On this day 25 years ago

[chico20854]

December 31, 1997

A Soviet division (I have the 236th Rear Area Protection Division; canon does not identify a specific one) in Alma-Ata in the Central Asian Military district deserts and declares the city a "free city."

Unofficially,

Year end finds the world in dire shape. The nuclear exchange, which has expended less than 1200 of the world's nearly 50,000 nuclear weapons, has killed over 10 million people directly while halting the world's transportation and communications systems and set the stage for mass suffering on a scale not seen since medieval times. Conventional fighting has raged across Iran, Poland, Romania, North Korea and southern Germany, leaving the land and its hapless occupants in shambles. Millions of civilians have become refugees fleeing fighting, cold and darkness, seeking comfort in imagined safety somewhere other than their homes. The world's militaries have been torn apart, the shiny weapons and proud ranks of soldiers of 1995 reduced to desperate ragged forces struggling to obey the orders of political masters who cannot fully grasp the scale of losses sustained.

The final American strategic nuclear attack on the USSR occurs, with strikes on military production sites (a Su-27 aircraft plant, submarine-building yard and steel mill) and military targets (the headquarters of the PVO 8th Corps, bomber base, nuclear weapons storage site) in and near Kosmolosk-na-Amure in the Far East delivered by 12 TLAM cruise missiles fired from the attack submarine USS Columbus. Munson also authorizes attacks on two other Soviet strategic targets - the transportation hub and production center of Omsk in western Siberia (where the headquarters of the Strategic Rocket Forces' 33rd Guards Missile Army, the tank plant, a refinery and an Antonov aircraft plant were all hit) and Chita in far eastern Siberia, location of headquarers of the Transbaikal Military Distrct, 53rd Guards Missile Division and 50th PVO Corps as well as several bomber bases and the city's railroad station, further hampering operations on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Those cities are each hit by lone B-1Bs from the 28th Bomb Wing, operating from the remote western Chinese air base; the bombers recovere to the base, where KC-10 tankers are waiting with additional fuel and a reload of B-61 bombs and SRAM II missiles.

In central Alaska much of fighting has come to a halt for the winter. The flow of supplies to both American and Soviet forces has come to a crashing halt, victims of the vast distances and nuclear attacks on the homelands. Both sides find shelter, hoping that the fuel and food supplies on hand will be sufficient to last the winter. The commander of the 25th Corps in Anchorage, however, has other ideas. While the passes into British Columbia from the Alaskan ports seized in the fall have been closed by massive snow falls, the weather along the Alaskan coast east of Anchorage is more mild and Alaska's largest city offers reserves of supplies and wealth unheard of to most Soviet commanders. More importantly, the city's occupation force is composed of battle-hardened Arctic troops and Siberian natives, well adapted to fighting in the harsh winter conditions against an enemy that has likely grown complacent about the threat they are facing. Accordingly, he orders an offensive to drive the remannts of the 47th Infantry Division out of Alaska and launch a successful invasion of Yukon.

At RAF Alconbury, the 95th Reconnaissance Squadron, which operates TR-1 reconnaissance aircraft, assumes control of Detachment 1, 1st Reconnaissance Squadron at RAF Mildenhall as well as the detachment's two SR-71s.

RainbowSix reports a number of MP’s who had not been in London on Black Thursday are under military protection at various bases throughout the country (amongst this group is the Progressive Party’s George Graham). Parliament consists of just over forty MP’s and nearly thirty members of the House of Lords who survived the nuclear attacks and the chaos that followed (many by taking shelter at military bases). A number of MP’s and Peers who survived the nuclear exchanges remain elsewhere in the UK, either unable or unwilling to undertake the potentially hazardous journey to the south of England.

The destroyer USS Morton and container-barge carrier Harbin Carrier arrive off Manila, capital of the Philippines. Due to the unrest ashore following Soviet nuclear strikes the ships remain offshore. A long-range radio message directs the Morton to proceed to the AFRICOM area once it is able to secure additional fuel.

French and Belgian military units from their respective nations reach positions within 5 km of the frontier as darkness falls. The French III Corps has travelled through Belgium to line up along the Dutch border, augmented by French-speaking Belgian territorial troops. Units are issued live ammunition as deeper in France the troops of the 4th Airmobile and 11th Parachute Division are trucked to airfields in preparation for combat drops.

The Soviet 254th Motor-Rifle Division, a high quality unit exhausted by a year of hard combat in Romania, Austria and southern Germany, is withdrawn to Steyr, Austria for rest and to absorb what few replacement men and vehicles arrive in the region.

The light frigate USS Petit and its two charges make a safe passage through the minefields off the ruins of Gibraltar and proceed across the Mediterranean at 16 knots.

[chico20854]

January 1, 1998

France seizes the Rhineland west of the Rhine River from Germany and sends its III Corps alongside Belgian units into the Netherlands. The Dutch 302nd Infantry Brigade, a territorial unit holding the Breda-Tilburg area, is attacked by the French 8th Marine Parachute Regiment. The Dutch successfully defend their positions, while the Bundeswehr, with its efforts split between internal security/disaster relief duties and preparing for a counteroffensive in the south, offers less vigorous reistance. Unofficially, French progress is slow. While airborne and heliborne troops are successful in securing key chokepoints near the border, the roads are clogged with abandoned civilian vehicles and the advancing columns are mobbed by swarms of desperate refugees, who assail the advancing troops with requests for food. Armored units are able to deploy their tanks' dozer blades to clear roads, while other formations are forced to shuffle their engineer units to the front; units reliant on trucks or wheeled APCs make minimal forward progress through the morass of humanity.

NATO operations in the Mediterranean (competing with the French) are dependent on the last sizeable operating refinery in North Africa, at Bizerte, Tunisia.

The new year starts off with good news for the Americans in the Persian Gulf. 2/325th Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division makes contact with the forward outposts of the 48th Mechanized Infantry Brigade (Georgia National Guard). The American paratroopers are an incredible sight. Many of them are wearing a mixture of Kurdish clothing and US camouflage fatigues. The 82nd's commander, Major General Jack Joyner, rides out on horseback looking for all the world like a Kurdish hill chief.

The beginning of the year also sees the French FAR in action against pro-Soviet rebels in Senegal, Mauritania and the Horn of Africa.

Unofficially,

In a briefing about plans for 1998, the acting head of FEMA reveals the existence of the 37 strategic reserve stockpiles to President Munson. Given the quantities of food on hand, remaining electrical and petroleum production and security situation, Munson concurs with the recommendation not to reveal their existence to state authorities and local FEMA officials and to reevaluate the decision in the fall, when the food and other supplies in the caches might be more strategically directed. The stockpiles established and maintained separately by the state of Texas are broken open by their guard forces (dispersed platoons of the Texas State Guard and guards at state penitentaries) and used to sustain their ongoing operations.

In northern California, leaders of the Hells Angels and affiliated outlaw motorcycle clubs/gangs gather following the activation of the agreed-upon Plan Alpha worked out a year ago. Over 1500 members of the clubs, all heavily armed, have come together at a ranch owned by a club member just south of the Oregon border. A similar gathering is occurring in southeastern Ohio, despite the damage done by nuclear strikes on Ohio and Kentucky.

RainbowSix reports that Headquarters, US Naval Forces Europe (USNAVEUR) is reformed at the Royal Navy base in Portsmouth.

The Belgian Army's I Corps' two divisions make little progress on the first day of the invasion as they struggle in difficult terrain around Maastrcicht and Aachen, the corps' initial objective. While the Dutch resistance in the region is disorganized (Dutch forces largely consist of lightly equipped territorial security companies and platoons, which are highly motivated and able to take advantage of prepared defensive structures due to the former presence of NATO high command posts in the area). To their south, the French I Corps overruns Luxembourg, easily overwhelming the nub of the Luxembourgois Army that survived the previous year's action in Norway. The French II Corps' offensive moves north along the level terrain along the west bank of the Rhine, which has become crowded with makeshift refugee camps.

RainbowSix comments that while the British Ambassador in Paris protests the “act of unprovoked aggression”, the UK is in no position to offer more tangible support to either the Netherlands or Germany.

The remaining Red Army command staff at "Moscow Center" (actually a bunker outside the city) decide to call up the remaining mobilization-only divisions to combat the growing internal unrest and prepare for a final offensive that will wipe NATO forces from Western Europe. Making this happen, however, will prove challenging, to say the least.

[chico20854]

January 2, 1998

Rationing around the world becomes severe; many civilians perish in the winter.

Relations between the U.S. and France deteriorate. The U.S. government views the invasion of the Rhineland as self-aggrandizement at the expense of Germany. There is not much they can do about it, however, as all their available forces are tied down elsewhere.

Survivors of the 8th Marine Regiment are reformed in northern Germany and reunited with the 2nd Marine Division.

The 54th (my 108th) Motor-Rifle Division, a hardened, veteran division that has been at the core of the Group of Soviet Forces in Afghanistan (the remnant Soviet occupation force that remained behind when 40th Army entered Iran in early 1997), is ordered into Iran to shore up the crumbling Soviet position.

Unofficcially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship Lubbock Freedom is delivered in Galveston, Texas. The shipyard will struggle to complete another ship, but it is never delivered.

Elsewhere in the US, military production is slowly grinding to a halt as stocks of raw materials and parts run out, electricity fails as the grid remains down and backup generators fail or run dry and workers are evacuated or lost to civil unrest. Even when final production sites remain operational (such as the F-15 plant in St. Louis, Missouri), the breakdown of the transportation system and damage from the attacks on the US and subsequent disorder brings production to a halt, with the last F100-PW-229 engine delivered today.

In Anchorage, Alaska the troops of the Soviet 1st Arctic Mechanized Brigade and 13th Guards Air Assault Division move east, with the former unit's hovercraft escorting convoys of seized school and city transit busses carrying the paratroopers east of Valdez towards the Canadian border. The remnants of the 130th Air Assault Brigade establish a blocking position to prevent the American 2nd Infantry Brigade (Arctic Recon) at Fort Greely from cutting off the attacking force, while the 130th Motor-Rifle Division remains on occupation duty in Anchorage and along the road to the east.

The Dutch government informs SACEUR that it is wthdrawing all its forces in Germany, except for the 9th Marine Combat Group along the Baltic Coast, from NATO command and devoting them to home defense. SACEUR concurs and orders the release of sufficient fuel to fill the Dutch combat vehicles tanks for the trip home.

The Dutch I Leger Corps is ordered to return home to stop the French invasion; the 1st Mechanized Division is the first to move, having been held in a reserve position behind the lines as 4th US Army desperately casts about for replacement troops to hold the line.

