[RN7]

8) SOUTHERN PACIFIC COAST
Monterrey peninsula: On the Monterey peninsula, most of the lovely old towns have been burned and looted by refugees from the San Francisco area. The plaid waters of Monterey Bay are now home to the "Sea Gypsies", a collection of private boat and yacht owners from the coastal areas working together for mutual survival.
Hunter Ligget Military Reservation: Abandoned in 1963 as unneeded by 5th Army Command, with everything that wasn't welded down moved north to Fort Ord. The base is now held by a mixed bag of petty thieves and squatters.
Fort Ord Military Reservation: This former basic training center is now a major link on the chain of MilGov enclaves stretching down the coast of California. Just this year, Fort Ord has become the home of the new 6th Infantry Division (2,200 men). The old 6th ID was deactivated here in 1956 and reactivated in late 1963, though it is an Infantry Division in name only. In reality, it is no more than regimental or even battalion strength, composed largely of administrative MOS soldiers, trainees, and service troops reinforced by local militia units impressed into federal service. Vehicles are in very short supply, almost all of them have been transferred from the San Francisco garrisons to give the new division some level of mobility. Currently the 6th ID has four M48A2 Patton tanks, two M41 Walker Bulldog light tanks, two M88 ARVs, one M8 armored car, one M113 APC, eight M75 APCs, one M559 ammunition carrier, two towed M101 105mm howitzers and a towed 20mm anti-aircraft gun. The majority of the troops will be transported in 25 5-ton trucks and eleven deuce-and-a-halves, and commandeered civilian vehicles not suitable for entering a combat zone but sufficient to get the men close to where they need to be. The unit commander is Major General Gerald Plaspohl, who is trying hard to build an effective fighting force but feels like he is not getting much support from the main enclave in San Jose. Recent actions with marauders in the mountains have caused casualties, but the bandits are poor fighters and the soldiers have always came out on top. The division has just this month received orders to being preparing to move south towards Bakersfield. General LeMay in Colorado Springs has personally contacted General Plaspohl and warned him that perhaps one day soon the 6th ID might be called upon to contain the 40th AD if it leaves the MilGov fold. General Plaspohl has already heard that Lake in Bakersfield is thinking about going independent, but he finds it hard to believe that it will come to Americans fighting Americans.
Vandenburg Air Force Base: The massive satellite launching facilities at Vandenburg AFB were nuked by a AS-3 Kangaroo cruise missile fired from a Tu-95K-20 Bear B strategic bomber that came over the Pacific from Siberia, avoiding much of the radar cover by swinging so far out to sea. The hit came on October 31, 1962, three days after most of the strikes, surprising everyone who thought that by that time Russia was out of bombers. The 800 kiloton warhead ground-burst almost dead on top of SPACECOM's hardened command center, causing extremely localized heavy damage and wildly indiscriminate fallout. Vandenburg also had a secondary ICBM role, but the three Atlas D ICBM launchers were caught still on the ground and destroyed. Local damage was severe and towns as far away as Ventura, Santa Barbara and Santa Maria were damaged by the resulting forest fires that swept through the area. There are today just a handful of personnel still left at the base working to salvage what is left. The real treasure here has yet to be uncovered. It is a cache of some 20 nuclear artillery shells that were stockpiled at the facility awaiting retirement. All 20 are Mk-9 15 kiloton warheads for the Army's M65 280mm howitzers. The shells stand about 5 feet high and weigh about 800 pounds each, so moving them any distance would take an organized effort. This is a potentially power-swinging find. Considering that General Lake already has one nuke from Vandenburg, it is safe to say that he would be interested in having these as well.
Castle: Along the coast, west of San Miguel, is San Simeon, a ruined town now home to about 165 marauders and bikers called the "New Brotherhood Army" who occupy the former palace of William Randolph Hearst. They are led by a former captain in the California State Police and a Black Muslim civil rights leader from Los Angeles named Alim Nassor, and they claim to be the legitimate government of California. They lead a very difficult life and suspicion is that they have resorted to cannibalism for food. San Miguel itself is home of the "Free Love" group, beatniks who have so far avoided being killed by the bikers in the castle.

9) LOS PADRES NATIONAL FOREST
In the rolling hills and valleys of this pine forest north of LA, there are numerous isolated survivor enclaves, living off the plentiful game and fish to be had. The larger towns in the forest have mostly been abandoned as being to vulnerable to marauder attacks and fires. Neither the US Army to the north nor the Mexican Army to the south send patrols too deeply into the forest--they most likely won't come back alive.
Santa Barbara: This coastal town is now held by three separate outlaw gangs, all of which hate each other. The north of the city is held by the "Bandits", a couple hundred strong. The center is held by the "Rats", who require you to eat a rat to gain entrance, and the south is held by the "Dinks", who are known for stringing up victims around their territory as a warning to others. Around them they have little but ruins to fight over and this winter will probably kill them all off.
