[RN7]

MISSOURI

1) NUCLEAR TARGETS
Date Type Target
10/28/62 SS-7 Saint Louis
10/29/62 AS-3 Kansas City

2) ORGANIZED MILITARY FORCES
35th Infantry Division
------35th Engineer Brigade
------------Bde HQ/175th Military Police Battalion--Saint Louis (425 men)
------------220th Engineer Company--Saint Louis (100 men)
------------1138th Engineer Battalion--Saint Louis (90 men)
------------1140th Engineer Battalion--Saint Louis (110 men)
------------203rd Engineer Battalion--Springfield (100 men)
Engineers--Fort Leonard Wood

3) SAINT LOUIS
The war: The McDonald Douglas aircraft assembly plant on the north side of town was nuked by a 6 megaton SS-7 low-air burst late on October 28, 1962. The blast destroyed surrounding property, Lambert Airport and thousands of commuters on I-70. Every man-made structure with six or seven miles of ground zero was instantly disintegrated by the blast wave. To this day, the northern wedge of the city is still radioactive and charred.
Today: Saint Louis is a study in desolation and ruin in 1964. Time, nuclear fire and assorted vandals and punks have turned the city into a wasteland, firestorms, fallout and riots have reduce much of the city to charred embers. The suburbs are bad enough, but the inner city is just horrible. The roof of the baseball stadium has collapsed, City Hall looks like it was hit with a giant hammer, some of the older buildings, brick office buildings and hotels, have collapsed into rubble. There doesn’t seem to be a single intact window in the city. The Gateway Arch was blown into the Mississippi River by the blast wave and now sticks up like a giant, twisted pretzel and boaters on the river have to be careful not to hit it. The city's three largest hospitals have been demolished. The only bridges across the Mississippi River still standing are the Jefferson Barracks Bridge to the south and the I-270 bridge to the north and both bridges are well-guarded by local Missouri National Guard forces. Forrest Park and Tower Grove Park are full of refugees. Forrest Park is now a wild place, home to many animals escaped from the zoo. Because of its strategic location in the center of America, Saint Louis has become a natural catch-basin for refugees from the eastern seaboard and the Midwest.
Army in the city: MilGov has several garrisons throughout the city, all of them elements of the Missouri National Guard's 35th Engineer Brigade, a component of the 35th Infantry Division with some advisors from MilGov Command helping. Its pre-war home, the brigade HQ is with the 175th Military Police Battalion, based at the St. Louis Planetarium/Chandolet Park with some 425 men, a few M-113 APCs and two UH-1 Iroquois helicopters. The 1138th Engineer Battalion (90 men) is at the Battalion headquarters in Jefferson Barracks, the 1140th Engineer Battalion (110 men) is at the stump of the Gateway Arch currently working to clear the river for better barge traffic, and the 220th Engineer Company (100 men) is based out of the Science and Technology building on the campus of Saint Louis University.
Gangs: Several, less friendly, forces are vying for control of the rest of city today. The largest gang in the city is the 300-strong "Leather Knights", a motorcycle gang that controls the area around the St. Louis Library. A less powerful gang called the "Thunder Gang" is based in the ruins of Union Station and the tram tunnels beneath. The "Omega Force", led by former Missouri Senator Mason Bragdon with about 50 members and three civilian 4x4s is based in an abandoned shopping mall in South County and in the sewers. The large "Blitzkreigers" biker gang have a base just over the bridge in East St. Louis and at the Anheiser Busch Brewery which was claimed the brewery by squatter's rights in 1963 and have been making their own beer. They also are beginning to convert the huge stills to produce ethanol and methanol to run their bikes. They have something of a deal with MilGov to help police the refugees. The Blitzkreigers also are sitting on a gold mine and don't know it. Across the river, in the gritty industrial run-down suburb of Sauget there is a former gasoline-additive plant with an underground bunker holding 250,000 liters of number 6 fuel oil. The bikers control this area but have never bothered to loot it systematically.

