craft other than small fishing boats and other small civilian craft. The AEGIS cruiser begins to rapidly take on water, and as midnight approaches the ship settles beneath the waves.

[chico20854]

June 13, 1998

The School Brigade at Fort Bliss, which has served as served as a chain-of-command parent organization for a variety of training units assigned to the Air Defense School for training and activation, is activated as a troop unit, complete with infantry battalions out of the local basic training barracks, artillery from the New Mexico National Guard, and the 1-124 Cavalry Squadron (Texas National Guard) from Waco. The Air Defense Center naturally provides an abundance of air defense units, including a Patriot missile battalion, a battalion of composite air defense weapons, and the 5-62 ADA. The brigade uses its available mix of weapons to create unorthodox operational units. Infantry drawn from basic training camps at Fort Bliss is attached to ADA gun batteries (PIVAD and Diana) to create heavy machinegun combat teams. Because the brigade has no organic field artillery, it relies heavily on infantry mortars and develops its own doctrine for employment of ADA gun systems in the indirect fire role.

Unofficially,

Additional Mexican C-130 transports land at Miramar Naval Air Station, bringing in reinforcements to the airborne force that seized the base. Interestingly, the planes land with only a thin reserve of fuel aboard, refueling from the hydrants on the base before returning home. Upon arrival back in Mexico, the aircraft transfer most of the fuel remaining to the base's fuel system - the Mexican Air Force has started to stretch its fuel supply by using captured American stocks.

In San Diego, the frigate USS Donald B Beary is reactivated (it has been partially deactivated as the supply of fuel diminished, its crew assigned to food distribution duties ashore) and immediately engages the Mexicans with its 5-inch gun; the short-range direct-fire is devastatingly effective. Mexican troops hidden among shoreside buildings return fire, riddling the lightly-armored warship with hundreds of holes from small arms fire. When available visible targets are all engaged and the ship's magazine running down the ship withdraws a few miles north to the large shipyard, where a hastily assembled crew of workers joins the ship's company in repairing some of the damage.

Elsewhere in the Battle of San Diego, Mexican troops of the Ensenada Brigade fail in their first direct assault crossing of the Sweetwater River into the southern portion of the naval base; however the brigade has used the engagement to slip the 8th Motorized Cavalry Regiment past Navy outposts further east. The motorized cavalry sweeps deeper into the city, taking advantage of the cover provided by the dense urban buildup.

In eastern Texas, Mexican progress is slow. 401 Squadron's F-5s are diverted from close air support missions to attack grounded aircraft on the ground at Bergstrom AFB outside San Antonio, succeeding in destroying a pair of B-1Bs that have been sheltering there since December. In Brownsville the Matamoros Brigade drives the crew of the USS Makin back over 250 meters in fierce house to house fighting; one of the Americans killed is Rodney Cutler, twin brother of Specialist Randolph Cutler, who catches a sniper's bullet when running for cover. In Harlingen, the troops of the 2nd Mechanized Brigade continue to discover unpleasant surprises from the cadets of the Marine Maritime Academy when it is discovered that one of the school's alumni has provided his alma mater with weapons not authorized to any Junior ROTC units, most notably a M50 Ontos light anti-tank vehicle as well as various .50-caliber rifles to supplement the four M-60 machineguns the school cadre sweet talked a friendly logistician into providing for "educational purposes." The Ontos uses its six 106mm recoilless rifles to make quick work of a pair of AMX-13 light tanks, once again forcing the Mexican brigade to suspend follow-on attacks.

The 868th Tactical Missile Training Squadron is ordered to withdraw from its home station of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona to Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, in advance of advancing Mexican forces.

On New York's Upper East Side, marauder Nathan Snyder asserts himself as being the custodian of the gang's small cache of weapons and food.

The Danish Expeditionary Corps is driven out of Stuttgart by the Soviet 41st Army after Italian troops of the 3rd Corps advance on the Rhine, having severed the connection between the Danes and the now-isolated XX US Corps. IV German Korps, holding the line between the Danes and the US VII Corps, retreats to the north; German commanders have to restrain their troops from engaging in a scorched earth withdrawal, promising that they will be back soon. XII German Korps troops, brought forward from reserve near Limburg, occupy defensive positions along the Main River west of Wurzburg, control of which has been ceded by the overstretched and exhausted US VII Corps.

