On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[Targan]

November 29, 1997The Soviets unleashed armageddon on an array of Allied command and control centers across the Pacific. The Delta III-class SSBN K-223, operating 1200 km southwest of Hawaii, unleashed five SS-N-18 mod 2 missiles, each with ten 100-kiloton warheads. One missile was aimed at each of Canberra, Australia, Wellington, New Zealand, Anderson Air Force Base on Guam, US Pacific Command headquarters in Hawaii and Vandenburg Air Force Base, California.

Any other members here who are dual citizens have the capitals of both their countries nuked

[chico20854]

November 30, 1997

Unofficially,

The month of November closes out with the world continuing to be convulsed by the ongoing strategic nuclear exchange.

The Soviets responded to the bomber and ICBM attacks on their northern air defenses and military headquarters with attacks on SAC bases, additional NATO command posts as well as extending the long-running anti-petroleum campaign to American refineries.

Another pair of SS-24 missiles were fired from silos of the 165th Missile Regiment, 60th Missile Division in Tatischevo near Saratov in the Volga region of Russia, each carrying ten 550-kilot warheads. DSP and Navstar satellites picked up the launches within seconds and relayed the news to NORAD headquarters in Colorado (communications having been restored overnight). A few moments later the missiles were picked up by radars at Flyingdales Moor in the UK and at Thule, Greenland. President Munson was notified, but there was nothing he could do but pray that they were not headed for him and for the souls of those that would be lost. A few minutes later the MIRVs began to land across the north-central US and Canada. Officially, K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base on Michigans Upper Peninsula was hit by a single warhead that tore the bases support buildings apart as well as destroying the 410th Bomb Wing headquarters and three B-52Hs and a KC-135 that were undergoing maintenance in the bases hangars. Winnipeg, Manitoba, home of the Canadian Armys Training Command, was hit with two warheads. The bulk of the warheads, however, struck North Dakota. Grand Forks and Minot Air Force Bases were plastered with 15 warheads between them (two of the Soviet warheads failed to arrive for still-unknown reasons). The headquarters of the 321st Strategic Missile Wing and 319th Strategic Bombing Wing were hit at Grand Forks, while Minot lost the 57th Air Division Headquarters, 91st Strategic Missile Wing and 5th Strategic Bombing Wing to a combination of ground and air bursts.

Another missile, a SS-18 Mod 5 from the 59th Missile Divisions 496th Missile Regiment, targeted the Norfolk, Virginia area with six 150-kiloton MIRVs. Unofficially, two struck CINCLANTs headquarters in Norfolk, two roasted the docks at Portsmouth, loaded with munitions, cargo and vehicles for transit to the war zone and the massed ships awaiting Convoy 314. One MIRV hit Langley Air Force Base and its air defense control center and F-15 interceptors, while the last targeted the Armys Fort Monroe, the scandal-plagued headquarters of Training and Doctrine Command. Officially, despite severe damage to the port facilities at Norfolk and Newport News the military garrisons in the area remained operating. (Many - Forts Eustice and Story, the Little Creek amphibious base, Oceana Naval Air Station, the CIA training camp at Camp Perry - were outside the blast radius of the strikes).

A one megaton thermonuclear warhead airburst over the gas and oil fields and the refineries to the west of Corpus Christi. Several smaller warheads detonated in the air over other refineries in the vicinity. Blast damage to the city's buildings three to six miles away was relatively light, but oil storage and refining facilities throughout the area were ignited by the thermal pulse, and the wind, fanned to hurricane force by the explosion's updraft, created a petrochemical firestorm far more devastating than the nuclear blast itself. The larger buildings suffered relatively little damage from the airburst three miles to the west. All wooden frame houses collapsed and burned, and most brick buildings were severely damaged. Reinforced concrete structures throughout the city were almost untouched, however, though every window was smashed and there was some damage from fire. Damage was worse in the western portion of the city, where the petroleum firestorm leveled tank farms, pipelines, and oil field structures, and the industrial plants and refineries to the west and south were razed or turned into twisted skeleton forests of steel beams and girders. Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, an important training base and aircraft and helicopter repair facility, was lightly damaged during the nuclear attack, and most of the aircraft survived. The mile-long Harbor Bridge sustained only minor structural damage from the nuclear airburst four miles to the southwest. Other areas, particularly the outlying suburbs and nearby towns to the east and north, sustained little damage. The firestorm which swept through the region west of Corpus Christi touched the town of Aranas Pass as well, as the nuclear blast's thermal flash and secondary fires ignited oil and gas in storage tanks and facilities along the coast. Some refinery facilities suffered only light damage. Other refineries and storage terminals were leveled when fires touched off leaking pipelines, creating secondary chemical explosions and fires nearly as devastating as the nuclear blast which caused them. Casualties were over 40,000 dead and 100,000 injured.

America's nuclear power plants had been shut down for safety reasons before the strikes (if a nuke plant's control circuitry were to be fried by EMP while it was functioning, an accident would be almost unavoidable). No one was willing to start one up again while there was still a chance of EMP damage. Some conventional power plants (those with oeblack-start capability, generally sufficient diesel generators to start the turbines and operate the control center, or hydropower plants) were repaired, and limited power came back. But the grid was down, and it was not possible to get it where it was most needed.

FEMA personnel revised the long-standing plans to evacuate city residents to move the population closer to the food producing areas and even out labor and distribution shortages by distributing the population more evenly across the country. The program, a classic example of bureaucratic wisdom and farsightedness, ignored such minor concerns as the availability of fuel, blockage of major road arteries by breakdowns or accidents, traffic control for millions of vehicles, or the willingness of lightly populated host communities to accommodate and feed millions of dispossessed city dwellers.

Unofficially,

Other attacks continued to batter American allies. A pair of submarine-launched cruise missiles incinerated the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik and the nearby NATO air base at Keflavik. A SS-N-18 missile launched by the Delta III-class SSBN K-496 hit the air base at Lajes in the Azores with a single 450-kiloton warhead. Other missiles from the same boat hit NATOs IBERLANT headquarters at Oieras outside of Lisbon, the NATO air training base at Beja, Portugal and the refinery at Sines, Portugal, source of two thirds of Portugals petroleum.

Misawa Air Base, Japan was the target for a Soviet 100kT nuclear warhead. Fortunately, the missile overshot and detonated 20 miles out to sea. The resulting tsunami caused damage all along the Japanese coast near the base.

The nuclear attacks on the United States, Canada and elsewhere reverberated throughout the Caribbean and Central America. SOUTHCOM temporarily was cut off from communications after the attacks and immediately moved to secure all petroleum storage facilities in Panama, ignoring the objections of the Panamanian government. Gasoline rationing was immediately put in place throughout the country and the Panama Canal Zone. All crossing points into the Zone were closed and only those who work in the Zone itself were allowed to enter. JTF-Bravo in Honduras also secured the fuel supplies at Soto Cano AFB as well.

All reservists (mostly older retirees by this point of the war) and Junior ROTC units in the Zone were immediately called to report for duty. Every ship transiting the Canal was boarded, with SOUTHCOM seizing three ships that have vital military stores on board including the Liberian-flagged tanker Poseidon Cherry carrying 40,000 tons of gasoline and diesel fuel to Chile, the Marshall Island-flag freighter Frannie F. loaded with Argentine wheat headed for Mexico and the Freedom-class ship Tampa Freedom loaded with twelve Stingray tanks, a battery of M-102 105mm howitzers and six UH-1 Huey helicopters bound for the Philippines.

A coordinated Soviet attack on the Panama Canal failed to damage the Canal, with a Soviet missile being shot down over the Gulf of Mexico by Patriot missiles and three nuclear tipped cruise missiles fired by the last operational Soviet submarine in the Caribbean, the intercepted by F-15 and F-16 fighters.

The Headquarters, 347th Strategic Missile Squadron (the sole operator of the Midgetman road-mobile small ICBM) deploys from the cantonment area of Nellis Air Force Base to the Desert Rock airfield deep in the Nellis Air Force Base range complex, bringing with it a large stock of food, fuel and spare parts.

