On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[Homer]

I don't remember if there's a canon ruling on who the NSA sides with (MILGOV or CIVGOV) I assume that by the end of '98-'99, there's so little left of their equipment, networks, and resources that it hardly matters.

Id go with the three DoD Combat Support Agencies (DIA, NIMA/NGA, NSA) all following DIAs lead and siding with MILGOV. NRO as well since theyre also under DoD.

DIA would have been hit by the loss of their HQs at Bolling AFB, National Maritime intelligence center (NMIC) in Suitland, and Armed Forces Medical Intel Center (AFMIC) at Detrick. but theyve still got analytic capacity through the service intel centers at NGIC and NASIC plus any dispersed personnel. Whats going to be hard for them is the Directorate of Ops at DIA is tiny. OTL Pre 2001 there were very few case officers.

NSA took a huge analytical and collection hit. In addition to the facilities losses, ground based collection sites (elephant cages) have been lost or destroyed, which will magnify the effects of declining air, maritime, and degrading overhead collection. The bright spot is Buckley has the mission ground stations for overhead collection, which is probably the most reliable remaining collection method.

NIMAs in a pretty good position. The facilities around in DC are probably compromised, but the main production facilities in Missouri are probably intact. Theyre going to suffer from the loss of collection, but they maintain the mapping data as well, which will be valuable post exchange.

NRO is likely compromised due to its location. With the loss of the launch sites in Florida and California and satellite manufacturing capacity, theyre likely focused on using their remaining assets to keep the surviving overhead platforms viable.

Just my thoughts.

[Spartan-117]

I'm with Homer - they go MILGOV.

Tara Romaneasca has a short section on the impact of the NSA's loss and MILGOV alignment on page 93, which is informative. Because when the NSA has a problem generating COMSEC KEYMAT, it's a whole of government problem that point. It's not like most Agencies are using any other COMSEC material - certainly not for national security information.

So reconstituting that capability by the NSA for MILGOV will be a priority, as will CIVGOV seeking alternative encryption systems that don't rely on NSA KEYMAT, which they can't get. Again, the new Romania sourcebook has an entry on this issue, with DOE taking up the mantel on one-time pad production, "and hand-building a limited number of radio encryption modules not based on existing DOD or NSA software architecture."

[castlebravo92]

I'm with Homer - they go MILGOV.

Tara Romaneasca has a short section on the impact of the NSA's loss and MILGOV alignment on page 93, which is informative. Because when the NSA has a problem generating COMSEC KEYMAT, it's a whole of government problem that point. It's not like most Agencies are using any other COMSEC material - certainly not for national security information.

So reconstituting that capability by the NSA for MILGOV will be a priority, as will CIVGOV seeking alternative encryption systems that don't rely on NSA KEYMAT, which they can't get. Again, the new Romania sourcebook has an entry on this issue, with DOE taking up the mantel on one-time pad production, "and hand-building a limited number of radio encryption modules not based on existing DOD or NSA software architecture."

Yeah, there isn't a split until 1999 anyway, since through May 1998 there is technically a POTUS in charge of everything.

[Ursus Maior]

My take-

[...] The old Quartermaster adage of "keep the best, issue the rest" would go out the window by, say, the second year of the war.

I'd say, that goes out the window much, much quicker. It's a all hands on deck war very much from the beginning. That means big politics will want to micromanage quickly. So they start issuing orders for single divisions or brigades even. Sometimes certain elements in the militaries' apparatuses might be able to stop stupidities like this early on, but sometimes they won't.

Look at the current conflict in Ukraine: The good stuff went out the warehouses starting in June. That was 5 months into the war. The German Bundeswehr had exactly no SPGs to spare and no IFVs either. The industry didn't either. The Panzerhaubitze 2000 went out anyway and now, after the German defense minister has kept her hand on our 50 year old Marder IFVs for 10 1/2 months, the Bundeskanzler announced, we're giving them away nonetheless.

Yes, the numbers are minuscule compared to what was available in the mid-90s, but that doesn't change the general idea. I think, if in T2K a US ally would have asked for F-16s to switch from F-5s or F-104s in the face of a Soviet invasion, the US would easily have donated/sold/lend-and-leased a full wing. And why not The F-16C/D was in full production, why not give away Block 10 frames from an ANG wing and reequip the ANG anew down the line with brand new F-16Cs If that keeps the Soviets out of "nameless ally 6,000 miles to the East", it's better for them to fight on their soil (or not) than for the Soviets to creep closer and closer and eventually attack US forces directly.