[chico20854]

June 14, 1998

Nothing in canon for today. Unofficially,

The challenges facing the Joint Chiefs expand dramatically today as the Soviet forces in British Columbia launch their long-feared spring offensive, using carefully husbanded stocks of supplies and ammunition which has trickled in on small ships from home over the prior several months and been laboriously transported to the front. With allied Canadian units hobbled by lack of supplies (as a result of Alberta's border closure), the main force resisting the attack is the American 47th Infantry Division. The Soviets open the attack with a trio of artillery-delivered tactical nuclear strikes which spook the front-line troops, who retreat and disperse to avoid becoming the next recipients of armageddon.

A wave of patriotism accompanies the Mexican invasion of the US and thousands of men (and more than a few women) flock to military bases around the country, eager to volunteer to fight the gringos.

As the fourth day of combat along the border begins, Mexican commanders begin to realize the challenges that an army organized for internal security and home defense duties faces when engaged in expeditionary warfare - logistics. The supplies of food, fuel and ammunition that Mexican Army units carried with them when they crossed the American border have been exhausted, and the hastily organized and mobilized brigades have no support battalions, and the respective Army headquarters are having a difficult time coordinating combat operations of units spread out over hundreds of miles, let alone organizing resupply convoys. Staffers at the Ministry of National Defense in Mexico City are pushing stocks from depots around the country north by rail, but the forward combat formations have very limited numbers of trucks (averaging a 50-truck company, with aged 2 1/2- and 5-ton trucks, all cargo variants, per Army) to try to move supplies forward from hastily organized railheads.

The Mexican Army makes little progress during the day. The fighting in San Diego continues, with Mexican units moving north through the city to link up with the paratroops at Miramar Naval Air Station and closing off escape routes for American defenders all around the harbor. In El Paso, the School Brigade and its German allied personnel turn back a dawn attack by the Ciudad Juarez Brigade, while the Torres Cavalry Brigade makes some progress moving north along the city's western outskirts. The fighting in Brownsville is bogged down by fierce resistance as well, while overhead the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing's F-16s fly their first sorties against the Mexicans.

The US Navy Landing Ship Tank Barbour County arrives in Kokura, Japan to pick up the cargo of trucks and the handful of armored vehicles that were aboard the mine-damaged Rhode Island Freedom, which has been abandoned in the Japanese city's harbor.

Advance positions of the German X Corps, manned by the (former East-German) border guards of the 7th GrenzJaeger Division, engage lead elements of the Soviet 30th Guards Motor-Rifle Division as the Soviets advance on Heidelberg. Italian mechanized troops of the Legnano Mechanized Brigade push past scattered territorial resistance in Pforzheim, rushing on the Karlsruhe on the Rhine.

To the east, V US Corps and II British Corps have taken up posiitions along the northern bank of the Main River, taking advantage of the defensive value of that major water barrier and with knowledge that Pact engineer troops are very short on assault bridging assets after the 1997 campaign. The Hungarian II Corps has occupied Bamberg; security troops go house to house searching for "collaborators" who worked for the US Army in the decades that the town hosted 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored Division. The Hungarians, however, seem most interested in obtaining control of the wealth that the Americans brought the community, and the Corps commander isssues a decree that nothing is to removed from the US Arrmy base without his express permission, pushing the looting out into the town.

The Czech 1st Army has been less successful in advancing through rough terrain north of Bayreuth, meeting continued fierce resistance from the German 24th PanzerGrenadier Division.

The remnants of the Soviet 1048th Assault Gun Regiment, a SU-130 formation that was nearly annihilated in the 1997 campaign that has been serving as the defense force for the Baltic Front commander's villa in northwestern Poland, receives unexpected reinforcements - a detachment of 20 Second World War-era ISU-152 heavy assault guns, dropped off from tank transporters along with 125 teenagers from Estonia armed with AKMs and a few truckloads of ammunition and fuel for the behemoths.

The American aircraft carrier USS John F Kennedy is damaged by an Italian mine in the Mediterranean. This is the second time the ship has sustained serious damage, having been hit by a Soviet mine in the first days of the war. This blast renders one of the ship's four propeller shafts inoperable. Nonetheless, the carrier and its remaining escorts move into the Adriatic Sea in an effort to hamper Italian supply shipments along the coast and to its occupation forces in Jugoslavia.

[chico20854]

June 15, 1998

The 49th Armored Division (Texas National Guard), on civil security and relief duties in the Upper Midwest, is ordered south to halt the Mexican invasion.