The Canadian Air Force dispatches a CP-121 anti-submarine aircraft to the Arctic coast to hunt for the Soviet submarine Barrikada. The subs location had been relayed to the Canadians after NORAD detected its SLBM launch; the aged aircraft was all that could be found to conduct the difficult search in the Arctic nights frozen seas.

SAC was active as well, executing retaliatory strikes ordered by President Munson. To compensate for the loss of Americas last satellite launch facility at Vandenburg Air Force Base American missiles destroyed the reconnaissance satellite launch facility at Plesetsk with six MIRVs from two Minuteman III missiles from the 91st Strategic Missile Wing (making it off before the base was hit) and the rocket launch facility and testing center at Kapustin Yar, which received three warheads from another of the 91st's Minuteman IIIs. Tiring of the unrelenting attacks and angered by the attacks on Camp David and the PEFs (he had just received the first photos of the area around Camp David), he ordered further attacks on the Communist Partys apparatus. The deep underground shelter under Zhiguli Mountain that harbored General Secretary Sauronski was pounded with a 9-meagton B53 bomb (the largest weapon in Americas arsenal) dropped by a B-52, and three recreation areas frequented by high Party officials (at Valdai, Foros and Shuiskaya Chupa in Karelia, near the Finnish border) received 5-kiloton airbursts from Air-Launched Cruise Missiles. Finally, to retaliate for the continued ICBM strikes on the US, SAC launched its first attacks on a Soviet missile base, hitting the Dombarovskiy missile base, home of the 13th Missile Division and 64 SS-18 silos. A B-2 approached the divisions area, unleashing a hail of ten SRAM II missiles, each with a 100-kiloton W89 warhead. Set for ground bursts, the missiles destroyed the missile control center for each of the divisions ten constituent regiments.

RainbowSix reports that,

The remnants of HM government that could be safely moved to the bunker, which was codenamed EYEGLASS, met. The group, the War Cabinet, passed the Emergency Powers Act, which suspended the normal procedures of Parliament and transferred much of the powers of Government to the Regional Government Headquarters (RGHQs). The same Act also authorised the armed forces to take action to assist the civil authorities; officially it was accompanied by a royal declaration imposing martial law.

RainbowSix continued that each RGHQ was headed by a Regional Commissioner, who was assisted by a staff that included civil servants and Military personnel. As other towns and cities suffered the same fate as London in the days that followed the RGHQs began to introduce a range of measures authorised by the Emergency Powers Act. Armed troops, many of whom were conscripts partway through their basic training, took to the streets to maintain law and order whilst other units, wearing NBC suits, began to incinerate unburied corpses in an effort to halt the spread of disease. In the north the 5th Divisions proposed move to Europe was placed on hold, the divisions troops urgently needed to try to maintain order. Meanwhile other Army units had begun to collect those Members of Parliament who had managed to survive the attacks;

Merchant ships off the coast of the British Isles who sent out distress calls were instructed by surviving coast guard personnel to make for the relatively safe anchorage of Scapa Flow in Orkney, a former Royal Navy anchorage that was closed as a Navy base in 1956, and over a dozen abandoned commercial cargo ships and tankers from the British and international merchant fleet anchored there. Unofficially, they joined the remnants of the NATO naval support force which had re-occupied the facility in 1996, which had turned out to be of vital importance in the Battle of the Norwegian Sea and the 1997 Battles of the Atlantic.


Elsewhere, Officially, the lead candidate in the St Petersburg New America committee to challenge Augusta Fitzleigh-Warren's leadership of the cell dies in a car accident.

In Boston, the survivors of the Congress of North Banks Fishermen bombings were under no delusions that the bombings were accidental. With CNBF resolve weakened, UBF thugs, organized as "rioters," overran and destroyed CNBF offices in 15 towns. Carlucci's victory was complete and his power secure.

Unofficially, the 29th Infantry Division (Light) detaches a battalion (3rd Battalion, 116th Infantry, Virginia National Guard) to secure Socotra Island airfield, already hit several times by USN and USAF aircraft.

Despite the disorder ashore, the new light frigate USS Hurst heads to sea on its maiden operational voyage. Due to the shortages of aircraft, she carries a pre-war Coast Guard HU-65 Dolphin helicopter. While a capable aircraft, it is optimized for surface search and has minimal anti-surface and anti-submarine abilities.

A guard at the Albuquerque City jail, angered by the nuclear attacks on USA, enters the cell of Autumn Lotus, the woman convicted of aiding a Soviet spetsnaz team in the spring, and shoots her dead.

[chico20854]

December 1, 1997

Officially, President Munson flew back east (unofficially aboard a E-4B of the 1st Airborne Command and Control Squadron) to the Special Facility at Mount Weather where a skeleton staff of the various category A agencies and FEMA personnel were on duty. Almost no members of Congress were present, and no legislative business could be conducted, but FEP-D permitted a number of emergency procedures to be undertaken. Communication was next to impossible since the effects of nuclear EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) proved much greater than predicted, and most of the supposedly shielded electronic circuitry was fried during the initial attacks.

A radio report was received at the SAC backup command post (which was preparing to displace to Naval Ammunition Depot Hastings, lest a Soviet snooper satellite detect its radio transmissions) from North Dakota that the air police garrisons at Minot and Grand Forks Air Force Bases remained intact and in control of the bases stock of warheads, with a number of the missiles operable. (The Soviet attacks struck the main base area, not the dozens of missile silos dispersed over many miles of prairie.)

In Maryland, Roger Caldwell, an assistant undersecretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, arrived in the state capital. He had avoided the riots in Baltimore and was able to travel to Annapolis where he rejoined a number of former government officials who had survived the Washington holocaust. The civilian population of Frederick dispersed following the strikes on Fort Dietrich and Camp David, virtually abandoning the city to its craters and radiation.

Not far from Mount Weather, and contrary to the situation there, radio waves cleared enough for radio contact with Carl Hughes to be reestablished; New America leader Carl Hughes found himself dealing with the only female head of a New America cell in the country in St. Petersburg, Florida.

With plenty of national defense industry plants that made the city of Clearwater, Florida seem like a target for further bombing, the inhabitants panicked and fled to the countryside. The exodus was joined by an estimated 4500 residents of the nearby town of Gulfport.

Unofficially, streams of survivors streamed out of Las Vegas as food, water, fuel and electricity grew scarce.

Officially, when news of the nuclear strikes against Washington, DC and the other areas broke in New England, fear of nuclear holocaust resurfaced. Widespread rioting in the metropolitan areas of Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts taxed both the civilian and military police. Much of the factory facilities which supported the sub base in Groton and New London were destroyed in the riots and civil disorder. Much of Providence was ravaged by the disorder -fires gutted many of the large buildings in the downtown area.

Unofficially, across the nation, defense industry workers reported back to work. In many cases many of their co-workers had fled, and managers (and the militarys on-site contracting representatives) tried to figure out how to resume production after the damage wreaked by EMP and the loss of electrical power. Many sites had been fitted with emergency backup generators, but even in these cases the backups were inadequate to resume full production. An exception, however, were the many shipyards what ringed the nations coasts. The ships under construction, in many cases, had on-board generators and landside connections, originally intended to power the ships in port. Shipyard managers were, in several cases, quickly able to start the generators aboard the vessels under construction (which had largely escaped damage from EMP, being disconnected from power mains and installed in a large steel box of an engine room) and resume work on board and ashore.

