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SOUTH CAROLINA
Aside from Charleston, the state suffered little direct damage in the nuclear exchanges, although it suffered mightily in the ensuing social collapse, seeing a thirty-percent reduction in population since 1962. During the hell of that first winter, an odd conglomeration of rebels and activists, malcontents and white supremacists had begun to coalesce, seemingly by design, and begged, argued, pleaded, browbeat, cajoled, and occasionally assassinated the leaders and populace of South Carolina into "seceding". Their usual "pitch line" went something like "Them DAMN Yankees up North are the cause of all this!" It was crude propaganda, but, with people freezing and starving in the midst of a nuclear winter, it worked. Seeing that the federal government was mobilizing all National Guard units across the country not for recovery and reconstruction work in their home states, but to be put on ships and thrown into what was quickly becoming a nuclear meat grinder in Europe, Governor Ernest Hollings said "No". The South Carolina National Guard was instructed by the Governor to secure all federal bases in the state for use in defending the borders, effectively defederalizing them. All federal military units in the state were obliged to leave, urged on by a newly elected state law to that effect, with the exception of the Parris Island enclave (see below). Animosity between South Carolina and both federal governments is still high, and both would love to bring the state into their respective folds. For the state, however, isolation comes with a high price. With trade and commerce drastically reduced, conditions in the state have deteriorated over the last year as the drought has taken hold of the farmlands and eaten away at crop reserves. Effective state government from Columbia is growing increasingly difficult, and legislative sessions there are growing shorter and less frequent. It is just a matter of time before either the state returns fully to the union or fragments. 1) NUCLEAR TARGETS TARGET DATE TYPE SIZE Charleston 10/28/62 SS-7 6 mT 2) ORGANIZED MILITARY FORCES The South Carolina National Guard is too small and too overtaxed to truly defend the borders anymore. The National Guard forces of the state were combined into the "First Army". Most of the troops came from South Carolina, but small contingents came in from North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama. Most of these groups from other states were pretty raw; consisting mostly of southern rights sympathizers and marauders-turned-patriots. They have suffered much desertion and loss during the famines and droughts of the last year, further decreasing their effectiveness. It is, however, still an effective and cohesive force, especially around the cities in the central part of the state. Rumors abound that they are working to secure final independence by making crude tactical nuclear weapons made with material confiscated from the Barnwell River nuclear power plant. While South Carolina is technically free of Federal troops, there are several small MilGov garrisons along the coast. "First Army"--Statewide Parris Island garrison (375 men) Kiawah Island garrison (60 men) 3) THE STATE AT LARGE Columbia: Still the state capital and the most heavily-defended city in the area. The bulk of the state's military forces are concentrated here now. Spartanburg: To the northwest of Columbia, Spartanburg has become a regional power center. Now home to a thriving population of about 40,800 with a very strong militia called the "State Auxiliary Police", they have hydroelectric generators operating, providing electric power to the region. Loris: This small town on the North Carolina border is home to a largish marauder band settling down here for the winter. This marauder group is formed from the remains of a recon company of the US Army's 1st Armored Division, which was evacuated to Savannah in 1964. The unit's leader is Major Helga Rommel, a charismatic woman with bigger plans for her future than sitting in Savannah waiting for reassignment. When Rommel returned to America with the evacuation, she gathered the remains of her unit, and lured others with the promise of loot and rape. They took advantage of the general offer to leave and within three months, they have become the most feared marauder bands in South Carolina. The band is organized into two platoons, with a total of 48 men. The group is highly mobile and vehicle assets include an old M3 Stuart light tank, five large military trucks, and two jeeps. 4) CHARLESTON The war: The navy yards and submarine base were the target of a Russian SS-7 ICBM late on October 28, 1962. The 6 megaton warhead airburst over the outer harbor, sinking everything in sight and sending a 120 foot high wall of water at Charleston to crush what the blast and heat missed. Virtually the entire city south of Highway 17 was leveled, though large concrete and steel structures remain standing as badly twisted and still radioactive tree stumps on the partially flooded peninsula. As far out as North Charleston, every tree is blackened and dead, every house burned and broken, the highways and major streets are still jammed with cars charred a deep brown on the sides facing the ocean. Abandoned by the state as way too expensive to try and rebuild, the looters and scum have gone wild over the years, destroying nearly every thing left standing. The harbor: Charleston's harbor, once one of the busiest on the East Coast, is now littered with sunken and capsized ships and nearly completely blocked off from the Atlantic. The airburst effects filled in the ship channel and shifted the sandy bars around to the point where today anything with a draft over three feet cannot get in or out. The relatively narrow deep shipping channel is also hopelessly blocked with several dozen sunken ships, some of them huge oil tankers. Were anyone ever able to clear the channel (an engineering feat that probably wont be possible for decades) there are still a number of intact vessels at the various docks to be salvaged. These include a US Navy destroyer and two British Royal Navy frigates that were here on a port visit when the nuke fell. As well, there are about twenty assorted merchantmen still afloat in the harbor. Survivors: Out in the western suburbs live small groups of refugees and hold-outs. The city's inhabitants have largely dispersed into the surrounding coastal towns following the chaos and economic dislocation of the of the drought in the summer of 1964. Today, just a few thousand people farm the city environs, supplementing their harvests with the catch from their small fishing fleet. This fleet consists of a couple dozen dilapidated sailboats (or diesel boats converted to sail). None are very seaworthy and most have been patched together and repaired numerous times. A few hundred Black Muslims, many of them having escaped from New York City, are also living in North Charleston. They are led by a man named Blotto, and despite being heavily armed and strongly Islamic, they have given the other local refugees no trouble and have even tried to help them out on occasion. 