Ventura: This coastal town along the southern edge of the forest is now a cantonment of the Constitutionalist Mexican 2nd Army (all of the Mexican Army units in the state are loyal to the Constitutionalist faction). The unit is the 1st Brigada (Mechanized), detailed to watch for incursions from the US military in central California down Highway 101, and to pretty much ignore anything to the south. They have heavily fortified the northern approaches to the ruins of the city and concentrate their firepower there. Manpower is 700 men, with six M8 armored cars, three M2A1 halftracks, one M8 self-propelled howitzer and four towed 75mm howitzers. They receive very infrequent supply ship traffic from Mexico, but keep part of the docks open nevertheless. Ventura under Mexican rule has a squalid, Third World feel to it. Power is erratic, fresh water and food are hard to come by, and order is fragile, but most people make do anyhow. Crime is rampant, and at night, gunfights are prone to erupt without warning. Because the "lights have stayed on", people are beginning to return to Ventura, which only adds to the problems of the struggling Mexican garrison.
Santa Clarita: The 2nd Regimento Caballeria, the largest Mexican Army unit in the area, is enclaved in this city along I-5 north of Los Angeles, detailed to watch for incursions from the US military to the north. The regiment currently has some 1,000 men, with two M4 Sherman tanks, eight M8 armored cars, four M2A1 halftracks, two M3A1 White scout cars, twenty-five jeeps and numerous civilian vehicles. With such a large mechanized potential, this regiment is also used as an emergency reserve to rescue any threatened Mexican unit.
The Channel Islands: Just 25 miles offshore from Ventura is Anacapa Island, the easternmost of the Channel Islands. In 1962, immediately upon news of the first nuclear strikes, the crew of an Amsterdam-flagged oil freighter off Oxnard moved out to Anacapa Island to wait out the war, finding a little spot nestled away to anchor. Taking a vote, the crew decided that they would go ashore and the 20-man crew dispersed, leaving their ship to rust at anchor. This tanker is still afloat two years later and 75% full of crude oil, constituting a big asset to whoever finds it first. The Mexicans at Ventura are beginning to use local fishing boats to feed their troops and it is just a matter of time before one of them spots the tanker.

10) SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
From the Mexican border to Bakersfield the state is occupied by the Mexicans, a few marauder gangs, scattered small farms and farming communities and wild animals. Heavily effected by the nuclear exchanges, the southern half of the state melted in upon itself. Southern California was then invaded by the Mexican Army in 1964, adding to the misery. Refugees coming to the state looking for food and better conditions turn north to Sacramento. Food and fuel shortages across the western states have caused erroneous rumors about the lack of such shortages in southern California. Civilians are moving back into the LA area looking for food, not knowing the deplorable situation there. Currently, you have a cantonment system, with the Mexicans holding all of Southern California except for a pocket centered on Camp Pendleton and the northern heights above Mission Valley. The Mexican 2nd Army in southern California is in poor condition with very low troop densities due to the limited number of units in the area vis-Ã*-vis the tremendous acreage they have to control. They have settled into their own cantonments across SoCal.
Too many hungry mouths:Lack of food is the biggest problem in the region today. Without irrigation, agriculture is a tough prospect here. Southern California, and most of the Southwest in general, has suffered a higher loss of its population than wetter places in the country, 60-75% casualties by 1964 are not unreasonable. Some locales (like San Diego) have even higher losses, while a few rainy locations in the mountains are still able to support most of their pre-war population. Depending on location and the water situation, perhaps 50-75% of the surviving population is now working in agriculture year-round. This doesn’t leave a lot of excess labor for supporting the machines of war, even if all the local labor is turned to supporting the Mexican Army units in the cantonments. As well, the Americans pressed into servicing the Mexican vehicles and equipment often inflict high sabotage losses on the Mexicans. Beyond the confines of the fire-bombed cities only a few hardy farmers and small-town dwellers have stayed to keep their land. Most of the refugees from the fires, famines and deaths of LA and San Diego fled north to the less-heavily hit areas of San Francisco and Sacramento where government aid was more accessible. Those farmers that stayed armed themselves and set about wresting food from the soil without the aid of pesticides, fertilizers and the other assistances of techno-farming. The farmers did well enough to feed themselves and poorly enough to dissuade the government from trying to redistribute their crops. This self-reliance lasted until the summer of 1964 when the weather turned dry and the Mexicans invaded. What crops were grown in the areas invaded were then "requisitioned" by the Mexicans. By the fall of 1964, the military situation stabilized into a stalemate with the Mexican and US forces firmly entrenched in their respective bases, glowering at each other across central California. Both sides patrol and raid, engaging each other on a sporadic basis. The Mexican invasion provided the farms and the still-settled communities with the one commodity that they needed to survive--guns. When military engagements were over, the townsfolk would scavenge the battlefield to find weapons and ammunition. Eventually those farms that acquired enough firepower to repulse raiders survived, those that didn’t were destroyed.

