Thinking a bit about the USN...

[Webstral]

Something to keep in mind here is that subs are notoriously difficult to find in the first place, especially if the naval forces assigned to do so have already been decimated as is the case in T2K - Last major fleet destroyed in what, June 1997 Strategic exchanges occur in around October 1997....
Seems clear to me that no matter how great the US believes they were at tracking Soviet subs, by that point they'd be lucky to be using guesswork and blind luck.
Same goes for the Soviets.

Finding a nuke boat in the deep blue without having a good starting point would be very, very difficult. However, weird things happen in war. USS Houston could trail a sub tender to a juicy target. Alternatively, she might score a coup in the approaches to Vladivostok or Petropavlovsk. If the Soviets are absolutely determined to get Guam, they will take her down. If they aren't especially attached to destroying Guam, there might be room for some story telling.

[Olefin]

How about this instead for Guam

Soviets attack Guam but their plan is not to destroy it but instead to occupy it as a way of cutting off US supplies to China (and get a lot of nice US hardware to use and play with).

So they use a neutron bomb - kills the people but not the stuff thats there.

Unfortunately the amphib group that was supposed to take the island gets taken down by the USN well short of the island, leaving it free for the US to reoccupy.

By the time the Soviets realize that their amphib group never made it there, they are a little too busy getting nuked by the US to bother with a second attack.

Which leads to a new question - did anyone use neutron bombs in the Twilight War Dont remember them being mentioned in the canon - but they were available for use - if I remember correctly I think the Soviets and the French had them in reality at that time frame.

[HorseSoldier]

I can't see how the Soviets could credibly project an amphibious battle group to Guam -- coming out of Soviet ports in Siberia means running a gauntlet past the air and sea elements of the Japanese Self Defense Forces plus the USAF and USN assets supporting operations in the ROK. (Hell, the South Koreans would probably be up for taking a bit of time out of their generating sorties against North Korean units to destroy a Soviet amphibious battle group sailing by.

Alternately, they could be coming out of Vietnam, where GDW has a Soviet garrison, but then those guys would have to make it past the Philipines, past the PRC's navy and naval aviation assets, as well as possibly a belligerent Taiwan as well (besides USN and Australian navy vessels in the area).

By comparison, the Alaska invasion at least doesn't require a run past numerous enemy held air and naval bases. (The Alaska operation itself would tend to argue against the Soviets pulling any other major amphibious operations as well -- suspension of belief that they could pull off Alaska is one thing, but Alaska + another major amphibious operation against a very remote target is rougher . . .)

[TrailerParkJawa]

Disclaimer: Nothing of what follows is intended either to initiate or sustain a oecanon feud. Where interpretations of undocumented items, like the number of survivors in California or a specific region of a state, differ I think its worthwhile to have a conversation about the thought process leading to the differences of opinion.

Certainly, I would not try to shout down your vision. If oea few hundred thousand means about 300,000 (often, a few is three), then were talking a tenfold difference"rather substantial. I do think that the difference in our numbers is the basis for a conversation.

I'm totally up for a conversation and don't see such a conversation as a canon feud in anyway. Apologies for the late response. I usually browse this site on a mobile device which makes any posts more than a few sentances a real chore.

One of the factors I try to bear in mind when I am doing the creative work of assigning population levels is the total number of survivors as given in Howling Wilderness. The total loss of population through July 2000 is 52%, amounting to 135 million people. The surviving 48% amount to about 125 million. The population will drop even further by early 2001, but I want to focus on the July 2000 population for now.

My personal vision of how things is based on a rejection of the Howling Wilderness numbers. I personally believe that 135 million people is simply too large of a number to be alive given how or economy and agriculture where structured before the war.

When I looked at how America was structured last time the population was 135 million, which was roughly around 1940. Given the state of industry, agriculture, oil resources, etc in 2000 I just dont see that infrastructure being able to feed 135 million.

The San Francisco Bay Area (hereafter referred to as the Bay Area) has a pre-war population of about 10 million. Southern California has a population of about 15 million, leaving 6-7 million more Californians scattered throughout the rest of the state (by 1997 population estimates).

10 million is a little too high I think. The 2000 census if I recall correctly put around 7 million people living in the bay area counties total.

Finally, when it comes to my personal vision, for it to work the way I want I need the South Bay to be largely devoid of life so it can become a starting point for recovery. If there are a million people in Santa Clara Valley that means large numbers of structures are still occupied, structures that aren't have been pillaged for everything thats useful.

I really liked the idea that you and Matt Wiser have of Alameda being alive and still functioning. In some of the work I've done in my head and on paper I have Moffet Field being the center of salvage operations for the South Bay. I modeled my recovery teams kinda like SG-1. Small teams scouting the area looking for good stuff then they call in larger more organized teams to due the real work.

Is that realistic I dunno, its just something I thought was cool. And for it to work properly I have to kill off lots of people.

So in summary, my vision really comes from two places, first I'm not following the canon number of survivors and second, my personal narrative needs a largely empty Bay Area.

Now, if we are to go by canon. I don't really disagree with the logic you presented and the numbers. I might move a lot more people in California to the Central Valley, but overall if we are going to have 150 or so million survivors California does present some advantages. You dont ever have to heat or cool your home in the Bay Area, you make do with extra sweaters if it gets cold or sleeping in your undies or less if its gets too hot. Nobody is gonna freeze from sub-zero weather in San Jose or Oakland. The key thing is getting population access to water. That dominates everything in California and without power we'd have to rely on gravity and that would in my opinion reshape where people would concentrate.