I'd say, by year two of the Twilight War, we'd see ramping up of production for M40 recoilless rifles and M3 Carl Gustaf and their munitions. The former was in use by National Guard units during the last decade of the Cold War and the latter had just been introduced to the Rangers. With the ramping up of productions of ATGMs and other guided munitions since the war loomed or started, certain parts will become rather scarce. A recoilless rifle is a good support weapon for many applications, and with tandem shape charges becoming available to the M3, it can replace shoulder launched single purpose weapons like the Panzerfaust 3 (which, ironically, was bought to replace the Carl Gustaf M2). Certainly, neither the M40 nor the M3 can fully replace TOW, Javelin, Milan & Co., but better to have than have not. And once prime tier MBTs become sparse and their shiny sensor's start going dark, anti-tank warfare tools from the 60s and 70s will face their contemporary tanks (with minor upgrades). And then, a Carl Gustaf with tandem charge warheads will be king and thousands will go into all the light infantry divisions the US can still muster after 1997 and by early 1998.

[chico20854]

December 31, 1997

The Soviet 236th Rear Area Protection Division in Alma-Ata in the Central Asian Military district deserts and declares the city a "free city."

Unofficially,

Year end finds the world in dire shape. The nuclear exchange, which has expended less than 1200 of the world's nearly 50,000 nuclear weapons, has killed over 10 million people directly while halting the world's transportation and communications systems and set the stage for mass suffering on a scale not seen since medieval times. Conventional fighting has raged across Iran, Poland, Romania, North Korea and southern Germany, leaving the land and its hapless occupants in shambles. Millions of civilians have become refugees fleeing fighting, cold and darkness, seeking comfort in imagined safety somewhere other than their homes. The world's militaries have been torn apart, the shiny weapons and proud ranks of soldiers of 1995 reduced to desperate ragged forces struggling to obey the orders of political masters who cannot fully grasp the scale of losses sustained.

The final American strategic nuclear attack on the USSR occurs, with strikes on military production sites (a Su-27 aircraft plant, submarine-building yard and steel mill) and military targets (the headquarters of the PVO 8th Corps, bomber base, nuclear weapons storage site) in and near Kosmolosk-na-Amure in the Far East delivered by 12 TLAM cruise missiles fired from the attack submarine USS Columbus. Munson also authorizes attacks on two other Soviet strategic targets - the transportation hub and production center of Omsk in western Siberia (where the headquarters of the Strategic Rocket Forces' 33rd Guards Missile Army, the tank plant, a refinery and an Antonov aircraft plant were all hit) and Chita in far eastern Siberia, location of headquarers of the Transbaikal Military Distrct, 53rd Guards Missile Division and 50th PVO Corps as well as several bomber bases and the city's railroad station, further hampering operations on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Those cities are each hit by lone B-1Bs from the 28th Bomb Wing, operating from the remote western Chinese air base; the bombers recovere to the base, where KC-10 tankers are waiting with additional fuel and a reload of B-61 bombs and SRAM II missiles.

In central Alaska much of fighting has come to a halt for the winter. The flow of supplies to both American and Soviet forces has come to a crashing halt, victims of the vast distances and nuclear attacks on the homelands. Both sides find shelter, hoping that the fuel and food supplies on hand will be sufficient to last the winter. The commander of the 25th Corps in Anchorage, however, has other ideas. While the passes into British Columbia from the Alaskan ports seized in the fall have been closed by massive snow falls, the weather along the Alaskan coast east of Anchorage is more mild and Alaska's largest city offers reserves of supplies and wealth unheard of to most Soviet commanders. More importantly, the city's occupation force is composed of battle-hardened Arctic troops and Siberian natives, well adapted to fighting in the harsh winter conditions against an enemy that has likely grown complacent about the threat they are facing. Accordingly, he orders an offensive to drive the remannts of the 47th Infantry Division out of Alaska and launch a successful invasion of Yukon.

At RAF Alconbury, the 95th Reconnaissance Squadron, which operates TR-1 reconnaissance aircraft, assumes control of Detachment 1, 1st Reconnaissance Squadron at RAF Mildenhall as well as the detachment's two SR-71s.