11) LOS ANGELES
On October 28, 1962 a Russian SS-7 Saddler ICBM dropped in western Los Angeles in the area between Inglewood and Venice. The flash was seen as far north as Ventura and as far south as Newport. The 6 megaton warhead airburst relatively high, causing massive firestorms and destruction but leaving many outlying hard structures such as warehouses, some freeway infrastructure, and massive amounts of rail and railways intact. Within seconds, millions of tons of stored petroleum products in Torrance, Carson, El Segundo and Wilmington and elsewhere burst into flame. Fuel lines leading to offshore oil rigs snapped, setting the floating crude aflame. The results were predictable, within minutes the city burned with uncontrollable fires as the surviving residents fled the metropolis for higher and safer ground. The survivors ranged out into the countryside, where they threatened to overwhelm the smaller rural communities. The situation hopeless, the remaining US military forces (except for the garrison at Camp Pendleton) were pulled out of the area and shipped north and west. The city was left to the scavengers. When the fires burned out many of the citizens returned to salvage what they could, and some of these stayed in the ruined city, having no where else to go. Despite the lack of utilities of any sort, people survived, improvising for sustenance. The state and federal governments initially tried to sent aid and help in cleaning up the damage. They barricaded the areas most heavily hit, mostly to keep down on radiation related deaths. The abnormally cold winter of 1962 (it snowed four times in southern California that first winter) and the lack of proper food killed off many of the aged and infirmed. The following summer of 1963, plague and disease swept the city, killing off people trying to rebuild the industry and population. When the Mexicans moved north from the border in the summer of 1964, the city was a ghost town that they could ignore, its reputation as a plague-nest motivated both sides to avoid it. LA did not die entirely, however. A few souls stayed in it, unwilling to move elsewhere. For the brave, the city still holds treasures of technology--weapons, working machinery, undamaged circuitry, preserved food and other remnants of the golden age of America. The unearthed resources are often traded with outlying communities for food and water, two of the rarest items in all of LA. Some stayed to loot the city, others came to raid the looters, taking their finds and paying for them with violence. The gangs, which LA was famous for, that stayed in the concrete canyons fought amongst themselves for the best areas and the newest finds. With law and order vanished from the streets, the gangs armed themselves and established their own areas of the city where none dared enter without their permission. Outside of the gang areas only the crazed or daring roam.
The city today: The problems of the city in 1964 are symptomatic of the conditions of the rest of the country--lack of food, lack of order, barbarism, and deterioration of technology. The situation is worsened in LA by the radioactive dust which still coats parts of the city. There is much irradiated metal in the blast area and the dust is still fallout-tainted enough that everyone in the city has elevated radiation levels of some sort. The city is characterized by the burnt-out remains of its once proud buildings. The nuclear blasts that hit the west side only started the damage, unfought fires did the rest. Under the hypocenter, the area from Inglewood to Venice on the coast is completely demolished, a desolate rubbled wasteland of no buildings or hills. Most of the remaining inhabitants acquire water from the rivers and the reservoirs in and outside of the city, though drinking reservoir water is not safe due to the level of pollution in it. The only food left in the city is preserved canned goods and the feral animals (mostly rats) that still live in the city. LA in 1964 is a crazy, violent and exciting place to be. The city is now divided between dozens of armed factions, each organized along racial, cultural, or ethnic lines. Many were built around a core membership of former street gangs. Estimates of total population hover around the 35 to 50,000 range, which seems large but it is spread out.
The gangs of LA: The social order in LA is now very violent, feudal, and barbaric. There are about 150 or 175 gangs in currently the LA basin, ranging in size from 5 to 50 or more people, but that number changes almost weekly. Most are unfriendly with each other and fights over turf and spoils are common.
Weirds: Perhaps the largest of the gangs is the "Great California Weirds". Survivors of both the nuclear attack and the collapse of society that followed it, the Weirds have developed a peculiar lifestyle of scavenging and predation. There are perhaps 1,000 members who claim to be Weirds, though that number is fluid, and they can be found all over the metroplex. Although they will fight ferociously when cornered, as a rule, Weirds avoid direct confrontation with outsiders, and thus live a very isolated and timid existence. To supplement their diet of passing strangers, they grow small vegetable gardens in isolated plots scattered about the ruins. They also hunt rats, coyotes, pigeons, and other wildlife that inhabit the ruins ecosystem. Despite this precarious-sounding lifestyle, the Weird population is actually growing. In the last year, they have increasing turned to trade, exchanging scavenged items for food and clothing with their neighbors. People on the run, such as military deserters and criminals, find that the Weirds are willing to take in strangers who prove themselves useful, though these people usually have to perform an apprenticeship as a near slave for a number of months before being fully accepted.