In the Rhineland and Netherllands, the French and Belgian force is still bogged down. The airborne and air assault units that were dropped in the predawn hours of the 1st have not been relieved yet and find themselves beseiged by Dutch and German territorials and police determined to defend their homelands. The Belgian Army suffers considerable unrest within its own ranks as Dutch-speaking Flemish troops balk at fighting against their kinsmen. Poor weather overhead prevents the French Air Force from intervening, while the Dutch 302nd Territorial Brigade, facing the French 2nd Armored Division, actually increases in strength as scattered iindependent territorial and constabulary platoons arrive in the sector. The effort to seize the mouth of the Scheldt River fails spectacularly, as Dutch marines of the 2nd and 8th battalions repulse the French third-line 108th Infantry Divsion's ill-executed amphibious assault on the port of Vlissingen.

[chico20854]

January 3, 1998

The winter of 1997-98 is particularly cold. Civilian war casualties in the industrialized nations have reached almost 15%, although the worst is yet to come.

The California coast from Santa Barbara south has been devastated by the nuclear strikes, and the city of Los Angeles suffers most severely. Blast, radiation, and fire, combined with panic and disease, cause millions of casualties. The city has less than 20 percent of its prewar population remaining. The Bay area has also been devastated by nuclear strikes, but the presence of military forces in the region provide a modest level of organization.

In Maryland, the capital of Annapolis has been largely abandoned following is contamination with fallout from the Fort Meade attack and the relocation of the state government (such as it is) to Columbia (located between Baltimore and Washington).

The Dutch 101st Mechanized Brigade moves south from the Leeuwarden area to reinforce territorial troops. The Dutch 302nd Infantry Brigade repulses another attack by French paratroops of the 8th Marine Parachite Regiment in the Breda-Tilburg area as they try to break out and join the (very slowly-advancing) French armored force. Frogmen from the Dutch 2nd Amphibious Combat Group sink the French frigate Balny as it anchors off Vlissingen in the pre-dawn hours blocking Dutch naval intervention and standing by to offer fire support to French troops.

With the the linkup between the 82nd Airborne Division and the rest of XVIII Airborne Corps completed, both the 82nd and 24th ID and their Kurdish auxiliaries begin an orderly withdrawal back to the Bandar-e-Khomeyni area.

Unofficially,

The last planeload of replacements departs Fort Jackson, South Carolina for service in Europe. The base's training brigades are devoting increasing amounts of efforts to assisting the state government in maintaining order, distributing food and organizing relief following the Soviet nuclear strikes on Charleston and the base commander judges that he cannot afford to lose trained and ready troops when his situation is so severe. Reinforcing this bias, his higher authorities (Training and Doctrine Command and 2nd US Army) had both been struck in Soviet nuclear strikes, as had Transportation Command and Military Airlift Command, the authorities responsible for arranging for reinforcement flights. Finally, Shaw Air Force Base, from which the flight departs, has limited amounts of fuel remaining in its tank farm and the base commander has been ordered to conseserve it for that base's tanker fleet, which is tasked to support nuclear strike operations. The move strands several requisitioned airlines at the base.

In Alaska, the Soviet 130th Air Assault Brigade (reduced to a single battalion of hardened troops) occupies a blocking position north of the hamlet (and road junction) of Gakona, Alaska, preventing the American force at Fort Greely from cutting the supply line of the 13th Guards Air Assault Division and 1st Arctic Mechanized Brigade, which are continuing to advance northeast along Highway 1.

HM Government authorizes a roundup of known Soviet agents and sympathizers, determined to limit internal dissent that could hamper the already extremely diffcult relief effort in the nation.

7th Fleet is able to direct the oiler USNS Neosho to the South China Sea, where it rendevous with the destroyer USS Morton and the cruiser USS Sterett and refuels both ships before turning north, accompanied by the cruiser while the Morton makes her way to the Indian Ocean.

The Dutch royal family accepts the British government's offer to evacuate their home as rumors fly of French military intelligence and special forces teams roaming the country seeking them out. A Royal Navy Sea King helicopter extracts them, flying at low level over the dark North Sea.

French and Belgian troops encounter an obstacle that their commanders had not adequately considered - British, Canadian and American rear area facilities, air bases and storage sites. Many of the air bases have been struck (some multiple times) by Soviet nuclear weapons and are nearly abandoned, while others (such as Ramstein) are fully operational, guarded by German territorials and USAF security troops and harbor American tactical nuclear weapons. In there areas an informal truce prevails, with the Franco-Belgian units giving these sites wide berth and avoiding any engagemnet with their defenders. The commander of the French 1st Army, General Francois Bescond, reaches out to SACEUR, a well-respected colleague from prewar days. After a "heated and frank" discussion between the two commanders, an agreement is reached. After the French forces have reached the Rhine River, they will offer all assistance to all bypassed NATO personnel, regardless of nationality, to evacuate the zone. The generals agree upon a 1-km exclusion zone around all American, British and Canadian facilities and, in exchange for non-belligerence from the troops at these facilities, the immediate provision of adequate food and fuel to sustain them until they have been evacuated. The two generals also agree that they will support NATO proposals for the provision of covert French and Belgian logistic support to the war effort, including food, fuel, electricity and munitions, in quantities to be agreed upon by the diplomats and intelligence agencies. While the French general was later criticized for accepting such terms, Bescond responded that the British and Americans still retained tens of thousands of nuclear warheads and that what was later perceived as a bad deal was vastly preferable to the elimination of the French nation by its ertswhile allies.

The stripping of the USS America is completed and Sixth Fleet transfers the remaining shoreside spares and supplies to the newly arrived freighter Wolman Expert, while the remaining American and Allied personnel begin to collapse the area of Sicily under NATO control. The troop transport Barrett arrives with the Expert (both escorted by the light frigate USS Petit) to take aboard passengers.

The crew of the full-rigged ship Iron Duke (formerly the property of the late eccentrick rock star Ted Hendrix) arrive in St. John, US Virgin Islands and seek shelter from the war there.

[chico20854]

January 4, 1998

As relocation and disorder continue in the US, city dwellers flee to the country and the country folk are not prepared to deal with what rapidly comes to seem to them as an invasion. Initial efforts of humanity and goodwill toward the victims of a nuclear attack rapidly turn into a grim battle of survival between seemingly endless mobs of refugees and the embattled farmers trying to save their food crops, then their seed crops, and finally themselves and their families from the ravaging deprivations of hungry, cold and desperate city folk. Northern Ohio has been severely depopulated by the nuclear strikes on the cities of Lima and Toledo and the fallout from the Michigan and Canadian nuclear strikes. Most of the population of the large urban centers of Ohio flee to the rural areas without encouragement by the relocation orders.

Even with all the goodwill and humanitarian intentions in the world, nothing could have prevented much of the suffering of the winter of 1997-1998. In Florida, there were just too many people and not enough of anything else. Left to freeze in the dark, New England's urban populace began a blind search for warmth and food. More than ten million people began descending on the farms and picturesque towns in the countryside. Hundreds of thousands died each month of illness, hunger or winter exposure. Thousands more died each day in the fighting that erupted as the farmers and citizens of the towns tried to stop the locust-like approach of the urban refugees. Even when there were surplus foodstuffs, the resources could not be delivered to where they were needed most; no communications network existed to identify stocks, and no effective central authority remained to coordinate the relief effort.

Unfortunately, there was more than enough evil, malicious and deliberately criminal misconduct, misinformation, and out-and-out disinformation circulating to compound the horror beyond any hope of retrieval by men of goodwill.

The fires and destruction in the US caused by the bombs are gradually brought under control, and governmental control of most urban areas is slowly regained (although some cities, like Boston, are never really brought back to order after the strikes). Civil unrest in New England has settled down as it becomes clear that New England is not to be a target. Only extreme measures bring back a semblance of order to New York City. Millions have died in New York City during and after the nuclear attacks and millions more have fled. Because of the damaged transportation network and the lack of fuel, there are minor distribution inequalities and some civil discontent, but little out-and-out rioting.

The American harvest of 1997 was larger than average, but it is not evenly distributed through the country. Most of it is still in silos and elevators in the Midwest. The large harvest had driven commodities prices down, and many farmers have withheld part of their harvest in hopes of getting higher prices later in the year. Theoretically, this grain is also subject to rationing, but there is a great deal of concealment in on-farm storage bins by individual farmers. Fuel is also hoarded, although both of these actions are illegal.

The mayor of Aldergrove, BC, Walter Rousseau, with support from local RCMP members, assumes dictatorial powers over the town.

One of the Atlantic fleet's last operable nuclear attack submarines, the USS Newport News, surrenders her berth and heads back to sea, leaving New London for the last time.

Unofficially,

The container-barge carrier Kirin Carrier is delivered in Mobile, Alabama. It, like its sister delivered a week and a half prior, is taken over by the US government. This marks the end of new ship construction in Quincy.

Paratroops of the 13th Guards Air Assault Division fall upon the lightly held outpost line of the 1st Brigade, 47th Infantry Division's 1st Battalion, 168th Infantry (Iowa National Guard) in a driving snowstorm, driving the startled guardsmen from their positions into the snow.

In northern California, members of the Hells Angels biker gang knock out the power to the Pelican Bay State Penitentiary with well-aimed rifle fire, then descend on the prison. The prison's guard force, understrength due to the draft and desertion in the weeks since the nuclear attacks, is oriented against threats from inside the prison, and within 15 minutes the bikers have captured the prison's command center (assisted by liberal application of demolitions against barriers and heavy steel doors). The bikers release the inmates within; their members and other prisoners that have a biker vouch for them remain at the heavily protected facility. The Hells Angels have gained a hardened facility and over 300 additional recruits.

More French and Belgian units arrive in southern Holland, linking up with the previously isolated French 8th Marine Parachute Regiment. The Dutch territorials of the 302nd Infantry Brigade have expended their remaining artillery ammunition and anti-tank weapons (mostly 1950-vintage M20 3.5-inch Super Bazooka rounds, everything more modern long ago sent to fight the Soviets). They begin retreating to the northwest as engineer parties complete the opening of dykes and irrigation systems, turning the low-lying polder into freezing swampland.

To the east, the 101st Mechanized Brigade arrives in Eindhoven from the Leeuwarden area minutes before the lead Scimitar and Scorpion light tanks of the Belgian 4th Regiment of Chasseurs à Cheval, the lead reconnaissance element of the Belgian I Corps. (The Belgian Corps has split, with the main body heading up the Meuse valley and a secondary effort headed for Dusseldorf on the Rhine). The French II Corps has overrun the final organized elements of the German territorial 45th Grenadier Regiment and reached the Rhine opposite Wiesbaden, leaving several large American garrisons isolated. In the center of the Franco-Belgian effort, I French Corps has brushed aside the remnants of the territorial 42nd and 46th Grenadier Regiments and advanced, despite the efforts of the various German obstacle detachments, past the exclusion zones surrounding Spangdahlem and Bitburg Air Bases where they are held up by a scratch force of Luftwaffe trainees at Ulmen.