Officially, a low-power AM radio station located somewhere in the heart of Central Florida came on the air. Calling itself the "Voice of the Lord," this apparently authoritative, allegedly fundamentalist Christian radio station began churning out the wildest and most criminally irresponsible propaganda imaginable. The criminally and deliberately misinforming Voice of the Lord did more to create and spread the senseless pain and suffering than the combined death count attributed to the entire bombardment of Florida. With no authoritative counter-voice to challenge the genocidal recommendation and advice from this allegedly Christian fundamentalist radio station, it deliberately and maliciously spread the notions that radiation sickness and the once-dreaded AIDS were one and the same and that the persons exposed to radiation in the attacks (particularly the one in Tampa) were now somehow "carriers" of lethal radiation that could be indiscriminately spread from one person to another in a manner identical to that of AIDS. The broadcaster went on to suggest that the radioactive sign of the city-dwelling, godless, immoral fathers would be visited upon their sons and daughters (and all who sheltered them or even breathed the same air) for the next seven generations. It was heavy stuff, laid on with all the skill, subtlety, and salesmanship of a true genius in the science of propaganda. The immediate effects of the attack, even in the countryside, had been traumatic enough

Nuclear mushrooms sprouted over Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and at Marcus Hook, a few kilometers down the Delaware River. The cities of Chester, Marcus Hook, Philadelphia, and many others were devastated by nuclear attacks on the refineries that dotted the southern reaches of the Delaware River. The strike on the Delaware City refinery in adjacent Delaware only wiped out one percent of the total US refining capacity, but it was just one of many strikes in the region of the lower Delaware River. Its contribution to the devastation was enough, however, to cause the northern half of Delaware to become almost completely deserted within days.

Unofficially, also struck in the attacks was the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, where the carrier USS Saratoga was in drydock being repaired after being struck by a Soviet cruise missile. Also lost in the strike were the destroyer USS Dahlgren, the stores ship USS Sylvania and the amphibious assault ship USS Portland. The blast and subsequent firestorm raged across the city of Philadelphia; wide boulevards and green areas, designed in the 19th Century to prevent the spread of fires, were no match for the 100-plus mile per hour winds that fed the massive fires. Officially, radiation, fire, blast, and the resulting civil unrest killed or severely injured millions. The eccentric rockstar Ted Hendrix was killed in the attacks.

The Soviets launched a series of attacks on Southern California, firing five missiles from the Delta I-class K-477, which was sheltering under ice in the Sea of Oshkosh. The relatively inaccurate missiles made up for it with 800-kiloton warheads, which tore the city of Los Angeles apart. Three missiles were directed at the refineries in Los Angeles, igniting massive fires at the El Segundo, Long Beach, Wilmington, Torrance and Carson refineries and taking out over 1.25 million barrels of daily refining capacity. March Air Force Base, California was struck by two missiles, knocking out the headquarters of SACs 15th Air Force and a number of KC-10 tankers of the 22nd Air Refueling Wing.

Officially, the Norwegian naval bases at Horten, Haakonsvern, Ramsund, and Olavsvern came under attack, being destroyed or severely damaged. The inhabitants of the city of Kristiansund had largely dispersed into the surrounding coastal villages, and more left after that, fearing they would become a target. Even more of the populace left in the chaos and economic dislocation that followed.

Unofficially, Strategic Air Command started the month by exploiting the large gap in the Soviet air defense network it had created over the weekend. For the first time a B-52 flew its second nuclear sortie, when a BUFF from the 26th Bombardment Squadron fired a salvo of ALCMs at the Teykovo ICBM field; other aircraft from the 5th Bomb Wing fired a series of cruise missiles at the nearby Kostroma ICBM complex. Like the prior days strikes at the Dombarovskiy ICBM sites, the missiles targeted regimental launch control centers with ground bursts; the highly accurate cruise missiles were very effective in taking out the buried facilities.

Officially, in Africa an all-out attack by US and Kenyan forces, heavily supported by a small force of bombers attacking out of Diego Garcia, defeated the Tanzanian forces near Mombasa, driving what was left of them back into Tanzania. The bombers landed at Kenyan air bases near Nairobi instead of returning to Diego Garcia as the US began to disperse it forces to avoid having them be destroyed in a single attack. In the north the Somalis, under constant attack by US Rangers and Special Forces aided by US and Kenyan attack helicopters, began to withdraw towards Somalia, devastating the area as they leave. The Dar es Salaam refinery in Tanzania was destroyed by cruise missiles from USS Louisville, cutting off local oil production and leaving Tanzania dependent on oil from the Ndola refinery in Zambia to keep its tanks and armored vehicles running. Much of their remaining anti-aircraft weaponry was assigned to protect their fuel supplies and the pipeline from Zambia.

Unofficially,

The war in Europe dragged on as well. Logistically, NATO forces in Germany were somewhat adequately supplied thanks to the dozens of fully loaded ships waiting n he North Sea for berths in the few operable Dutch, German and Danish ports. Morale among soldiers dropped precipitously, however, as each man and woman wondered and worried about their friends and family back home. Soldiers (and most commanders with less than two stars on their shoulders) were unaware of the specifics of the attacks back home, just that America had been struck, with all details of where and when still highly classified (as was the fact that President Tanner and Vice President Pemberton were dead and that Speaker Munson had been sworn in as President of the United States).

On the other side of the lines, however, things were falling apart rather quickly. The destruction of the Red Armys higher command levels paralyzed operations, while the attacks on Moscow caused the central coordination of production and transportation of supplies and replacements to the front to come to a screeching halt. Absent orders from Moscow, even Front commanders were reluctant to order the movement of even a single battalion. What supplies were en route to the front trickled in gradually as dedicated individuals doggedly pushed their way westward.

Nonetheless, SACEUR ordered a withdrawal of most of the remaining NATO bridgeheads in Poland, leaving only the US Marine garrison opposite Szczecin at the mouth of the Oder in place. The withdrawal

In Belize the final members of the Guatemalan marine force in southern Belize were rounded up by Belizian soldiers as they tried to make their way back home on foot. To the northwest, the British-Belizian combined force launched an assault on the Guatemalan force that had been stalled some ten miles inside the border for weeks. A platoon of British troops, led by cadre from the British Armys jungle warfare training school, set up a blocking position in the remnants of the prewar border crossing station, completely cutting off the Guatemalan force from what few supplies that had been receiving (while simultaneously ensuring that they had more than enough food, fuel and ammunition!)

[chico20854]

December 2, 1997

Officially, two New Jersey towns, Linden and Perth Amboy (both locations of important refineries and oil storage farms), were hit by thermonuclear warheads on the night of December 2. Staten Island was badly damaged by blast and subsequent fires, but damage to the other boroughs was relatively light. The nuclear strikes did direct damage only to portions of Staten Island. Since the New Jersey strikes were airbursts, fallout was less severe than it could have been. The blasts lit up the night sky and shattered windows close to the ground. The fires raging across Staten Island, which had the misfortune to be located directly adjacent to the two oil refining complexes which were targets for a pair of Soviet nuclear warheads, were seen illuminating the sky as far north as Hyde Park. The entire western third of the island as far east as Port Richmond in the north and Staten Island Mall in the center of the island were reduced to rubble. Another third of the island suffered severe damage to buildings from blast and the subsequent fires. Over 117,000 people died on Staten Island from the blast alone, and another 11,000 perished across the Narrows in Brooklyn.

None of the city's other boroughs, however, suffered any deaths directly from the blasts. Damage to Manhattan from the New Jersey nuclear strikes was slight. Some glass was shattered, particularly near the ground floors where the blast was intensified by reflection from the pavement, and particularly near the southern tip of Manhattan, which was closer to ground zero. The nuclear explosions across the bay, however, did almost no blast damage at all, and even fallout was minimal, with the worst radiation effects being confined to Staten Island and western Brooklyn. Due to prevailing winds during and after the strikes, the heaviest of the fallout from the Linden blast missed Manhattan but fell across southern Brooklyn, Coney Island, and Rockaway Point. Over 300,000 people suffered from radiation sickness and many died. Brooklyn also suffered the riots, disease, and starvation which swept the rest of the city as well.

There was other physical damage as well. Most of Manhattan south of Central Park is only a few feet above sea level. After the electricity stopped working, the pumps which kept the subway, road and rail tunnels dry stopped. None of the bridges suffered extensive damage from the nukes, but all became clogged with cars soon thereafter. The military partially cleared several key bridges in order to facilitate their movements (this means abandoned cars were smashed together or were overturned on top of one another). Many of the city's hospitals were destroyed during the riots following the New Jersey nukes. Hospitals, after all, have stores of food and medical supplies.