5) MILGOV ENCLAVES Parris Island USMC Recruit Depot: Today the only federal enclave in the state. The reasons for its continued existence have more to do with the massive MilGov enclave just forty miles down in coast in Savannah than anything else. The garrison at Parris is in constant contact with Savannah and this continued show of force and support is the only reason the South Carolina state government hasn't pushed to have the enclave leave the state yet, the Governor is well aware that the forces in Savannah alone could overrun his entire state in weeks. The standing MilGov cantonment here now numbers some 375 men, comprising former Parris Island instructors and senior NCOs recently augmented by some returning European vets. The garrison has some M-8 armored cars and diesel jeeps (as the Marines have a stash of diesel here) for perimeter security, but they have little to fear from the SC state forces. They also have been rotating a detachment north to Kiawah Island on a three month cycle. This little island of security has attracted a lot of refugees, especially in the last six months as the drought in the state grows, and at some point they will have to be dealt with. Kiawah Island: During the chaos after the nuking of Charleston, a few surviving cadets from the Citadel Military Academy tried to secure the parts of their campus that were still standing. They took heavy losses in pitched battles with looters before evacuating south with everything they could carry. The trek through the shattered and violent city was a death march for the young cadets, but thanks to the leadership of the senior staff and faculty, a good number of them made it out. They eventually settled on Kiawah Island, a sandy strip some fifteen miles south of the city, that was easily defensible. They are still entrenched there, having built the island up into a virtual fortress, and their numbers have swollen to some sixty effectives. Because of the isolated nature of the island, the South Carolina state government has basically ignored them. There is much trade with the local communities and the cadets are very well thought of in the area, support on the part of the state for any effort to oust them would be nonexistent. Recent reinforcements from the Marine Corps Training Facility at Parris Island have helped the enclave to think about maybe expanding. |
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FLORIDA
In 1964, Florida is still here, just most of the people are gone. While a total of six Russian nuclear weapons were targeted on the state, only two of them were on target, with three being duds and one more missing out to sea. Despite mostly dodging the nuclear bullet, Florida has seen much social disruption and chaos. Things have settled down by 1964, and recovery is in motion in many areas. Rumors of better crops in the state have brought waves of refugees south during the last six months. They have found that while the rumors are somewhat true, the remaining population of the Florida peninsula are some of the most heavily armed and best organized in North America and most of the refugees have been turned away or killed. There are frequent cholera outbreaks up and down the Florida peninsula, though they are not as severe as they were in 1963. 1) NUCLEAR TARGETS TARGET DATE TYPE SIZE NOTE Cape Canaveral 10/28/62 SS-7 6 mT Missed 5 miles to NE Orlando 10/28/62 SS-6 3 mT Tampa 10/28/62 SS-4 1.2 mT Homestead AFB 10/28/62 SS-4 1.2 mT Dud Key West 10/28/62 SS-4 1.2 mT Dud Key West 10/28/62 SS-4 1.2 mT Dud 2) ORGANIZED MILITARY FORCES IN FLORIDA South Florida on the day the war started was thick with US military men, all concentrated here for the invasion of Cuba. Following the nuclear attacks, the state was largely abandoned, with nearly all active duty military personnel and material heading north or overseas. The 42nd Infantry Division, which was here for the invasion, was shipped off to certain death in Europe, leaving only local National Guardsmen to hold the state together. The state's two large National Guard divisions have both been shattered--the 51st Infantry during the chaos and the 48th Armored by being sent to Europe to get mauled. Today, only the area around Pensacola is still and organized federal enclave. The rest of the state is home to several intact National Guard units, though they are all of dubious loyalty to the state government, being barely more than hired guns. A small group of Cubans are in the Florida Keys, as well, though they are not sure they like being here. 51st Infantry Division--Jacksonville (300 men) 48th Armored Division ------2nd Howitzer Battalion/265th Artillery Regiment--Palm Beach (400 men) 241st Infantry Regiment--Pensacola (1500 men, 2 AFVs) 648th Engineer Battalion--Orlando (720 men, 4 AFVs) Fidel Castro Brigade--Vaca Key (300 men) 3) PENSACOLA The most important Gulf port still functioning on the entire US coast, Pensacola has become the hub of MilGov activities in the Gulf of Mexico theatre. While some parts of town were badly damaged by fires caused by post-nuke rioting, the city escaped much of the violence and insanity that devastated many other cities. Because of the fact that the city has survived in such good shape, there is a large sense that Pensacola was "spared by God" from this terrible war, and many civilians are very religious in a superstitious sort of way. In more secular terms, there is a strong sense of civic pride here, keeping things together and giving hope for the future. The city power remains on, though it is rationed to make the fuel last longer, and the city water supply is running, though again it is severely rationed (only on certain times and places). The local farm communities benefit from the presence of a functioning city and food is readily available, distributed from grocery stores by military trucks and sold in huge, sprawling markets that have popped up all over the city. Fishing provides a major source of food and the harbor is filled with fishing vessels from around the Gulf of Mexico. The landward approaches are heavily patrolled and barricaded to prevent Pensacola from being overwhelmed by refugees, but the safety of the city is drawing people like a magnet. Tens of thousands of people now languish in tent city camps along the Perdido River as overworked medical personnel try to prevent outbreaks of disease. The refugee camps are generally dirty, diseased, and officially quarantined by the military. The Army: The main garrison force of the city is the MilGov 241st Infantry Regiment (1,500 men). This unit was formed in South Texas in early 1963 from local conscripts and volunteers from around the Brownsville area and led by a cadre of experienced NCOs and soldiers left behind from the South Texas-based 141st Infantry Regiment when that regiment and the 36th Infantry Division were moved north to the Dallas area in 1964. When the Mexicans invaded in May 1964, the Regiment fought a delaying retreat up the coast and was hastily evacuated from the port of Victoria and transferred to Pensacola by MilGov Command. The city had been protected by a mix of State Police and National Guardsmen, but the arrival of a Regiment of regular US Army troops was a welcome sight in Pensacola. The regimental commander, being the highest ranking officer in the city, took over command of the city's defenses and has improved them dramatically over the last five months. While they had to leave all