On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[kato13]

Barrikada received launch orders in late November of 1 997. Six of the vessel's 20 SS-N-20 nuclear-tipped missiles were to be fired in a strategic strike intended to damage the command and control facilities of the NATO allies. Two of the missiles were aimed at Canadian targets, the remaining four at targets in the United States.

Me looking at this as a programmer it says "Launched and Aimed". Does not say reached targets nor detonated.

Staging issue Guidance Problems 10 Warheads per kinda rules out fizzles/failures. We have made just as off the wall ideas to try to make canon work.

[castlebravo92]

I would go with Boomer on the Canadian strikes -- more official than Challenge.

The Challenge Article is the official list - GDW replicated it in the 2nd edition print. Dates are in conflict of course between various print options.

I like Chico's and the Challenge article's take on timing of the strike. There's basically two takes: a spasm that basically started and ended on Nov 28, 1997 (the Howling Wilderness take along with a few other modules like Red Star / Lone Star and Urban Guerrilla) and the tit-for-tat sporadic strikes occurring from late Nov through December - which more closely aligns with the history narrative in the v1 ref's guide:

"Fearful of a general strategic exchange, neither side targeted on the land-based ICBM's of the other, or launched so many warheads at once as to risk convincing the other side that an all-out attack was in progress. Neither side wished to cross the threshhold to nuclear oblivion in one bold step, and so they inched across it, never quite knowing they had done it until after the fact.
First, military targets were hit. Then industrial targets clearly vital to the war effort. Then economic targets of military im-portance. Then transportation and communication, oil fields and refineries."

[chico20854]

December 14, 1997

Large numbers of refugees from the eastern cities pass through Hagerstown, Maryland on their way to havens, real or imagined, in West Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley, and western Pennsylvania. Much of Hagerstown is destroyed by fires and rioting mobs when local food supplies run out, and rumors spread that the townspeople are hoarding.

Unofficially,

The container-barge carrier Shenyang Carrier is delivered in Quincy, Massachusetts. The US government takes possession of the ship and transfers it to the Chesapeake Bay.

In western Europe, French and Belgian authorities record a record number of refugees crossing their borders from Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg - over 50,000 for the day, with tens of thousands more piling up in huge backups on the roads leading to the frontier. The French government calls up reservists to back up the Army and gendarme units patrolling the borders on foot, in vehicles and by helicopter. Additional tens of thousands cross into neutral Switzerland.

US Army Criminal Investigation Division agents in Waren, East Germany discover that the attempted theft of supplies by deserters affiliated with the Fifth Squad organization (some want to label it a gang) was supposed to be an inside job when three members of the group, all quartermaster soldiers trained at Fort Lee over the summer, are identified as members of the group. A last-minute change of the guard roster meant that one of the members, who was supposed to admit the Fifth Squad truck, was moved to a different area of the base perimeter rather than manning the gate.

The Soviet Yankee Notch nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine K-395 is sunk with all hands northwest of Bermuda by helicopters from the escort carrier Shangri-La while firing SS-N-21 SLCMs. Interceptors shoot down 75% of the missiles; the two 200-kiloton warheads that survive detonate over Loring Air Force Base and Bangor International Airport in Maine.

A Soviet Tu-95 Bear bomber fires a single AS-15 cruise missile at the Akko steel mill in Haifa, Israel from over the Caspian Sea. The missile detonates over the mill 30 minutes later, destroying it and signaling to Israel that it should proceed carefully with providing any support to the US and its allies.

With rumors swirling about the nuclear attacks on the Soviet homeland and the never-ending meatgrinder of the European battlefields consuming entire divisions, the junior officers of the 156th (my 190th) Motor-Rifle Division in Manchuria revolt, lest they be the next victims.

Proving the reasonableness of their decision, the Czechoslovakian 3rd Motor-Rifle Division, en route back home via the Trans-Siberian Railroad, is caught packed aboard troop trains in Sverdlovsk when the city is attacked by two American Minuteman III ICBMs fired by the 490th Strategic Missile Squadron in Montana. The six 170-kiloton warheads blanket the city, destroying the Ural Military District Headquarters, the bioweapons plant, the steel mill, missile plant, artillery plant and truck plant in a sea of fire. In the attack, the Czech soldiers, locked in their railcars to prevent desertion, are incinerated.

Two additional Minuteman IIIs hit a variety of strategic targets near Sverdlovsk - the bomber training base at Kamensk-Uralskiy, the nuclear weapons plant at Lesnoy, uranium enrichment plant at Novouralsk and nuclear weapons stockpiles at Sverdlovsk-16 and Verkhnyaya Pyshma.