Unofficially, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the Chairman, Army Chief of Staff, Commandant of the Marine Corps and Chief of Naval Operations had gathered at the Raven Rock site), after consulting with President Munson, ordered a coordinated support effort from many of the remaining military forces in the US. Units assigned to the Armys strategic reserve had, in many cases, already assumed responsibility for food distribution. They were soon joined by training units (the Army alone had ten training divisions and numerous training brigades), which halted most basic and advanced training cycles in order to provide assistance to areas in the region that they were located. Naval and Air Force training units, alongside the support and security troops of the small USAF strategic reserve force, assumed similar duties. The effort, while well-intentioned, was doomed to failure, since the units were led by less than the best officers, poorly equipped, in many cases only partially trained and, overall, woefully too few to meet the needs of the population.

In order to prevent a possible Empty Quiver incident (loss of an operable nuclear weapon) an emergency USAF, Department of Energy and Army team arrived at the ruins of Blytheville Air Force Base, Arkansas in a convoy of armored vehicles (which offer protection from the still-high radiation) from Little Rock. They secured the nuclear warheads for the XX Bomb Wings ALCMs and the dozens of B61, B53 and B83 nuclear bombs, all of which survived the blast intact in their secure bunkers.

Three 335 kt warheads from a Minuteman III ICBM strike Northern Fleet headquarters in Murmansk, the SLBM storage facility at Yagel'naya Bay and the Severomorsk naval base, with its reserves of fuel, munitions and spare parts. The strike marks the unofficial end of the Red Banner Northern Fleet as a force to be reckoned with. On the Pacific coast, Vladivostok is attacked a second time, with three MIRVs tearing into several hardened targets that escaped earlier tactical nuclear strikes.

RainbowSix reports in the aftermath of the nuclear strikes on London large numbers of refugees poured into Norfolk and Suffolk from the capital. As with elsewhere in the UK, the reactions from locals to these refugees varied - some tried to help them, although they were a minority, with the majority concerned about their own survival. An already precarious situation was made even worse by the destruction of Ipswich, which added many more displaced souls. Norfolk and southern Suffolk managed to remain relatively stable, thanks partly to strong leadership provided by the staff of the RGHQ in Norwich but mainly to the significant British and American military presence (in addition to the Air Force personnel a battalion of Territorial Army Infantry were also stationed in the region), with the airmen maintaining order and taking charge of food distribution, and substantial organised enclaves in the areas around Norwich, Kings Lynn, and Bury St Edmunds, close to air bases.

Elsewhere in the UK, armed troops, many partially trained conscripts and Territorial Army home service troops, take to the streets to try to maintain law and order while others began incinerating the unburied dead to slow the spread of disease.

Unofficially, the Freedom ship Colorado City Freedom is delivered in Galveston, Texas. The captain and crew are overjoyed to be away from the citys petroleum facilities.

The 14th Air Division became the de facto command of 15th Air Force, after that headquarters' destruction the prior day.

Deep in the Chinese interior, the 292nd Motor-Rifle Division, on foot and out of contact with higher headquarters for many weeks, finally halted its advance and seeks winter quarters. The division had driven all the way to the base of the Tibetan Plateau.

Officially, the 94th (my 57th) Air Assault Brigade began withdrawing from Chah Bahar.

Unofficially, in Belize the British troops blocking position on the remnants of the prewar border comes under attack by an ad-hoc force of Guatemalan troops, led by a competent and charismatic young captain who took initiative (an uncommon trait among his peers) to try to reopen the road. The British force calls in artillery fire and the few light helicopters, whose onboard machineguns disrupt the Guatemalans as well as correcting the artillery. By dusk the Guatemalan attack has failed and demoralized Guatemalan troops begin to drift westward. Those that approach the blocking position with a white flag of surrender are disarmed by the British and sent westward; many others flee the battlefield and try to make their way around the border post by travelling through the jungle.

[chico20854]

December 3, 1997

Officially, Soviet missiles strike oil refineries in Ohio. The city of Toledo was not directly struck by the missiles aimed at the refineries and oil fields to the west of the city, but was nonetheless severely damaged by the strikes and subsequent fallout. (While the strike was an air burst, the subsequent fires dropped massive quantities of hazardous chemicals from the smoke cloud). Lima, Ohio was half destroyed by the blast that hit just to the southwest of the city. The strike on the refinery left most of the city in rubble and much of it uninhabitable due to radiation. Unofficially, the Lima Tank Plant, across the street from the refineries that were the target of a Soviet SS-11 ICBM, was damaged by the strikes, halting production (as if the EMP and massive disorder and dislocation that followed the strikes were not enough), although the tools and dies survived under the collapsed roof and walls burst by overpressure. Officially, the Ohio town of Irontown was devastated by missile strike on the refinery across the Ohio River in Catlettsburg, Kentucky.

Unofficially, the USSR targets additional American bases in the Pacific Rim. A Tu-95 Bear-H bomber of the 79th Heavy Bomber Aviation Division at Dolon, Kazakhstan launches and proceeds over undefended skies over western China, dropping to lower altitude over the ruins of Wuhan, where it launches a spread of AS-15 cruise missiles. Eight missiles travel at low level to the Philippines, where the American bases at Subic Bay, Cubi Point and Clark Air Force Base are plastered by Soviet nuclear fire. (F-16s of the 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing succeed in shooting down two of the missiles, saving Clark from more severe damage). Nearly simultaneously, the 551st Missile Regiment fires a spread of eight SS-20 IRBMs at American bases in Okinawa (a ninth explodes on launch, destroying its launcher). The island's defending Patriot missile batteries succeed in only striking one of the incoming missiles, and 21 150 -kiloton warheads blanket the island's military bases with nuclear hellfire.

The Empty Quiver team returns to Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas with the warheads and nuclear components of the bombs that they recovered from Blytheville Air Force Base. Two of the team members display the initial signs of radiation sickness. Empty Quiver response teams are dispatched from Ellsworth Air Force Base to recover the weapons from Minot and Grand Forks Air Force Bases. (The warheads of those bases ICBMs, of course, remain fully operable, intact and in place in their silos, their launch control centers manned by nervous controllers.)

Officially, the resources of the local governments in New Jersey and New York City were immediately overwhelmed by the conditions which followed the nuclear strikes. Fuel was in short supply, and all stocks were confiscated so that heat, electricity, and transportation could continue. Medical facilities were hopelessly inadequate to handle the burn, blast, and radiation casualties from New Jersey and Staten Island, let alone from other areas. Food and water were rationed. That, coupled with the sudden desire of millions of people to go elsewhere, resulted in rapidly escalating civil disorder. Each one of the city's hundreds of diverse ethnic or cultural groups thought it was being cheated so that some other group could get more than its fair share. There were riots, lynchings, mass looting, and arson. Thousands of people of Russian and Eastern European backgrounds - as well as French, Greeks, and Italians (who were perceived as having betrayed NATO in Europe), plus Chinese and other Orientals because they were different - were slaughtered in city-wide massacres, which only provoked reprisals.

Most of New York City's casualties occurred in the weeks and months following the nuclear attacks on New Jerseys refineries, from starvation, disease, and the carnage as several million city-dwellers fought to escape or to survive. In Manhattan wreckage incurred when the island's population rioted was infinitely worse than the blast damage. Successive food and race riots along with fires (some of them arson) swept the city, leaving few, if any, buildings untouched. The nuclear blasts shattered many lower floor windows, and the rioting mobs got most of the rest, but above the 20th floor or so, windows were intact.

Philadelphia Congressman Charles Franklin, who was visiting relatives in Maryland, arrived in Annapolis, Maryland, joining the growing number of federal government officials that were gathering at the state capital. Elsewhere in the state, to the southwest of Frederick, the population of Sandy Hook, Maryland, fled the area.