their heavy weapons and vehicles behind them in Texas, they do have two former USMC M48A1 Patton tanks and several M101 105mm howitzers that were aboard the amphibious ships that picked them up from Texas and as such became theirs. City air assets are fairly strong, having been collected from the various military bases in the Pensacola area (Saufley, Whiting and Corry Naval Auxiliary Air Stations, as well as Elgin AFB) and moved to Pensacola NAS. There are numerous fixed-wing aircraft but only a few helicopters are still flying as of 1964, including four late model UH-1 helicopter gunships and a pair of UH-19 Chickasaw transport helicopters. These are only used at the discretion of the regimental commander as fuel is critically short and must be shared with the few remaining US Navy helicopters in the area. As word of the growing power of the marauder leader Rollins in Mobile has reached the city, long-range patrols have been sent out to see what is the truth. It is just a matter of time before a major confrontation happens. The Navy: The remains of the US Navy's Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico Fleets are now based here. As with other US Navy concentrations, scarce fuel and poor maintenance keep the combined flotilla from being as effective as it could be. Operational vessels here include: Essex class aircraft carrier CVS-36 Antietam 1 Des Moines class heavy cruiser CA-148 Newport News 2 Charles F. Adams class destroyer DDG-10 Sampson 3 Dealey class escort DE-1030 Joseph K. Taussig Catskill class amphibious vehicle transport LSV-3 Osage Crescent City class attack transport APA-31 Monrovia 4 Landing Ship Tank LST-344 Blanco County Troopship AP-69 Elizabeth C. Stanton Freighter Marfield Cadiz 5 Foxtrot class submarine B-4 6 One Coast Guard cutter One LCT Four LCM lighters Notes: 1) The centerpiece of the naval base has got to be the USS Antietam, which was the resident flight training carrier at Pensacola when the war broke out. For a while there was talk of refitting her as an active carrier and sending her to sea, but the horrible economic situation and the loss of command and control meant that she never left port. Today she is still anchored in the harbor, serving as the command post for the naval flotilla Admiral. While technically seaworthy, the carrier has barely a skeleton crew aboard and her fuel tanks have long ago been drained to keep smaller, more important ships running. The Antietam's operational airpower is now limited to helicopters--one UH-1 Huey, one OH-13 Sioux (former USMC), two UH-19 Chicksaw, and three H-25 Mules. Fuel for these craft is husbanded and has to be shared with the Army. 2) The Newport News was the ComSecFleet flagship for the Cuban blockade in 1962. 3) During her long tour of duty, the Sampson has sunk or helped sink three destroyers, two frigates, and four submarines and has been damaged heavily several times. While most of the Atlantic Fleet has been sunk, the Sampson has stayed on almost continually service even while being repaired. Her missile launchers have all been destroyed and the missile ammo bays are now were the ship's stills are set up. 4) The transport Monrovia has seen better days. She was part of the Cuban landing fleet and was badly damaged in the tactical nuclear strikes launched by the defending Cubans. She has since been somewhat repaired, and it is joked that patches and primer paint are all that is keeping her afloat. 5) The Marfield Cadiz is a large 30,000 ton oil tanker that once operated out of New Orleans. On the way to port with empty holds when the bombs hit, she was relocated to Pensacola on directions from the US Coast Guard. Since then she has been converted into a troop carrier and floating air field, and it is this ship that brought the 241st Regiment here from Texas. She has two additional LCM amphibious landing boats on her deck and a large crane so she doesn't have to rely on port facilities to offload. A helicopter deck has been constructed forward of the superstructure and she has been heavily sandbagged and equipped with numerous AA guns and .50cal HMGs. 6) This Russian Foxtrot class diesel attack submarine was part of Russia's blockade-busting effort in 1962, and surrendered to US forces in late November of that year. She was brought to Pensacola and the crew interned. Veterans: Pensacola was one of the places that the mangled remnants of the Cuban landing force was brought back to following LeMay's dangerous gamble to pull them off the radioactive beaches. Radiation and battle wounds have claimed most of them, but there are a number of Marines and Airborne Rangers still living in the city. Some are active parts of the city military structure, others are just trying to forget about the horrors of a nuclear battlefield. 4) THE PANHANDLE This swampy coastal strip is hot, muggy and filled with mosquitoes, diseases and skeletons. Many towns have been deserted and looted and bamboo and palmetto is quickly overgrowing the deserted towns, choking off yards and side streets. Smallpox is spreading slowly through the area from Georgia recently. Elgin Air Force Base: To the east of Pensacola is the former Air Force Proving Ground Center at Elgin AFB, now home to just a few stragglers, the bulk of the personnel having moved into Pensacola. As well, the surviving assets of the 4135th Strategic Wing of B-52s have been moved to Pensacola NAS. The few USAF and Army remnants left are fighting each other (somehow arranged by NA spies from down in Saint Petersburg) over control of the facilities. Apalachicola: Controlled by a band of modern-day highwaymen run by the crazy "King Barnum & Bailey III" with the aid of a court of circus freaks. Ruthless and evil, they are choking the thin trickle of communication and trade between the local towns. Tallahassee: While almost completely razed by rioters and refugees, the state capital still supports a small population. The community militia is led by a half-dozen cadet rangers of the Florida State University ROTC department and Colonel Murphy, the crazed former Professor of Military Science at FSU. They have been making a home-built automatic weapon called the "Gator Gun". 5) NORTHERN FLORIDA Gainesville: Plundered by looters in 1962 and waves of marauders in 1963, little remains of Gainesville but deserted houses, skeletons and burnt-out cars. The surviving population has recently been enslaved by it's own militia. The militia run a forced labor camp used to extract salvageable goods from the Gainesville ruins and sells/trades all the goods and keeps the proceeds themselves. Starke: To the east of Gainesville, the farmers and tradesmen here have formed a militia group for mutual defense. They are 250 strong and armed with everything from black powder muskets (which are manufactured in Starke), bolt-action rifles, shotguns and pistols. They also have a .30 cal LMG and a 105mm mortar with limited rounds, both looted from the nearby remains of Camp Blanding Military Reservation. Yankeetown: Along the coast north of Tampa, Yankeetown is now home to a repaired radio station broadcasting to most of Florida. The station is run by an ex-Navy SEAL and is very pro-MilGov and anti-New America in his broadcasts. It is a mystery how he is still alive. 