[raketenjagdpanzer]

So if I can get a campaign going again, my mostly v1 with some changes works out like this:

Ukraine broke with the USSR, declared her neutrality, shut off power to the USSR. This caused the USSR to send troops in, which is why they were caught on their back foot in Europe for so long.

The USSR still steamrolls in Central Poland during the last offensive, but still pays the butcher's bill for it.

Ploesti gets nuked, hard, once the JCS figure out where the Soviets got all the fuel they had for the counteroffensive. This pisses CivGov off to no end, as they wanted to put together an offensive to "liberate" Ploesti (as if they'd have the legs to get all that oil back to the US...)

Things aren't quite the disaster back in the States as they are in Howling Wilderness: Florida, for example, is not 90% depopulated. Saratoga limped into Key West after suffering ASM damage in a shoot out in the Caribbean with the last big Soviet surface action group; her planes landed at Key West NAS. By dint of being able to brew a little JP8 and keep the Hawkeyes flying, some warning of the big 5 hurricanes from 1997-2000 got out.

Patrick AFB got hit, but other launch facilities in the vicinity did not. The ability to get even one comsat into the air is a prize beyond measure and so CivGov and MilGov contest the region hotly - with New America in Brevard Cty. being a giant pain in the ass to both sides.

Anniston, AL, got a near-miss-fizzle but the "dirty" effects still did major damage; by 2000 it's all but a ghost town although CivGov wants it for its AFV repair/refit capabilities.

The Chicago/Milwaukee region is gone: atomic rubble. There's a large enclave of survivors and refugees around Lake Geneva, WI, Delevan, and other locations west, although fallout from the Dakotas make staying in the area dicey.

New York is essentially as detailed in Armies of the Night.

With fewer mouths to feed, fewer non-essential goods to carry, fewer non-essential vehicles using it, POL in the US is actually "stable" (not great, not terrible). Some AvGas is still produced in the limited refineries and there have been successes with JP8 production, so the occasional military or government aircraft overflight does happen. Nobody's grabbing a Delta Dash to Philly for an Eagles game though!

Regardless of "sides", people, largely, want help rebuilding and to be left alone. CivGov showing up and trying to force people to "pick a side" or MilGov likewise just angers people. The survivors want to rebuild, not have a civil war.

The Texas Republic is handily beating back Division Cuba forces, and holding Red Mexico at bay, although Mexico does still have some intact POL facilities that make it a tempting target for incursion and annexation. The few usable aircraft at the USAF AMARC are in the hands of the Mexicans as is the base; this is a serious thorn in the side for US (whether civgov or milgov).

I stripped out much of the guts of the Satellite Down story: yes a US Naval ship limped into the Gulf of California. Yes there's a satellite data capsule to be found. But the whole "there's only two pistols" and "If the Reactor gets shot it results in a nuclear explosion" (plus the details of the shootout that led the ship to be there in the first place), yeah, no, that's out the window.

Back in Europe the French have more to worry about than annexing Belgium: Paris is in ruins, the new government in Nice has too much to worry about than power projection: they know if the Foch sets sail the ship is a huge, huge tempting target and given France's turning away from NATO, possibly a target for both sides' remaining submarines.

Australia rode the war out relatively unscathed, but her Gov't. is becoming more authoritarian as the post '97 years roll on: US and other nations' embassy staff are the only people exempted from Australia's Displaced Persons Emergency Order which basically puts expatriate citizens in "housing" within a dock-side perimeter in cities located near the sea, "Until such time as suitable transportation to expedite their repatriation to their nation of origin can be secured." Those fortunate enough to reach their respective countries' embassies or consulates are effectively prisoners there.

Related to that, after the 2000 MilGov withdraw from Europe, a second "Operation Omega" is planned for forces in the Far East. North Korea took a ferocious shellacking after using chemical and limited nuclear weapons in its seemingly endless war with the rest of the world; South Korea is now dealing with a humanitarian crisis as the remnants of Pyongyang's government are nowhere to be found, and the only thing North Koreans rushing south are doing is begging for food and medicine. All US forces can do is get out of the way, so in an accord similar to what has been worked out with the government of the FRG (United), the US will leave most of its heavy equipment and withdraw troops back stateside, traveling first in whatever ships it can muster to repatriate citizens from elsewhere in the Pacific...