Command of surviving fixed-wing elements of the US Navy and the US Marine Corps 1st Marine Air Wing is transferred to USAFCENT (9th Air Force) for operational and administrative purposes. (Unofficially) Resistance to this development from Marine officers, who insist that 1 MAW should continue to be dedicated to supporting I MEF, is overruled by General McLaren, who declares the situation too serious for Marine commanders to hoard such scarce assets and rightfully points out that the move allows the most efficient use of the remaining combat aircraft.

Unofficially,

The 47th Infantry Division gives ground in British Columbia, trying to delay as long as possible to give local civilians time to evacuate.

In Colorado Springs, the FEMA laison officer to the Joint Chiefs passes away due to complications of the bubonic plague. He is the last FEMA official still serving that had knowledge of the Strategic Reserve Stockpile system assembled at great expense in the prior two years; his deputy, who has assumed his responsibilities, never was cleared to be briefed on the program. This development assures that the Joint Chiefs are unaware of the vital assets that could be used to assist American recovery.

The Joint Chiefs order the evacuation of nuclear weapons from Texas south of San Antonio and California south of Bakersfield.

The US Navy begins evacuating non-combatants and civilians from San Diego as overland ties to the rest of California are cut. The evacuation effort makes use of the vast numbers of harbor service craft, excess support ships stranded in port from lack of fuel and ships in or awaiting repair that are still seaworthy. The Marines holding the perimeter (which have largely replaced the sailors facing Brigade Ensenada) repel another Mexican attack, although they lack armored vehicles, heavy weapons or even machinegun ammunition to try to break the 1st Mechanized Brigade's blockade of the harbor area. Mexican cavalry troops and paratroops begin tentative probes north into Camp Pendelton.

To the east, the Mexicali Brigade has established a series of blocking positions along Interstate 8 to, hopefully, slow any advance of the 108th Armored Cavalry Regiment and 223rd Armored Regiment (the OPFOR for the Yuma Proving Ground's National Training Center), should those units attempt to cut off the lone Mexican brigade.

The Battle of Fort Bliss continues, with repeated attacks on the garrison while the Mexican Torres Mororized Cavalry Brigade issucceeding in suppressing the Texas State Guard's 9th Brigade, advancing to the northern outskirts of El Paso. Back in Mexico, the Durango and Torreon Brigades are ordered to reinforce the effort; they begin preparing their cavalry regiments for immediate deployment while transport is arranged for the infantry. To the east, the Chihuahua Brigade has dramatically increased its mobility through requisitioning civilian vehicles and stocks of fuel stored on various ranches and oil wells. Given the desperate situation in El Paso and near-total lack of coordinated resistance (after overrunning the border patrol stations the brigade has only faced at most 10 armed civilians and no armed troops), 3rd Army orders the brigade to rush north to Pecos, then turn northwest to execute a double envelopment of the American force at Fort Bliss (and the base's extensive back country that runs into White Sands Missile Range and Holloman AFB).

The Nogales Brigade in Arizona has slowed its advance on Tucson, wary of its deep exposure on both flanks and shortages of fuel. Advance parties have Tucson in sight, but the main body remains farther south lest it be cut off by troops from Ft. Huachuca.

In central Texas the Monclova Brigade turns northeast after having smashed the Aggies of the 3rd Texas Regiment (part of the former Texas A&M Cadet Corps) and overrun Laughlin Air Force Base and its training squadrons. The Monterrey Brigade and 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment continue their advance up Interstate 35 towards San Antonio, slowed by low fuel supplies. To their east the battle for Brownsville is seeing Mexican progress, with the partially-completed hull of the USS Makin island now ablaze after mutliple hits by Mexican heavy weapons; the sailors' resistance begins to wane as ammunition and food runs low and the commander has authorized the evacuation of nonessential personnel to small and civilian craft operating in the Intracoastal Waterway. In Harlingen, the Mexican 2nd Mechanized Brigade has fought its way onto the campus of the Marine Military Academy, taking advanbtage of the massed artillery (as it happens to be) of 4th Army.

The managers of Lone Star Oil, a small oil company that is still operating a handful of rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, order the shutdown and evacuation of their platforms south of Corpus Christi, including Gulfwind 40 and Gulfwind 42.

map of front lines
The Soviet 21st Army launches another spoiling attack on the US XV Corps, ensuring that the unit diverts scarce ammunition, fuel and air support from other units farther to the west. The Soviet troops, however, do not press their attacks and have not, in fact, even overrun the American outpost line to reach the main line of resistance.