6) JACKSONVILLE The war: The night of October 28, 1962 was the end of the world for Jacksonville. While not nuked itself, two fell close enough to convince the already panicked citizens that the next had Jacksonville painted on it's nosecone. Thanks to a severe storm systems passing south-north over the state on that night, the Orlando strike 140 miles to the south and the Cape Canaveral strike just 110 miles southeast both dumped the majority of their deadly fallout onto Jacksonville. As radiation counters went off the charts and the fear skyrocketed, the city melted in upon itself in a carnival of violence, looting and burning as the population fled inland. Local authorities tried to stop the tide but were soon swamped, even the city's several military installations were hard-pressed to keep out the masses of people looking for safety and revenge. Today: Mostly abandoned during the chaos, this once fine port city has fallen into ruin and is a shadow of its former self, down to less than 10,000 residents. The city is split in two by the Saint Johns River and these survivors are mostly concentrated in the eastern half of the city. The western half is mostly just occupied by scavengers who rummage through the deserted neighborhoods in search of food. The harbor is filled with half-sunken freighters and rusting hulks. The military holds on: The US Navy evacuated the Mayport Naval Base and it's associated airbases in late 1962 when it became obvious that getting food and supplies to the men there was going to be a problem with the condition of the city and northern Florida in general. By that time, the enclave up the coast at Savannah was forming and the majority of the men and material were moved up there. While the still-inhabited parts of the city are protected by the remnants of the local police force, the real muscle in Jacksonville is the US Army. The garrison is the 300 Florida National Guardsmen of the 51st Infantry Division augmented with some other left-behind sailors and soldiers. Mostly support and headquarters personnel, they are the remains of the division that were not shipped to Europe in 1962 to be crushed. The unit is tasked with guarding the city's port facilities in case the military command decides to return one day. With the probable cost of cleaning up and securing Jacksonville being out of reach, and Savannah being so close, it might be several more years before the effort is even made. The 51st ID was badly shattered during the nuclear attacks and the chaos and is now just a shadow of it's former self, being reduced to little more than a regiment at this point. The men still here are pretty much on their own, left to feed themselves and only very infrequently receiving any visits from the military enclaves further up the coast. Cleo and the Sea Lord: In early September of this year, the city (and all of Florida) was horribly smacked by Hurricane Dora, a Category 4 storm that came in suddenly and without much warning now that the hurricane warning system has long been broken down. Large parts of the city were flooded as the storm surge washed over the already damaged seawalls. Cleo caught the garrison unprepared, and killed numerous soldiers and ruined much of what they had worked to rebuild in the naval base compound. Perhaps because of the strain of this disaster, or maybe something else, the 51st ID's commander, who always took his assignment very seriously, has gone a bit batty. He has declared himself both the "Sea Lord of Jacksonville" and "Admiral Poseidon" and has become even more driven to protect his men and "his city". He has ordered a cache of magnetic and contact mines that were found at the base to be strung out across the mouth of the Saint John's River, blocking access to the city. He says it is to keep huge mutant fish out of his city. His men, realizing the folly of it, are stalling in setting the mines. 7) CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE CENTER Due to a combination of rushed launching, computer failure at the launch site, and technological glitches, the Russian SS-7 ICBM that was supposed to destroy the satellite launch center on October 28, 1962 missed the mark wide. The 6 megaton warhead splashed down in the Atlantic ten miles to the northeast, and exploded some 100 feet underwater. The resulting nuclear-induced tidal wave and wide-spread radioactive seawater contamination were dreadful and deadly and thousands died in areas along the northern Florida coast. The hit occurred just as a huge storm front was rolling in from the south and most of the radioactive fallout was carried away from the center. Physical damage to the Space Center itself was minimal--the hit was far enough away that it merely caused a three-foot high wave to wash across the coastal areas. The EMP, however, fried almost all the sensitive electronics and circuitry in the center, rendering it useless. Much of the population fled to the surrounding areas, fearful of residual radiation and the risk of a second strike. Nearby Patrick Air Force Base, at the time a major staging area for the war on Cuba, was hastily abandoned as well, its squadrons going south to Homestead and Key West. Today the space complex is mostly abandoned save for a few scavengers. Why no one has come here from either government is a mystery, but with all the hardware fried and rusting, any effort to get it back into operation would be prohibitively expensive. The most obvious features of the complex are the three large launch structures, all badly damaged by salt water exposure over the last two years. The two oldest launch towers have started to crumble, but the newest (and never used) H-11 launch tower and assembly building still tower majestically over the beautiful coastline, perched on a plateau overlooking the water. A new warlord with some 25 lightly-armed marauders from central Florida is currently moving into the region looking for loot. 8) CENTRAL FLORIDA Outside of noted survivor communities, central Florida is largely a dangerous wasteland, with the nuclear strikes on Orlando and Tampa being the centers of two great wheels of destruction. Daytona Beach: Damaged severely by overpressure tide flooding from the offshore strike, vast portions of the city are heavily rubbled and gutted. The harbor is filled with abandoned hulks of sunken yachts, tugs and channel boats piled haphazardly by wind and weather. Docks are tumbledown and rotten. Yet, large pockets of untouched and heavily defended industrial park facilities remain. The ruined city center is held by the "Downtowners" gang, with their superior firepower looted from the county police riot squad armory. Melbourne: Mostly empty but surprisingly intact, Melbourne is a fishing town living on smoked and salted fish and truck gardens. The militia is feared more by reputation than actual military prowess. Orlando: McCoy Air Force Base in the southeastern portion of the city was nuked by a 3 megaton SS-6 ground burst on October 28, 1962. The arc of destruction from the ensuing firestorms extends eight miles into the city, loosely in a line from University Boulevard and Rollins College in the north to Orlo Vista to the northwest and to nearly Highway 435 in the west. Despite this, the northern suburbs retained a rather large population throughout the chaos. In 1963, civic leaders in Orlando made an open invitation