In Florida, it was plain to anyone who cared to give it any thought that the tourist season would not be arriving in the winter of 1997. A lot of sensible people who had both somewhere else to go and a means to do so fled not just to Maderia Beach but to almost all of the dozen beach communities. Elsewhere in the state, a sympathetic guard cleared his prison in the face of a fire storm, releasing dozens of hardened criminals into the chaos outside. The fires at Tampa International Airport died down, nearly a week after the nuclear attack on MacDill Air Force Base. Dozens of other large fires still burned within the city.

Although there was no food shortage on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, there was fear of one, and rioting and civil unrest killed more people than the bomb. By the time troops had been brought in to restore order, almost a million people had become casualties, more than half the population. State government collapsed during this period, and the military (in the form of 221st MP and 29th Infantry Brigades) took over the civil administration.

Unofficially, the captain of the attack submarine USS Baton Rouge demands that his boat be released from the shipyard in Bremerton, where it has been since August undergoing repair from its duel with a Soviet Akula-class attack submarine. The boat is operable (some minor repairs remain unfinished), but the naval command has ordered it to be held pending an electronics upgrade, and several crew members have not returned to the boat after Thanksgiving leave.

The first dual search-and-strike mission is launched by Det. G, 1st Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron with two R-5D Aurora hypersonic spy planes. The lead aircraft overflies the Dombarovskiy ICBM field, identifying which silos are intact and unfired, relaying that information to a second R-5D traveling a few minutes behind. The second aircraft strike those silos with B-61-11 bunker-buster nuclear bombs.

RainbowSix reports in the aftermath of the nuclear strikes on London large numbers of refugees poured into Norfolk and Suffolk from the capital. As with elsewhere in the UK, the reactions from locals to these refugees varied - some tried to help them, although they were a minority, with the majority concerned about their own survival. An already precarious situation was made even worse by the destruction of Ipswich, which added many more displaced souls. Norfolk and southern Suffolk managed to remain relatively stable, thanks partly to strong leadership provided by the staff of the RGHQ in Norwich but mainly to the significant British and American military presence (in addition to the Air Force personnel a battalion of Territorial Army Infantry were also stationed in the region), with the airmen maintaining order and taking charge of food distribution, and substantial organised enclaves in the areas around Norwich, Kings Lynn, and Bury St Edmunds, close to air bases.

Coventry met its demise when the warhead from a Soviet SS-17 ICBM detonated at 3,500 metres altitude at 1030GMT. Many inhabitants of Coventry and Wolverhampton had already fled into the surrounding counties, however the death toll from the strikes themselves and the subsequent fallout, disease, and civil disorder would reach well over a million.

[chico20854]

December 4, 1997

Officially, a Soviet missile destroyed the British government's wartime command post, killing most of the government, some of the royal family, and the chiefs of staff - it was a devastating blow. RainbowSix adds whether by chance or design would never be known, but the missile detonated just as the War Cabinet and Heads of the Armed Forces were meeting to brief the King. Not only was Prime Minister Tony Blake and most of the War Cabinet killed, but perhaps more crucially so too were several senior members of the Royal Family, including the King himself (although rumours would persist for some months afterwards that he had survived the attack but suffered a major nervous breakdown). In one stroke the UKs national leadership had been virtually decapitated (recriminations would carry on for many months afterwards as to why so many senior figures had been allowed to be in the same place at the same time; in truth, British Intelligence had believed EYEGLASSs existence to be secret, and in doing so had seriously underestimated the capabilities of their Soviet counterparts, who had learnt of its existence and location several years previously). Also killed in the attack was the director and operational staff of the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation (UKWMO), a Home Office agency that was tasked with warning the civilian population in the event that a nuclear attack on the UK was detected and providing post-strike data to military and civilian authorities.

Officially, Minister of Defense Ian Burton was attending to his wife, who was undergoing a liver transplant, in Birmingham and survived the attack but his wifes condition and the breakdown in law and order prevented him from traveling. RainbowSix adds he had been attending a meeting at Army Headquarters in Salisbury. Fearing the effect that it would have on national morale, Burton instructed that the death of the King be kept secret from the general population. (Note: this is a fusion of canon and RainbowSixs interpretation of the situation.)

Unofficially, following up with the attacks of the prior day, Soviet missiles struck Wolverhampton, that city joining its neighbor in suffering and destruction. The last of the fires in London from the Soviet nuclear bombs died out, more from lack of fuel than from the pitiful efforts of the overwhelmed emergency services.

Officially, in the US federal plans for reconstruction after a nuclear exchange included almost immediate assessment of casualties and demographic dislocation, and efforts in this vein began. The widespread breakdown of transportation due to fuel shortages and blocked highways, along with the flight of workers and drivers, led to an end of food distribution in every major urban center. No American city had reserves of food large enough to last more than three days and panic buying and pandemic riots and looting depleted what supplies there were in far less time than that. Within a week, those who had remained in the cities were starving, and those who could leave were joining the mass exodus to the country.

In New York City, an independent group called the Harbor Pirates took control of the various historical vessels at the Seaport Museum. Led by minor drug lord named Manuel Diego Huerra who, before the war, used pleasure craft on the East River to bring his wares into Manhattan from ships contacted clandestinely at night off the New Jersey coast. When government began collapsing in New York City, Huerra gathered together a group of merchant seamen, yacht owners, and young, wealthy, former clients who had had experience with sailing craft. Anticipating the chronic shortages of gasoline and diesel fuel which paralyzed all metropolitan New York, Huerra's group seized Piers 16, 17, and 18 on the East River, which was where five historic vessels belonging to the Seaport Museum on Front Street were berthed. These craft, still seaworthy, became the nucleus of the Pirates' East River Fleet.

The US 1st Army proclaimed martial law in New York, with the consent of the President. Under the proclamation the 42nd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade (New York National Guard), along with units of the 43rd Military Police Brigade (Rhode Island National Guard), took over government of the New York metropolitan area, with instructions to keep order and to oversee the relocation of the city's population to rural areas. Most of the inhabitants were alive and possessed of a single thought: Get Out!

Within the Seminole Indian Nation of Florida, a cohort of younger, more militantly radical tribal politicians succeeded to the tribal council. These militants longed for the political power that the tribe's newly earned wealth would bring. In the prewar years the radicals had thrown open the doors of tribal membership to admit a large number of other (non-Seminole) Indian radicals, part-Indians, near-Indians and would be Indians. This policy swelled tribal ranks to almost half a million before the war began. When the bombs fell and a political vacuum was created in Florida, the radicals were ready with a plan to drive all whites out of the state and reclaim their rightful lands. Following the nuclear strikes and the resulting EMP, the radicals seized power within the tribe.

In Ohio, the town of Marietta was the initial reception point for those fleeing the strike that hit Irontown; the influx of panicked civilians overwhelmed the small town; rioting between the locals and the refugees devastated the town.

A B-1B bomber carrying eight 200 kt nuclear-armed ALCMs crashed in poor weather over the Black Hills of South Dakota while approaching Ellsworth Air Force Base.

As expected, New American cells across the country lost touch with one another and each fell back on the provisions of the Eagle Papers. Their prewar preparations had served them well, and now, with stockpiles of food, fuel, weapons, ammunition, and spare parts, they were safe in their prepared communities (except for the cell near Fairbanks, Alaska, which was overrun by the Soviets).

Unofficially, Soviet missiles continued their campaign to destroy American command and control centers and petroleum production. Scott Air Force Base, Illinois was one target of a SS-19 ICBM fired by the 28th Guards Missile Division at Kozelsk. Three of missiles six warheads (set to 750 kilotons) were aimed at the Transportation Command headquarters, while the others struck refineries at Lawrenceville, Robinson and Wood River/Roxana, Illinois.