[chico20854]

January 5, 1998

The unusually harsh winter which followed the nuclear exchange compound the real problems Florida faces a hundred-fold, and finally this constant and effective hate campaign smashes the floodgates of insanity. The attempts by what remains of the civil and military authorities to keep a lid on things fail dismally. A war of extermination begins to be waged across what could have been a semitropical garden of Eden. The resulting hysteria makes it an absolute risk to one's life to admit even knowing someone from Tampa or any of the other stricken communities within the state. People are pulled out of cars on the highway and lynched by fear-crazed mobs because they have automobile tags that had been originally issued in Hillsborough County. Others are summarily shot for the crime of having been born in one of the stricken zones. Wild rumors fly about stating that this or that innocent and unsuspecting community is a radiation "hot spot" and that those coming from such places bring the unseen and undetectable "germs" of radiation poisoning with them to contaminate places not yet stricken. Within a week the population of Tampa has plummeted to less than 10 percent of its prewar total. Within a month the city is a virtual ghost town, and the survivors are being hunted and harried over the countryside.

The main actors in this communal bloodbath include not only the displaced criminal elements of the big city, but also ordinary urban dwellers - mothers and fathers with children to feed and somehow protect from the freezing rains and unchecked diseases. Millions of these people battle a relative handful of farmers trying to save their own livelihoods and the lives of their own wives and children. Even without the artificially stirred-up hatreds, the twin scourges of disease and famine are hard at work winnowing the dead chaff from the few survivors. The harsh winter brings other dislocated and hungry people down into the zone of darkness and blood. Armed marauder bands spread chaos and destruction and waste more than they took.

Soviet troops cross the border from Alaska into Yukon Territory, able to mass sufficient firepower to overrun the scattered outposts of the 47th Infantry Division. Supplies begin to run low, however, as the distances increase and the winter weather takes a toll on the requisitioned civilian vehicles the Soviet troops are relying on for mobility.

The nuclear attacks force an abandonment of the effort reactivate the 106th Infantry Division. Only the 422nd Infantry Regiment, formed in early 1997 from reservists and draftees, constituting three battalions of the 422nd and two batteries of the 591st Field Artillery, has been fully trained and equipped.

As the nuclear exchange peters out and the home situation deteriorates, a number of British battalions are sent from Germany to England to help enforce martial law.

KGB Colonel Borisov, living off the British countryside during the winter, is one of the few agents not rounded up during the army's purge of known Soviet agents.

Unofficially,

A patrol of the 78th Training Division in Trenton, New Jersey, is unexpectantly engaged in a firefight when they stumble across an organized group of looters who have just finished sacking a neighborhood which the division's troops had just finished evacuating two days before. The poorly trained troops (most have completed basic training but not their advanced skill training, led by their training company's admin clerk) lose three men and are unsuccesful in preventing the looters from escaping.

The Belgian 16th Mechanized Division's 10th Mechanized Brigade engages the Dutch 101st Mechanized Brigade on the southern outskirts of Eindhoven. The Dutch fall back and the Belgian division's 17th Armored Brigade comes swooping in from the east, the guns of their Leopard Is inflicting havoc on the hapless Dutch reservists. The command falls apart, with bands of men drifting away to the north. The lead units of the Dutch I Corps cross the Waal and Meuse between 's-Hertogenbosch and Nijmegen. The French III Corps' 2nd and 10th Armored Divisions (each with about half the troops and firepower of an equivalent prewar NATO division) clear the towns of Breda and Tilburg, respectively, and clear the continued resistance of territorials, reservists and constabulary troops that offer scattered resistance south of the Rhine. The Luftwaffe recruit detachment at Ulmen sustains a day of furious French artillery fire and several dismounted infantry attacks, turning each back in turn. In the far west, the Dutch defense of Vlissingen comes to an end as the defending marines and territorials come under attack from land and sea; after darkness falls the remains of the Dutch 2nd Marine Amphibious Combat Group slip out of the burning city aboard a fleet of small craft, intent on waging a continuing guerrilla campaign against the occupying Belgian and French troops.

Massive fires light the night sky over Sigonella, Sicily as the final American and Allied personnel evacuate the naval base and adjacent airfield. The departing troops burn the repair facilities, headquarters, barracks, warehouses, create craters in the airfield's runway and taxiways, collapse aircraft shelters and, the action that hurts the American sailors the most, set the damaged carrier USS America ablaze.

The Coast Guard medium-endurance cutter Thetis arrives at Diego Garcia, which was struck by a pair of Soviet nuclear missiles 30 days prior. The ship launches its helicopter for an aerial survey of the damage, conducting a radiological survey (what little residual radiation from the 200-kiloton airbursts has largely dispersed by trade winds and tides in the month since the attack) and identifying sunken obstacles to navigation in the atoll's lagoon.

[chico20854]

January 6, 1998

The first pitched battle between local landowners and refugees is fought at a large refugee camp outside Butler, Pennsylvania (near Pittsburgh).

Since certain zoo animals - the large carnivores particularly - represented a danger to humans, zoo officials were ordered by local governments and by military authorities to destroy them in the event of a nuclear attack. Not all of the dangerous animals are killed, however. In the chaos following the nuclear attack, many zookeepers die or flee before they could carry out their duties. Others release favorite animals rather than kill them. Some people release animals en masse, believing that all living creatures deserve a fair chance. Some animals become desperate for food and water and break out when their keepers no longer come. The animals which are released or escape meet various fates. Most die, temperamentally unsuited to life on their own. Many are killed for food or because they are obviously dangerous. Others die in the harsh winter weather after the attacks, and a few manage to escape the cities completely.

By this point, many people who are in an American undamaged city are reluctant to simply pick up and leave. Conditions are still not too bad over most of the nation, and nobody wants to desert the security of their homes and possessions (relocatees are only allowed 50 kilograms of baggage) to go to some unspecified place in the country. The relocation buses, trains, and boats become increasingly difficult to fill. Rumors of what happens to relocatees when they arrive do not help matters. Rural communities are unwilling to have large numbers of outsiders forced upon them. There are shortages of just about everything, and the "relokies," as they are called, are subject to almost constant hostility from the local populace.

Conditions continue to deteriorate across the United States. Rural Americans are not happy to have untold thousands of homeless hungry urbanites thrust upon them, and violence flares against the refugees in many places. More often, a rural community accepts its quota of refugees, then turns them out when the troops had left. It is not surprising that a sizable number of "relokies" chose to leave at the first opportunity.

A number of British ports remain functional, most notably Margate in northern Kent and Portsmouth in Hampshire. Anglesey becomes a haven for surviving British forces in Wales as it is physically untouched by the war and is naturally easy to defend.

The Dutch 5th Mechanized Division is hit hard by French airstrikes in the vicinity of Nijmegen as it closes on the town of Eindhoven in an attempt to halt the advancing Belgians.

Unofficially,

Turmoil roils the high level of NATO command as the alliance struggles to respond to the French invasion of Germany and the Netherlands. The Dutch and German military commands (which are effectively their national governments in the wake of the nuclear devestation of their homelands) are livid with SACEUR for his deal with the French that essentially yields their territory without bringing the full military might of the alliance to bear to stop the invasion. SACEUR replies that the deal is the least bad option and that it at least will yield some compensation from the French while simultaneously relieving the respective governments of the responsibility for sustaining the refugees in the territory (he had demanded that there be no expulsions of population by the French and Belgian authorities). Pointing to the dire condition of NATO combat forces at the front, SACEUR has no non-nuclear means available to halt the French agression, as pulling troops from the line or allocating additional scarce resources will leave the front against the Soviets dangerously vulnerable. The German command grudgingly accepts this statement, noting that it has been unable to divert significant resources to defending the territory, other than cancelling the planned offensive against the Czechs and Soviets in the Hof-Nuremburg-Regensburg area.

The Belgian air force's F-16 fleet is grounded as the clear skies over the front allow the remaining Dutch F-16s to make an appearance overhead; the Franco-Belgian command fears fratricide as well as wanting to preserve the limited supply of spare parts and munitions for the fighters. The Dutch 1st Mechanized Division, hardened veterans after a year of action and the Czechs, Soviets and Italians, tear into the French 5e Régiment d'Infanterie, part of the 2nd Armored Division, southwest of 's-Hertogenbosch. The French combined-arms battalion is strung out along the highway through flooded fields, where the guns of the remaining Dutch Leopard II's are able to wreak the French column. Dutch MLRS rockets of the 101st Artillery Group sow submunitions among the column and the road behind it, preventing reinforcements from hurrying to the rescue.

In Germany, the Luftwaffe training unit is finally blasted out of its positions outside Ulmen as the French commit the 4th Airmobile Division to leapfrog the blocking position and direct precision fires against the German positions.

RainbowSix reports that HM Government is preparing an assessment of surviving facilities. One is the Hamworthy refinery located close to the Port of Poole. The refinery had suffered particularly heavy damage during a series of concentrated raids in August 1997 that forced it to shut down whilst the damage was repaired. The British Government managed to successfully fool the Soviets into thinking that their airstrikes had destroyed the facility when MI5 arranged for false documents to be passed to a known Soviet agent. The ruse worked and the refinery was spared a Soviet nuclear warhead.

The Freedom-class cargo ship Buffalo Freedom is delivered in San Diego, California.

The Aegis cruiser USS Vincennes is sunk by four 65-76 torpedoes fired by the Victor III-class submarine 60 Let Shefstva VLKSM 325nm NNW of Ascension Island while on an voyage to secure supplies of food from Argentina.

The USCG cutter Thetis lands its assessment team on Diego Garcia. While the overpressure and heat from the blasts stripped the occupied area of the island of vegetation and destroyed all unhardened structures in the central part of the base area, it left the airbase's twin 12,000-foot runways intact and several secondary underground faciltiies (overflow fuel tanks and such) intact, as well as the extensive magazine complex, space observation station and communications facility several kilometers away on the remote southern end of the island.

[chico20854]

January 7, 1998

Although Chicago itself was not a target, the oil refineries at Joliet were, and this is enough to panic the population of the city and surrounding suburbs. Food shortages are not severe except in large urban areas, and most deaths are caused by epidemics and rioting.

A mass prison break from Matsqui Penitentiary in British Columbia, orchestrated by Tom "Fang" Strakes occurs. Most prisoners disperse into the countryside south of the Frasier River, but some remain and form the Razorheads marauder gang.

Anglia has escaped damage during the first nuclear exchange, which attracts many refugees to the area. The local population resists this invasion, and open warfare erupts. Some towns manage to force back the refugees, but in the majority of cases, sheer weight of numbers win the battle. When the refugees get into the towns, they find that the situation is not as good as they had been led to believe and fighting for the few good spots breaks out among the refugee groups. The fighting dies down as winter approaches.

The Dutch 105th Recon Battalion inflicts heavy casualties on the Belgian 7th Mechanized Brigade on the approaches to Arnhem.