Who?: Any attempts at listing of the resident gangs of the city are formidable and maybe useless, but here are some of the more prominent ones. Rich leads the 500-strong "Dukes", Chico leads the "Swords", Manuel runs the "Mayans", Bull leads the "Busters", Hal leads the "Fifth Street Lords", Dicky runs the "Blades", Sally runs the "Mixers", Josh runs the "Angels", Ruth runs the "Macys", Chang runs the "Tokyos", Fang runs the "Hill Street Avengers", Brute runs the mostly gay "White Men", Leroy runs one of the larger all-black gangs, the "New Africans", Carmine runs the mostly lesbian "Women", Cash runs the "Surfers", Jimmy runs the "Indios", Stan runs the "Flat Rocks", Bobby runs the "Ponys", DeeDee runs the "Pocos", Ishmal runs the "Boogies", and Junkyard runs the "Skulls". After the Mexican invasion several street gangs banded together to fight the invaders, some fighting for patriotism, some fighting because they found the Mexican army intolerant of non-Mexicans. By late 1964, the Mexican Army is attempting to gain a loose control over greater Los Angeles through a series of feudal agreements with local warlords sympathetic to them. Time will tell how smart this is.

The suburbs are all different in terms of physical condition and the numbers and attitudes of their inhabitants. Below are a few of the more notable suburbs, focusing on the people who live in that particular part of the city.
San Bernardino: The city of San Bernardino was ravaged by food riots and panic during the weeks after the chaos, and it shows clearly in the number of wrecked buildings, burned-out skyscrapers, and highways leading in and out cluttered with column upon column of old abandoned cars, trucks, and other vehicles left to rust and disintegrate under the ugly yellow sun. Despite the eerie appearance of this lost ruin and the horrific sight of its crowded, congested roads, San Bernardino has become a major outpost of the trade. The city is now home to the "West Side Posse" (300 men). This group was formed from the remnants of several Southern California street gangs, and operates in Mexican-held territory from San Bernardino in the east to Long Beach in the west and from San Fernando in the north to San Diego in the south. Several members of this group are Mexican-American and have put their language skills to good use the actions against the Mexican Army. San Bernardino is also home of the 100-man "Raiders", which has formed an alliance with the Mexican army. This group exists for more base reasons than the West Side Posse, power, food and shelter. They and the West Side Posse are blood rivals and when one side encounters the other, no quarter is given. The Raiders serve as scouts and advance warning of a U.S. attack. The Raiders patrol I-15 through the San Bernardino National Forest, ambushing the weak and shadowing the strong. They have many Mexican-supplied rifles and even a 75mm recoilless rifle mounted on a pick-up. This support has made them greedy and they have great dreams of uniting all of SoCal under their rule.
Hollywood: In the Hollywood area is the "Hollywooder" gang operating out of the old studios and silent-film stages of the Paramount complex. They have 60 members and are strong enough to resist aggression from other gangs and mobile enough to raid for food and fuel. The Hollywooders do everything in style, preferring extravagant dress and flashy vehicles (meaning the rust spots are painted over). Hollywood itself is a shambles with many of the larger buildings crumpled by the blast wave and fires played havoc with the wooden sets.
Compton, Lynwood, Carson, Torrance and Lomita: These suburbs were all burned badly in the fires after the nuclear strike in 1962. Few people still live in these areas and reconstruction is a distant dream.
Santa Ana: Santa Ana is home to the "Brighton River Reavers", a strong but localized gang. They have a peculiar fondness for using motorboats and rowboats to voyage up the Santa Ana River on their raids. Reaver armaments are typical of other LA gangs, consisting of improvised bombs, melee weapons and a few firearms.
Sunset Beach: The "Sunset Beach Boys" are an all-male gang who make their livelihood fishing from the beach and spend most of their free time surfing and sunning. They live relatively well, scavenging the ruins and bothered by few other gangs.
Seal Beach: The "Seal Beach Girls" are a all-female gang holing up inside the old Rockwell Intelligence Facility outside the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station. They survive by hunting the wildlife that still occupies the wildlife refugee next to them.
South Gate: Badly burned by the fires in 1962, South Gate is home to a struggling survivor enclave known as "Dogtown" because of the numerous packs of wild dogs in the area.
Downtown: The LA Zoo is a mess, the pens full of skeletons. Man's Chinese Theatre is in ruins. Thugs occupy the City Hall. Dodge Stadium is littered with trash and skeletons. Little Tokyo is a field of cinders from a fire tow years ago. The University of Southern California campus is wrecked. A religious sect called the "Followers" live in the ruins of the main branch of the Los Angeles Public Library.
El Toro US Marine Corps Airfield: Used for evacuating refugees and the temporary local military HQ during the crazy last months of 1962, this large airfield is now abandoned and littered with junk.
Disneyland:This old amusement park is held by insurgents, who have some old WWII artillery.