The British strategic submarine force returned to action, firing a trio of Trident II missiles at the Volga region of Russia. The strikes are centered on the city of Kuybyshev, location of the Volga Military District Headquarters, a BMP plant, a Tupolev aircraft plant, two refineries, a steel mill and chemical plant. The Volga car plant in nearby Togliatti was struck, as were refineries and military industry in nearby Ulyanovsk and Syrazan. To avoid conflict with incoming British strikes, SAC refrained from attacks on the USSR; instead Pershing II missiles in Germany attacked Czechoslovakian and Hungarian political leadership targets.

The container-barge carrier Kunming Carrier was delivered in Quincy, Massachusetts; the ship already had a crew aboard and was nearly fully stocked. The captain-to-be was desperate to get his ship to sea lest it be destroyed by a nuclear attack.

His request denied by the base commander, the USS Baton Rouge's skipper defied orders and sailed from Bremerton, intent on saving his boat from what he felt was an impending nuclear attack. The boat was only partially stocked with food and spares and had a polyglot crew from the base (several sailors volunteered to escape the base) and a half dozen civilian shipyard workers on board to complete several minor repairs.

Receiving word of its owner's death, the crew of the Iron Duke (a full-scale replica of the clipper ship Cutty Sark) decided to seek shelter in the Caribbean. The captain hastily loaded the ship with as much food and fuel as he could locate in the chaos that was post-strike Key West and hastily departed.

[chico20854]

Well, that's a year's worth of the history! I started this thread with December 4, 1996. Things will be less busy in upcoming months as the intensity and pace of combat actions decrease. I'm glad folks have enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed putting it together!

[shrike6]

Well, that's a year's worth of the history! I started this thread with December 4, 1996. Things will be less busy in upcoming months as the intensity and pace of combat actions decrease. I'm glad folks have enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed putting it together!

Happy Anniversary! Despite my nitpicks you have epic piece of fanfiction here, Chico. Keep up the good work!!

[bash]

Yeah really amazing work. I've really enjoyed reading the updates. It was nerve wracking getting to Thanksgiving!

[Ursus Maior]

Great work, thanks for the continued posting of canon and community content! I read all of these posts to the letter!

[chico20854]

December 5, 1997

RainbowSix reports i an effort to ensure GCHQ was completely destroyed a second warhead was aimed at Cheltenham, although it overshot its target, devastating the nearby town of Gloucester instead. Soviet missiles also returned to South Wales - Cardiff, Swansea and Newport were all destroyed, along with the steel works at Port Talbot. A final Soviet nuclear missile targeted the twin port facilities of Felixstone and Harwich (the former was the busiest container port in the UK whilst the latter had been the main departure point for ships taking troops and material to the Continent). The missile missed its mark however, detonating directly over the nearby city of Ipswich, which was totally destroyed. Both ports suffered some damage, which was compounded by subsequent disorder, but would not require a large amount of work to be brought back to working order. The Folkestone strike also destroyed the UK end of the Channel Tunnel. RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge both suffered heavy damage in the nuclear strike aimed at the Felixstone and Harwich ports.

Throughout the UK, food and fuel were both rationed, although this was a relatively futile measure, as supplies of both were already exhausted in many areas; the news media came under Government control; and emergency centres were set up to deal with casualties, however the sheer scale of the devastation meant that much of the Governments planning, whilst well intentioned, was woefully inadequate. The South East in particular was swamped with displaced persons, with many thousands of people being housed in hastily erected tented camps that offered little protection against the bitter winter. Bodies were still lying unburied in some areas, causing outbreaks of diseases unknown in Britain for decades; cholera first broke out in a Kent refugee camp on this date. Officially, one of the refugees fleeing London was GRU Colonel Piotr Bulganin

RainbowSix also reports that attempts to evacuate the major cities which had not yet been targeted proved futile in many cases; many of those who could leave had already done so, overwhelming rural communities.

Officially, in northeastern Arkansas most towns near the destroyed Blytheville AFB but outside the fallout footprint were abandoned in the panic.

The decapitation of the US military command, control, and communications systems proved to be only the beginning, although the apocalyptic spasm predicted for decades never took place. Instead of a chain reaction of ever-widening destruction, a slow, carefully calculated program of industrial and economic destruction began. American retaliatory strikes were not only aimed at Soviet command centers, but also at key industrial targets. Prewar studies had determined that the one key industry for modern society was petroleum production and refining.

Unofficially, President Munson, after watching the Soviet destruction of refineries across the US, authorized the execution of the SIOPs anti-petroleum package, albeit on an extended time scale as a result of his stipulation that no more than ten warheads be expended in the campaign within any 24-hour time period. (Even the wording of his approval reflected Munsons background as a contract attorney).

While the British had struck several refineries in the Volga region in the prior days and Bakus oil infrastructure had been severely damaged by American strikes on the city when the Southern TVD headquarters was hit in the prior week, the Soviet petroleum industry had yet to suffer the effects of an all-out American nuclear attack. That began to change rapidly.

While Soviet PVO (Air Defense Force) commanders had ordered large numbers of the SA-10 missile batteries that had surrounded Moscow north to close the massive gap in the air defense network, but ordering and happening in the post-nuclear USSR were two vastly different things. The missile batteries were reasonably truck mobile, but the headquarters and support organizations had been largely static for many decades and had been raided for trucks earlier in the war. Shortages abounded, and the distances were too vast for the batteries to make it without refueling their thirsty trucks; the most fuel-efficient way to deploy was to move to the northern terminuses of the rail network before proceeding overland. The rapidly cooling winter weather would transform the northern-flowing rivers to travelable roads. Unfortunately, none of that plan came to pass. Without the coordination of the Ministry of Railways there was no rail capacity available, and the few batteries that attempted to make the move entirely by road soon found themselves spread out over many kilometers of northern Russian highway, out of fuel and with a trail of broken-down vehicles behind them leading to the ruins of Moscow. The hole in the Soviet air defenses would remain a permanent fixture of the Soviet Union, one that had been supplemented in prior days by smaller strikes that opened egress corridors over the Baltic, Balkans and Iranian-Afghan border.

The day saw SAC bombers launching cruise missiles at three Soviet refinery complexes in Siberia- at Angarsk near Irkutsk in eastern Siberia, Tomsk in western Siberia and Achinsk in the center. Ground Launched Cruise Missiles fired by the 303rd Tactical Missile Wing in the UK targeted two of the largest refineries in Europe, at Novopolotsk and Mozyr in Byelorussia, destroying each of them with a pair of 150-kiloton missiles. The loss of five refineries is a fierce blow to the already-reeling Soviet war economy.

photo
The Soviets respond in kind with one of their most severe attacks on the American petroleum industry with an attack on the Houston area. Once again, two SS-17s rise over the steppes near Pervomaisk, Ukraine and 25 minutes later mushroom clouds rise over Texas. Two 750-kiloton MIRVs each are aimed at Texas City, Houston and Baytown, Texas, with the last two MIRVs aimed at NASAs Houston Space Center. Seven of the eight warheads work, extinguishing nearly 2.5 million barrels per day of Americas refining capacity at ten refineries, over ten percent of the nations refining capacity in a single afternoon.

Officially, on President Munson's orders, Army and National Guard units seized bulk food storage facilities across the country and took custody of what petroleum remained. Rationing of food and fuel was introduced.

Congress attempted to reconvene at Mount Weather, but most members of Congress chose not to or were unable to return. (Unofficially, several dozen members gathered at the Greenbriar Resort 200 miles to the southwest, which contained a large bunker that had been long designated as a Congressional shelter.) Officially, lacking a quorum, nothing could be accomplished.

The search for the downed B-1B bomber was called off after two rescue UH-1s were lost in blizzard conditions over the Black Hills.

New England had one of the worst food/population ratios in the United States before the war and was the site of some of the earliest food riots. Having no local coal, oil, or natural gas reserves to speak of. New England could have survived on the energy production of local hydroelectric and nuclear power stations had these not been rendered almost completely inoperable by EMP from nuclear detonations. Local authorities determined that the prior weeks explosion that killed the CNBF leadership outside Boston was caused by flammable gas which collected in an empty heating oil tank.