for any military forces to come in and stop marauders from the cities of Saint Petersburg and Jacksonville and the Seminoles from ravaging the city during their time of rebuilding. The 648th Engineer Battalion (720 men and four M31 Lee ARVs), who were forced out of Statesboro, Georgia area by a virulent plague outbreak and headed south to Florida without contacting anyone, came to their aid. The battalion, originally a Georgia National Guard unit, is nominally still under federal control, but in reality is an independent group taking orders only from their patrons in the Orlando municipal government. They have now formed a loose “corridor” up central Florida, running from Orlando north to Gainesville (trading with the militia there) and Ocala, to a northern post at the ruins of Camp Blanding National Guard Training Area. The 648th is engaged in various reconstruction tasks along the corridor and their efforts have increased trade and travel between the cities of northern Florida. The New America cell in Saint Petersburg has began to infiltrate agents into Orlando in recent months and the city is rightfully concerned. They have an F-86F Sabre that has been used extensively as a ground support aircraft against New America guerillas operating in the swamps to the west. For a while Orlando was trading convoys with the Georgia National Guard unit in Valdosta but those have stopped lately as rumors of small pox in Valdosta have scared off the caravans. Lakeland: Home of 7,000 people harassed by a number of bands of thugs. The worst of these gangs, led by "Rob Roy", is some 150 strong and holds the National Guard Armory at the north edge of town. Winter Haven: Home of a survivor community centered on the old Beth Judea synagogue and its charismatic reformist rabbi Joshua Goldstine. Goldstine has led his community through the bad times and keeps marauders out through a combination of faith in the Lord and dirty tricks learned as a former commando in the Israeli army. The militia calls itself the "South Pasadena Jewish Self-Defense League" and is really a motley group of people, most of whom are neither Jewish nor from the town originally. They are woefully under-armed, but resourceful. Due to their religious orientation, along with their location on the route to Orlando, the defenders of Winter Haven know that it is just a matter of time before the New Americans in Saint Petersburg come after them. 9) TAMPA BAY Tampa: On the night of October 28, 1962, a Russian SS-4 ballistic missile was launched from a complex near Havana, Cuba. The 1.2 megaton warhead exploded over MacDill Air Force Base at the end of the Tampa peninsula. The only thing that saved the entire Tampa Bay area from mass extinction was the mischance of a premature detonation, some 2,000 feet too high for the full effects of the blast to be felt. Still, 160,000 people died that first night, countless more over the next week. Every single building on the peninsula has been scoured off the earth and the zone of total destruction extends across the whole Tampa peninsula north to State Route 580, all along the east coast of Tampa Bay as far south as Apollo Beach, and a good chunk of eastern Saint Petersburg. In the dead center of MacDill's main runway is "Ground Zero Lake", a perfectly circular crater filled with radioactive rain water and burning oil from underground spillage. Few bridges in the area are still standing. The double bridge connecting the mainland with Davis Island has collapsed, and the bridges spanning the Hillsborough River at Buffalo and Hillsborough Avenues are both down. Damage to the Busch Gardens amusement park was light, but many of the animals escaped, including white tigers, leopards and lions that to this day still pose threats to travelers in northeast Tampa. Today, Tampa is a virtual ghost town with a total population of about 200 or 300 individuals scattered over the entire city. There still remains much untapped salvage in the city but little motivation to try. Saint Petersburg: Damaged by the Tampa strike, this city has become one of the largest and most organized enclaves of New America in the nation, as well as one of the best run and efficient city left in America. The NA cell here had long-standing influence with the city leadership and the nuclear war gave them an opportunity to take over, setting in motion plans that had been drawn up decades ago. Having absorbed many refugees from around the state, the total population of Saint Petersburg is now nearly 70,000. While the majority of them claim to be pro-NA, in reality most people will pledge allegiance to anyone who feeds them and keeps the wolves at bay. True, hardcore New American supporters probably make up only 2% of the population, but that 2% have all the influence and the firepower. Despite their rhetoric, the NA has worked hard to rebuild the city and plant enough crops to keep it running, using much refugee labor to accomplish their plans. There are numerous public works projects ongoing, including opening up power plants burning trash, with fuel for the operations coming from the acres of rubble and ruin in the eastern part of the city. The NA militia forces are well-armed and more than able to keep the city safe from outside and inside threats. They are vicious in their dealings with minorities and dissidents, but in general the population recognizes the need for strong men with guns in this day and age. Bradenton: Across the bay from Saint Pete, Bradenton is now occupied by Seminoles who killed off the remaining inhabitants in 1963. It is through Bradenton that the NA funnel weapons to the Seminoles (see below). Sarasota: Destroyed by thousands of rampaging refugees in 1962 and then swamped out by a surprise Gulf hurricane in 1963, Sarasota was almost completely deserted by 1964. Occasional Seminole patrols from Bradenton prowl the ruins searching for the dregs of salvage and it insure that it stays deserted. 10) SOUTHERN FLORIDA The Everglades: Home to a growing population of Seminole Indian communities. Many have returned to the "old ways" and shun outsiders, others are just trying to survive, but a large number of them have become increasingly militant and anti-white. The Seminoles were the only American Indian tribe that successfully fought the US Army to a standstill in the last century, and pride in that runs deep in the older generations. Once the bombs started to fall and the white man's world died, the leaders of the tribe decided the time was right to reclaim what they had lost. In the past two years they have raided and burned numerous towns and even struck as far a field as Bradenton and Orlando, while mostly staying closer to home. They total around 13,000 strong in small settlements scattered throughout the swamps. As they usually trade with outsiders only after several meetings, all but the most diligent of traders are generally discouraged from trying. The New American enclave in the Tampa Bay area has a unique deal with the Seminoles--they provide guns to the Indians in exchange for them thinning out the refugee population in south Florida for them. Not everyone in the tribe agrees with the policy of militant racism, but the ones with the power and guns do and so dissent is kept to a minimum. Naples: Right on the edge of Seminole territory, Naples