(Fiction/Campaign Material) Death of a Small City

[raketenjagdpanzer]

From The New Atlanta Journal/Constitution, Nov. 24th, 2023.

WITH the coming 25th Anniversary of the "Thanksgiving Day Massacre", the Journal/Constitution concludes its series on historical perspectives, events surrounding, leading up to and the aftermath of World War III, and the ongoing reconstruction of the United States of America with a look at one event that, while local, became tragically emblematic of the horror of the nuclear attacks on the nation. The impact of the events were no more (or less) terrible than those elsewhere around the country or across the globe, yet this newspaper felt it salient to compile this report, as it represented a microcosm of the tragedy that touched all our lives.

On November 25th, 1997, at 2:15 P.M., Eastern Standard Time, 176 Soviet warheads of varying potency were deployed against targets within the United States of America and its outlying territories. Many of these were intercepted by anti-ballistic systems, some malfunctioned, others missed their targets entirely, impacting in areas where damage was far less than it might have been. These were the exception.

Most of the warheads were on target and worked as designed, but one exception was a 250 kiloton warhead aimed at the small but strategically important town of Anniston, Alabama. Since the Second World War, this city of some three quarter of a million residents, located between Gadsden, Alabama and Atlanta, Georgia served as a waypoint for United States military personnel and equipment traveling through the southeast. Whether moving from Texas to the Gulf Coast for transportation, or from points north, heavy armored fighting vehicles were stored there for a time. Additionally, Anniston served as a repair center; rather than sending tanks back to their bases of origin, or the main factory in Lima, Ohio, minor repairs and modifications could be performed at Anniston and equipment moved back to the coast for transport more quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately this utility made Annistion a target for Soviet strategic planners. Prior to the initiation of nuclear exchange, the Soviets insisted they had no "counter-value" strike program in place, that is, no civilian population centers were deliberately targeted by missiles. As was discovered shortly after the war, this was found to be untrue, but regardless the point was moot: many US factories and facilities tended to have a large suburban population grow up to meet the needs of personnel, and likewise whole towns appeared in areas with little or no local population otherwise.

When the first wave of Soviet missiles rained down on US soil, key targets such as Washington DC, Atlanta, Tampa, FL and other large cities were targeted. Hours after these initial strikes, "secondary" targets began to fall: Lima, Ohio, Rockville, MD, and many other seemingly insignificant towns.

A single 250 kiloton warhead, carried by a Soviet SS-20 missile launched from somewhere within Siberia, was targeted at Annistion, Alabama. The rigors of launch, or reentry, or perhaps some design flaw or unknown providence caused the missile to miss its target by some 3km, and, as has been discovered in post-war investigations, to "fizzle" and detonate with a "mere" ten kilotons of force, instead of the two hundred and fifty (or ten times the power of the bomb that detonated at Hiroshima, or one-quarter the total megatonnage used to destroy Washington, DC) it was designed for.

Likely none of our readers do not understand the power of a nuclear explosion, having seen the aftermath first hand, or been witness to its awful power.

For the city of Anniston, the blast was devastating, despite the relatively small yield of the bomb. Rather than striking more advantageously at the junction of state roads 202, 431 and 21, the warhead struck in the hills to the southwest of town. While initial casualties were low - totaling some 1000 persons - over eight thousand were seriously injured. Still more within Anniston were blinded by the flash of detonation; had the missile's cargo struck a mere thousand meters more to the south, the city might have been spared what came next.

Fires started in the dry timbers of the hills around Anniston quickly ran out of control. The combined electromagnetic pulse from Soviet "softening" attacks earlier in the day and that of the Anniston warhead left most emergency response vehicles useless. Worst of all, the low detonation point of the missile and fires raging out of control in the warhead's blast area immediately produced a fallout footprint that spread across the heart of the city. Military personnel raced to shelter, but tens of thousands of civilians had either poor shelter or none at all.

By sundown, Anniston was dying.