RainbowSix reports a number of MPs who had not been in London on Black Thursday are under military protection at various bases throughout the country (amongst this group is the Progressive Partys George Graham). Parliament consists of just over forty MPs and nearly thirty members of the House of Lords who survived the nuclear attacks and the chaos that followed (many by taking shelter at military bases). A number of MPs and Peers who survived the nuclear exchanges remain elsewhere in the UK, either unable or unwilling to undertake the potentially hazardous journey to the south of England.

The destroyer USS Morton and container-barge carrier Harbin Carrier arrive off Manila, capital of the Philippines. Due to the unrest ashore following Soviet nuclear strikes the ships remain offshore. A long-range radio message directs the Morton to proceed to the AFRICOM area once it is able to secure additional fuel.

French and Belgian military units from their respective nations reach positions within 5 km of the frontier as darkness falls. The French III Corps has travelled through Belgium to line up along the Dutch border, augmented by French-speaking Belgian territorial troops. Units are issued live ammunition as deeper in France the troops of the 4th Airmobile and 11th Parachute Division are trucked to airfields in preparation for combat drops.

The Soviet 254th Motor-Rifle Division, a high quality unit exhausted by a year of hard combat in Romania, Austria and southern Germany, is withdrawn to Steyr, Austria for rest and to absorb what few replacement men and vehicles arrive in the region.

The light frigate USS Petit and its two charges make a safe passage through the minefields off the ruins of Gibraltar and proceed across the Mediterranean at 16 knots.

[Higgipedia]

I don't remember if there's a canon ruling on who the NSA sides with (MILGOV or CIVGOV) I assume that by the end of '98-'99, there's so little left of their equipment, networks, and resources that it hardly matters.

I would imagine that the Army and Marines would have moved a lot of their linguists ahead to Europe for the voice intercept mission there, so it would mostly be staffed by Air Force and Navy Linguists as well as civilian employees.

[castlebravo92]

December 31, 1997

The Soviet 236th Rear Area Protection Division in Alma-Ata in the Central Asian Military district deserts and declares the city a "free city."

Unofficially,

Year end finds the world in dire shape. The nuclear exchange, which has expended less than 1200 of the world's nearly 50,000 nuclear weapons, has killed over 10 million people directly

Seems...low.

[chico20854]

January 1, 1998

France seizes the Rhineland west of the Rhine River from Germany and sends its III Corps alongside Belgian units into the Netherlands. The Dutch 302nd Infantry Brigade, a territorial unit holding the Breda-Tilburg area, is attacked by the French 8th Marine Parachute Regiment. The Dutch successfully defend their positions, while the Bundeswehr, with its efforts split between internal security/disaster relief duties and preparing for a counteroffensive in the south, offers less vigorous reistance. Unofficially, French progress is slow. While airborne and heliborne troops are successful in securing key chokepoints near the border, the roads are clogged with abandoned civilian vehicles and the advancing columns are mobbed by swarms of desperate refugees, who assail the advancing troops with requests for food. Armored units are able to deploy their tanks' dozer blades to clear roads, while other formations are forced to shuffle their engineer units to the front; units reliant on trucks or wheeled APCs make minimal forward progress through the morass of humanity.

NATO operations in the Mediterranean (competing with the French) are dependent on the last sizeable operating refinery in North Africa, at Bizerte, Tunisia.

The new year starts off with good news for the Americans in the Persian Gulf. 2/325th Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division makes contact with the forward outposts of the 48th Mechanized Infantry Brigade (Georgia National Guard). The American paratroopers are an incredible sight. Many of them are wearing a mixture of Kurdish clothing and US camouflage fatigues. The 82nd's commander, Major General Jack Joyner, rides out on horseback looking for all the world like a Kurdish hill chief.

The beginning of the year also sees the French FAR in action against pro-Soviet rebels in Senegal, Mauritania and the Horn of Africa.

Unofficially,

In a briefing about plans for 1998, the acting head of FEMA reveals the existence of the 37 strategic reserve stockpiles to President Munson. Given the quantities of food on hand, remaining electrical and petroleum production and security situation, Munson concurs with the recommendation not to reveal their existence to state authorities and local FEMA officials and to reevaluate the decision in the fall, when the food and other supplies in the caches might be more strategically directed. The stockpiles established and maintained separately by the state of Texas are broken open by their guard forces (dispersed platoons of the Texas State Guard and guards at state penitentaries) and used to sustain their ongoing operations.