The KGB broke 400 Pact POWs out of Graterford Prison outside Philadelphia, taking advantage of the chaos that reigned over Eastern Pennsylvania. Unofficially, KGB agents were able to incite an infamous Philadelphia leftist organization, MOVE, to provide armed fighters for the attack on the outnumbered guard force (many of which had fled the area in the aftermath of the attacks).

Officially, in Florida, the worst of the burn victims from the Tampa strike had died. Others died from shock, blast-related injuries, suicide, heart attacks, pacemaker failure, insulin shock, and related causes brought on by the subsequent EMP that stripped the central portion of Florida right out of the electrical age. The doomed stampede of panic-stricken civilians from Tampa and later from an ever-enlarging circle of surrounding communities did far more harm than the direct effects of the original attack. Many of those who didn't flee to the interior clung to the gulf beaches. Water was a major problem on the beaches and that alone thinned the population there. The reality of the chaos and death among those fleeing the Pinellas megalopolis soon brought back a trickle of former residents, and not a few brought new refugees back to this desolate little parcel of paradise. Life among those that remained was difficult as well. Without electricity and without water pressure, the great concrete and glass shells of the high-rise retirement condominiums in the seaside village of South Pasadena could not sustain life for long. Like the individual coral polyps that make up a coral reef, the residents of those high rises perished when the power failed in the EMP. The many elderly people with pacemakers were snuffed out as the EMP stole the electrical genie that kept their heartbeat tuned to a livable rhythm. The insulin-dependent perished over the next few days as did those whose spirits could no longer stand up under the onslaught of depression and despair. Death came in a thousand ways: dehydration, exposure, starvation, and despair. High-rise towers of proud engineering became homes for the dead. The tower dwellers would be no more; they were gone and soon to be as forgotten as the mound-building Indian tribes. The loss of electricity and telecommunications by the effects of the EMP created an information void into which fear, ignorance, and blind panic rushed. Without the strong voice of civil authority (be it Civil Defense, the military, police, or even the local radio or television announcers) to sooth and calm fears in an unprecedented situation, fear grew to panic and panic to blind flight.

Eighteen miles from Corpus Christi, Texas, the impact point of a 1 megaton nuclear device, the city of Sinton suffered heavy casualties - mostly in riots and panic that broke out in the prior days following the blast.

In Iran, the IPA 2nd Armored Division and 9th Airmobile Brigade destroyed the Soviet 94th (my 57th) Air Assault Brigade at Chah Bahar, as the Soviet paratroops were preparing to withdraw to friendlier territory.

Unofficially, the Headquarters of the 157th Air Refueling Wing was overrun by rioters at Boston-Logan airport; some of the staff escaped on the remaining tankers.

An assessment team from FEMA travelled to the site of the strike on the Robinson, Illinois refinery. (Emergency response teams, either state or federal, attempted to perform a site assessment on each attack outside of military installations). The team, heavily protected against radiation, was elated to discover that the MIRV targeted at the refinery not only fizzled (the warheads small fission primary charge failed to initiate the much larger thermonuclear part of the charge), with an assessed yield of 8.5 kilotons, but it also missed by over two kilometers. Unfortunately, that put the detonation right over the center of the small town, but meant that the refinery, the target of the attack, was only subjected to .5 psi of blast overpressure and was only very lightly damaged and remained fully operational. Of course, this information was kept highly classified, and the surviving population was unaware that the terrible explosion over the city was actually a Soviet failure and was intended to be much, much worse. (The Soviet analyst tasked to evaluate the poor-quality damage assessment imagery of the strike noted the presence of a mushroom cloud over the target area but, in a typical instance of Soviet sloppiness, didn't check the size of the cloud with what a 750-kiloton warhead should produce and therefore didn't realize that the strike was a fizzle; the GRU reported to the Strategic Rocket Forces that the target was destroyed).

An awkward confrontation occurred at the Naval magazine in Port Hadlock, Washington, when the USS Baton Rouge appeared at the facility, its captain demanding torpedoes and whatever missiles were available. He had a valid requisition from COMSUBPAC but the base commander had been told that the sub's skipper should be arrested for defying the Bremerton naval base commander's order for the sub to remain. The skipper succeeded in convincing the magazine's CO that he just want to preserve his ship and crew and return to the fight, and received a load of four Mk-101 and ten Mk-48 torpedoes, two Sub-Harpoon missiles, two Sea Lance-Ns and four Tomahawk cruise missiles (two with nuclear warheads, two with conventional). The crew began loading the weapons aboard, raiding the post commissary for food and finishing what repairs it could.

In Europe, the last of the NATO troops (except for the US-Dutch-German marine force under II MEF command along the Baltic Coast) withdrew from Polish territory after combat engineers rigged the bridges over the Oder with command-detonated mines. The bridges were not blown, the defenders on the western shore holding the triggers but unwilling to complicate any potential future advance into Poland with having to build replacement bridges. The initial Warsaw Pact forces to reach the eastern shore were Polish territorial defense troops under command of the Polish Internal Front, reporting to the Polish Communist Party, such was the paralysis gripping Soviet Front commanders following the attacks on Moscow and the Western TVD headquarters. American ELINT aircraft located a suspected Soviet higher-level headquarters along the Polish-Soviet border south of Brest and relayed its location to US Army headquarters. Two hours later a Pershing II missile was on its way to the target, its TV-guidance package landing it within the field headquarters inner perimeter. While it would be years before what was hit in the strike, the attack destroyed the field command post of the KGB Border Guards Western District, killing the commander and most of his remaining staff.

The collapse of the Guatemalan invasion of Belize was nearly completed with the arrival of Belizian Defense Force troops at the border, relieving the British troops holding the former border post. The Belizian troops passed through several encampments of demoralized and disorganized Guatemalan troops as they drove west, leaving the task of accepting the Guatemalans surrender to following forces. As with the British detachment at the border, surrendering Guatemalan troops were disarmed and sent west on foot back into the remote Guatemalan jungle to fend for themselves; the burden of supporting thousands of POWs was beyond the ability of the tiny British-Belizian force.

[chico20854]

And today's post includes an innovation - the photo of the Houston skyline with a mushroom cloud over it is an AI-generated image. I was playing around yesterday and this was the best of several things I tried. (I was using deepai.org if anyone wants to play around themselves). A lot of the others I generated were pretty bad -variations on "An Army tank driving through snowy woods" came up with some nice winter woods, but the tanks were comically bad, while "B-52 bomber launching a cruise missile" came up with an aircraft that looked like a grey-toned lovechild of a B-2 and a 747 with smoke coming from its belly!

So in general I think going forward I'll stick to RL photos from my massive archive, hoping the hard drive doesn't crash!

[castlebravo92]

Yeah, I've been playing around with stable-diffusion, and you can use images as baselines, and some of the output is very good, and some of it is...very bad. I'll post a few pics to the apocalypse images threads.

[chico20854]

December 6, 1997

RainbowSix reports that the news of the losses on the EYEGLASS bunker leaks out, at which point it spreads like wildfire despite the absence of any conventional media outlets. The consequences are exactly what Burton had feared - the loss of the figurehead of their King has a devastating effect on the British people, accelerating a headlong surge in to total anarchy.

Officially,

Africa had watched in horror as first China, then much of Europe and North America experienced nuclear warfare, seeing city after city die, hoping they would be spared the horror of nuclear warfare. Those hopes proved to be false ones, as two Soviet nuclear ballistic submarines attack multiple targets throughout Africa, destroying refineries, oil fields and oil terminals in Nigeria, Morocco, the Ivory Coast, Egypt, Tunisia and South Africa.

Cairo, Suez and Alexandria are left in ruins by multiple strikes against the major refineries in those cities. While the Suez Canal is not directly targeted in the attack, the nuclear strikes on the refineries at Suez effectively block the southern end of the Canal with the wrecks of several merchant ships and tankers. Over three million Egyptians die in the attacks and another two million are severely wounded.