Konstantin P. Yermolaev, commander of the 10th Guards Motor-Rifle Division, is promoted to Major General in Iran.

Unofficially

The 49th Armored Division struggles under the burden of trying to secure one of America's largest cities and is forced to cede control of some areas (most notably the remnants of Chicago's South Side) to the armed gangs that have threatened food and fuel convoys, requiring more resources to escort than the divisional commander has.

In order to conserve fuel, the destroyer Morton is travelling alone at 12 knots through Indonesian waters. (The ship's bunkers don't carry enough fuel for the 5500-mile voyage at the usual cruising speed of 17 knots, and refueling is unlikely along the way). The warship is approached at dawn by a small flotilla of armed small craft (the largest is an 8-meter customs boat mounting a 20mm cannon), who approach the destroyer despite radio calls to keep a distance. Soon a surface action has erupted, the destroyer using one of its 5-inch main guns to blast the customs boat out of the water and deck mounted 25mm cannons and machineguns to drive off the smaller craft.

The Dutch 5th Mechanized Division (in reality less than a brigade in strength after the attrition of the German campaign of 1997 and the prior day's French airstrikes) tries to hold the advancing Belgians from entering Nijmegen, but short of fuel and ammunition, is forced to displace, leaving many of its remaining vehicles behind, their gas tanks empty. To the west, the 1st Mechanized Division fights another sharp engagement against the invading French, launching another flank attack, this one on the 8th Infantry Division's 67e Régiment d'Infanterie; the French motorized infantry unit's VAB armored cars proving exceedingly vulnerable to fire from Dutch APCs and AIFVs emplaced in the engineer training center at Vught outside 's-Hertenbosch.

On the German front, Belgian reconnaissance units have reached the Rhine opposite Duisburg, halting while German territorials destroy the road and rail bridges over the Rhine. The French II Corps resumes its drive north along the banks of the Rhine, creating a large pocket of disorganized German troops and tens of thousands of displaced civilians sheltering in and near the cluster of American installations in Baumholder.

At Diego Garcia, a team from the USCG's cutter Thetis continues its survey of the lagoon's anchorage. One pier is blocked by the sunken Cypriot freighter Ever Happy, as are three of the atoll's 20 dredged anchorage sites. The team ashore, haven broken into one of the explosives magazines, reports that there likely are several hundred tons of iron bombs present but that the airfield facilities (hangars, landing aids, fuel pipeline system, power, water and accommodations) are all destroyed beyond repair. Tactical or field-expedient systems will be needed to restore the base to operations, limited by the capabilities of those systems.

[chico20854]

January 8, 1998

The 49th Armored Division, which has been deployed in a disaster relief and emergency security role in the northern Illinois and Indiana area, is moved out of the Chicago metropolitan area. The division's 1st Brigade moves to Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, 2nd Brigade to Camp Atterbury, Indiana, and 3rd Brigade and division headquarters to Springfield, Illinois. Likewise, the 46th Infantry Division is deployed on a variety of security and disaster relief missions along the eastern seaboard. Also leaving the Chicago area is the 35th Engineer Brigade (Combat), which moves into downstate Illinois to secure the energy resources there (oil fields, coal mines, the Robinson and Mount Vernon refineries) and food reserves of the region's bountiful farms. In Texas, a Navy salvage expedition withdraws the remaining operable aircraft from the lightly-damaged Corpus Christi Naval Air Station to the (unofficially) Memphis Naval Air Station.

The Dutch high command orders the remnants of the 5th Mechanized Division withdrawn across the Rhine for reconstruction. The Dutch 105th Recon Battalion is forced back to the Rhine from its defense of Arnhem. As it falls back, the advancing French and Belgian troops are engaged by the Dutch 4th Mechanized Division in a classic meeting engagement.

Unofficially,

The 1st Armored Brigade (Training) halts training at Fort Knox, Kentucky and dedicates all resources towards accommodating the over 100,000 refugees seeking shelter on and around the base.

The destroyer USS Morton is once again approached by pirates in Indonesian waters. Once again the crew is forced to open fire to drive off the attackers.

To the west, the 1st Mechanized Division is under pressure in 's-Hertenbosch as the French III Corps (provided with abundant air support by the French Air Force and the Mirage 5s of the Belgian Air Force) has massed troops on all the approaches to the city. The 101st Artillery Group fires its last two Lance missiles at logistic sites in northern Belgium. (The missiles are conventional cluster munitions, their American nuclear weapon custodial units having remained behind in southern Germany when I Dutch Corps displaced).

French and Belgian troops are busy establishing occupation authorities in the Dutch provinces of Zeeland and Limburg and the areas of Brabant that they control, as they are as well in areas in Germany that they control.

The campaign in Germany is winding down as remaining German troops are either defeated or withdraw across the Rhine. French field commanders grow increasingly irritated with the restrictions on their operations imposed by the presence of (mostly) American garrisons and the attendant exclusion zones, as well as the demand that they restore electrical power and water to the bases, with requirements for food and fuel still being developed by the isolated American commanders.

With winter weather arriving, the Danish containership Susan Mae weighs anchor from the New York Bight and sails around Long Island, seeking shelter in Long Island Sound.

In Iran, the units of XVIII Airborne Corps and III MEF begin falling back into the Zagros Mountains following the success of Operation Pegasus II. The move frees up several infantry battalions for duty securing the supply lines and rear areas, which have grown increasingly chaotic as various armed bands of deserters, smugglers, bandits and enemy special operations teams seek to eke out an existence preying on the civilian population and military traffic in the allied area of control. To their north and east, Transcaucasian Front is in no condition to occupy the territory evacuated, starved of supplies and replacements; Soviet commanders devote their efforts to securing food and fuel for their units and trying to prevent desertion from wearing their units down past the point of ineffectiveness.

STAVKA (or the remnants thereof) orders the deployment of the 260th Motor-Rifle Division in the Ural Military District. The mobilization-only division, located at Shadrinsk on the steppes of Siberia, has been forming since July, although other divisions were higher priority in receiving men and equipment. In fact, the declaration is more a reflection of the dire circumstances of the Soviet government than of the division’s condition, but nonetheless the division takes responsibility for maintaining order in its area of the country.

[chico20854]

January 9, 1998

In New York City, grocery stores, convenience stores, drug stores, liquor stores, gun stores, jewelry stores, electronics stores, waterfront warehouses, gas stations, apartments more or less easily accessible from the street-these and countless other possible sources of salvageable items are emptied. Another waterborne gang is formed. The Ferrymen are under the leadership of Cap Winston, a longshoreman who seizes control of a Staten Island ferry, securing the fuel already aboard and a small store ashore.

Unofficially,

The West Point student body and cadre is designated the 1st Cadet Brigade and assigned internal security and disaster relief duties as streams of refugees continue to travel up the Hudson River Valley.

In a bid to prevent the British from using its output, the Whitegate Oil Refinery in Cork, Ireland, the nation's sole refinery, in peacetime producing over 40 percent of its fuel, is hit by a Soviet SS-C-4 cruise missile fired by the 101st Missile Regiment, 44th Missile Division in the western Ukraine. (The missile flight is noted by NATO air defense radars as it passes overhead at low level, but commanders are unable to successfully engage it, such is the shortage of missiles and poor state of the C3I network).

Another day of heavy fighting rages in southern Holland as the French III Corps faces off against the Dutch I Corps. The veteran Dutch troops are running low on supplies, while the lavishly-supplied French troops are exploiting the lessons they have learned at such great cost over the preceding week. Outside Arnhem, the 4th Mechanized Division is engaged in heavy fighting against French armored units as the Belgians are shunted aside, while the 1st Mechanized Division (reinforced with the 103rd Recon Battalion) holds onto 's-Hertenbosch despite intense French bombardment.

Tension in the Romanian city of Târgu Mureș is steadily rising as the local population, already hostile (as most loyal Romanians are), grows increasingly irate at the failure of the Soviet occupation force (built around the 146th Motor-Rifle Division) to provide either security, food or fuel, instead hoarding what little is available in the harsh post-exchange environment for itself. A demonstration outside the division headquarters, which quickly escalates to scuffles with the headquarters guard, is broken up with gunfire ordered by the panicked senior lieutenant on duty.

[chico20854]

January 10, 1998

The Special Facility at Mount Weather is abandoned for other, more secure locations within the so-called Federal Relocation Arc, an area within a 100-mile radius of Washington, DC. The Charters of Freedom (the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights) are sealed in a deep secure vault under the facility, which retains a small security and caretaker staff.

UBF leader John Carlucci receives word that his wife, Tamara, last reported in Boston, likely became a casualty of the disorder.

Unofficially,

As Dutch lines begin to give way after another sleepless night under unrelenting French artillery fire, the Dutch high command reluctantly orders the abandonment of the positions south of the Rhine. The 1st Mechanized Division crosses into the Utrecht area, while the 4th Mechanized withdraws into the ruins of the city of Arnhem, destroyed in battle for the second time in the 20th Century.

XI US Corps consolidates its surviving corps-level artillery systems and soldiers into the 151st Field Artillery Brigade, disbanding the 45th Field Artillery Brigade, whose remaining guns and gunners go to the 151st and excess command and support personnel are assigned to other XI Corps units.

The remaining five F-16s of the Dutch Air Force are evacuated to British RAF bases in East Anglia.

Local resistance leaders (the ethnic Romanian remnants of the former city and military administration) in the Romanian city of Târgu Mureș organize a blockade of the Soviet 146th Motor-Rifle Division's headquarters in the city's historic medieval citadel. The city's local Hungarian minority is less hostile to the Soviets, although sharing the Romanian's outrage at the lack of food and fuel in the harsh Balkan winter. Lone Soviet soldiers are kidnapped and killed, lone vehicles attacked and columns of vehicles foolish enough to venture through the city after dark are ambushed.

[chico20854]

January 11, 1998

As the battered and bruised attack submarine USS City of Corpus Christi remains in drydock, the remaining powers that be in the US Navy decide that, while she is badly needed at sea, she is due for a reactor overhaul. The remaining shipyard workers begin to amass the material needed for the job.

Colonel Alfred White (US Army, Ret.) repeats his offer to form a volunteer combat unit formed from WW II re-enactor groups and civilian military vehicle collectors. When he previous offered the unit to the military in early 1997, he was rejected out of hand. Now, after the Thanksgiving Day massacre and the losses worldwide as the war went nuclear, his offer is accepted. He begins to rally his volunteers and their vehicles at the now-emptied Savannah Army Depot on the banks of the Mississippi in northwestern Illinois.

Opposite French forces in Germany, refugees pile up on the French and Belgian frontiers, a large lawless zone springs into existence. Open fighting for food is followed by mass starvation and disease, until the lawless zone has become barren and empty.

Unofficially,

The 199th Infantry Brigade is ordered, ready or not, to Korea from Hawaii to reinforce Eighth Army.