After five days of stop and start travel in a crowded and claustrophobic boxcar, during which ten prisoners die, Specialist Cutler and his fellow prisoners are unloaded at a remote siding in eastern Czechoslovakia. They are greeted by Czech SNB internal troops and Czecch militiamen, who begin marching the dazed prisoners (they were served two meals during their journey) along the tracks.

STAVKA realizes that the veteran 27th (my 90th) Tank Division is still stuck in eastern Siberia, en route to the European theatre, and directs that local and regional Party authorities make the division's passage to the front "highest priotiry". The decree is sufficient to compel authorities in the Krasnoyarsk region to release six heavy-duty LV steam locomotives, each with 225 tons of coal to propel the division (and its thousands of hungry, armed troops) far across the USSR.

[chico20854]

June 16, 1998

As the struggle in Germany consumes more and more troops and supplies, Italian and Hungarian formations in the Balkans are starved of replacements, and the Pact high command issues calls for excess troops from the region to be transferred to the fighting in Germany.

Major General Helmut Korell, commander of the 1st Panzer Division, assumes de-facto command of II German Korps.

Unofficially,

The US Army puts a formal command structure in place in the Southwest, with 89th (my II )Corps headquarters (located east of Los Angeles coordinating disaster relief duties) taking command of units at Fort Irwin and Yuma Proving Ground as well as other US military ground forces in the area and 63rd (my XVI) Corps, in the Bay area, ordered to move south along with troops from Forts Ord and Hunter Liggett and Camp Roberts to operate along the coast. In Texas, 90th (my XIII) and 122nd (my XIX) Corps are assigned to command the scratch forces opposing the Mexican 4th Army.

SOUTHCOM issues orders for diversionary strikes on Mexico via Guatemala. A B-team from the 8th Special Forces Group departs its base at Soto Cano air base in Honduras, en route to Chiapas, Mexico to "stir up some trouble" and divert Mexican forces from the American front. SOUTHCOM also dispatches attack aircraft to Soto Cano, six AT-33E Boeing Skyfoxes, for a strike on Mexican territory.

The 868th Tactical Missile Training Squadron arrives at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, with all 48 GLCM missiles intact and mission ready.

The Mexican high command empowers a new coordinator for the logistics effort supporting the war - the former chief logistics officer of a large American retailer, now (like most worldwide retailing) out of business. The new coordinator quickly seizes on the possibilities of using the vast fleet of commercial long-haul trucks and drivers, used to regularly crossing the border. Orders are quickly issued to mobilize the drivers and their vehicles to establish a relay from railheads in Hermosillo, Chihuahua City, Monterrey and Matamoros.

The 177th Armored Brigade departs Fort Irwin, California to halt the Mexican invasion. The brigade's VISMOD (Visually Modified) M551 Sheridans have, in many cases, been returned to combat-capable status, although the supply of Shillelagh missiles and main gun ammunition is short. Thankfully, however, the issues the Sheridan experienced in combat in Vietnam with the gun's recoil disabling the missile's guidance electronics, have been long resolved, allowing the system to be somewhat effective. (Commanders consider the Sheridan more than adequate to deal with the Mexican Army's armor). The 1st Brigade, 4th Armored Division will follow the 177th when the tank transporters return from moving the 177th to the vicinity of the desert town of Yucca Valley.

Mexican Marines land on South Padre Island and begin advancing on the Queen Isabela Causeway to the mainland, detaching a company of troops to assault the Coast Guard station and lighthouse at Brazos Santiago.

photo
The evacuation of San Diego continues as a force of Marine trainees and their drill instructors attempt to break through the Mexican lines to link up with the ad-hoc Marine force defending Camp Pendleton. The attempt is thwarted by elite Mexican paratroops and marines who exploit their superior firepower to keep the American force from advancing. Mexican Marines land on Coronado Island and begin driving north, pushing back the defending Marines and sailors; the Mexican naval task force beats a rapid retreat lest it be engaged by the superior American fleet departing the harbor.

The Mexican 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment has advanced along Interstate 15 to Temecula, part of the Inland Empire and considered the outer edge of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

The first evacuation vessels arrive at Port Hueneme, California; the harbor master directs the smaller craft to the nearby yacht marina to keep berth space open for larger vessels.