Hugo Chavez (who seized power in September 1995 with the assistance of the USSR and Cuba) is in the middle of broadcasting his declaration of war on the United States when a 340kt warhead from a Minuteman III fired from Malmstrom AFB in Montana detonates over the government district of Caracas, killing Chavez and destroying the entire government of the country as well as the Army General Command. The crack 3rd Infantry Division, stationed in the city, is almost completely destroyed. The other two warheads from the Minuteman III are targeted on Maracay, destroying the two largest Venezuelan Air Force bases and taking out most of her Air Force including every F-16, MiG-21, and F-5 fighter in their inventory as well as most of their training and transport aircraft. The CAVIM weapons factory is completely destroyed and the 42nd Airborne Brigade is wiped out. Puerto Caballo is hit by two 150kt nuclear armed cruise missiles, one destroying the Agustin Armario Naval Base, sinking the majority of the Venezuelan Navy. Both of its submarines, all six Mariscal Sucre class frigates, the four Capana class LSTs and over two dozen smaller ships are lost and several Marine battalions that were at the base being readied for operations against Curacao and Aruba are destroyed. The second missile destroys the El Palito Refinery and the Caribbean Ranger battalion guarding it. A single B-2 bomber completes the destruction of Venezuelas refineries, with three 300kt B-61 nuclear bombs destroying the Amuay, Card3n, and Puerto La Cruz Refineries. It also drops a fourth bomb that destroys the 41st Armored Brigade at Fort Pamaracay in Valencia. Four B-1B and four FB-111 bombers armed with 500lb and 2000lb conventional bombs as well as GBU-12 Paveway II laser guided bombs attack the 44th Light Armored Brigade at Fort Conopoima in San Juan de Los Morros, destroying or damaging every armored vehicle and causing nearly 80 percent casualties. In the space of a few hours over four million Venezuelans are dead or injured and every major refinery in the country has been destroyed. Her Air Force and Navy have been eliminated as a threat to the Panama Canal and shipping in the Gulf of Mexico and the best units of her Army have been destroyed. The country is in a panic as it waits for more attacks, with the police unable to handle the rioting and looting that breaks out. The surviving Army and Marine units are too busy defending their base areas against waves of looters and panicked civilians to even think of taking action against the US. The attacks convince the leaders of Cuba that any thought of joining the Soviets in their war against NATO and the US is tantamount to committing national suicide. Miguel Hernandez is worried that the continuing presence of Soviet troops on the island makes Cuba a tempting target for US nukes and starts looking for any way to get those troops to leave.

[Ursus Maior]

December 13, 1997[...]
A B-52G [...] Following the attack, the bomber turns south, where it is intercepted by a PVO MiG-23 that damages the big bomber (wounding the female co-pilot) but fails to bring it down. The bomber lumbers on [...]. No tanker can be located (following attacks on Guam, Clark AFB and Okinawa), so the bomber lands at the Japanese air base on Iwo Jima, which the co-pilot bitterly complains is not the tropical paradise she dreamed of riding out a nuclear war in. [...]

There's a lot of Trinity's Child in there. I'm reading the novel right now and enjoyed the movie, too.

[chico20854]

There's a lot of Trinity's Child in there. I'm reading the novel right now and enjoyed the movie, too.

Yes, Matt Wiser (Thanks!!!) suggested that I include a shout-out to that masterpiece of Cold War fiction!

[chico20854]

December 15, 1997

President Munson, on the advice of what was left of Tanner's cabinet, issues the Emergency Relocation Decree. The purpose of Emergency Relocation Plan is to relocate the nation's urban population closer to food-producing areas and minimize food transportation. For this reason, about 100,000 urban residents are shifted from the larger cities around the Great Lakes to smaller cities on the Great Plains. There is considerable opposition to the relocation from both rural and urban populations. This program, acknowledging that construction of sufficient shelters in each major city to protect the majority of each city's inhabitants during a nuclear attack was impossible, calls for the wholesale evacuation of the cities to surrounding "host communities" in the event that a nuclear attack seemed imminent.

Morland Bryce, a British SAS commander in Norway, receives word of his wife's slow death in a Bristol hospital and the disappearance of his 4-year-old son.

Unofficially,

The container-barge carrier Lanchow Carrier is delivered in Mobile, Alabama. The Chinese government is in no condition to take possession of the ship, so it is taken by the US government. The 1108th Signal Brigade is made responsible for reestablishing communications, disaster relief and civil order missions within the 1st US Army's area of command.