4) KANSAS CITY
The war: During the night of October 29, 1962, two Tu-95K-20 Bear Bs broke through the EMP-ravaged radar coverage and got to within a hundred miles of Kansas City before being detected. Interceptors were vectored to stop them but one Bear launched a AS-3 Kangaroo nuclear cruise missile at the city. That Bear was then brought down by a ramming attack by a USAF fighter. The missile impacted nearly on top of the Highway 291 bridge across the Missouri River in the northern part of the suburb of Independence. The blast was about 100 kT, far less than designed 800 kT due to a design flaw in the warhead, but still wiped out about a quarter of the metroplex. Between one and two hundred thousand people died as a direct result of the bombing, but the population of the city has remained high. The rest city was spared much of the fallout thanks to a storm front and the prevailing winds that day.
Holding together: Abandoned by the state and federal governments during the chaos, KC found salvation in the strong leadership of Municipal Judge Dexter White. He organized the survivors and his strict rule kept things from falling apart too much.
Today: In 1964 now-Mayor White has both sides of the city under control and is well into the process of rebuilding and cleaning up. The total city population, swelled by refugees lured here by the reports of safe haven, now number some 750,000. An aficionado of the Middle Ages, White has dreams of creating a feudal state in KC, but for now is content with restoring infrastructure and there is now running water in most areas and electricity for three hours a day for the common citizen if they pay their "power taxes". KC is now either the best police state in America or the worst dictatorship, depending on who you ask. Mayor White has put most able-bodied people to work across the city. Numerous work gangs are clearing wrecks and ruble and moving the dead to reduce the outbreaks of disease while other groups are scavenging gas from car tanks and collecting food to bring to centralized locations where it is doled out to the needy. In some areas they have repaired the broken water mains and gotten pressure up. Often these work gangs are escorted by armed policemen to protect them from marauders. The total number of trained police under uniform in the city is around 2,000, counting auxiliaries, and they are very well-armed. They also have an old UH-19 Chickasaw chopper with a 2.75" rocket pod bolted onto one side. There is still a uniformed fire department with at least one pumper truck as well. While most city streets and lesser highways are still choked with cars and wrecks, the I-635 bridge across the Kansas River and the I-35 bridge across the Missouri River are both open for travel, though there are roadblock checkpoints on either ends manned by police. The tenement blocks of North Kansas City are deserted, the remaining populace having moved into the southern suburbs. Of the western suburbs, Shawnee has been neglected the most by the Mayor because of all the work to be done still in the city proper and is now a ghost town with only a 1,000 or so refugees holed up here.
The Army arrives: Recently arrived in the metro area is a 123-man company of soldiers who have recently returned from Europe with the USAEUR evacuation and comprising mostly of men originally from the Kansas City area. These men remained loyal to CivGov even though the evacuation was MilGov sponsored, and have made a long arduous journey overland from Savannah. They are tired, wore out and ready to find family and renew old friendships. They have an M75 APC, a jeep with a 75mm recoilless rifle and a jeep-towed M101 105mm howitzer. The unit is led by Colonel Derkszoon, a Dutchman, and they are fiercely loyal to him. Despite being such a small unit compared to the city militia, Mayor White isn't too happy about the soldiers being in his city, he thinks it is a challenge to his power.
Mysteries: Of special note, of the two Tu-95K-20 Bear Bs that attacked the city in 1962, the one that wasn't shot down amazingly landed at KC Downtown Airport and the crew had tried to surrender. One of the crew spoke English and was negotiating the surrender on the runway when an enraged citizen grabbed a Tommy gun from a police officer and mowed down the whole crew. It was found later that the Bear was strictly a photo recon plane and carried no nuclear weapons. The current whereabouts of the plane are not known. In the northern suburb of Gladstone is the remains of a Nike-Hercules missile battery. There are rumors that the underground missile magazine at the base hides an intact nuclear warhead.