In northern California, leaders of the Hells Angels and affiliated outlaw motorcycle clubs/gangs gather following the activation of the agreed-upon Plan Alpha worked out a year ago. Over 1500 members of the clubs, all heavily armed, have come together at a ranch owned by a club member just south of the Oregon border. A similar gathering is occurring in southeastern Ohio, despite the damage done by nuclear strikes on Ohio and Kentucky.

RainbowSix reports that Headquarters, US Naval Forces Europe (USNAVEUR) is reformed at the Royal Navy base in Portsmouth.

The Belgian Army's I Corps' two divisions make little progress on the first day of the invasion as they struggle in difficult terrain around Maastrcicht and Aachen, the corps' initial objective. While the Dutch resistance in the region is disorganized (Dutch forces largely consist of lightly equipped territorial security companies and platoons, which are highly motivated and able to take advantage of prepared defensive structures due to the former presence of NATO high command posts in the area). To their south, the French I Corps overruns Luxembourg, easily overwhelming the nub of the Luxembourgois Army that survived the previous year's action in Norway. The French II Corps' offensive moves north along the level terrain along the west bank of the Rhine, which has become crowded with makeshift refugee camps.

RainbowSix comments that while the British Ambassador in Paris protests the oeact of unprovoked aggression, the UK is in no position to offer more tangible support to either the Netherlands or Germany.

The remaining Red Army command staff at "Moscow Center" (actually a bunker outside the city) decide to call up the remaining mobilization-only divisions to combat the growing internal unrest and prepare for a final offensive that will wipe NATO forces from Western Europe. Making this happen, however, will prove challenging, to say the least.

[chico20854]

Seems...low.

It probably is!!!

[chico20854]

January 2, 1998

Rationing around the world becomes severe; many civilians perish in the winter.

Relations between the U.S. and France deteriorate. The U.S. government views the invasion of the Rhineland as self-aggrandizement at the expense of Germany. There is not much they can do about it, however, as all their available forces are tied down elsewhere.

Survivors of the 8th Marine Regiment are reformed in northern Germany and reunited with the 2nd Marine Division.

The 54th (my 108th) Motor-Rifle Division, a hardened, veteran division that has been at the core of the Group of Soviet Forces in Afghanistan (the remnant Soviet occupation force that remained behind when 40th Army entered Iran in early 1997), is ordered into Iran to shore up the crumbling Soviet position.

Unofficcially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship Lubbock Freedom is delivered in Galveston, Texas. The shipyard will struggle to complete another ship, but it is never delivered.

Elsewhere in the US, military production is slowly grinding to a halt as stocks of raw materials and parts run out, electricity fails as the grid remains down and backup generators fail or run dry and workers are evacuated or lost to civil unrest. Even when final production sites remain operational (such as the F-15 plant in St. Louis, Missouri), the breakdown of the transportation system and damage from the attacks on the US and subsequent disorder brings production to a halt, with the last F100-PW-229 engine delivered today.

In Anchorage, Alaska the troops of the Soviet 1st Arctic Mechanized Brigade and 13th Guards Air Assault Division move east, with the former unit's hovercraft escorting convoys of seized school and city transit busses carrying the paratroopers east of Valdez towards the Canadian border. The remnants of the 130th Air Assault Brigade establish a blocking position to prevent the American 2nd Infantry Brigade (Arctic Recon) at Fort Greely from cutting off the attacking force, while the 130th Motor-Rifle Division remains on occupation duty in Anchorage and along the road to the east.

The Dutch government informs SACEUR that it is wthdrawing all its forces in Germany, except for the 9th Marine Combat Group along the Baltic Coast, from NATO command and devoting them to home defense. SACEUR concurs and orders the release of sufficient fuel to fill the Dutch combat vehicles tanks for the trip home.

The Dutch I Leger Corps is ordered to return home to stop the French invasion; the 1st Mechanized Division is the first to move, having been held in a reserve position behind the lines as 4th US Army desperately casts about for replacement troops to hold the line.

In the Rhineland and Netherlands, the French and Belgian force is still bogged down. The airborne and air assault units that were dropped in the predawn hours of the 1st have not been relieved yet and find themselves beseiged by Dutch and German territorials and police determined to defend their homelands. The Belgian Army suffers considerable unrest within its own ranks as Dutch-speaking Flemish troops balk at fighting against their kinsmen. Poor weather overhead prevents the French Air Force from intervening, while the Dutch 302nd Territorial Brigade, facing the French 2nd Armored Division, actually increases in strength as scattered iindependent territorial and constabulary platoons arrive in the sector. The effort to seize the mouth of the Scheldt River fails spectacularly, as Dutch marines of the 2nd and 8th battalions repulse the French third-line 108th Infantry Divsion's ill-executed amphibious assault on the port of Vlissingen.