RainbowSix reports that Southampton is a target of Soviet nuclear missiles aimed at its port and refining facilities.

Action at the front lines in Germany has largely ground to a halt due to lack of supplies. The Bundeswehr high command, effectively the government of Germany, consults with SACEUR about the redeployment of troops from the Oder-Niesse line to the German interior as it appears that the Warsaw Pact is in no condition to launch an attack into East Germany. Dispersing the masses of Allied troops evacuated from Poland will also help in maintaining order in the German interior and more evenly spread the burden of billeting tens of thousands of troops through the upcoming winter.

The last operational American nuclear carriers in the Atlantic, the USS Eisenhower and Theodore Roosevelt, move north and east into the Norwegian Sea, the scene of such fierce naval battles a year prior.

Israel retaliates against the USSR for its strike on the Haifa, firing a single Jericho II missile at the steel mill in Rustavi, Georgia. The missile's 450 kt warhead incinerates the mill and a nearby chemical plant, effectively delivering the message that Israel will retain its sovereignty and retaliate fiercely against any attack.

Analysts from the 525th Military Intelligence Brigade (Airborne) in Saudi Arabia intercept Soviet communications ordering Transcaucasian Front's 126th Missile Brigade to launch a nuclear-tipped SS-12M missile at CENTCOM headquarters. Knowing that the response time to such an order is roughly 45 minutes, the headquarters is able to evacuate its commander and most of its staff, while the defending Patriot missile batteries of the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade are all brought on alert and a pair of F-15Es of the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing dispatched to attack the launch site once it is detected. The effort is successful, with the incoming missile shot down and the launch site plastered with cluster bombs within five minutes of the launch.

The mutineers of the 156th (my 190th) Motor-Rifle Division hold hasty trials for the more senior officers, finding them guilty of betraying true Communism. The colonels and generals are executed, the majors and lieutenant colonels released to wander the Altai region on their own, unarmed and alone.

[chico20854]

Me looking at this as a programmer it says "Launched and Aimed". Does not say reached targets nor detonated.

Staging issue Guidance Problems 10 Warheads per kinda rules out fizzles/failures. We have made just as off the wall ideas to try to make canon work.

If I had looked ahead to December 7th when I wrote up the Canadian strikes from Barrikada I probably would have done something like that... the SS-N-20 evidently wasn't a massively successful missile given that the Typhoons and their missiles were retired pretty quikly IRL while the older Delta III and IV boats still soldier (sailor) on to this day...

[stilleto69]

I more imagined the female B-52 co-pilot looking like Rebecca De Mornay in By Dawn's Early Light. BTW, I'm also imagining that SAC Vice-Command looking like James Earl Jones (aka. Gen. Alice) aboard the Looking Glass aircraft.

[Matt Wiser]

You're not the only one...

[shrike6]

If I had looked ahead to December 7th when I wrote up the Canadian strikes from Barrikada I probably would have done something like that... the SS-N-20 evidently wasn't a massively successful missile given that the Typhoons and their missiles were retired pretty quikly IRL while the older Delta III and IV boats still soldier (sailor) on to this day...

I always thought it was economics and size why the Deltas were kept over the Typhoons. I hadnt heard about the problems with the SS-N-28s interesting.

[Ursus Maior]

I more imagined the female B-52 co-pilot looking like Rebecca De Mornay in By Dawn's Early Light. BTW, I'm also imagining that SAC Vice-Command looking like James Earl Jones (aka. Gen. Alice) aboard the Looking Glass aircraft.

That movie is based on Trinity's Child, it was the adaption I wrote about.

[Ursus Maior]

The SS-NX-28 never worked, hence the Borei-class submarines had to get completely redesigned missiles. The SS-NX-28 (Russian designation: R-39M was based on the SS-N-20 Sturgeon (the baseline R-39) used in the Typhoon class. The SS-N-20 was already plagued by problems with their solid-fuel boost engines. Over half of the early flights failed. The Soviets seem to have ironed out most of these problems.

Although, I assume they didn't get rid of all issues, which might have been part of why they only bought six Typhoons and never ordered more than seven. Of course, these beasts were also extremely expensive given their enormous size.

[shrike6]

The SS-NX-28 never worked, hence the Borei-class submarines had to get completely redesigned missiles. The SS-NX-28 (Russian designation: R-39M was based on the SS-N-20 Sturgeon (the baseline R-39) used in the Typhoon class. The SS-N-20 was already plagued by problems with their solid-fuel boost engines. Over half of the early flights failed. The Soviets seem to have ironed out most of these problems.