RainbowSix reports that the region of the Welsh border counties of Shropshire, Hereford and Worcester is caught between two waves of large scale refugee movements as people pour out of the cities of the West Midlands and South Wales seeking the perceived safety of the countryside, leading to a number of clashes between locals and refugees. To the west, North Wales has escaped any direct damage from the nuclear attack on Britain, although the eastern regions are very close to the heavily populated north west of England which was heavily damaged by the nuclear detonations. The mass influx of refugees and marauding gangs from England prompts the formation of the Welsh Assembly Government (in Welsh Llywodraeth Cynulliad Cymru or LCC) after parts of North Wales are overrun by marauding gangs from England. GDW reports that the Welsh Nationalist Party takes advantage of the chaos to seize control of the country.

Fighting south of the Rhine in the Netherlands comes to a halt with the withdrawal of the last Dutch combat formations, although occupation forces are frequently engaged by holdouts and stragglers as an active resistance network begins to form. French reconnaissance units approach Utrecht but are halted by Dutch roadblocks; the commander of III French Corps orders that they hold their position. (The recon troops had advanced to determine the status of Dutch military forces north of the river in case French and Belgian units would need to secure the opposite shore of the river to prevent infiltration of refugees; the presence of Dutch troops indicates that the Dutch government retains active control of the region).

[chico20854]

January 12, 1998

In Pittsburgh, many who had fled the city have returned. The city has not been nuked yet… and the winter is cold, and the residents of surrounding rural communities are unenthusiastic in their reception of urban refugees. To the east, many of those trapped in the crossroads of Breezewood, Pennsylvania die fighting over remaining reserves of gasoline and food, and others manage to escape to other areas. The survivors are soon joined by refugees coming east from New Jersey and New York, seeking safety in the mountains. The large number of empty motel rooms, though lacking heat or electricity or even running water, provide the beginnings of a refugee city with a population of well over 5,000.

The Canadian 4th Mechanized Brigade (my 1st Division) is transferred from command of the US V Corps to the US XI Corps when V Corps is moved to occupation duty in central Germany.

Unofficially,

Ellsworth Air Force Base is abandoned, six weeks after it was struck by Soviet ICBMs. The remaining Security Police begin an epic midwinter trek across the frozen plains guarding several heavily loaded trucks that contain the assembled nuclear warheads from the base's missiles and remaining bombs from the munitions bunkers. The convoy is headed for Colorado Springs, Colorado.

In Atlanta a rumor spreads that CNN has been operating thanks to a large cache of food and fuel hidden in the network headquarters' basement. A crowd of 30,000 desperate people soon gathers and overruns the building, ending American TV broadcasting for several years.

NATO naval commanders in Europe, facing a severe lack of fuel for their combatants and a collapse of the worldwide trading system, organize the layup of much of the shipping in the North Sea. Idle ships have begun to clog the few remaining intact ports, crews have started to abandon their vessels and there are more cargo ships available than there is cargo for them. Facing harsh winter weather, several convoys are organized to remote anchorages in Norwegian fjords and sheltered harbors along the British coast.

[chico20854]

January 13, 1998

The destruction of Toledo and Lima in Ohio in December triggered a vast migration east from Cleveland, Akron, and Columbus. These refugees avoid Pittsburgh itself, fearful of another escalation in the continuing nuclear exchange, but vast refugee camps grow up in smaller towns throughout the region between the Allegheny Mountains, Lake Erie, and the Ohio Border. Refugee camps are established outside many of the towns and cities in the region, especially in such transportation centers as New Castle, Butler, the towns along the Ohio River, and, once fear of further nuclear attacks had receded, near Pittsburgh. The relatively small populations of the smaller towns are rapidly overwhelmed in numbers and in political power by the refugees, and Pittsburgh, partly depopulated during the chaotic weeks following the nuclear attacks, is overrun by them. Refugee migrations from the west enter Beaver County along the Pennsylvania Turnpike and from the area around New Castle to the north. Large numbers have already crossed the Ohio River and settled around Aliquippa and in Raccoon Creek State Park. In Washington County to the south, citizens alarmed at the influx of refugees and by reports of what is happening north of Pittsburgh, form a self-defense militia.

Unofficially,

As a result of the harsh words and clashing visions between USCG Commandant Holsbirger and First Maritime Defense District Commander Scott MacDowell, MacDowell begins developing a plan to use his remaining forces to maintain control of two facilities he believes are absolutely critical to the future of the Navy and Coast Guard: Portsmouth Naval Yard and Bath Iron Works. At the same time, MacDowell intends to provide security and support for the fishing fleets operating out of Maine, New Hampshire, and northern Massachusetts. Holsbirger can take care of the fishing fleets operating out of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and points south with his own ships and people.

With the fighting in the Rhine wound down, French and NATO authorities meet to make arrangement for the repatriation of Allied forces and the evacuation of facilities from the occupied zone. The burden of supporting the effort is to fall solely upon the French and Belgian governments, which begin mobilizing civilian trucking and rail assets as Army and Air Force engineers work to clear and improve transit routes. The first shipment of foodstuffs are delivered to the USAF Ramstein Air Base, which hosts over 2500 American airmen and soldiers and 15,000 refugees. The DIA Amsterdam station chief travels to Paris to meet with DGSE officials to hammer out the details of the larger assistance package agreed to by SACEUR and French commanders; the American ambassador in Paris implores the General not to refer to the package as "reparations".

[chico20854]

January 14, 1998

The northern gulf coast of Texas has been devastated in the nuclear attacks, along with most of the population of the metropolitan areas of Houston and Galveston (as well as the urban centers of Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio and El Paso further inland). Thomas J. Kingsly, owner of a marina in Galveston, who also smuggled drugs - mostly marijuana and cocaine - up and down the Intracoastal Waterway in small craft and excursion boats, has escaped the nuking of Galveston-Houston and comes to live with his brother “Texas Bill” Kingsley on their father’s horse-raising ranch in Jackson County at the head of Lavaca Bay.

The final German Army unit in southwestern Poland, the 28th Panzergrenadier Division, crosses the Neisse River into Gorlitz, Germany. The unit distinguished itself in the long months since it fought in Ukraine, responsible for the destruction of four Pact divisions during the retreat.

The 76th Guards Air Assault Division is called back to the Leningrad area to perform local security duties.

Unofficially,

The first convoy of excess ships in the North Sea departs the region off Bremerhaven. Consisting of 26 ships, it moves out at 8 knots (to conserve fuel), escorted by the Danish corvette Beskytteren. Four of the ships are under tow, already stripped of excess fuel and stores and somewhat readied for long-term storage.

Pro-NATO guerrillas in northern Iran note the passage of the 54th (my 108th) Motor-Rifle Division from Afghanistan into Iranian territory. The Green Berets of the 5th Special Forces Group accompanying the partisans call the movement in to SOCCENT headquarters.

[chico20854]

January 15, 1998

It has become apparent that the bombs have petered out. Both sides seem to believe that an unlimited nuclear exchange will inevitably result in the extermination of human life and have seemed to be determined to keep nuclear strikes under some control (almost by mutual agreement). As it turned out, the effect is not to destroy humanity - only civilization.

As far as restoring power, however, the situation is grave. There are not enough technicians left in any one place to keep a nuclear power plant operating. Even with conventional power plants (thermal and hydro), as time passes, trained technicians become scarce and more units have to be shut down. Fossil-fueled plants not adjacent to fuel supplies become inoperable as the transportation system fails to deliver more fuel; even plants that maintain a stockpile are rapidly depleting them as the cold winter and extreme demand force them to produce the maximum possible output.

American fighter-bombers arrive over the troop columns of the 54th (my 108th) Motor-Rifle Division and drop a trio of B61 nuclear bombs on the massed vehicles. The strike halts the division's movement to the front.

Unofficially,

RainbowSix reports that many refugees have entered the area of Avon and Somerset and a large number linger at Minehead in Somerset, on the edge of Exmoor, where they have occupied a former Holiday Camp (the site's chalets offer ready-made accommodation).

The American destroyer USS Nicholson, a survivor of the battleship Iowa's surface action group, performs a solo anti-shipping patrol in the Baltic, hoping to interdict rumored supply runs by Soviet and Polish craft into ports along the Polish coast. It locates a small craft moving south at high speed towards the Polish coast near Kolobrzeg and closes at 30 knots. (The destroyer's sole remaining helicopter has been grounded due to lack of fuel and anti-ship missiles). When in visual range it confirms the target as a Soviet Poti-class corvette and opens fire with the its forward 5-inch gun. Seven shots are sufficient to sink the Soviet ASW ship (which fails to fire a single effective shot at the destroyer). As it slows and turns back toward deeper water, the American ship detonates a bottom-laid mine, ripping the bow off and sending the ship to the bottom.

CNN Reporter Wolf Blitzer is executed by firing squad in Perm (in Siberia) as a CIA Spy. While it is true that the CIA made use of his reporting over many years, he was never an agency employee and never knowingly and actively worked for the agency.

[chico20854]

January 16, 1998

The Mid-Atlantic states are, in some ways, the hardest hit by the war. The famine and dislocation resulting from the nuclear attacks causes these states to experience a reduction in population levels unprecedented in human history. Linden, Perth Amboy, Paulsboro, and Westville New Jersey have all been subjected to nuclear attacks. Almost a million people became casualties in these strikes, and more die in the civil strife that followed. The northern areas of Manhattan are almost completely abandoned. Inhabitants this far north had always lived with some minor fear of the motives of their neighbors to the south and are among the first to flee to northern New Jersey and upstate New York. The remaining major urban centers in Pennsylvania - Harrisburg and Pittsburgh - remain intact except for the inevitable episodes of looting and food riots that winter. Electricity and fuel are sharply rationed everywhere, of course, and the general breakdown of transportation and food distribution leads to severe food shortages and widespread starvation just as they did in most other parts of the country. Most rural areas, however, possessed of long-standing traditions of self-reliance and self-sufficiency, continue very much as they always had, their inhabitants enduring lean, hard times with patience, determination, and outright stubbornness. The region's principal problems stem directly from the controversial refugee relocation program first proposed as a civil defense option twenty years before the war began. Most of the refugges from the Washington, DC area are absorbed into the more rural areas of Virginia and Maryland.

Unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship Providence Freedom is delivered in San Diego, California, the last of 150 of the class delivered.