Irvine: Irvine is home to the "Holy City" of the Reverend Norton Jaybush and his "Church of the Resurrected Republic", who demand cannibal sacrifices of their followers.
Anaheim: The suburb of Anaheim is still home to some 10,000 people, mostly in the northern part of the city as the southern half has been heavily burned.
Garden Grove: Just a few people are still living in the ruins of the suburb of Garden Grove.
Ontario: The big airport at Ontario is destroyed.
Signal Hill: This area was home to numerous oil refineries which burned and devastated the whole area.
Los Angeles Harbor: The harbor is a mess, though not as bad as expected. The half-sunken remains of a Navy destroyer, a freighter and several smaller ships are still visible, as well as a large passenger liner still lying on her side. A tug boat is up on the waterfront, clear in the middle of a street, pushed there by a storm this summer. The famed liner Queen Mary sits in the silty mud off the mouth of Los Angeles River in Long Beach, where she was beached following the nuclear attack on LA that damaged her. She is slowly being broken by wave action and the eroding of the sand, soon the vessel will snap under her own weight.
March Air Force Base:This former SAC base is completely abandoned, having been looted to the extreme over the years. The desert has done a good job of reclaiming the airbase, and stubby cactus, pinion, and scrub brush have taken over the runways. Scattered across the base are a number of derelict, weather-beaten aircraft, including an F-104A Starfighter and several dozen four-engined bombers. The only planes that might even remotely be salvaged are three C-123B Provider transport planes which have been protected from the elements in hangers.
Catalina Island: Some 20 miles off of the coast of Los Angeles, Catalina was far enough away from the Los Angeles-area strike to be unaffected by the blast effects, and the steady onshore breeze protected it from any fallout. The residents of Catalina have survived largely by fishing the surrounding waters and farming some of the nearby islands. What the islanders can't produce is acquired through selective (and clandestine) looting of the nearby city. The islanders’ fishing fleet consists of sixteen small sailboats, nine small motorboats, and eleven medium motorboats, all of which use alcohol fuel. The island is protected by the "Avalon Naval Guard", which is commanded by retired Navy Admiral John Dumas and composed largely of former Navy and Coast Guard personnel who had been living on Catalina. With the war, the military veterans living in Avalon and Two Harbors gravitated towards Dumas’ leadership. Although Dumas refused to take charge of the communities, he did agree to assume leadership of the hastily-raised militia that maintained order on the island and protected it from the few mainlander attacks that occurred. He also organized the salvage teams that brought back much-needed items from the mainland, including specially selected animals and the heavy weaponry used to defend the island. Admiral Dumas is now 72 years old, although he appears to be in his mid to late 40s due to his active outdoors lifestyle. He is a tall, rangy man who can often be found riding along with one of the horse-mounted beach patrols. Although he favors MilGov, Dumas has agreed with the Avalon City Council that the island should remain neutral and keep a low profile. The backbone of the Naval Guard is a five-vessel “flotilla�. The primary patrol craft are the gunboats Taurus and Sea King, both medium motorboats each armed with a .50-caliber machine gun and manned by a crew of six. The Taurus is based out of Avalon, while the Sea King is based out of Two Harbors. The gunboats are backed-up as necessary by the 12-man crew of the USCGC Point Francis, an 82-foot long Coast Guard patrol boat that had been visiting Avalon when the war occurred and now serves as the flagship of the Avalon Naval Guard. Another pair of medium motorboats (the Lady Macbeth and the Freeloader) that have been stripped down to the bare minimum are used primarily to bring back salvage from Los Angeles. These cargo vessels themselves are unarmed, but the 4-man crews are armed with revolvers and assault rifles. Both vessels are based out of Avalon, and are usually deployed together under the protection of the Taurus. Admiral Dumas has been showing some recent interest in the wreck of the liner SS Queen Mary, though he is keeping his plans a secret. The Mexican Army forces occupying Los Angeles do not possess any significant naval capability, so the Mexicans have been more-or-less ignoring (if they have not completely forgotten about) Catalina Island.

12) BETWEEN THE METROPLEXES
Between the metroplexes of LA and San Diego are rolling, forested hills and farms. There are numerous survivor enclaves in this area. Lately the Indians on the LaJolla Indian Reservation have been moving out into the Cleveland National Forest to the north, claiming the land as their own.
Palm Springs: A strong survivor enclave, this desert resort town survives because of the wealth of its mostly affluent residents. Soon after the chaos started, the town formed a militia to aid the police and barbed wire barricades and pit bunkers were erected along the roads leading into the town to discourage marauders and violent refugees. The Mexican invasion curiously bypassed Palm Springs, probably because the current mayor is Hispanic and has expressed a desire to live in peace with both nations. The town now has 50 full-time police officers and some 100 part-time militiamen who drill once a week and keep themselves armed and ready.
Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base: The dominant feature of this area has to be this huge base. When the Mexicans invaded in 1964, the US military pulled back to the mountainous terrain of this base and dug in. During their initial push across the border the Mexicans wisely bypassed the enclave, realizing that it would be suicide to try and crack that nut. From the beginning, the units here could have easily moved north, but their position was so secure and homey that they have chosen to stay. MilGov Command in Northern California is content to keep them here, sure that one day they will link up with them when they finally decide to kick the Mexicans out.
US Military at the camp: The main combat unit is the 3rd Battalion/70th Armored Regiment (900 men, eight M60 tanks and four M57 APCs). This was one of the 5th Infantry Division's tank battalions which was stationed at Fort Irwin supporting the Combat Developments Command's test and evaluation programs and formed the OPFOR training cadre at Fort Irwin Field Training Equipment Concentration Site, where it was known as the “60th Guards Motorized Division�. Much of the battalion stock was siphoned off as vehicle replacements for active units during 1963 and the unit hade to make do with trucks, jeeps and other vehicles. On May 1, 1964, the battalion received frantic orders to deploy to Chula Vista and hold San Diego against the advancing Mexican Army. The battalion never made it there in time, but did manage to meet the Mexican thrust just north of San Diego. They performed well despite a lack of heavy weapons and superior numbers of the Mexican Army. It held for a week, enabling significant numbers of civilians to flee northwards. The battalion then retreated to Camp Pendleton in a series of skillful rearguard actions. Here they took in the armored vehicles that were pooled at the base, distributing them between the battalion 's component companies. These included the tanks and APCs, along with dozens of Marine Corps Amtrak's and some 105mm artillery pieces. It prefers to be referred to as the 60th Guards Motorized Division, a title that the men are strangely proud of. Along with the armor, the forces here have a lot of wheeled transport and mobility is possible through a carefully husbanded supply of gasoline at the base. Other units "stranded" here include the 300-man 316th Engineer Battalion (Combat), which was providing relief to the Los Angeles area when the Mexican invasion occurred. Also here is the 33rd Marine Battalion (Provisional) (800 men), which was formed with excess personnel from several Marine Corps and Navy support units based at Camp Pendleton, as well as personnel from the former Marine Corps and Navy bases in the San Diego area that were evacuated here following the Mexican invasion. Operational air assets at Pendleton MCAS are limited to seven planes (three F-3D Skyknights, one F-9 Panther, three A-1 Skyraiders, and a small Caribou transport plane) and eleven helicopters (six UH-1s, three CH-43s and four CH-47s). Avgas is strictly rationed and only the Caribou and the helicopters fly on any regular basis. The garrison was augmented in late summer 1964 by troops from the Naval Training Center and Twenty-nine Palms base, who the Mexicans coming west through Arizona pushed back towards Los Angeles. The Marines and NTC troops managed to fight a very long, very bloody withdrawal south to Orange County, eventually reaching the Pendleton enclave. At the base's docks are three ships, one of them a LST, which sometimes make resupply runs north to San Francisco. Water is scarce, but rationing works, there are creeks in the mountains, and the Marine engineers eventually got the San Onofre power plant back online and their first customer was their desalination facilities. Much like the situation to the north at Bakersfield, it is quite obvious that the base's troops could easily roll over the Mexican Army elements attempting to siege them at anytime they wished. They choose not to because there is really no need to as yet.
Escondido: Home of the Mexican 2nd Army's La Paz Brigade, tasked with watching and nominally besieging the Camp Pendleton base. The commander is Commandante Jorge Vasquez and he is under no pretenses who is besieging who. Manpower is 1,200 men, with one captured M41 Walker Bulldog light tank, three M8 armored cars, three M2A1 halftracks, six jeeps and numerous civilian vehicles.

13) SAN DIEGO
The war: This vital port city and US military town was hit by two nuclear weapons during the night of October 28, 1962. The first came from the Russian Golf I class ballistic missile submarine B-103. The 1 megaton SS-N-4 SLBM targeted at the naval installations missed a little to the south and detonated in an airburst just offshore of Imperial Beach. The resulting shockwave pummeled Coronado, the Silver Strand State Beach, and miles of beachfront into radioactive dust before the angry waters of the Pacific, foaming in superheated steam, rushed in to fill the crater. A few hours later, a SS-6 ICBM came flying in from central Russia. The 3 megaton warhead ground burst inland, glassing over San Diego's East County into a broad, curving plain of smooth-cooled rock. Flash-lit grass fires and bursting natural gas lines devastated large portions of the north side of the city and from Imperial Beach, north to the Soledad Freeway, and from the Pacific east to the Sweetwater River, all was charred into rubble by the firestorms.
