[chico20854]

December 9, 1997

The regimental HQ of the Canadian Native Ranger Regiment is attached to X Corps. (Unofficially) Elsewhere in Alaska, Soviet occupation authorities in Anchorage are completely overwhelmed by the enormity of the damage inflicted by their own weapons. Already struggling to provide food, water and heat for the local population in the absence of local government authorities (most of whom have either fled or been shot by the KGB), (officially) the aftermath of the attack on Elmendorf AFB ends up inflicting even more casualties than the strikes themselves.

Taking advantage of the chaos gripping Egypt, Libya launches an attack by Tu-22 bombers against the Aswan Dam, causing the dam to collapse and send a wall of water down the Nile, drowning hundreds of thousands of Egyptians and displacing even more. The attack destroys most of what electrical power was still being generated in Egypt after the nuclear attacks. Libyan tank formations cross into Egypt and head east against pitiful resistance.

Unofficially,

The commander of the 10th California Cadet Brigade, at the head of 250 16-to-18 year-olds, realizes that he has no communications off post and that his unit would be swept away; instead he offers his force to the base commander. It is armed by the mixed force of civilian security guards and recovering Marines and sailors guarding the facility. A Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sergeant, healing from wounds received in Bandar Abbas, Iran, assumes command and integrates the guard force into the unit in leadership positions.

The Soviets turn their attention to Canada's military potential, hitting the Maritimes with an array of SLBMs fired from the safety of the Arctic ice pack in the Barents near Svalbard. They hit the oil industry in Saint John, New Brunswick, Come-by-Chance, Newfoundland and Halifax and Point Tupper, Nova Scotia. The Halifax strike also targets Maritime Command Headquarters; the cumulative effect is to paralyze Canadian naval operations in the western Atlantic and invoke an immediate fuel crisis from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Norfolk, Virginia. The Soviets also strike Yellowknife, Yukon with a 500-kiloton airburst, destroying the Northern Command Headquarters along with the USAF 20th Air Division, which was coordinating area air defense with the Canadians.

Soviet attacks on the UK continue, this time with SS-11s hitting the North Sea petroleum center of Aberdeen as well as military industry in Nottingham.

The light frigate USS Camp departs Gulfport, Mississippi after sixty days of training following delivery. She goes to sea short of many provisions and ammunition, one of the last new American surface combatants to sail during the war.

Targets struck in the USSR this day by the US include the Black Sea Fleet, with the headquarters and naval base complex at Sevastopol receiving ten 100-kiloton MIRVs from a Trident D5 missile fired by the USS Rhode Island. Another of the boomer's missiles strike the naval shipbuilding facilities, port, industrial district and early warning radars at Nikolaev. Three more missiles are aimed at the garrisons and headquarters of three SS-20 IRBM missile divisions, at Lutsk, Romny and Belokorovichi in Ukraine; the missile launchers are largely dispersed (two were located in the garrisons for maintenance) but the attacks curtail their command, control and support, all in short supply in the Ukraine at this point. While the Soviets planned for remote launch for silos that had their launch control centers (at regimental level, each regiment controlling six to ten silos), the American campaign against the Strategic Rocket Forces' command, control and communications infrastructure has largely degraded this capability. The airborne launch control aircraft (never as many or as sophisticated as SAC's elaborate arrangements) have been grounded or destroyed, and the "Dead Hand" emergency launch system is not activated, as it is hard-wired to order an all-out launch of all surviving missiles.

The status of political leaders around the world is uncertain as well. The status (and even the ultimate fate) of General Secretary Sauronski is unknown after multiple nuclear attacks on his bunker complex in the Volga region. In the UK, the military is working to bring Defence Minister Burton to a location where he can coordinate government relief efforts. The death of President Tanner and his replacement by President Munson in the US is common knowledge among US military personnel serving overseas (owing to intact military communications networks), while word is spreading quite rapidly around the US, both among civilians and military personnel.