In Yuma, Arizona, the 108th Armored Cavalry Regiment headquarters issues an order for the unit's troops, scattered over 100 miles of territory protecting evacuee camps, distributing food and assisting local law enforcement, to abandon those duties and rally at the NTC-3 for combat actions.

In the vast stretches of empty desert between Yuma, Arizona and El Paso, Texas, the invading Mexican forces remain immobile for a second day as supplies of food, water and fuel run low. Mexican Army scavenging parties roam El Paso in search of food and fuel; commanders and NCOs have to exert strict control over their troops to prevent the parties from becoming looters.

The Chihuahua Brigade departs the town of Pecos, Texas, advancing against minimal resistance up the west bank of the Pecos River towards Artesia, New Mexico, reaching the state line at sundown.

American resistance in the Brownsville area is crumbling as the remaining sailors of the USS Makin Island begin to surrender, their ammunition, food, water and will to fight exhausted and Mexican marines cross to Port Isabel from South Padre Island. To their west, the 2nd Mechanized Brigade's AMX-13 light tanks and the massed artillery of 4th Mexican Army pound the campus of the Marine Military Academy into dust, destroying many of the defensive positions with direct fire while lighting the buildings afire. In central Texas, the lead patrols of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment clash with mobile American detachments, primarily HMMWVs mounting machineguns and Mk-19 grenade launchers, while the Monclova Brigade troops secure the shotgun factory in Eagle Pass, taking many of the guns for their own use and sending thousands of others south to equip newly forming units.

The 2nd Regiment, Tennessee State Guard is reinforced with federal resources - 200 sailors previously assigned to the Memphis Naval Air Station as well as a complement of small arms (M1 Garands, M3 greaseguns, M1911 pistols and M1919 Browning machineguns), 90mm recoilless rifles and ammunition, which arrive by truck from the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama. The Regiment is tasked to assemble excess fuel trucks (with fuel rationing in effect, not a difficult task) at the Memphis Refinery, which has received a shipment of five barge-loads of crude oil from Oklahoma to process.

Specialist Cutler and several dozen other prisoners arrive at a work site along the railroad in the hills of eastern Czechoslovakia. They are shaved, hosed off, fed a meal of thin stew and introduced to the camp commandant and his staff, then ushered to an equipment shed, which has been converted to housing for the prisoner labor force. At dusk the shift of workers that has been toiling all day arrives, a motley collection of prisoners from all over NATO, exhausted from a hard day's labor. The new arrivals discover that they are going to be put to work restoring the rail line between Czechoslovakia and Poland, which was damaged by NATO conventional bombing as well as an American nuclear strike which left a massive crater in the railbed.

A firefight breaks out in Bamberg between Hungarian troops and a KGB Border Guard "rear area security detachment" that passes through town, seeking to "conduct an inspection of the American Army base." When the KGB troops are denied access (yet can see consumer goods being loaded onto a truck in the caserne) tensions rise, and for 30 minutes it is an intense battle between Pact allies.

In the area between Heidelberg and Frankfurt, American and German support troops and hastily drafted civilians are hurriedly evacuating maintenance and medical facilities which have supported the war effort to date, unsure of the ability of German troops to hold back the Pact offensive which has already captured thousands of square kilometers of southern Germany.

[chico20854]

June 17, 1998

It is obvious to Major General Femerov, commander of the Soviet troops in Cuba, that Guantanamo II (the enclave at Mariel in which the Cuban government has confined Soviet troops in Cuba, nearly a division in strength) presents a very tempting target for the U.S. This fact, combined with pressure from a Cuban government anxious to appear increasingly neutral to America, causes Femerov to look for a means to get out of Cuba while striking a blow for the USSR. The opportunity to deliver a blow into America comes from the Marxist PRI/PPS coalition in Mexico. The PPS offers Femerov and his ""Division Cuba"" a passage off of the island and back to the USSR, in return for a short detour. Femerov and his soldiers are to assist
in the invasion of America, to drive into the Yankee heartland, and end the war.

At the Marine Military Academy campus in Harlingen, Texas, the stubborn, last-ditch stand of the Academy students in the face of overwhelming numbers comes to an end. There are no known American survivors of the battle, which will compared to Travis' stand at the Alamo. The final pockets of resistance are shattered by a terrific artillery barrage before being overrun by Mexican infantry of the Matamoros and 2nd Mechanized Brigades.