Today: The eastern part of the city from La Mesa down through Lemon Grove to Chula Vista is a vast stretch of urban ruins and broken radioactive terrain with entire ranges of hills and small mountains that once characterized the region swept clean. What remains is slowly being reclaimed by nature, either as tangled mutant forests or vast tracts of blowing sand and ash. The actual bomb crater is still there, now half-filled with stagnant, radioactive water. Food and water are both fairly scarce, and the city's population has dwindled to about 12,000. Central San Diego, below Balboa Park is a confused mix of semi-ruined buildings, burnt-out shells, and vast rubble fields. Some of the old San Diego street grid remains, and desperate squatters still live in the shattered tenements atop Kyu-Do Hill. The twisted remains of humanity and life exist on a day to day basis here--ragged refugees farming open plots and scavenging the ruins for canned food. Ruthless downtown gangs, most armed only with hammers and crude spears, make this area their hunting ground, culling the weak. More refugees hide underneath the streets, finding its warrens of abandoned sewers and buried city sections a haven from the bandits and Mexican Army patrols. The West Mission Bay Causeway is down, blocking the entrance to Mission Bay and sometimes, when the tide is low, the twisted and forlorn arch of the Coronado Bay Bridge is visible, awash in currents of refuse and dead seabirds. The rest of Coronado and the bridge's onramps are completely submerged as far south as the amphibious base where the Mexican garrison is. The world-renown San Diego Zoo is now animal-free, the exhibits having become dinner for hungry survivors, and the empty buildings and paddocks are now home to refugees and bandits. At the city’s old heart, huge steel towers of former dockyards rise right from the waters like drowned skeletal giants. The Imperial Beach nuke played havoc with the Navy Fleet based here, and today the harbor is choked with the half-exposed, grounded remains of rusted and burned-out transports and warships and even two nuclear submarines. Tidal changes often reveal the presence of unexploded but leaking nuclear warheads from sunken Navy ships still submerged off the coast and throughout the city’s harbor.
Invasion and occupation: If twin nuclear attacks weren't enough, in 1964, the Mexican 2nd Army crossed the border almost without a shot fired and occupied the city ruins. "Aztlan" rebels (Chicano nationalist gangs) in the southern suburbs took to the streets, attacking the remaining local police and other authorities, and welcomed the Mexican forces across the border The Mexican Army for a time tried to clean up the city before giving up. They collected untold thousands of the dead and disposed of them to cut down on disease, trucking them to a huge dumping ground south of Spring Valley and north of the reservoir and let the rats eat them. The area is still infested and the reservoir still provides water to many in the city, furthering the disease problem. The Aztlan gangs still control the southern edges of the city. They are armed with rifles, pistols, shotguns, grenades, and machine guns. They also have some artillery, and many shells looted from the military bases, but they don't know how to use them and the Mexican Army wisely won't teach them.
Mexican enclave: Today, the bulk of the Mexican troops are holed up on Coronado Island at the old USN amphibious base. The main unit here is the Ensenada Brigade (800 men). The brigade has recently renamed itself the "Peoples' Army" in light of their new conversion to the cause of Hispanic justice, though only the officers are committed to the cause. The soldiers here are deathly afraid of the looming mass of the city to the east. Any day now, they are sure, the rabble hiding in the ruins will band together and swarm the island with their rakes and clubs and kill them all. They are a motley bunch, with mismatched uniforms and ancient Springfield carbines and they have just six large military trucks for transport. Despite their weaknesses, they have tried as best they could to repair the fences around the base and have dug in emplacements to guard the approaches. They operate an old former LST renamed the Spirit of May 5, and they use it occasionally to move supplies around. At North Island Naval Air Station is one surviving F-3H Demon fighter jet of VF-213 "Blacklions" squadron, now owned by the Mexican Army. There is ample fuel for the jet but it rarely flies anymore, the one qualified pilot refusing to fly for the Mexicans unless bribed with women and booze. Recently, some Russians have made their way across the Southwest and are looking for transport across the Pacific.

14) MOJAVE DESERT
From the Sierra Nevadas south to the Mexican border, the arid Mojave desert of southeastern California is nearly empty today. Most of the smaller towns have been deserted and looted with the surviving residents moved into the larger towns along the rivers.
Pine Valley: The Mexican Army operates several cantonments in the mountains west of San Diego. The biggest is here at Pine Valley, home of the Tepic Brigade (2,000 men and one M-8 armored car), formerly a component unit of the Mexican 2nd Army. In late August, the commander was murdered by a group of mutineers who support the Nationalist faction of the Mexican government. They have started to plan a move back to Mexico City to take control. The unit is a motley crew, even by 1964 standards--Cavalrymen ride with loot strapped to their saddles, captured Studebakers and Dodges tow light field guns, open Chevrolets hold tarp-covered mortars in their beds, and farm tractors haul great howitzers. Disciple has collapsed in the wake of the mutiny and former Tepic Brigade soldiers-turned-marauders can be found ranging from San Diego down to Baja and as far east as Las Vegas.