5) NORTHERN MISSOURI
Between the two cities was once a land of open farmland and rolling fields of corn and wheat that have been emptied due to refugee rampages, disease, fallout and brutal droughts. Caught between Saint Louis and Kansas City, northern Missouri was crushed in a vise-grip of refugees fleeing the cities. Current populations of the scattered survivor enclaves range from just a handful, like in Trenton and Princeton, to over a hundred in Chilicothe.
Columbia: Once a fair sized city, now strikingly devoid of human life except for a few stragglers combing the ruins for salvageable materials. This city was smashed by panicking refugees heading west from Saint Louis and east from Kansas City who met here and fought each other to death over Columbia's food and resources. The University of Missouri campus is deserted except for one senile old professor and several young students who had elected to stay behind and care for him.
Moberly: This town is surrounded by a high wall of earth and junked cars, and the surviving 120 locals greet strangers with hostility (if not outright gunfire). They will tolerate only a few merchants, those from neighboring counties only, and even these are not welcomed warmly.
Marshall: Holed up in the old Missouri Valley College campus here is a group of more than a hundred refugees, most from South Dakota.
Hannibal: Along the Mississippi River, Hannibal is remarkably well preserved and mostly unlooted and a large boat here takes people and vehicles across the Mississippi River but it is expensive. Of special note, the Lock and Dam Number 22 to the south of Hannibal was the site of a major battle between MilGov and CivGov forces. The area is still littered with burnt out tanks and bomb craters.
Whiteman Air Force Base: Groundbreaking for the base's Minuteman I ICBM complex was in April of 1962 and some work was done before the exchanges in October. No missiles were ever at the base, but a lot of valuable support equipment is still here.

6) SOUTHERN MISSOURI
The southern half of the state, from Columbia south to the Arkansas border. While the open plains of northern Missouri were quickly and easily overrun by refugees, the rugged mountains and valleys of the southern half of the state kept most of the refugees out. A well-armed local populace also served to steer refugee in other directions. The Ozark Mountains region is now home to a large number of anti-government and anti-social splinter groups. Hiding in the forests are groups ranging from rural moonshiners and dope farmers to cult religions and neo-Nazi camps.
Mark Twain National Forest: It’s a wilderness in there. Mountains and hills covered with forest and grass. The water is clear and cold with the hills full of all the game you want. Some settlements even have their own electricity, run from old gristmills on the rivers. These red-necked Ozark hillbillies are as stubborn as they come, and they don’t move easy. Their places are isolated and hard to get to. And generally, they’re well defended.
Jefferson City: The former state capital of Jefferson City is a now rubble-strewn, looted and trashed. Though still home to some 3,600 survivors, civic organization is lacking, with people splintered off into little groups, in some cases in open fighting with each other. Any form of state government is long gone and the capital has been burned. A wicked bout of typhoid swept through the hill country south and west of Jefferson City this past summer, taking away many of the people who thought they had a chance to rebuild.
Rolla: Home to some 300 well-armed but generally good people who make their living farming and fishing. Rolla does possess a valuable resource--a fairly advanced chemical laboratory on the campus of the University of Missouri-Rolla capable of turning out modest quantities of smokeless powder for the manufacturing of ammunition and other explosives. This lab, run by a couple of ex-high school teachers, and it's products are Rolla's primary trade goods.
Fort Leonard Wood Military Reservation: Home of a group of US Army engineers, mostly support and staff of the engineer training school there. They mostly just try to stay fed and rarely venture off post.
Springfield: This small city is now garrisoned by the 100 men of the 203rd Engineer Battalion, a Missouri National Guard unit officially subornate to the 35th Engineer Brigade in Saint Louis but in reality completely on its own. They often sends convoys up I-44 to Fort Wood to trade with the soldiers there.
Ash Grove: Home to the "Ash Grove Boys", a violent marauder gang.
Branson: A perfect settlement, with their own water supply and electricity. They raided the hillbilly Silver Dollar Theme Park nearby and from the old technology saved from the past, they now have leather working shops, bakeries, a place to cure meat, and enough farm land around close to raise wheat for bread.

7) THE BOOT HEEL
This swampy patch of land has been severely depopulated by disease and refugee migrations. Many towns are now deserted and looted, while others, like Poplar Bluff (300 people), Campbell (500 people), Sikeston and Kennett, are homes to just rabbles of dirty survivors. Lake Wappapello is home to fifty or sixty thugs who are terrorizing the area.
Caruthersville: An island of safety and an active river trading town on the banks of the Mississippi River. Jeremiah Starking has close to five hundred men, women, and kids here. Maybe a hundred of them are fighting men. He’s ex-military and knows what he’s doing. His people haven’t turned raider yet, but they’re not far from it.