exists on the edge of disaster every day. Before the collapse Naples boasted the highest per capita net worth of anywhere in the United States, and was one of the major retirement sites on the East Coast. These two features combined with a close proximity to the prime fishing grounds of the eastern Gulf and a good natural harbor have helped the city to survive and even prosper. The collapse brought severe hardship to the Naples area, particularly in the health care industry. Before the collapse, Naples had long been a haven for senior citizens looking for a comfortable place to retire--causing a massive build-up of the medical care infrastructure, which was targeted at long term and specialized needs. With the nuclear exchange came the first shortages: trained personnel, then supplies and people started to die. More died in the months following the breakdown, and within six months almost all special care patients had passed away, leaving the population healthier. Today, life in the city is fairly comfortable, if nervous. It is much like San Francisco during the turn of the century, without all the horses. The laws are relaxed and generally follow the “do onto others as you would have them do onto you,” theory. There is a police force that keeps the peace and mans the watch towers that guard the eastern approaches to the city. They have had several skirmishes with the Miccossukee and Seminole Indian tribes recently. Fort Myers: Home to some 15,000 survivors. They are primarily fishers, but have spread out into surrounding fields to plant crops to supplement the fishing and to provide alcohol fuel for their boats. 11) THE MIAMI STRIP The war: On October 28, 1962, a Soviet Cuba-launched 1.2 megaton SS-4 nuclear missile targeted on the SAC dispersal base at Homestead Air Force Base south of Miami failed due to EMP interference and landed in the ocean well south of the city without detonating. The populace rioted and panicked anyway, fuelled by the proximity of the ground war in Cuba and the visible mushroom clouds over Orlando and Tampa. Miami was home to some 200,000 Hispanics in 1962, and many of them were outraged that the US government just nuked their homeland of Cuba. A similar backlash against them from white Americans and anti-military riots in the Little Havana area quickly mixed into a volatile mess and bloody street battles between the citizens tore the city apart. Doing their best: Today, most of the metro area has been abandoned to the looters and gangs, and only a few northern and southern suburbs are inhabited. Large areas of the city are now empty, being retaken by the palmetto and mangrove trees. The state and local governments lack effective control over any part of the city south of Palm Beach. All of Dade County is in a permanent medical crisis and mosquito-borne diseases including malaria, typhoid, encephalitis, and dengue fever are rampant. Gang rule: Most of central Miami is now home to over three dozen gangs with technology ranging from clubs and knives to firearms and motorcycles. They can often be found ranging throughout South Florida on raiding missions against settlements and farms. The gangs total around 5,000 all together. Major looming food shortages in the coming year will no doubt lead them to kill each other off and perhaps one day the city can recover. Cleo: Much of that hope for the future was dashed by the fury of Hurricane Cleo, which slammed into South Florida in early September of this year. The Force 4 cyclone brought unprecedented devastation to the strip of cities from Miami to Fort Lauderdale, flooding many coastal areas under ten feet of salt water. Thousands died in the catastrophe, and most of the survivors fled north to higher ground. Kendall: But not everything was abandoned. Parts of south Miami, spared the most devastating effects of the hurricane by distance from the storm's eye and a few extra feet of elevation, survived the disaster more or less intact. Hardy survivors are working to rebuild. The locals have taken to calling the town such colorful names as "End of the Earth" and " Ken-hell." Palm Beach: Palm Beach is now the largest peaceful enclave in the Miami area. Protected from the hurricanes by the MacArthur Seawall and from the gangs by a large defense force, this city has survived quite well and is now home to some 55,000 people. So many refugees from further north have settled here that some call the city "New Jacksonville". In early 1964, the Palm Beach National Guard garrison, the 2nd Howitzer Battalion/265th Artillery Regiment (400 men), the last remnant of Florida's 48th Armored Division, which had done such a good job protecting the city, rejected the authority of the competing national governments and declared itself to be the "Central Florida Home Guards". They are currently most concerned with protecting the Florida Turnpike that runs northwest to Orlando, the main trade conduit for the city. Fort Lauderdale: A ravaged ruin blasted by fire, hurricane, tornado and storm surge. 12) THE FLORIDA KEYS Key West: During the night of October 28, 1962, Key West Naval Air Station (the command HQ for the Cuba quarantine) was the target of two Russian SS-4 ballistic missiles launched from Cuba, the first fired from that island at the continental USA. Both 1.2 megaton warheads hit the island but were both duds. The Soviet-built SS-4 was a faulty design, and many of them eventually turned out to be duds (see Mobile, Alabama). The Keys suffered many deaths from the fallout clouds from American nuclear strikes on Cuba, forcing operations at Key West NAS to be severely curtailed. A massive hurricane in the spring of 1963 nearly flattened the base and destroyed most every aircraft and vehicle still there. Worst of all, the US Highway 1 bridge was cut by the hurricane between Summerland Key and Ramrod Key, making travel from the Keys to the mainland nearly impossible. After that, the military completely abandoned the Keys, leaving it to the few surviving locals and fishermen. The city of Key West was renamed by the locals "Twicetown" for it's luck in being hit twice with dud nukes. The two SS-4 are still there to be seen, both on the edges of the city. The first is just a rusty cylinder of metal in an overgrown field north of the city. The other is still in the remains of the garage that it smashed into, scorched and welted but in some spots still painted olive drab. Despite it's danger, this nuke has become sort of a religious shrine for the superstitious natives, and they often bring it offerings of fish and trinkets. In the summer of 1964, a boat load of Israeli refugees landed on the Keys. Because most of them were black-skinned, they have had an easy time integrating into the population. Vaca Key: The old abandoned Dolphin Research Center on Vaca Key is now home to the Cuban Fidel Castro Brigade (300 men). Led by General Juan Cordova, these men snuck up here from Cuba during the dark days of the winter of 1962 and have been consolidating a base deep within the complex's many buildings and fish pens. They are armed mostly with Russian made AK-47s and have one stolen US Army truck. They have their hands full eating and staying trained, but have big plans to liberate all of Florida for Cuba one day. |
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The rest later!
