[chico20854]

December 25, 1997

In Norway, as in most of the world, it is a grim Christmas. The nation's power generation and telecommunications facilities have been destroyed as electromagnetic pulse from the nuclear detonations fried their control circuitry. Refugees from the cities, seeking food and shelter from the coming winter, have flooded into the countryside. At first they are received with charity and kindness, but it soon becomes obvious that there are more mouths to be fed than there are meals left in most parts of the country. The only government is by martial law, and the only forces for civilization are the remnants of the Norwegian military. People turn to the military for their leadership and for their protection.

A provisional state capital is established at the planned community of Columbia, Maryland, on Route 29 between Baltimore and Washington, and fifteen kilometers from the nearest Fort Meade crater.

In Pennsylvania, the principal targets of the urban migrations are the broad, rich farming lands between Lancaster and Chambersburg, the heavily forested and remote regions of northern Pennsylvania beyond Scranton and Williamsport, and the fertile lands beyond the Allegheny Mountains, between Pittsburgh and Lake Erie. The broad strip of low, rolling, farming country between Allentown, Harrisburg, and the western suburbs of Philadelphia have been overrun by refugees since the first nuclear war scares earlier in the year. Because of continued fear that Pittsburgh itself will be hit by nuclear warheads, few refugees enter the city itself, and, in fact, many natives of the city fled either during the nuclear panics of the summer of '97, or during the riots, fires, and renewed fears of nuclear strikes of the present. In the disorder the indoor shopping mall in Monroeville (on the eastern outskirts of Pittsburgh) is repeatedly looted by vandals and rioting mobs, leaving little but the shell of the building complex.

Unofficially,

King Albert II of Belgium grants his consent to the formation of a Franco-Belgian Union and a full military mobilization to both control the flood of refugees into the nation and obtain French assistance in responding to the nuclear attacks on Antwerp. Likewise, the French President obtains the grudging consent of the opposition Socialist party, seeing no alternative and painfully aware of the consequences of taking a pro-Soviet position in the wake of Soviet attacks on the nation. (The French Communist Party's consent is not requested, many of its leaders in detention for pro-Soviet espionage).

Not respecting the sanctity of the (in their view) decadent and exploitative holiday, more Soviet bombs strike the UK, destroying industrial facilities in Coventry, Derby and Bedford and the harbor of Bristol.

V Corps units in northwestern Poland launch a spoiling attack on massing Soviet and Polish troops of the Baltic Front. A massive snowstorm offers concealment to the advancing M1s and Bradleys but confounding the close air support aircraft, many of whom's advanced avionics are inoperable. The initial Pact resistance is Polish infantry.

XVIII Airborne Corps troops surround the town of Dezful, which is defended by a grab bag of stragglers from a dozen Soviet divisions, support troops and pro-Soviet Tudeh guerrillas.