In Paris, General George Stark, DIA station chief in Amsterdam (and the senior DIA station chief alive in Europe) has agreed to "assistance" terms with the French government. In addition to providing for French and Belgian government sustainment of NATO troops that are not (or were) belligerents in the recent invasion until those same governments can provide for the evacuation of them and their equipment and supplies, the French and Belgians are to provide 10 million of the following: rounds of small arms ammunition, pre-packaged combat meals and gallons of diesel fuel. The fuel will be transferred along with 1 million gallons of aviation fuel using NATO's Central European Pipeline System, which despite multiple Spetsnaz attacks, remains partially functional. The French and Belgians will also provide 100,000 rounds of 20-40mm autocannon ammunition, 100,000 mortar rounds, 100,000 artillery rounds, 25,000 105mm tank gun rounds, 25,000 120mm tank gun rounds and 100,000 tons of bulk food. The Belgian Air Force will transfer 12 F-16As, 500 Sidewinder Air-to-Air missiles, 2,5000 dumb bombs and a package of spare parts, as well as providing parts and assistance in returning the 50th and 86th TFWs' grounded F-16s at Hahn and Ramstein Air Bases in the occupied zone to service. (The fuel required for the evacuation flights of USAF and RAF aircraft from the zone is to be provided by the French and is in addition to the aviation fuel transferred under the agreement). The French Air Force will also provide assistance in returning six grounded C-130s and two E-3 AWACS to service. Finally, the transmission lines across the Rhine are to be reactivated, with 500 MW of electrical power to be continuously provided at no cost for the remainder of the year. (These amounts are much reduced from Starks initial demands, but both sides realiized that the former pre-war allies were in a complicated situation, that France and Belgium are both officially neutral in the NATO-Pact conflict, and in some ways having to adjust their thinking as both sides retain sufficient nuclear weapons to inflict enormous damage on the other).

The sail training ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl is released from the shipyard in its homeport of Bergen, Norway, where it was completing a retrofit that modernized the ship's systems and restored much that had deteriorated over the ship's 84 years of service. The work is nearly complete and the owners (a school ship consortium) want the ship available rather than completely updated.

The 289th Motor-Rifle Division is activated in the outskirts of Baku, Azerbaijan from surviving students and faculty of the Baku Higher Combined Arms Command School, a motor-rifle officer training academy. Conditions in the area are terrible and it will be some time before the division is ready to support Transcaucasian Front.

[chico20854]

January 17, 1998

The 40th Training Division is formed at Camp Rilea, Oregon from surviving personnel of the 40th ID(M), which was decimated in fighting outside Warsaw the prior summer.

Aside from Charleston, South Carolina has suffered little damage in the nuclear exchange, while nuclear strikes along Mississippi and Alabama’s gulf coasts have disrupted the fishing trade.

The new year of 1998 in the USSR is ushered in with famine and epidemic. The nuclear exchange has ruined almost the entire harvest of the Soviet Union. Fuel shortages, coupled with the extremely cold winter, lack of water and medical care, and the breakdown of civilian control all contribute to the huge number of deaths in the country.

Unofficially,

The Belgian defense minister objects to the terms agreed to the prior day by his French counterpart, especially when word is received by his logistics chief that much of the ammunition and fuel to be provided under the deal are to come from Belgian stocks. (While a valid complaint in regards to the relative burden between the two nations, much of the Belgian materiel is of German, American or Dutch origin, or already in widespread use among NATO combatant nations and therefore, less likely to be detected by the Soviets as aid that violates the nations' neutrality. Likewise, Belgian fuel depots are already linked into the CEPS pipeline system.)

The Royal Australian Navy takes delivery of its last ship for a great many years, the frigate HMAS Arunta, from the Williamstown shipyard near Melbourne.

The mobilization-only 106th Motor-Rifle (my 232nd Rear Area Protection) Division is activated at Slavuta in the Carpathian Military District. The unit, the shadow formation of the 97th Guards Motor-Rifle Division, is initially assigned anti-partisan duties, where its woeful equipment stocks (with two battalions with BTR-152s and two and a half battalions of T-34/85s) are less of a problem than if it were to face NATO troops or even the heavily armed remnants of the Jugoslav and Romanian armies in the Balkans.

[chico20854]

January 18, 1998

Quebec declares its independence from the Confederation of Canada and closes its borders. The Quebecois say that the destruction of Quebec is the fault of the English-dominated government and their French puppets in Ottawa. The new government of Quebec establishes a national capital at Sherbrooke and calls to France for assistance in defending Quebec's right to nationhood if the need arises. The various police, militia, and army personnel in Quebec are organized into a national army.

The 126th (my 92nd) Guards Motor-Rifle Division, a Category C unit from the Odessa Military District, is ordered to depart its home station to bolster Soviet anti-partisan operations of Jugoslavia.

Unofficially,

A French VAB APC of the 94e Régiment d'Infanterie, on patrol outside Breda in occupied Holland, is destroyed by a roadside explosion and unknown assailants open fire on the survivors. None of the French soldiers live long enough to see the arrival of the relief force.

A second convoy of excess cargo ships departs the North Sea anchorage off the German port of Bremerhaven. Meanwhile, the shut-down of the ships of the first similar convoy is nearly complete in a fjord outside Stavanger, Norway. The ships are drained of fuel (both heavy fuel oil and diesel), their light armament removed and all ammunition transferred to support vessels, and all food and consumables removed. All hatches and portholes are sealed, ships of similar size are "rafted" together and secured to moorings on the seabed.

Colombia’s civilian government is overthrown by Army and National Police units that are in the pay of the drug cartels, joined by the forces of the FARC and ELN. The Colombian Navy and Air Force, joined by the AFEUR anti-terrorist unit and about a quarter of the Army and National Police remain loyal to the government as civil war rapidly breaks out, with the rest of the Army and National Police, joined by FARC and ELN guerrillas and cartel militias opposing them. USMC trainers and US Army Special Forces troops that are training and assisting the Colombian military are caught up in the fighting.

[chico20854]

January 19, 1998

Despite the nuclear strike near Omaha, the city is not abandoned because of its central location and proximity to the grain belt, and the fact that it is a rail transportation hub. West Virginia, while not a target of the nuclear strikes, is undesirable as a relocation site due to its remoteness. The only nuclear target in Indiana is the Whiting oil refinery facilities in the extreme north. Casualties from radiation are significant, due to the heavier strikes in Illinois. The large cities are not evacuated, since food is relatively easy to get to them, but civil unrest reduces the population. Wisconsin was not a target of the nuclear strikes and is not severely damaged by radiation. Disease, shortages, and exposure take their toll, however.

Colonel Piotr Bulganin, a GRU agent in the UK, is captured by the British Army.

The armies of the world are in sad shape following the long 1997 campaign and nuclear attacks on both the forces in the field and their homelands, the source of ammunition, reinforcements and replacements, fuel, spare parts and new weapons and vehicles. The average strength of NATO combat divisions at the front has fallen to about 8,000, with U.S. divisions running at about half of that. Warsaw Pact divisions now vary widely in strength, running from 500 to 10,000 effectives, but mostly in the 2-4,000 range. Lack of fuel, spare parts, and ammunition temporarily paralyze the armies. There are no surviving governments to negotiate peace, which, unfortunately, could have come if they had existed. Only the military command structures remain intact, and they remain faithful to the final orders of their governments. In a time of almost universal famine, only the military has the means of securing and distributing rations. Military casualties have been much lower than casualties among civilians.

Filming of sitcom Darwin Was A Monkeys Uncle aboard the replica USS Constitution is halted when it becomes apparent that TV sitcoms will no longer be aired.

Unofficially,

The Belgian Defense Minister is replaced as the Belgian Prime Minister travels to Paris for discussions on the administration of the occuplied territories. As he leaves Brussels his motorcade is confronted by mobs of angry Dutch-speaking Belgians, livid about the treatment of their ethnic kinsmen in Holland.

STAVKA orders the activation of another mobilization-only division, the 160th Motor-Rifle, in the North Caucasus Military District. The division is formed from troops assigned to a PVO missile training brigade and excess personnel from the Yeysk naval air base. Most of the unit’s stockpile of equipment has been depleted in the years of war that preceded its activation, leaving a handful of relics from the Great Patriotic War as the division’s artillery and tank park.

SOUTHCOM is only in intermittent contact with government and military commanders in the United States due to the chaos from the attacks. Traffic through the Panam Canal is almost non-existent as power and fuel shortages sweep the United States and other countries cutting shipments by sea.

[chico20854]

Janaury 20, 1998

France recognizes Quebec as a sovereign nation and pledges its support of its independence.

The state of Utah has not been touched by the nuclear exchange (except for a few radiation-linked deaths). The post-strike food shortages do not cause the casualties they do elsewhere. This is partially due to the state's agricultural self-sufficiency, and partially to emergency food supplies kept by LDS church members and the philanthropic principles urged by that church's teachings. Despite the nuclear strike on Cheyenne Mountain, damage from radiation and famine is not severe in adjacent Colorado. The refineries and the aerospace industry of Washington have been destroyed in the nuclear exchange, while almost 13 percent of the megatonnage of the nuclear strikes fell on targets in the state of California. In Alaska, the North Slope oil fields were not a target of the nuclear strikes, since there are no refinery facilities there. However, the Alaskan pipeline has been cut in several places by Soviet ground troops, and the storage and shipping facilities at the pipeline's southern terminus were rendered unusable when X Corps withdrew in the fall. Most of the oil fields in the rest of the state (around Anchorage, for instance) are severely damaged as well, even if not in areas occupied by Soviet troops.

Colonel Piotr Bulganin, the GRU agent captured the prior day, kills himself before the Army can obtain any major secrets from him about the GRU.

The commander of the 126th (my 92nd) Guards Motor-Rifle Division responds to STAVKA's orders for his division to depart Ukraine and assume anti-partisan duties in Jugoslavia. (Unofficially), He notes that his division is severely under strength and has no food, fuel or service ammunition and that STAVKA has made no transport available to move the unit to Jugoslavia. He also notes that his division, even if at full strength, lacks the ability to self-deploy over such a long distance. He therefore respectfully declines to move his unit until such resources are made available.

[chico20854]

January 21, 1998

Nothing official for today!

Officers and senior NCOs of the small French garrison of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon off Newfoundland board a light transport aircraft for a low-level flight to Sherbrooke, capital of the newly independent nation of Quebec, to help form and train the new nation's army.

US Army Europe begins a series of organizational and logistic streamlining as the first evacuation convoys from French occupied zone begin arriving. Administratively, the flow of replacement troops and equipment has almost entirely halted, requiring the losses sustained in the prior year's campaigning to be filled from resources already in theatre. The Army's support structure is in apalling condition between attacks from Soviet Spetsnaz teams and pro-Soviet partisans, the tactical nuclear exchange and the French invasion. The first evacuation convoys carry troops of the 21st Theater Army Command, who are tasked to establish a new support structure in central Germany. The command establishes a headquarters in the Kransberg Castle, a prewar US Army facility with extensive bunkers north of Frankfurt and begins planning to reoccupy a variety of Bundeswehr and US Army storage sites and ammunition dumps (all long emptied of materiel) to house the troops being withdrawn from the occupied zone. Likewise, the Air Force reassembles the remnants of 17th Air Force headquarters (its home station at Sembach Air Base was nuked in September) at the air defense control bunker under Erndtebrück, not far away from 21 TAACOM and begins coordinating the reassembly of USAF Germany.

