The Two-Pronged Salient

As the year 1957 dawned, the Mormons and their allies would find themselves in possession of a two-pronged salient sticking Southward into Utah. One of the prongs was the Eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake between the lake and the mountains. This prong was essential to the Mormon war effort. After all, their government had still not completely moved out of Salt Lake City. This prong, sandwiched between the lake and the mountains, was rather defensible. Macarthur had failed to take Salt Lake City twice.

However, there was another prong, stretching out into the desert of Western Utah. The few inhabitants of the desert were still Mormon, and supply trains from the North still carried supplies across the open desert to places such as Dugway, where Mormon defenders still held out, surrounded by Arizonans on two sides and Californians across the desert on the third. It would be this salient in the desert that would see most of the action in the Spring of 1957.

The Capture of Dugway (RK038)

Dugway, in a defensible position behind the symbolically-named Mount Deseret, had been a holdout for the Mormons for nearly a year. It was to Dugway that the Mormon troops had withdrawn to after they had held Macarthur’s armies back at the momentous Battle of Cove Fort. Thus, when the Colorado Watch out of California crossed the desert and approached Dugway, they were expecting an ambush. Their accompanying air support made sweep after sweep of the region, hoping to find where the Mormons lay in wait for them. But, there was nothing there. The Mormons were long gone. The locals would mention that they had withdrawn Northward only a few weeks prior.

The Capture of Barro (RK042)

Barro was a tiny town in the middle of a vast desert. It had only become important as a crossroads between the East-West road from Nevada to Salt Lake City and the North-South supply line leading to Dugway. The California Rangers rushed to the city in the hopes that they could cut off the retreating Mormons. They wished to pocket them to obtain valuable POWs to trade for the paratroopers captured over a year ago. Again, they were too late. The Mormon military had abandoned the town.

The Battle of Snowville (RK063)

It was soon clear where the Mormons were headed. Macarthur, in his plans to pocket the Mormons, had dispatched a large army to travel North along the Western Shore of the Great Salt Lake. Their objective was twofold: firstly, they were to cut off the retreating Mormons from the desert. After that, their plan was to swing Eastward and attack the Montanan troops defending the Northern flanks of Salt Lake City. If they succeeded, they could not only pocket the Mormons, but also close siege lines around Salt Lake City.

As the Mormons and Arizonans became aware of each other's presence, a race began. Could the Mormons reach the safety of their allies’ trench lines at Snowville? Or would the Arizonans cut them off? As the drama began to unfold, more players joined the game: both California's and DC's air forces would join the fray. EMAAS artillery would begin firing from the mountains North of Snowville.

The result would be the largest battle of the war thus far. Over ten thousand men would be involved on each side of the battle, with nearly ten thousand casualties. The ground around Snowville would be littered wirh corpses and piece of metal before the day was done. Thousands lost their lives that Spring day.

In the end, though the Mormons would succeed at linking up with their allies. General Ridgeway, seeing the carnage around them, would call off the attack. Many with the benefit of hindsight would say that he could have succeeded if he had continued to fight. However, as it was, Macarthur would have to be satisfied with the territory gained farther to the South. Snowville would not be taken today.

DRAW - 3 rail development and 1 production development destroyed

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The Second “Battle” of Helena

PILOT 1: We are supposed to ‘establish air superiority’?

PILOT 2: Those are our orders.

PILOT 1: But we are bomber pilots!

PILOT 2: That we are.

PILOT 1: And there are no other planes in the sky.

PILOT 2: Then I guess we can say ‘mission accomplished’. Let’s go home and drink a beer.

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PARTISAN 1: We will die to save Montana!

PARTISAN 2: Die? How are we going to die? No bombs are falling from those planes….

PARTISAN 1: Then we will shoot them out of the sky!!!

PARTISAN 2: But, our rifles can’t shoot that high. And now they are flying away.

PARTISAN 1: We won!! We saved Montana!

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Both California and Montana claimed victory that day.

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