Palacios

Before delving further into our exciting exploits, it may be necessary to give the reader some idea of the geographical make-up of Palacios, considering that it is merely a creation of the present author.

The island, located about forty miles off the coast of Florida, is approximately 110 miles long (North to South) by an average of 22 miles wide (2,220 square miles). It is part of the Russian West Indies, a chain of 11 small islands in the area, but none of them are of as much import at Palacios, unclaimed territory seized by Russia during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, with the blessing of Fidel Castro. Its city and landmark names are a hodgepodge of Russian, Spanish and even English.

The island is made up of only a few major cities: it is heavily covered by forest, swamplands and highlands. The largest city is Ciudad de Verde, or Green City, on the very southeastern tip of the island. All of the island's developed cities are on the coast; only a few small towns and villages exist in the interior.

Colonel Strelnikoff, the island's commander, is also its de facto military governor. He has under his command a total of 15,000 Russian troops, along with a roughly equal number of Cuban troops - hastily and generously deployed by the Castros before the American blockade clamped down - special forces and engineering units, his contingent of Marine and Naval personnel, and a small contingent of mostly useless native militia. In total, his forces numbered about 52,000 men, but only 32,000 or so were ready for actual operations.

Due to the blockade, and his island's remoteness from home base, Strelnikoff has concentrated most of his forces around Green City. His main defeneses are at Forts Kurugen and Belkin, and the foreboding Molotov Heights, about eight miles northwest of the city. A small naval flotilla, made up of small craft such as torpedo boats, gunboats, and two out-of-date missile destroyers, guarded the harbor, but were easily bottled up by American naval forces.

Other than this, Strelnikoff has only a few good-sized attachments in the island. He has chosen to center his forces at the decisive point, but in doing so he effectively ceding two-thirds of the islands to the Americans and the ever-present. However, given the island's terrain, Strelnikoff's comparatively small force, and the presence of the partisans, any other tactic was unlikely to succeed.

The main American force landed on the northern shore of the island, focusing around the old Spanish towns of Guernica and Reyes. Small Marine contingents landed and seized several port cities on the west and east of the island, establishing footholds for possible future operations and linking up with insurgent forces.

The only major Russian outpost between the American forces was at El Moro, an old town about thirty miles south of the American positions, where Captain Minolov was stationed with three companies (approximately 500 men), and a battalion-sized force besieging General Cortez's partisan army at the city of Bello in the eastern Nina Hills. Strelnikoff posted small outposts throughout the island, but these rarely numbered more than a few dozen men, and could easily be bypassed or swept aside (and, as it was, were being constantly). He kept all of his heavy machine guns and artillery, other than mortars, grenade launchers and light machine guns, in his main defensive line - he simply could not afford to spare such material for anything but the decisive contest.

However, upon news of Slurry's landing, he yielded to the advice of his subordinates that he offer some resistance to the American landing before they could invest Green City. He sent north two of his four Cuban brigades, along with several Russian machine gun battalions and mortar batteries - and 50 of his best sharpshooters. Under the command of the Cuban Colonel Marquez, this 9,000-man force deployed hastily to El Grapadura, a large, heavily-wooded ravine between the Nina and Rostes hill ranges. This would be the only place the Americans could easily advance from their current position, other than hiking over the Ninas or slogging through swampland, and it was here that Marquez's men made their stand, preparing to ambush the first gringos that.