Morning brought little relief; the radioactive plume had settled across the city and uncontrolled fires continued to burn and spread ash and radiological materials from the unexploded warhead segments across the town. Fallout is in itself deadly but if dealt with properly and promptly its effects can be mitigated. However, Anniston was facing a kind of fallout it had no defense against. A microscopically thin layer of un-converted plutonium scattered across the town, contaminating everything it touched. Illnesses due to radiation and heavy metal poisoning in the town skyrocketed. The already overtaxed hospital and military emergency services were pushed to the brink of collapse. With no word even from the state capitol regarding emergency plans the military elected to seize control of the situation. This put them at odds with the town's civilian government. While the base's commanders were ready to invoke martial law, local civilian law enforcement were attempting to restore some sense of normal order and evacuate the fallout plume.

This back-and-forth bickering stuck the population of Anniston in the middle, and they continued to die in increasingly large numbers. By the beginning of the third day after the attack, casualties numbered upwards of ten thousand.

The contamination of the city, the destruction caused by the fires, along with the sense of panic and hopelessness drove civilians to extreme measures and they were met with extreme consequences. To deter looting, the military began to enact tribunals. While these started in a somewhat benign fashion (looters or troublemakers facing forced labor for a day) the situation worsened, and capital punishment was meted out in ever increasing amounts.

As the radiation cloud settled and many injured, underfed and contaminated began to fall ill, it was apparent to both parties arguing over the fate of Anniston that remaining in the town was increasingly untenable. The infirm, including 18 premature children on life support, 187 elderly who required some kind of life support, scores of critical burn victims, those reliant on life-sustaining prescriptions such as insulin, and other individuals began to grow more and more ill every day. Worse, refugees from Atlanta had begun to filter in to town: finding what, to their eyes, was an oasis of peace and plenty after the destruction they had witnessed, the refugees settled wherever they could sit (when not stopped by the authorities); crimes such as rape and looting worsened and the response was no longer a tribunal. Signs were posted throughout the town that criminals would be shot on sight.

Two weeks after the missile strike, the people of Anniston, now some 660000 of them (estimated) tried to continue as best they could. Contaminated areas were as well marked as could be. Food distribution had been taken over by the military. Civilian authorities were given a choice: give up any notion of management and become "regular" civilians or join the military in its efforts. Most abstained, some became ad-hoc National Guardsmen.

The burial of massive numbers of dead (now estimated at 30000 due to starvation, privation, radiation, injury, and misadventure) was a daily chore and its thought that this was the cause of a cholera outbreak that began to ravage the town. By now antibiotics and other medicines were in short supply. The military ruthlessly triaged those who reported to hospitals for sickness; the truly sick were given no medical aid beyond analgesics to control fever, and water to remain hydrated, and this too soon stopped despite the protest of doctors and nurses. Unfortunately this led to many fearing for their lives, and rather than reporting to the hospital they hid their illness until it incapacitated them, and the result was more infected.

By now the center of the town was almost completely abandoned. Decontamination teams stripped hospitals and stores for needed material, and fuel was removed from every gas station and stationary vehicle, while LP gas was similarly scavenged.

By January of 1998, there were in excess of 63000 casualties in Anniston with no sign of let-up.

The winter of 1998 was particularly harsh. Firewood for heating was rationed: much of the wooded areas around Anniston were now completely contaminated. Burning the wood would irradiate those seeking to stay warm, so authorities had to fully test wood for heating. Little passed muster, but many chose to stay warm and potentially become contaminated rather than freeze to death. The food situation worsened. Stocks from Civil Defense warehouses were distributed, but most of the civilians of Anniston were on 600 calories per-day on average. Scurvy, once thought of as an antique joke, was now a very real possibility. Clean water outside of military or hospital areas was hard to come by, due to the problems of uncontaminated wood to burn to boil water.

In the summer of 1998, military commanders in Anniston received orders from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Amazingly, they were to convoy to Norfolk, VA., and from there embark transports to the European theater. Despite the fact that the country (and indeed much of the world) was in a shambles due to the nuclear exchange, the war in Europe continued to grind on. With no choice but to obey orders, in July 1998 forces departed Anniston leaving only a token military police unit behind.