[castlebravo92]

Chico,

Errata note: "Even when final prodction sites remain operational (such as the F-16 plant in Fort Worth, Texas)"

The General Dynamics plant (now Lockmart) is immediately adjacent to the west of the Carswell AFB runways. I actually took a couple of sloppy pictures of it on my way to West Texas just before Christmas. VERY unlikely to still remain operational after the 500 kt strike there in canon (on mobile so can't see if you logged Carswell in your version of the hitlist). Bell Helicopter over in Hurst would be far enough away not to have any damage though.

[Targan]

January 2, 1998Relations between the U.S. and France deteriorate. The U.S. government views the invasion of the Rhineland as self-aggrandizement at the expense of Germany. There is not much they can do about it...

Well, there's quite a lot they and the UK could have done about it. Not that the world needed any more mushroom clouds sprouting at that point, but I do wonder when and how seriously discussions of nuclear retaliation might have gone on among what was left of the US and UK governments.

[castlebravo92]

It probably is!!!

FWIW, using the GDW Hit List, I have 8 million dead*, 14 million injured for 123 targets in the United States for just blast and thermal effects (not fallout - still working on generating a model for that; DTRA.mil hasn't given me access to HPAC yet so I'm working on reverse engineering the fallout generation from HotSpot and incorporating that with historical meteorology data to generate something that looks a little more realistic than the WSEG-10 smear fallout model).

So, that's my reasoning for 10 million global deaths from 1200 nuclear weapons seeming low by an order of magnitude (especially with China getting plastered).

Attaching the fatality curve I used to calculate deaths. It's a curve fit model generated from Hiroshima fatalities that in effect combines blast, thermal, and firestorm casualties. The net effect is that the curve shifts to the left more strongly than some other casualty models due to the basic assumption that most people seriously injured in the 4+ PSI zone would not be able to self-evacuate and would perish in the firestorm.

Note also, that this casualty model is less severe than some other models that have the hypothesis that even uninjured people would be unable to evacuate 5+ PSI areas before perishing in a firestorm.

And yes, this is probably way too nerdy.

* Edited to add - I didn't include the Windsor, ON attack in the initial calculations. Assuming a DGZ between the Chrysler and Ford plants for a 1 MT airburst, that adds another half million casualties (almost equally split between dead and injured) to the US tally in Detroit. Downtown and midtown Detroit would have been seriously damaged, but the Detroit Arsenal would have been about 6 km north of the end of the 1 PSI blast ring so would be completely undamaged and intact barring civil unrest and damage.

[chico20854]

Chico,

Errata note: "Even when final prodction sites remain operational (such as the F-16 plant in Fort Worth, Texas)"

The General Dynamics plant (now Lockmart) is immediately adjacent to the west of the Carswell AFB runways. I actually took a couple of sloppy pictures of it on my way to West Texas just before Christmas. VERY unlikely to still remain operational after the 500 kt strike there in canon (on mobile so can't see if you logged Carswell in your version of the hitlist). Bell Helicopter over in Hurst would be far enough away not to have any damage though.

Thanks for the catch! I edited the post to switch the last engine delivery to the F-15 line in St. Louis. That plant was outside the damage radius from the Wood River, IL strike.

[chico20854]

January 3, 1998

The winter of 1997-98 is particularly cold. Civilian war casualties in the industrialized nations have reached almost 15%, although the worst is yet to come.

The California coast from Santa Barbara south has been devastated by the nuclear strikes, and the city of Los Angeles suffers most severely. Blast, radiation, and fire, combined with panic and disease, cause millions of casualties. The city has less than 20 percent of its prewar population remaining. The Bay area has also been devastated by nuclear strikes, but the presence of military forces in the region provide a modest level of organization.

In Maryland, the capital of Annapolis has been largely abandoned following is contamination with fallout from the Fort Meade attack and the relocation of the state government (such as it is) to Columbia (located between Baltimore and Washington).