The mobilization-only 283rd Motor Rifle Division is activated in the Crimea, formed from stay-behind troops of the 126th Motor-Rifle Division. By 1950s standards it would have been considered underequipped, with three battalions of BTR-152 APCs, a full complement of T-34/85 tanks and various Second World War and 1950s artillery pieces and FROG-5 SSMs; the division's sole anti-tank weapons are a battery of 57mm ZiS-2 anti-tank guns and less than 50 RPG-2 rocket launchers.

[chico20854]

January 22, 1998

Another day with nothing in canon!

The El Paso area is on the verge of being overwhelmed by streams of refugees from Mexico. 9th Texas Brigade’s harsh methods of dealing with the flow soon cause tensions with the Mexican government.

The destroyer USS Morton, approaching Kenya through the Indian Ocean, is intercepted by an A-1 Skyraider of the 2nd Battalion, 228th Aviation Regiment, which is performing a routine surface sweep.

The first evacuation flights of F-16s depart Hahn Air Base in the occupied zone to Jever Air Base near the German North Sea Coast.

Several German corps (VI, X, XI and XII Korps) are repositioned internally to reinforce the remnants of the territorials that were overrun during the French invasion as well as provide internal security and spread the burden of supporting troops across larger areas.

Within the US Army in Europe, instructions are issued to selectively deactivate subordinate units, reassigning their remaining troops and equipment to other subunits pending receipt of limited numbers of additional troops from rear area, naval and air force commands. Commanders are given wide discretion to promote soldiers who displayed leadership aptitude over the preceding months into leadership positions, pending receipt of additional troops.

7th Army and 4th Army's G-4s (supply officers) issue a directive to centralize control of key supplies currently held at division and corps level. Fuel, rations, guided missiles, MLRS rockets, chemical and tactical nuclear weapons and FASCAM, ICM and Assault Breaker artillery rounds are all to be managed centrally; initially commanders must cease issuing them without further permission and report stock on hand, permitting US Army Europe to reallocate these scarce resources to where most needed.

To the west, French Army commanders are taken aback by the sheer quantity of US Army and USAF materiel to be evacuated as American commanders refuse to abandon the smallest scrap of assets built up in over 50 years of occupation. Belgian Air Force technicians complete the transfer of the first F-16A, handing it over to a small American team that inspects the aircraft before flying it off to Jever Air Base.

Rains in eastern Africa begin to slow military operations as the limited road network, already heavily damaged by fighting and overtaxed even in peacetime, degrades under flooding and poor drainage. The weather also limits aerial resupply operations, even if the small fleet of support aircraft (and requisitioned civilian aircraft) had fuel and sufficient capacity to resupply the fighting forces.

[chico20854]

January 23, 1998

Nothing official for today!

Graebarde reports that farms in the US feel the fall as much as anyone. The modernized American farm depends on electricity to run all the modern conveniences. Animal enterprises especially suffer as it is rapidly discovered the normal crew cannot handle 1,000 hogs in confinement when the power fails, nor can the egg and broiler factories or the giant dairies. Even the smaller operations have trouble with the smaller herd and flocks they manage. It takes perhaps two to three times as long to milk out a cow by hand compared to a milking machine. (Longer for hand-milkers not used to the task, as their forearms tighten up from the squeezing). The four persons on a 50-cow dairy spend most of the day just getting the 40 or so cows milking at the time milked out, leaving no time for the myriad other tasks needed on the farm. Then arises the question of what to do with all the milk, or in the case of egg factories all the eggs, that accumulate in the first couple of days. Many of the large operations soon have no workers showing for work for a number of reasons which compound all the problems. Herds soon die off. Chickens and hogs start to starve unless someone turns them loose, and winter is not a good time for the housed animals to be set free to fend for themselves, something that was bred out of them long ago. Crop farmers fair somewhat better with their crops either in bins or silos on the farm or at the community grain company’s granary. As the transportation system fails, however, there is no way for the raw food to reach those that needed it.

Those farmers in the colder areas, predominately north of the Ohio and Missouri Rivers suffer as well as heat sources disappear. Very few have alternative means of heating their homes that are adequate for prolonged periods of time. The generator to run the electric heater or fans on gas stoves need fuel, which soon becomes scarce due to distribution and supply problems, which government policy seems to direct what aid arrives in rural areas to the refugees from the cities. Many farm homes are destroyed by fires caused by improvised alternative heat sources.

While food for the most part on farms is available, it is unprocessed. Most of the smaller holdings still maintain at least a token garden, but almost all modern farms rely on the same source of food as the city folks, the local markets. The specialization of the modern farmer works against them - dairymen have milk, most have some beef or a pig in the freezer as well as eggs and so forth, but most are not stocked up as their pioneer ancestors had been. The elderly, remembering the depression and war years of WW II are somewhat better prepared, having been ingrained with stocking up, but never all.

The winter takes its toll on the weak and sick, both two- and four-legged. Starvation conditions, while not as severe on most farms, exist. Local government support, in the form of USDA representatives, county agricultural extension agents and state agricultural university faculty, are not forthcoming in first winter after the attacks. Most farmers do not leave their farms other than perhaps cluster several families onto one farm for security. Neighbors help neighbors. Those with heat take in those without. Those with food share with those without. Refugees are ‘placed’ on farms. Some had been there before during prior evacuations at the outbreak of the war or in the flurry of panicked evacuations that followed the outbreak of nuclear warfare in Europe and Asia in July. Some are welcomed back as good helpers; others are sent packing as soon as the farmer is able to do so. The government procures food from the farmers, primarily raw food stocks. Cereal grains are coarse ground in on-farm mills intended to grind feed for livestock on many farms. The coarseness does not matter since it goes into gruel. Excess animals are butchered on a regular basis, or procured by the government for relief efforts. The farmers are given chits for the produce and livestock taken, but there is not much faith it will ever be worth anything.

Elsewhere, unofficially

The destroyer USS Morton arrives at the Kenyan port of Mombasa after a month and a half-long voyage from San Diego. The aged destroyer requires several weeks of repairs to restore the ship to adequate condition.

On the Warsaw Pact side of the front line in Europe the situation is desperate. Soviet and Polish troops are exhausted, their units depleted by months of battering NATO forces and nuclear attacks, at the end of supply lines across a nation devastated in two campaigns from one end of the country to the other, sustained by a USSR that has been at war for over two years, its economy in shambles as it supported war on five fronts. NATO troops have been expelled from nearly all Polish territory (a slice of northwest Poland, including the battered city of Szczecin, remains under control of US Marines), and Soviet, Czech, Hungarian and Italian troops occupy Austria and southern Germany along a line from Lake Constance through Augsburg and Regensburg through to the Czech border south of the Hof Gap.

The communications and transportation networks of the western USSR, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia have been shredded by NATO conventional and nuclear strikes over the preceding year, the economy of Poland totally destroyed, the Polish harvest a complete failure, and Czech industry severely damaged by the war. The surviving Polish population faces death by starvation and exposure. Faced with these challenges and with Soviet units averaging 2-4000 men (from one seventh to one third of authorized strength), the Soviet Western TVD is in no position to continue offensive operations (or even to mount a coherent defense, if by some magical means, NATO could muster the force to counterattack).

The most immediate challenge is to sustain the fighting forces and the Polish population, followed by reorganization and reconstruction of the Pact armies. To lessen the burden on the transportation network (and to assist in maintaining martial law in the USSR) 1st Byelorussian Front and the reinforcements released by RGVK (most crucially the 1st Shock Army) are recalled to the USSR, ordered to leave a portion of their heavy weapons and vehicles behind for transfer to units remaining in Poland. (Compliance with those orders is more theoretical than real, but they do result in some replacement equipment reaching units still in contact).

Warsaw Pact units on the front line currently consist of: Baltic Front (with 11th Guards Army replacing 22nd Army) on the northernmost section of the Oder River from the Baltic Coast to Kostrzyn, where the 1st Western Front sector begins. That formation (with 8th Guards Army and 2nd Polish Army on the front line, with the remnants of 1st Guards Tank Army in reserve) faces the US XI Corps, and is responsible for the front south to Forst, where 2nd Western Front (2nd Guards Tank Army and 20th Army at the front, with 3rd Shock Army in reserve) assumes responsibility for the front line through to Zittau, at the common border of East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia. From there, 1st Southwestern Front with 4th Czech, 21st and 1st Czech Armies guards the East German border and occupies south Germany through the city of Regensburg. Second Southwestern Front (with two Italian and one Hungarian corps under command, as well as its own 16th and 41st Armies) occupies Austria (with 2nd Czech Army, assisted by 8th Tank Army) and southern Germany from Regensburg to Lake Constance. Reserve Front, with 22nd Army, 4th Guards Tank Army and the 3rd Polish Army, remains in central and eastern Poland, assisting the remnants of the Polish Internal Front in rebuilding devastated Poland and restoring communist rule while serving as a reserve for the Western TVD.

In the air over western Germany, another flight of F-16s takes off from the French occupied zone, this time from the 86th Tactical Fighter Wing at Ramstein, heading for Hohn Air Base north of Hamburg.

Another mobilization-only division, the 67th Tank, is called up in the Siberian Military District. Formed in Novosibirsk from stockpiles and a small cadre of the 85th Motor-Rifle Division. The division’s stockpiles of equipment were depleted long ago to support other units, and the 67th only manages to receive a handful of T-55s and a smattering of Second World War-era artillery pieces. The rest of the division (which never receives a full complement of troops) is formed into a cavalry force.

[chico20854]

January 24, 1998

Nothing official for the day.

Congress, surviving members of which have been gathered at the Greenbriar Resort in western Virginia, has still failed to reach a quorum. The Speaker, watching the supplies at the luxury complex rapidly depleting and members drift away to attend to their districts, declares the House of Representatives adjourned. The Senate follows a few hours later, and America's elected representatives begin to disperse into the chaos outside the gates. A lucky few members are able to convince Capitol Police officers to accompany them, their firepower being traded for the priority access to food that the member presumably exercises.

17th Air Force headquarters in Germany is rapidly coming to the conclusion that there are few remaining air bases available to use. Several bases were overrun by Soviet and Italian troops in Bavaria, Bitburg, Sembach and several others (as well as all of RAF Germany's) were struck by Soviet nuclear weapons and most of the remaining USAF bases in Germany were west of the Rhine and are now lost to the French. The remaining Ground-Launch Cruise Missile fleet (from the squadrons based in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands) have been assembled in the woods and hills north of Frankfurt being rapidly occupied by US Army support units, and the day sees the first of several C-130 flights, escorted by armed USAF F-16s, carrying remaining B61 nuclear bombs out of American and Luftwaffe bases in the occupied zone.