Mount Palomar Observatory: Following the nukes, the facility was looted and trashed by punks, with the museum burnt and the telescope sadly riddled with bullet holes. The mountaintop complex is now the home of a survivor commune known as the "Stronghold". The area has become a fortified enclave of safety through the works of California State Senator Jellison and his staff, who were instrumental in pulling together the right people during the chaos and moving out to the observatory. They have cleared fields for food and control their boundaries well. They have a well-stocked armory that includes two field artillery pieces (though with no ammunition for them) looted from a National Guard training center. Their main goal for now is to be left alone to grow and prosper.
Twenty-nine Palms Marine Corps Base: The 1,000-man Regimento Infanteria Activo Tijuana of the Mexican 2nd Army has occupied the base since late summer. The unit arrived here in June of this year, finding it abandoned, the American troops here having evacuated west for the Camp Pendleton enclave. The base, a graveyard of outdated military vehicles, equipment, and discarded wrecks, is fast becoming a trade city of sorts in the region, lying as it does along the routes to the west and east. The Mexicans have repaired the base's water-treatment plant and fortified the perimeter. Enough electric power has been restored to power the watchtowers and searchlights to guard the approaches, and fences of barbed wire, burned-out cars, sandbags, and even old crates and concrete road blocks surround the base buildings in an improved perimeter. The Mexicans sell off minor military items (old web gear, helmets, body armor, and sometimes arms and munitions) in exchange for water, foodstuffs, and other goods not readily available among the junk heaps. They also possesses a small fleet of refurbished jeeps and cars and have two old USMC World War II-vintage F4U Corsair fighters still in flying condition.
Needles: Needles is a small town that has big problems. With almost no goods to trade, Needles is little more than a small tribal community, although one that believes in the high ideals of pre-War America. About 2,000 people still call Needles home. Recently they have been under siege by a large motorized gang known as "Red Horse". The gang is large but swift with a variety of vehicles and they sport some serious weaponry.
Blythe: A town of 5,000 under the control of a 250-strong marauder gang called the "Patriots", holed up in an abandoned subdivision. Led by a Colonel "Texas Jim" Holland, formerly of the US Army Reserves, the gang is armed with assault rifles, grenades, and light mortars.
Mojave: Home of the Mexican 2nd Army's Hermosillo Brigade which patrols I-40 east to Barstow and maintains a defensive line along the Los Angeles Aqueduct. The vehicles available to the brigade are spread thin and mostly concentrated on the eastern approaches to confront the US forces in Bakersfield. Manpower is 1,400 men, with two M8 armored cars, five M2A1 halftracks, six jeeps, and numerous civilian vehicles and unarmored trucks. Things are a little better around Mojave, mostly because of the protection of the Mexican military. There is some trade going on and Mojave still receives water from the Los Angeles Aqueduct. The town "officially" belongs to the Mexican Army, and pays taxes to it. This irks the townspeople to no end, but those taxes "pay" for the water that the Mexicans assure arrives, so nothing is done about it. Many farmers distrust any water coming down from what is left of the Aqueduct, since at one time it was heavily contaminated from nuclear fallout. The town is very organized and relatively populous because the local farmers have access to farm equipment, fertilizers, and pesticides.
Barstow: To the east of Mojave is the town of Barstow. Local residents have started to call their town "The Hub", as Barstow has become the hub of trade in the area. A large community of traders, barterers, gamblers, and other interesting scum, Barstow is a stop-off point for caravans north to central valley enclaves, east to Las Vegas, and south to Los Angeles. At any time there are around 12,000 to 14,000 people in town. Police presence isn't strong, and the wide variety of people passing through ensures that there is always something interesting going on. The rail lines through town are somewhat preserved, but would require a great deal of maintenance and repair before they would ever pass rail traffic again.
Desert training areas: Located north of Barstow, Fort Irwin Field Training Equipment Concentration Site and China Lake Naval Weapons Station are now just empty, barren lands. These large areas were used to train troops, but there is little evidence left that such took place. Most military hardware was parceled out by the US Army a year ago and the remaining forces shipped to the Camp Pendleton enclave ahead of the Mexican invasion. However, there are still some rusted-out tanks and armored personnel carriers, plus twisted wreckage of unknown origin to be found on both bases.
Edwards AFB: Out amongst the dummy target tanks of the desert gunnery training area of the base there is a small enclave of survivors. They are New Age proto-hippies from Texas called the "Dreamers' Collective" who have settled in the area to practice their alternative drug culture.
"The Lost Brigade": This group was originally comprised of US Army personnel cut off from their parent organization, the 91st Training Division, but now includes marauders, Mexican Army deserters and others with a total number near 300. This unit lives a semi-marauder existence, having lately fought both the Mexican Army and US government forces, but preferring to stay out of hostilities. Located mainly in the southeastern part of the state, small raiding parties can be found attempting to infiltrate into central California.