The Dutch 101st Mechanized Brigade moves south from the Leeuwarden area to reinforce territorial troops. The Dutch 302nd Infantry Brigade repulses another attack by French paratroops of the 8th Marine Parachite Regiment in the Breda-Tilburg area as they try to break out and join the (very slowly-advancing) French armored force. Frogmen from the Dutch 2nd Amphibious Combat Group sink the French frigate Balny as it anchors off Vlissingen in the pre-dawn hours blocking Dutch naval intervention and standing by to offer fire support to French troops.

With the the linkup between the 82nd Airborne Division and the rest of XVIII Airborne Corps completed, both the 82nd and 24th ID and their Kurdish auxiliaries begin an orderly withdrawal back to the Bandar-e-Khomeyni area.

Unofficially,

The last planeload of replacements departs Fort Jackson, South Carolina for service in Europe. The base's training brigades are devoting increasing amounts of efforts to assisting the state government in maintaining order, distributing food and organizing relief following the Soviet nuclear strikes on Charleston and the base commander judges that he cannot afford to lose trained and ready troops when his situation is so severe. Reinforcing this bias, his higher authorities (Training and Doctrine Command and 2nd US Army) had both been struck in Soviet nuclear strikes, as had Transportation Command and Military Airlift Command, the authorities responsible for arranging for reinforcement flights. Finally, Shaw Air Force Base, from which the flight departs, has limited amounts of fuel remaining in its tank farm and the base commander has been ordered to conseserve it for that base's tanker fleet, which is tasked to support nuclear strike operations. The move strands several requisitioned airlines at the base.

In Alaska, the Soviet 130th Air Assault Brigade (reduced to a single battalion of hardened troops) occupies a blocking position north of the hamlet (and road junction) of Gakona, Alaska, preventing the American force at Fort Greely from cutting the supply line of the 13th Guards Air Assault Division and 1st Arctic Mechanized Brigade, which are continuing to advance northeast along Highway 1.

HM Government authorizes a roundup of known Soviet agents and sympathizers, determined to limit internal dissent that could hamper the already extremely diffcult relief effort in the nation.

7th Fleet is able to direct the oiler USNS Neosho to the South China Sea, where it rendevous with the destroyer USS Morton and the cruiser USS Sterett and refuels both ships before turning north, accompanied by the cruiser while the Morton makes her way to the Indian Ocean.

The Dutch royal family accepts the British government's offer to evacuate their home as rumors fly of French military intelligence and special forces teams roaming the country seeking them out. A Royal Navy Sea King helicopter extracts them, flying at low level over the dark North Sea.

French and Belgian troops encounter an obstacle that their commanders had not adequately considered - British, Canadian and American rear area facilities, air bases and storage sites. Many of the air bases have been struck (some multiple times) by Soviet nuclear weapons and are nearly abandoned, while others (such as Ramstein) are fully operational, guarded by German territorials and USAF security troops and harbor American tactical nuclear weapons. In there areas an informal truce prevails, with the Franco-Belgian units giving these sites wide berth and avoiding any engagemnet with their defenders. The commander of the French 1st Army, General Francois Bescond, reaches out to SACEUR, a well-respected colleague from prewar days. After a "heated and frank" discussion between the two commanders, an agreement is reached. After the French forces have reached the Rhine River, they will offer all assistance to all bypassed NATO personnel, regardless of nationality, to evacuate the zone. The generals agree upon a 1-km exclusion zone around all American, British and Canadian facilities and, in exchange for non-belligerence from the troops at these facilities, the immediate provision of adequate food and fuel to sustain them until they have been evacuated. The two generals also agree that they will support NATO proposals for the provision of covert French and Belgian logistic support to the war effort, including food, fuel, electricity and munitions, in quantities to be agreed upon by the diplomats and intelligence agencies. While the French general was later criticized for accepting such terms, Bescond responded that the British and Americans still retained tens of thousands of nuclear warheads and that what was later perceived as a bad deal was vastly preferable to the elimination of the French nation by its ertswhile allies.

The stripping of the USS America is completed and Sixth Fleet transfers the remaining shoreside spares and supplies to the newly arrived freighter Wolman Expert, while the remaining American and Allied personnel begin to collapse the area of Sicily under NATO control. The troop transport Barrett arrives with the Expert (both escorted by the light frigate USS Petit) to take aboard passengers.

The crew of the full-rigged ship Iron Duke (formerly the property of the late eccentrick rock star Ted Hendrix) arrive in St. John, US Virgin Islands and seek shelter from the war there.