[chico20854]

November 4, 1997

A single SS-17 Spanker ICBM is launched from southern Siberia (I have central Russia) and releases four MIRVs high over the Korean Peninsula. 500 kiloton warheads detonate over Seoul, Incheon and Kunsan, wreaking havoc and killing, in total, hundreds of thousands of civilians. Fortunately, the fourth warhead (also targeting Seoul) fails to detonate.

Unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship St Paul Freedom is delivered in Beaumont, Texas. It was the last of the class delivered from the city, with four others under construction when Beaumont was struck by Soviet nukes later in the month. Ironically, the production of Phalanx CIWS anti-missile systems has now increased enough that the ship is the last delivered without one of the systems installed as standard equipment.

The 1st Brigade, 17th Airborne Division completes Rotation 97-11 at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Ft. Polk, Louisiana and declared combat ready. No immediate orders are issued, the unit placed on standby for deployment overseas when sufficient stocks of equipment have been assembled in theater and assigned civil security and disaster relief duties in the interim.

The British expert team arrives at Ramstein Air Base in Germany and is escorted to the heavily-guarded aircraft shelter that holds the captured Soviet SS-23 warhead. They are joined several hours later by a team of American engineers and scientists, and by midnight they feel confident disconnecting the warhead's conventional explosive, rendering it much less likely to detonate, although still not "safe".

The fires in Rotterdam have largely burned themselves out, allowing civil defense teams to assess the radioactivity and plan to clear roads so an evaluation of the damage to the refinery, chemical plant and port can be done.

In Bremerhaven, Germany the local defense leadership begins to hear increasing complaints about the side effects of the unusual defense measures in place to deceive Soviet intelligence. To make it appear that the port city was hit by a missile that actually landed offshore, city authorities have been burning a series of barges loaded with old tires. The dense, choking smoke covers the city and creates a very real refugee stream fleeing the city. This allows the port to quietly unload freighters carrying vital supplies and equipment.

In Poland, XI Corps renews its attacks, which are coordinated with a breakout drive by the German V Korps. Supported by four tactical nuclear strikes on Soviet troop concentrations, the German force is able to evacuate the city, leaving behind a fiendish collection of booby traps and damaged buildings. Wroclaw's industry and indeed much of its basic infrastructure has been thoroughly destroyed.

To the north, NATO forces complete the evacuation of Poznan; Pact forces driving west ot the north and south had created a large salient that was at risk of being cut off.

The remnants of the Red Banner Northern Fleet rally to defeat the great barrier that has defined the war in the Atlantic Ocean - the GIUK Gap. In a coordinated series of strikes, nuclear-tipped cruise missiles strike Keflavik, Iceland and Argentia, terminuses of the SOSUS hydrophone arrays on the sea floor as well as bases for NATO maritime patrol aircraft and air defense interceptors. Simultaneously, teams of Naval Spetsnaz frogmen cut the cables linking the SOSUS arrays to the continental US and Scotland and attach a limpet mine to the T-AGOS long-range sonar ship USNS Able, in harbor in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Lead elements of the 82nd Airborne Division and their Kurdish allies enter the town of Maragheh, driving out the Soviet garrison detachment.