The 254th Motor-Rifle Division, a veteran prewar Category A division that started the war stationed in Hungary before participating in the Romanian and Austrian-Bavarian campaigns, is brought forward from a reserve position in Austria, assigned to reinforce 21st Army in northwestern Austria.

The California City Freedom, on its maiden voyage using a scratch crew (the ship was delivered in early December), arrives in Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island to load cargo from surviving military production in New England. Three new UH-60 helicopters are flown aboard from the Sikorski plant in Connecticut, three containers containing nearly 800 Stinger missiles are loaded along with several dozen containers with complete engines and spares for F/A-18s and A-10s from a plant outside Boston. Other ammunition loaded aboard includes several containers of small arms ammunition in Pact-standard calibers (7.62x39, 7.62x54, 12.7x108 and 14.5x114mm) manufactured in Connecticut under contract to the Chinese Army. The largest prize is loaded aboard the vehicle deck, eight LAV-25s (also originally ordered by the Chinese and produced at the reactivated GM plant at Framingham) as well as an inoperable M-47 tank salvaged from a VFW post in Rhode Island. A cargo that will help the tanks already in Europe remain operating, two dozen complete M-1 tank engines and several containers of parts, has also been assembled from the plant in Connecticut, which continued producing the engines faster than the remaining tank plant (in Detroit) could install them in new tanks. Finally, a wide array of small arms from New England's arms makers are loaded aboard.

[chico20854]

January 25, 1998

Surviving stocks of oil and petrochemicals in Aranas Pass, Texas which survived the fire are removed by the U.S. Army to secret storage areas in the north.

Elsewhere in the U.S. arrests for hoarding are commonplace (unofficially) as food and fuel in the "retail" distribution network have been almost entirely exhausted and military control of the wholesale distribution system is shakily established and enforced.

Following the virtual destruction of the 54th (my 108th) Motor-Rifle Division in a tactical nuclear strike, Transcaucasian Front orders the deployment of the 201st Motor-Rifle Divison from Afghanistan to Iran to perform anti-marauder duties.

Unofficially,

Officials in Bergen, Norway stock the sailing ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl with a cargo of preserved fish, ship parts and, in a hidden compartment, gold and other valuables from the city's banks and dispatch it to Latin America to trade for grain to feed the city's surviving population.

While the total load aboard the Colorado City Freedom is less than 20 percent of the ship's rated cargo capacity, it sets sail shortly before midnight after the stevedores and ship's crew complete loading the ship.

[chico20854]

January 26, 1998

The German High Command decides to consolidate its elite forces into a single command, uniting the 24th, 25th and 27th Fallschirmjaeger Brigades, the former East German 40th Parachute Brigade and several mountain battalions under a single division headquarters, the 1st Fallschirmjager.

The winter of 1997-98 is a harsh one in northern and central Iran. The Soviet transportation system into the Transcaucasus Military District has been almost completely destroyed. Desertion is rampant as many troops became marauder bands. Tens of thousands of civilian refugees die from starvation or exposure. General Suryakin directs his staff to draw up an emergency food distribution plan that will distribute food and emergency supplies in as fair a manner as possible. South of the Zagros Mountains, things are better. The winter there is much milder, and the local farmers are able to produce enough food to keep people reasonably well-fed.

Unofficially,

Seeing the need for additional forces for domestic security and food distribution duties, the "Pentagon" (in reality, the powers-that-be at the ANMCC at Raven Rock) orders various units that have completed their training (most notably, the brigades of the 17th Airborne and 4th Armored Divisions and 8th Armored Cavalry Regiment at the National Training Centers and Joint Readiness Training Centers) from those garrisons to internal duties and the conversion of those bases' OPFORs (Opposing Forces), referees and support staff into troop units. The units that have completed their training are to use equipment stocks maintained at the base for rotating units to draw upon, while the cadre are to "unconvert" their VISMOD vehicles back to original configuaration and make use, as needed, of government-owned civilian-type logistic and support vehicles.

The 199th Infantry Brigade is ordered, ready or not, to deploy from Hawaii to Korea to reinforce Eighth Army, reeling after months of tactical nuclear strikes and a year of North Korean human wave attacks.

The crew of the Norwegian sail training ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl, recently departed from its home port of Bergen, Norway, conduct test firing of the ship's defensive weapons, a single 40mm and six 20mm anti-aircraft guns provided by the city's Home Guard detachment.

[chico20854]

January 27, 1998

In Pennsylvania, state officials have tried to control the refugee situation but it has grown beyond the resources available. State government relocation authorities, working under the direction of federal relocation boards and officials, abandon the plans laid out by Washington bureaucrats months or years before. In the far northwestern corner of the state, Erie finds itself as a last stop for refugees from points west and south trying to enter New York. The population swells beyond anything the local authorities can cope with.

Unofficially,

In Canada, the remaining authorities implement a similar effort to activate military forces to support internal security and recovery efforts. The Canadian Army Reserve, which has been forming, training and providing replacement troops, sections and platoons to the Active force throughout the war, is now called upon to form troop units on its own. (This process had already commenced in July in British Columbia and Yukon in July, following the Soviet invasion of Alaska). Flush with draftees in the midst of their training, and with transport links to the fighting forces in Europe down, reserve units around the federation are able to, in general, stand up an at least nominal battalion of troops. In some areas older Cadets, retirees, veterans and RCMP officers are pressed into service. A more pressing problem is equipment, for while small arms (either current issue C7s or older C1 (FALs)) and individual equipment are plentiful enough, the Reserve's stocks of armored vehicles, mortars and artillery have been largely depleted by 13 months of war, sent overseas as replacements for combat losses on the Centraal Front or in Norway, or sent west to equip the forces facing the Soviets in northwestern British Columbia. Units in Ontaria and the Maritimes are allocated to augment the meagre Active forces in the region in suppression of the Quebec uprising, those in the west to facing the Soviets and those on the prairie to securing food and fuel as well as preserving a modicum of order in their local areas.

Dutch troops infiltrated into the French occupation zone ambush a lone Peugot P4 light vehicle racing to make it back to its fortified garrison before nightfall. The ambush is successful, and the bullet-ridden wreakage holds the body of the commander of the 158e Compagnie du Génie (158th Engineer Company).

Pro-NATO guerrillas in Esfahan machinegun a truck carrying Soviet soldiers on their way back to the front after a period of rest in the city.

The 279th Motor-Rifle Division, a mobilization-only "shadow" division formed from excess staff and obsolete equipment maintained by the elite 4th Guards Tank Division, is called up in Naro-Fominsk to help with relief and security efforts in the remains of the capital 70 km to the northeast. The division is fully manned from the masses of refugees that have fled the city and generously staffed with officers displaced from their jobs at ministries, institutes and schools. Like most late mobilizing divisions, equipment is scarce (four battalions of tanks, three of APCs) and obsolescent (T-55s, BTR-60s, BM-14s and 37mm AA guns). The unit is commonly considered the last Red Army division mobilized in the war (although local military district commanders ordered the 281st Motor-Rifle Divison into service nearly a year later, that action was not approved by the Red Army high command).

[chico20854]

January 28, 1998

The 82nd Airborne Division, worn out after months behind enemy lines during Operation Pegasus II and several weeks of internal security duties along the north coast of the Persian Gulf, is withdrawn to Saudi Arabia for R&R.

The student body of the US Air Force Academy, outside Colorado Springs Colorado, is converted to a troop unit, designated the Cadet Brigade. The brigade takes over the remaining weapons and equipment left at Fort Carson by the 4th Infantry Division when the 4th was airlifted to Europe in October of 1996.

Unofficially,

Thge 4th Virginia State Guard Regiment deploys a surplus Second World War-era M18 Hellcat tank destroyer, rearmed with unit machineguns and used by the regiment alongside three converted bank armored cars as a (completely unauthorized by command) so-called armored platoon.

A US Army resupply convoy in northwestern East Germany stops at a MP roadside checkpoint en route from its latest supply run, (relatively) laden with food, ammunition and fuel. Once stopped the MPs order the troops out of their vehicles, and soon they find themselves surrounded by more US troops in uniforms that can best be described as, at best, disorderly and unauthorized. They are ordered to drop their weapons as it becomes apparent that the roadblock is not, in fact, MPs but deserters, in this case a band of the US Army criminal band that calls itself 5th Squad. The minority members of the surrounded troops are offered admission to the group, which several accept, and the rest are stripped of their equipment and weapons, bound and gagged and driven several miles away, where they are dropped off in a remote patch of forest to fend for themselves. The haul secured by 5th Squad is enough to keep the gang fed and supplied throughout the rest of the winter.

Belgian troops (esppecially Dutch-speaking ones) are assigned primary responsibility for coordinating the evacuation of US and British assets from the Franco-Belgian occupied zone, taking over from French Army units which, in several cases, have strained relations with the NATO commanders involved. The Belgian troops are considered generous by the isolated American units, which appreciate the provision of ample fine Belgian ales.

The layup effort in the fjords outside Stavanger concludes with the stripping of perishable supplies, ammunition, fuel and lubricants from the last ship (the American freighter Cape Catoche). The crews and most of the supplies return to the Baltic aboard the Danish corvette Beskytteren and a trio of oilfield supply ships while the US Navy oiler Platte takes the salvaged fuel north along the Norwegian coast.

[chico20854]

January 29, 1998

Corpus Christi, Texas has been abandoned. The blasts at the end of November left 40,000 dead and 100,000 injured. Thousands more - no estimate is ever made - died in the weeks that followed from starvation, disease, and the effects of severe burns and radiation sickness.

Unofficially,

In Korea, the 163rd Armored Cavalry Regiment is withdrawn behind the lines and given priority in fuel allocation so it can act as a mobile armored reserve to smash enemy breakthroughs.

The final USAF Europe aircraft depart bases in the French-occupied Rhineland, landing shortly thereafter at nearby bases in central and northern Germany. They are laden with as many munitions as can be carried and topped off with as much fuel as they can carry.

French, Belgian, German and American engineers, each working in their own sectors (and with Americans handling the interfaces between nations) complete repairs to the CEPS pipelines across (and under) the Rhine, and shortly before midnight fuel resumes flowing into tank farms in central Germany.

The oiler Platte continues its voyage north, travelling out of sight of the Norwegian mainland.

photo
A third group of excess merchantmen departs the Heligoland Bight in the North Sea, headed for layup at Cromarty Firth in northern Scoland. It travels at 10 knots to reduce fuel consumption and allow a quartet of offshore oil rig boats to keep up with the formation, which is escorted by the Canadian "destroyer" Assiniboine. (Most NATO navies would classify it as a frigate.)

American paratroops and their Romanian allies overrun a Soviet outpost in the small Transylvanian town of Deda, ridding the area of Soviet occupation forces and, to the increasing dismay of Soviet leaders, cutting two rail lines from the USSR into the Balkans.