Unofficially,

On New York's Upper East Side, there is turmoil within the Hells Own marauder gang. One of the gangsters gets in a verbal argument with ex-Corporal Nathan Snyder, who then refuses to allow the member to collect his allocation of food (a bag of stale potato chips and can of chicken soup taken from a local salvager as "tax") for the evening. The gangster calls Snyder out, and in the brawl that follows Snyder and his girlfriend end up killing the upstart and injuring his best friend in the gang. There are few challenges to Snyder's control of the food from then on, and other gang members treat Snyder and "his old lady" with more respect, although it s unclear if that respect is out of admiration or fear.

The 347th Strategic Missile Squadron, operating on the Nellis Air Force Base range complex, observes the 868th Tactical Missile Training Squadron's dispersal near its stationary sites and makes contact.

The B-Team from the 8th Special Forces Group, travelling in a small convoy of unmarked civilian vans and trucks, crosses the border into Guatemala. The liberal application of cash and the grim looks on the faces of the rough, heavily armed men assures a welcome entry into Mexico's southern neighbor. At Sato Cano Air Base a C-130 arrives carrying ground crew, support equipment and a small stock of munitions to support the AT-33E Skyfoxes that arrived the day prior.

The troops of the Chihuahua Brigade encounter their first organized resistance, an entrenched infantry force blocking the highway into the town of Carlsbad. The outer pickets fall back when Mexican armor attacks under cover of infantry mortars; the dead left behind wear uniform patches from a military academy in the town.

American F-5Es from the 65th Aggressor Squadron, using some of the last stocks of aviation fuel at Nellis Air Force Base, launch a surprise raid on Mexican airfields. The defenders, believing the aircraft are in fact Mexican F-5s, hold their fire as a pair of fighters, with another pair trailing, approach the runway at Santa Lucia near Mexico City. The fighters come in low and slow, placing them in prime position to release the stick of runway-busting munitions that they soon release before hitting their afterburners and zipping away, leaving the pattern clear for the second pair to finish off the other runway.

As the fighting in San Diego continues, Mexican Marines advance on the Coronado Amphibious base. As they enter the perimeter, the captain of the landing ship USS Cleveland orders his crew to set the ship, damaged in the prior year's naval battles and unable to be repaired rapidly enough to be evacuated, afire. The few remaining munitions in the ship's magazine are used to set a large mine, which is detonated as the Mexican troops approach the dock.

In the desert east of LA, the 177th Armored Brigade disembarks from the motley collection of civilian trucks and military tank transporters that has brought it to the north end of the Imperial Valley.

The Mexican 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment cautiously moves north, scouting for organized American resistance but is mostly encountering desperate refugees from the strikes and chaos of Los Angeles.

The opposition encountered by the troops of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment are identified as members of the US Air Force, trainees and cadre from the Security Police training program at Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio acting in a mobile role while basic trainees (and graduates from the prior months, who have remained at the base thanks to the breakdown in transportation, performing relief and security duties) man fixed defensive positions.

The Mexican Marines in the Gulf of Mexico complete their disembarkation from the array of naval craft onto South Padre Island as the fleet is engaged by patrol craft from the USCG, now under naval command. The USS Steelhead is sunk by the Mexican destroyer Vincente Guerrero while the USS Point Nowell rakes the Mexican transport Manzanillo with 20mm fire before turning and fleeing north at high speed, dropping to 8 knots when out of range of the Vincente Guerrero's guns to conserve the last gallons of diesel aboard, allowing it to reach a friendly port.

In the early morning hours Specialist Cutler and his fellow new arrivals at the remote POW camp in eastern Czechoslovakia are roused to begin their first brutal 12-hour shift filling in a 100-meter wide, 49-meter deep crater (created by a 150-kiloton Ground Launched Cruise Missile ground burst) with their bare hands, a handful of shovels and no protection from residual radiation. At the end of the day the exhausted prisoners eat a meal of potato-barley stew before collapsing into a deep slumber.

XX US Corps, cut off from the remainder of NATO forces in Germany, is sustained by two C-130 flights daily, which bring in food (mostly French combat rations), fuel (like the Mexican Air Force, USAF Europe uses C-130's fuel tanks for transporting fuel, draining the excess in the aircraft before departure) and ammunition and evacuate the wounded. The flow is insufficient to maintain stock levels, but it helps morale and helps keep supply levels from dropping to critical levels. Aiding the situation is that the opposing Italian 4th Corps is equally starved of supplies, most of what arrives via the circuitous route through northeastern Italy, Austria and overland from Munich going to support 3rd Corps' mechanized troops.