Civil unrest followed the departure of the military. Feeling that the Army units had been unjust and cruel in their triage methods, and that the food distribution was equally unfair, the civilian population of Anniston attacked the MP garrison at the base and stormed the fences. However, the garrison didn't give up without a fight: by the end of the attack, all 250 MPs were either dead or seized, while 1800 civilians lay dead or injured.

By the fall of 1998, Anniston's population due to deaths related to the attack or people fleeing the general area was 1/3rd of its pre-war number. The winter was even harsher than the previous one. Flooding from rains in November brought a deluge of radioactive mud and water down from the hills; this alone caused 2000 casualties. Marauders, large bands of refugees from Georgia, disease and starvation continued to whittle at the population. In December the authorities remaining in Anniston pleaded with the city of Gadsden and the government in Montgomery for assistance. Some food came, but it was too little. Another 30000 died of starvation early that winter, and a bitter Christmas was celebrated by those who were holding on tenuously.

Spring came with little more good news; another Army unit arrived to remove the heavy equipment that had not been taken by the forces who evacuated the town previously, even taking "display" tanks such as the M1, M47 and M4 tanks on display in front of the base. While they brought some food and medical supplies it was a mere token amount and later investigation found it was used to "buy off" authorities as a bribe with a promise of more to come later if the troops were left unmolested as they moved more equipment. However no additional supplies were forthcoming once the last of the equipment was shipped out.

By the time the base was completely stripped the population was a mere 100,000 and falling quickly. Any semblance of civil authority, except that needed to protect the mayor and his staff and the dwindling medical and emergency personnel in the town, was crumbling. More and more drifted away, some aiming to go to warmer climes south, while others tried to reach Gadsden. However, "Steel Town" had become a closed city: thousands of refugees from the region were turned away as Gadsden dealt with its own crises.

By July of 1999, when the US Army was on the verge of defeat in Poland, Anniston Alabama was a virtual ghost-town. Contaminated, stripped of supplies and almost completely abandoned, the city was ringed by a desperate few thousand persons, furtively holding on to the hope of a return of governance and safety. Farmers tried to eke out a living, but heavily contaminated soil made growing anything for food a risky prospect. The Army base was an empty shell save for the heaviest immobile equipment for vehicle repair (and, as at the time of this writing, is only just now being evaluated for possible future use). Sheriff's deputies "protected" the remaining civilians from marauders, but at a cost of "bounties" that were as extortionary as anything outlaws might demand.

Anniston remained locked in this cycle of starvation and privation until late 2018. Five years ago, the now reunited Federal Government set out established survey/salvage teams to take stock of the United States' shattered infrastructure. Military bases and facilities ranked high on the list of areas of interest. While fanfare wasn't expected, the column of troops and vehicles that rolled in to Anniston was greeted by an eerie silence. The heart of the town was completely abandoned; the remaining population hid from the sound of engines and the greens and browns of camouflage. A little over a decade prior military personnel were the lifeblood of the city.

...

The tragedy of Anniston played out through the United States during the same time period. Cities or large towns were deserted, or left to rot and ruin, or became armed camps as civilians used to trips to the video store on Friday night or picking up a new computer at Best Buy were now thrust into a world that bordered on the medieval. As America began to pick up the pieces, all any could do was slowly, painfully, begin to rebuild.

(Journal/Constitution staff contributed)
(C) 2023

[Cdnwolf]

Me like

[mikeo80]

Very nice!

My $0.02

Mike

[Ironside]

An excellent piece of future history. Also incredibly useful for inspiration; many thanks

[Rainbow Six]

Nice job...I like it..

[Brother in Arms]

QUESTION?

Anniston is the sight of a major chemical weapons storage and disposal facility. Any idea about using these potentially?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anniston_Chemical_Activity

ALso the CMP South(Civillain Marksmanship Program) is located at anniston depot so loads of M1 Rifles and carbines and tons of ammo potentially.

Just ideas

Brother in Arms