Although, I assume they didn't get rid of all issues, which might have been part of why they only bought six Typhoons and never ordered more than seven. Of course, these beasts were also extremely expensive given their enormous size.

You learn something new every day. All I had heard was they wanted to keep the smaller boats (Deltas) because they could keep more of them in service for their money until the Borei came online. Knowing this now, I agree Ursus it had to be part of the factoring on the cost.

[shrike6]

I more imagined the female B-52 co-pilot looking like Rebecca De Mornay in By Dawn's Early Light. BTW, I'm also imagining that SAC Vice-Command looking like James Earl Jones (aka. Gen. Alice) aboard the Looking Glass aircraft.

You're not the only one...

Agreed on both accounts.

[chico20854]

December 16, 1997

The commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment is forced to reorganize the regiment as a single squadron and relinquishes its remaining helicopters to III Corps combat aviation brigade, the 21st ACCR.

Throughout the month, sporadic nuclear exchanges continue, and the populace of America panicks as the Soviet attacks persist. It is not the all-out exchange feared for decades, but the horror of nuclear war has at last been unleashed against the continental United States. Communications and transportation have broken down almost at once as the government declares a state of emergency and preempts those telecommunications networks which have survived the missiles, the repeated EMP (electromagnetic pulse) surges, and inevitable breakdowns.

As law and order breaks down, some cities in the UK take action. In Leicester, the local council declares the city independent and orderes the city's Territorial Army infantry battalion to halt the flood of refugees entering the city.

Unoffiicially,

Following American nuclear strikes on Soviet ally but officially neutral Venezuela and the devestation of Africa's petroleum industry, the Soviets strike other neutral nations to deny their resources to NATO. SS-20s from the 32nd Missile Division, dispersed in forests of northeastern Byelorussia, target the four largest refineries in France, at Gonfreville, Donges, Lavera and Port-Jrme, hitting each with a trio of 150-kiloton warheads (except Gonfreville, hit with two MIRVs and Port-Jrme, 30 km away, which is hit with the third warhead from the missile aimed at Gonfreville).

Commander Phil Kearny, who survived the attack on Washington, returns to the nearest militay installation he can reach, Fort Ritchie, Maryland. The guard force there, understandably nervous, detains him while verifying his identity.

The GRU assesses that most of the United States' largest refineries have been destroyed, except for a few clusters that remain. Accordingly, the General Staff authorizes an attack on the cluster around Chicago. A single SS-18 from the 59th Missile Division at Kartaly in the southern Urals, containing ten 550-kiloton MIRVs is launched. Less than 30 minutes later three warheads detonate over the refinery in Whiting, Indiana, two over the refinery in Lemont, Illinois (on the southwest outer edge of the city's suburbs) and three over the refinery and Army Ammunition Plant in Joliet. The subsequent blasts wipe out the refineries, damage the ammunition plant and unofficially, start a massive firestorm in the industrial cities of northwestern Indiana. Within minutes the steel mills at Gary and Burns harbor, two of the primary sources of armor-grade steel for American AFV and warship production, are engulfed.

VIII German Korps, last in action on the Czech border south of Berlin, begins movement to newly assigned winter garrisons near the Baltic coast around the ruins of Bremen. Its place on the front line will be taken by the XXIII US Corps, which is being moved south from assembly areas east of Berlin.

A flurry of MX and Minuteman II missiles strike an array of Soviet targets, one in Siberia and one in central Russia. A Minuteman II missile flattens the T-74 tank plant at Nizhniy Tagil with a single massive 1.2 MT warhead. A pair of MX missiles strike the six garrisons of the 42nd Missile Division (which operates road-mobile SS-25 ICBMs, which are dispersed in hide sites throughout the area) and the divisional and regimental command posts of the 52nd Missile Division, which operates a mix of rail-mobile SS-24 ICBMs and aged SS-11s in relatively soft silos.

The 156th (my 190th) Motor-Rifle Division, masquerading as a loyal unit, goes on the march northward, crossing the Soviet border into Siberia. The KGB Border Guards do not question the unit's assertion that it is en route to the European front and fail to notice that their interactions are all with junior officers.

Detachment 1, 102nd Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron loses one of its HH-3 helicopters during a thunderstorm over Ugandan territory. One of the helo's pararescuemen, Technical Sergeant John Watson, survives the crash and escapes the crash site, wounded but armed with his CAR-15 and a 9mm Smith & Wesson pistol.