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SECTION EIGHT: The East Coast (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, District of Columbia, Delaware)
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NEW YORK
New York, as expected, has suffered greatly in the past two years. With NYC nuked, literally millions of panicked people streamed out of the city and stormed upstate. These mobs of refugees totally swamped and buried the once-peaceful northern half of the state under a tidal wave of violence and desperation. Cities and towns burned as hungry people fought each other for food and transport further west. The loss of civic control in New York was hastened by the lack of a strong National Guard presence that could have helped smooth the relocation of refugees. The state's NG units were nearly all called up and sent to Florida during the early days of the Cuban Crisis, and once the bombs started to fall they were not in a position to return to the state in time. The first winter of 1962 thinned them out, and as soon as the food ran out those that still lived by the spring moved. Behind them they left needless devastation. Today, state is a mix of empty forests and struggling cities. 1) NUCLEAR TARGETS Date Type Target Note 10/30/62 5 mT Bomb New York City 10/30/62 SS-N-4 New York City 10/30/62 SS-N-4 New York City Partial miss 2) ORGANIZED MILITARY FORCES IN NEW YORK 42nd Infantry Division--Peekskill (300 men) 27th Armored Division--Buffalo (2000 men, 30 AFVs) ------449th Government Unit--Elmira (100 men) 3) NEW YORK CITY For the first two terrible days of the nuclear war, the metroplex remained untouched, much to the delight of it's panicked citizens. But their respite was short-lived. Early on October 30, a flight of three Tu-95M Bear A bombers, showing a capability not anticipated by US analysts, flew low over the Atlantic and attacked New York City from the east. They were intercepted by three F-102 Delta Daggers, which shot them all down but not before one of them had dropped its bomb. The 5 megaton bomb landed in eastern Queens, between Bayside Avenue and 46th Avenue, killing at least a million people in one instant. That evening, the Soviet Golf I class ballistic missile submarine B-125 lurking off Greenland fired two 1 megaton SS-N-4s at the city, completing the destruction of America's premiere city. The first SLBM airburst six miles high over the intersection of Sixth Avenue and 49th Street in central Manhattan. The second, aimed at Brooklyn, misfired and airburst out at sea, the tidal waves punishing the coastal areas and flooding the subway and train tunnels. NYC in chaos: In the immediate post-nuke months the city tore itself apart. Gangs looted National Guard armories. Sniper fire and mortar exchanges helped the city’s survivors divide into racial and ethnic enclaves. A lot of refugee camps sprang up in the surrounding counties with suburban militias blocking the bridges and tunnels going into Jersey, Long Island and Westchester to stem the tide of refugees. Fresh drinking water was the big problem. NYC relied on upstate reservoirs and when they lost access to those when the power went and the lines running the water into the city failed, it was the end. With no running water or electricity, people booked out of the city real fast. Massive race and food riots were triggered throughout the city, however, and on December 4, 1962 the US 1st Army declared martial law in New York with the consent of General LeMay. In late May 1964, the drought hit the Mid-Atlantic states. Panic swept the Mid-Atlantic states; rioting and unrest would bring down virtually all the city and municipal governments left in the area. Many of the insane who roam the streets and sewers of the skeleton city have made the gruesome transition to cannibalism. The winter of 1962-63 largely finished off what was left of Manhattan and its power centers. Food reserves dwindled, and, except for a few isolated communities, the city had died out as an entity before the coming of spring. As 1963 wore on, plunder became more sparse for the gangs. Poor crops ruined many communities, the weakened ones falling to the stronger gangs. Today, New York City today is virtually a ghost town with isolated communities huddled in farmed parks. Population is estimated at around 44,000 city wide. Manhattan: In Manhattan, the concrete and steel used in the building of the city has survived, leaving many of the giants as their smaller neighbors crumbled into ash. Downtown Manhattan is still a mess, most tall buildings are dark, burnt-out skeletons of twisted metal and dangling concrete. Towering skyscrapers are now just blackened, twisted, flash-melted wreckage. The Empire State building is just a truncated, bare rusty skeleton. A vast field of rubble exists across most of the lower half of the island. Central Park looks like the Ardennes Forest of WWI. The ground is churned up, acres lay bare of trees or vegetation. The various ponds and lakes are bone dry. Destroyed military equipment lay littered around the park, from when the military tried to restore order after the strikes. Yankee Stadium has been abandoned for years, now a No Man's Land. The means over the Hudson River to the west bank are either shattered by the nuke (the George Washington Bridge), blocked with abandoned cars (the Tappan Zee Bridge), or held by hostile forces (the Bear Mountain Bridge). As well, both the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels are flooded, both are jammed with vehicles whose gas tanks exploded, crushed cars, concrete slabs and skeletons, the river flooded right up to the toll gates. On the east side, the Manhattan Bridge is partially intact and the Queens Midtown Tunnel is flooded out. The Brooklyn Bridge is useless, the Brooklyn half partially submerged in the river and the Manhattan half demolished. There is also a rumor recently circulating on the island of an unexploded Russian nuclear weapon sticking out of the side of an apartment building. Is there truth to this rumor? No. The total population of the lower end of the island is now in the low hundreds, sharing the last open areas with literally millions of rats and exponentially multiplied cockroaches. The area of near-total rubble extends from the tip north to the southern edge of Harlem, with only a few