Soviet nuclear attacks on Morocco destroy both of its refineries, with the city and harbor of Casablanca being destroyed by two 250kt warheads as well. The detonations sink or damage over half the Royal Moroccan Navy and deny the use of the port to NATO for the rest of the war.

The main oilfield at El Borma in Tunisia is struck by a 250kt nuclear weapon, causing widespread damage but relatively few casualties due to its remoteness.

Nigeria is hit by twelve warheads, destroying every Nigerian oil refinery and onshore terminal as well as several offshore terminals. The strikes kill or wound two and a half million Nigerians in the space of fifteen minutes and devastate Nigerian oil production and shipping capabilities. The city of Port Harcourt is almost completely destroyed by the nuclear detonations and the fires that spread unchecked afterward.

The Abidjan Refinery in the Ivory Coast is destroyed by a direct hit, with over 350,000 dead and wounded including over 2000 French civilians and military. Casualties would have been much larger but the warhead fizzles and only detonates with 40kt, devastating the area around the refinery but leaving much of the city relatively untouched. The explosion sinks three tankers loading at the oil piers and wrecks the Vridi Canal, cutting off the port from the sea and trapping over three dozen ships

South Africa's nuclear arsenal doesn't deter the Soviets from attacking the refineries at Durban and Sasolburg, destroying both along with the cities that surround them, and leading to a very large loss of life. Panicked riots break out in Johannesburg as survivors from the nuclear strike at Sasolburg stream into the city.

The USAF and USN facilities at Diego Garcia are struck by two 200kt airbursts which destroy every remaining USAF and USN aircraft that is still on the ground or who failed to get far enough way in time as well as sinking several ships. The base facilities are destroyed as well except for some underground bunkers.

The refineries and ports at Mombasa and Cape Town, both targeted for destruction, are spared when the assigned Soviet SSBN, in the act of launching the attack on those cities, suffers a massive malfunction. The hatch on the missile tube does not fully open and the missile strikes the hatch, destroying the submarine and its remaining missiles.

Nigeria, Morocco and Egypt rapidly slide into anarchy as what is left of their governments and police are overrun by panicked citizens who go on an orgy of rioting, looting and killing trying to get what food and medical care are still left. Tunisia's government manages to keep control, for now, only due to the remoteness of the attack itself.

In the Ivory Coast Abidjan rapidly devolves into chaos as panic and rioting cause almost as much damage as the nuclear attack caused. The French 43rd Marine Infantry Battalion loses 150 of its 500 men between the nuclear attack and trying to stop the riots and is forced to retreat to Port Bouet.

South Africa mobilizes quickly to re-establish public order as riots sweep the country as news of the nuclear attack spreads, slowed by EMP related damage causing disruptions to their communications and electrical power generation plants. By days end South Africa officially becomes a co-belligerent with the US, declaring war on the Soviets, their Warsaw Pact allies, Mozambique, Angola and Cuba.

Unofficially,

In Korea, Allied forces have retreated fully back to the prewar demilitarized zone fortifications, which had been hastily refurbished by forced labor of a combined force of North Korean civilian refugees, Soviet and North Korean POWs and South Korean civilians.

The 13th Armored Cavalry Regiment (Light) is ordered to assume responsibility for disaster relief and food distribution in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area. The regiment, with one squadron of LAV-25s (originally issued for training purposes) and an air squadron using requisitioned civilian helicopters, requisitions civilian vehicles for the dismounted 2nd and 3rd Squadrons (as well as the Peacekeeper armored cars from the Three Mile Island and Susquehanna nuclear power plant guard forces). Despite the consternation the regiments' seizure causes, its role supporting the state government, police force and State Guard was instrumental in preventing Harrisburg from being overwhelmed by the flood of panicked evacuees fleeing the Philadelphia area.

A sheriff's patrol outside Bakersfield, California discovers a mass grave in an abandoned almond grove; the victims appear to have been shot.

In California, the desperate state government calls up the boys of the 10th California Cadet Brigade, which prewar had been part of a school-based paramilitary youth training program for children from elementary school to college ages. The brigade is one of two disaster relief units stood up over the summer, composed of 16-18 year old boys from the Los Angeles area.

In a tragic example of secrecy and poor communication gone mad, as part of a round of strikes against American and Canadian command and control sites, a Soviet SS-20 IRBM fired by the 586th Guards Missile Regiment in Siberia strikes Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska. The Strategic Rocket Forces had not been informed of the Soviet invasion of Alaska and that the air base was actually the headquarters of the 25th Corps, the highest-level Red Army headquarters in the state.

Other attacks pound the Pacific Northwest, hitting the refineries in Ferndale and Anacortes, Washington, the bomber base at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane in the eastern part of the state and the nuclear submarine base at Bangor in Puget Sound, home base of the Pacific Fleet's Trident missile boats. While no boats are in port, the attack at Bangor destroys the support and reloading infrastructure at the base, although the dozens of ammunition igloos on the base remain intact.

American forces continue their campaign to cripple the Soviet petroleum industry, hitting targets throughout southern Russia - the refinery, petroleum facilities and naval base at Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea, Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) to the north (with a refinery, nerve gas plant, artillery plant and the famous Barrikada tractor factory) and Rostav-na-Donu, where the North Caucasian Military District headquarters, helicopter plant, air defense headquarters and ICBM repair facility are all struck by American MIRVs.

[chico20854]

December 7, 1997

Nothing official for today. Unofficially,

Despite the chaos in Los Angeles, the first members of the 10th California Cadet Brigade begin to rally at their designated mobilization point, the Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach. Many of the boys have armed themselves at some point in their travels.

Soviet missiles strike the Scottish naval bases at Rosyth and Faslane, where a number of British, American and even Dutch submarines are undergoing badly needed post-voyage repairs. The attack submarines USS Olympia, USS Alexandria, HMS Superb and HNLMS Tijgerhaai are lost, as is the aged British boomer HMS Repulse.

A B-2 bomber of the 529th Bomb Squadron, following up on the launch of the SS-20 against Alaska a few hours before, locates the Soviet launcher as it is reloading with a new missile and hits them with a B61 10-kiloton bomb, destroying the launcher and a part of the 586th Guards Missile Regiment's support force.

Having dealt a heavy blow to American refining on the 5th, the Soviets renew their attacks, this time targeting the east Texas and Louisiana oil industry. A pair of SS-18s of the 41st Guards Missile Division, from Alyesk in Central Asia, are launched and release 20 MIRVs. Nineteen explode, striking the petroleum center of Beaumont, Nederland and Port Arthur, the Port Allen and Baton Rouge refineries, the Garyville and St. Charles, Louisiana refineries, the Lake Charles and Westlake refinery complex, and the lone refineries at Convent, Louisiana, Belle Chase, Louisiana and Pascagoula, Mississippi. The attacks ignite massive firestorms that, fed by the thousands of tons of petroleum products, will burn for days and destroy entire towns. The shipyards in Beaumont, Port Arthur and Pascagoula are destroyed by fire, the ships under construction reduced to burned-out, twisted steel.

The 428th Field Artillery Brigade (US Army Reserve), in southern Denmark after months of action in outside Warsaw, is in appalling shape. The barrels of the howitzers are worn out by thousands of rounds and the engines and suspensions of the M110s need overhaul. The towed guns should have been scrapped according to prewar standards. While its parent XXIII Corps remains on the front lines, the unit is able to obtain spare parts and barrels for its M114 guns from Danish Army stockpiles as well as a handful of older-model 8-inch howitzer barrels found in the weeds behind a storehouse, allowing the unit to downgrade a single battery to M110s instead of the more modern M110A2 model.

A pair of Minuteman III missiles strike Novosibirsk, hitting the headquarters of the Siberian Military District, Sukhoi aircraft plant, bioweapons facility, tank plant and other military industry.

A DC-10 packed with heroin and cocaine, cash and gold krugerrands, crashes after missing the runway at Pearls Airport on Grenada while trying to land in an early morning thunderstorm.