NATO forces in Central Germany have established a somewhat-continuous defensive line along the Main River from Frankfurt to Kulmbach, with a significant Soviet-held salient north of Wurzburg. Retreating Allied forces had attempted to bring any small boats they could locate with them as they withdrew, to deny their use to the Soviets for assault crossings of the river.

The A-37s of the 169th Tactical Air Support Squadron (Illinois Air National Guard) fly their first deep strike sorties in Kenya, supporting the offensive against the Sudanese. Intelligence has identified three villages as supply depots and rest areas for the Sudanese, and refugees report that the Sudanese Army has driven all the Kenyans from the town. Satisfied that no civilians will be hit, the 169th's commander authorizes a strike by a lone A-37. The Dragonfly is carrying six M47A2 white phosphorous bombs, six CBU-24B cluster canisters and two SUU-11A gun pods, each pod weighing 323 lbs and mounting a 7.62mm Minigun identical to the aircraft's fixed armament. In a single sortie the Dragonfly is able to level to the ground all but three or four of the approximately 100 huts and other small buildings that comprised the group of villages.

In its first pass, approaching the nearest village in line, the aircraft opens fire with a simultaneous two-second burst from all three Miniguns. The shattering and splintering effect of these 600 rounds on the buildings in line of fire make the village look to the pilot like "hay going through a threshing machine."

As the aircraft passes over the village it drops two cluster canisters, each weighing 718 lbs and containing 600 bomblets. The bomblets release a total of 300,000 steel shards, densely meshing in all directions at hundreds of feet per second, cracking stone, deeply pitting wood, and shattering into fragments any less sturdy or less pliable materials, all in a matter of ten seconds.

To the aircrew above, it looks like "hundreds of sparklers going off."

People are seen running from the next two villages as the Dragonfly approaches, but the pilot believes that the first village had been taken fully by surprise. The subsequent villages are struck in the same manner, and on their second pass the crew drops their phosphorous bombs. As each bomb hits, the ground structures at the explosion's epicenter collapse in a cloud of brilliant white smoke, and long trails of phosphorous shot out of the cloud and arched for hundreds of feet in the air. Wherever they land, and all along the length of their trails, the particles of phosphorous stick to buildings, trees, vegetation and anything else with which they came into contact, immediately setting it afire. When the aircraft turns for base, the entire area is in flames.

The attack has taken about three minutes.

[chico20854]

June 18, 1998

Nothing in canon for the day. Unofficially,

Fighting continues in San Diego as the ammunition supplies within the American perimeter dwindle to critically low levels. Captains of evacuation vessels refuse to return to the embattled ports, some out of fear, some because their craft are out of fuel; either way the harbor at Port Hueneme is now full of evacuation craft and the commander closes it to new arrivals, ordering them to the San Francisco Bay, the next series of harbors able to accommodate large craft.

The commanders of the 868th Tactical Missile Training Squadron and 347th Strategic Missile Squadron, having served together in prewar assignments, agree to consolidate their positions. The 868th moves into the secure area around the Desert Rock Airfield.

The lead battalions of the 49th Armored Division either hand over their areas of responsibility to state and local officials, or, unfortunately, abandon their disaster relief and internal security duties and prepare to move south and combat. The division commander inquires where his troops will be issued ammunition for their heavy weapons and armored vehicles; he authorizes the division's company armorers to remove the plates in their unit's M16A2s that prevent them from being placed on "burst" (the plates are a standard addition to National Guard M16s, semi-permanently installed for riot-control duties.)

Troops of Brigade Ciudad Juarez launch another attack on Fort Bliss, finally capturing the post MP station on the south side of the cantonment area. Far to the northeast, Brigade Chihuahua launches an infantry fixing attack on the cadets of the New Mexico Military Institute while dispatching an mechanized cavalry company with ERC-90 armored cars and infantry mounted in VAB APCs on a sweep to the east, hoping to encircle the cadets. Their attack is disrupted by a retired Korean-War veteran tanker and his two sons, who are singlehandedly defending the Highway 62 bridge over the Pecos River in his lovingly restored M24 Chaffee light tank. The Mexican advance is held up as the "old man" manning the 75mm gun destroys two ERC-90s; a duel ensues for the next three hours as the light tank dodges in and out of buildings and jockeys for firing positions to disrupt the cavalry's crossing. Eventually he runs out of ammunition and has to retreat, but has bought valuable time for the cadets to retreat to the cover of the city, where they are able to inflict heavy losses on the initial Mexican infantry incursion.

