[chico20854]

December 10, 1997

Due to the disruptions in both the US and South Africa it takes several days to retaliate for the Soviet attacks in Africa. However, once they are ready, their attacks hit hard, and no protestation of “neutrality” means much of anything to the Americans or South Africans.

Conakry, the capital of Guinea, is devastated by two 350kt warheads targeted on the damaged but still functional Soviet air and naval bases as revenge for the attack on Diego Garcia. The attacks annihilate the remaining Soviet air, naval and army forces in the area (including three of the last four operational Soviet subs in the Atlantic who were being resupplied there) as well as the government and military of the Republic of Guinea. Over a million and half civilians are killed or wounded in the attack.

Multiple nuclear strikes hit pro-Soviet Algeria and Libya hard, destroying refineries, oil fields and ports, cutting off almost all oil production and in the process causing nearly seven million casualties. The cities of Tripoli, Skikda (Philippeville), Algiers, Arzew, Ra's Lanuf, Zawiya, Benghazi and Oran have all been targeted in the attacks. The attacks on Algeria incense the French government and many of its people who still think of that country as being part of France.

Libyan armored formations that had crossed the Egyptian border are devastated by three tactical nuclear warheads, knocking out over 80 percent of the tanks and APC’s and sending the survivors fleeing back towards Libya. (Unofficially, the bombs were dropped by A-7Es flying from the US carrier John F Kennedy, which has been patrolling the Mediterranean, trying to avoid repeating the fate of the battleship Wisconsin.)

In the Indian Ocean, a single TLAM-N 150kt nuclear tipped cruise missile detonates over the harbor of Victoria, capital of the Seychelles, destroying the city and killing over 17,000 people. A group of Soviet merchantmen and Indian Ocean Squadron auxiliaries who were under the protection of the “neutral” Seychelles government are sunk and the 300 man Soviet Marine detachment there is wiped out.

Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, is hit with four 38kt nuclear bombs delivered by South African Canberra and Buccaneer bombers, two over the city and two over the harbor, sinking over thirty Soviet and Warsaw Pact merchants “interned” there including three resupply ships critical for Soviet naval operations in the Indian Ocean. South African Cheetah fighters shoot down over two dozen MiG’s that attempt to intercept the bombers, losing five fighters and one bomber to the enemy fighters and AA. Three South African 38kt weapons delivered by missiles detonate over Angola’s capital of Luanda, targeting the government, the refinery and the main bases of the Cuban and Angolan bases in the city, destroying much of the city along with the refinery there. The third warhead detonates almost directly over the airbase that harbors most of the Cuban air power in Africa, destroying all the aircraft based there.

Unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship San Diego Freedom is delivered in Portland, Oregon. Like the handful of others, it was essentially complete on Thanksgiving, taking a few weeks to perform sea trials and storing.

The prosecutors office in Bakersfield, California receives a tip from a deserter from the 5th California Brigade, a state guard unit, that the brigade commander and some of the long-standing members of the unit have been running a covert "Death Squad" that has engaged in a series of nighttime raids against suspected “enemy sympathizers.”

A month after returning to its pre-war stations in Mongolia, the officers of the 12th Motor-Rifle Division have made very little progress in standing up a new division following the poundings the division suffered in China and North Korea. It seems that in a Red Army months into a nuclear war that Mongolia is a low-priority sector for the allocation of conscripts and recalled reservists. The 12th has received only 45 enlisted men in the unit's time at home station, and since it is stationed in a foreign country cannot resort to the age-old practice of grabbing civilians off the local streets to fill out the division's squads, companies and battalions. Likewise, the division's equipment park consists of a dozen aged GAZ-63 light trucks and a pair of T-34 tanks, former gate guards for the division's barracks.

After 30 days of workups (interrupted as they were), the recommissioned destroyer USS Morton is ordered to sea from San Diego. She sets sail accompanied by the freighters Houston Freedom and the Liberian Westerbrook, heading to Honolulu.

MIRVs from a Soviet SS-19 strike SAC bases in the mountain west. Malmstrom AFB in Montana and F.E. Warren AFB in Wyoming receive multiple warheads on their airfields and command and control facilities: their ICBMs remain safely intact in their silos, their crews in constant contact with the SAC command post in Nebraska.

The attack submarine USS Pasadena, lurking only 100 miles offshore, launches a volley of 12 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, each with a 170-kiloton warhead, against an array of targets in Petropavlovsk in an attempt to neutralize the Soviet port and naval base that is supporting the invasion of Alaska as well as Soviet boomers in the Pacific. Eleven of the missiles find their targets (the last one overshot and exploded harmlessly over the Kamchakta Peninsula), tearing apart the port, submarine bases, air defense headquarters, ELINT facility, long-range communication center and SLBM depot.

Danish troops escort the last members of the royal family to Helsingor north of Copenhagen (still burning in areas), where they take up residence in Kronor Castle, the setting for Shakespeare's Hamlet.