In Texas, additional Mexican reinforcements are arriving in the theatre. The Ciudad Victoria Brigade crosses into Brownsville, joining the 2nd Mechanized Brigade and the Matamoros Brigade in forming a division-sized "Coastal Column" beginning to move north towards Corpus Christi. The Saltillo Brigade crosses the Rio Grande at Roma and Pharr and quickly moves north, maintaining communications between the now-advancing "Coastal Column" and the armored drive towards San Antonio, where the Monterey Brigade has arrived and begins adding pressure to the US Air Force defense of the city. American reinforcements are less numerous, with the Governor of Texas committing his personal guard of State Guards and Texas Rangers to the city's defense.

The Joint Chiefs, facing massive shortages of fuel and ammunition worldwide, simply does not have anything available to commit to the front; the strategic reserve is, absent the 49th Armored Division and the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing, frozen in place by lack of fuel.

The F-16s of the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing launch their most devastating strike yet, an air raid on the Mexican Air Force base at Monterrey, where the remainder of Mexico's F-5 fighter force has been deployed following the disabling attacks on their home base. The F-16s catch four F-5s on the ground between missions, destroying them as well as five other aircraft when they blanket the base with cluster bombs.

Mexico is under aerial attack from the south as well, with the appearance over the town of Tapachula on the Guatemalan border of the Boeing Skyfox light attack aircraft of the 198th Tactical Fighter Squadron. The converted trainers concentrate on the Tapachula Brigade's garrison, working it over with cluster bombs and rockets. Return fire is limited to small arms and machinegun fire, with the resident unit, like most of the Mexican Army, completely lacking in air defense systems. After five minutes and several passes the brigade's cantonment area is ablaze, leaving the unit (the only one with armored vehicles in the Chiapas and Yucatan Armies) struggling to maintain its own integrity and completely incapable of providing reinforcements to the war effort in America.

After weeks of effort, John Greendeer, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation and 1996 graduate of the University of Minnesota's engineering school, is able to bring the aged electrical turbine at the Hatfield electrical power plant back online. The 6-megawatt generator is capable of meeting the tribe's power needs in the months when the Black River is not frozen over.

The USS Barbour County arrives at the South Korean port of Pohang with a cargo of vehicles (mostly 3/4 and 5/4-ton trucks) salvaged from the mine-damaged Rhode Island Freedom, which was abandoned in the Japanese port of Kokura.

In northwestern Poland, at the urging of the Western TVD commander, the Baltic Front renews its attacks on the Marines and allied troops of II MEF. The assault is led by the three remaining SU-130s and 29 ISU-152s of the 1048th Assault Gun Regiment, with several dozen scared Estonian teenagers riding on the outside of the guns like their grandfathers in the 1940s. Most of the guns complete the road march to the departure point without breaking down and the behemoths prove remarkably resistant to the Americans LAW rocket fire and the infantry mortars that are the Marine's first line of defense. Six guns are lost breaching the defensive minefield and three more fall to TOW missiles while closing in on the embedded Marines. The surviving guns push into the American rear area, but the troops of the 3rd Guards Motor-Rifle Division, assigned to follow through on the breakthrough, remain passively in their positions.

The commander of Carrier Air Wing 10, from the damaged USS Independence, meets with his new commander, LtGen Thomas Forberg, USAF, commander USAFCENT and CG, 9th Air Force. Forberg is already familiar with the capabilities of many of the wing's aircraft, having served a combat tour aboard the USS Coral Sea during the Vietnam War as a F-4 pilot. The Navy Captain and the General discuss the training, personnel and logistic needs of the Naval Aviation squadrons, some of which can be more easily addressed than others. One of the most challenging issues is that of aviators' carrier qualifications - landing a tactical aircraft on a heaving flight deck, especially at night and bad weather, is a highly perishable skill that needs to be practiced regularly and which appears impossible with no operable carrier within thousands of miles.

[Matt Wiser]

They'll need a field somewhere-Saudi, Qatar, or UAE, where FCLP (Field Carrier Landing Practice) can be conducted. It's not the same as a real trap, but it would be the best possible under current circumstances.