cleared areas. West Harlem: West Harlem burned to the ground in 1962 and 1963. Perhaps nine out of ten buildings are burnt-out shells, and all have been stripped of anything of value. The only large survivor band is called the "Mau Maus" who control the area of Harlem between 125th and 155th Streets based out of Garvey Park. The greenways of the park have been cleared and tilled and the edges bounded by a low rubble wall. The old cast-iron watch tower on top of the park's hill serves as the citadel of the gang. The gang is predominately black with some Puerto Ricans and whites working together. They survive by raiding and planting the numerous vacant lots in the area to feed their 250 members. Some smaller gangs in West Harlem include the "Simbas" and the "Disciples". The Simbas are based out of an old casino on the corner of Lennox and 116th Street. They have raided a National Guard armory in Brooklyn and cached the stores. East Harlem: Several Puerto Rican gangs dominate East Harlem. The main gang is called "Los Reyes", based in a fortified housing project called "La Fortaleza" (The Fortress), located in the area bordered by 107th and 110th Streets and First Avenue and FDR Drive. Both Jefferson Park and the landscaped areas have been tilled and barricaded. They are heavily armed with automatic weapons and are extremely hostile to outsiders. There are several other Spanish-speaking gangs in East Harlem, including the "Los Borinqueros" and the "Los Discipulos del Muerto". The Polo Grounds: The home of the Mets baseball team in Harlem. Though it was damaged fairly severely from the blast over Manhattan, it was intact enough to consider farming. In the spring the locals are planning on planting crops there. The Bronx: This suburb still supports a largish population of some 25,000, mostly centered around the Cloisters, which used to be branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Fort Tryon and Inwood Hill Parks are both in the process of being cleared and planted by this community. Other large groups of survivors are centered around the Van Courtland Park, the Bronx Park, and in the area around Pelham Bay. The 8,000-strong Bronx Park community is run by the remains of the City government, led by Hannibal Dobbs, the former Deputy Commissioner of Housing as acting Mayor, supported by a handful of surviving NYPD officers and a large militia. Dobbs' HQ is at Fordham University, next to the farmland of the New York Botanical Gardens and the grounds of the Bronx Zoo. He The Bronx's real treasure may indeed be Dobb's large stockpile of medical supplies cached at the Fordham Medical Center. Battery Park: This is now the sole inhabited area of Manhattan Island south of Harlem. About a hundred survivors under a man named Duke have taken over the old nineteenth-century fort Castle Clinton. The adjacent Municipal Ferry Terminal is also under their control, and one of the Staten Island ferries is being refurbished to service, though fuel is virtually nonexistent. The Harbor Rats pirates have been raiding the Battery Park group regularly. Manhattan Waterfront: This enclave of several blocks of run-down waterfront on the East River at Fulton Street is the home base of a group of pirates called the "Harbor Pirates". The Pirates, who number less than a hundred, are a splinter off the larger Harbor Rats pirate gang, and are led by a minor drug lord named Manuel Diego Huerra. In late 1962, the Pirates took control of some historical vessels that survived the nuclear blast over Manhattan and have been using them to raid coastal areas and ship traffic in New York Harbor ever since. The Harbor Pirates vessels include the Ambrose Lightship, which never leaves its moorings at Pier 16 and serves as the HQ of the group, as well as the storehouse of the gang's gasoline reserve. Four sailing vessels form the nucleus of the fleet: the four-masted bark Peking (armed with a jury-rigged 40mm antiaircraft gun from a M42 Duster on her bow), the three-masted Wavertree, and the two small schooners the Lattie G. Howard and the Pioneer. Long Island: Long Island was consumed by firestorms as far out as Mineola. Today, the eastern half is actually doing okay, as most people fled the other way, and the UBF has begun trade with them; the MilGov 77th ID in New Jersey has established an outpost there as well. Queens: Within several miles of the nuclear ground zero in the eastern part of the area, fire-scorched and soot-blackened girders jut from the slag heaps where skyscrapers once stood. The spread-out nature of Queens, however, has led to the survival of several enclaves. The largest of these are centered around LaGuardia Airport and nearby at Flushing Meadows where Corona Park has been tilled and planted. Maritime communities along the southern coast have been active in fishing and trade. Brooklyn: The largest survivor enclave in southern Brooklyn is controlled by a warlord named "Abraxas", a former NYPD captain in the 60th Precinct. He rules over the scavengers and thugs that cluster around the low-rent housing projects around Coney Island and in the park areas along Jamaica Bay. This area was strangely spared most of the firestorm damage and now has some of the tallest buildings still standing in the city. His greatest achievement is the reopening last year of the elevated train. It has six cars and is pulled by a small Transit Authority locomotive along rails that are not longer electrified, the diesel work train pressed into service when the electric trams were fried by EMP. It only runs on the undamaged section between Church Avenue and the Stillwell Avenue station at Coney Island, and is expensive to ride, but it has provided Abraxas with the needed clout to remain firmly in power. Brooklyn Navy Yard: In bad shape by 1964, to put it mildly. Staten Island: Staten Island was badly damaged by the blast across the way in Manhattan and subsequent fires and is now a wasteland. The entire western third of the island as far as Port Richmond in the north and Staten Island Mall in the center was reduced to charred ruins by wildfires fed from burst oil refineries across the river in New Jersey. There is no organized government on the island now, and the population consists of roving bands of scavengers and bandits. The Staten Island Ferry is now half-submerged off the northern point. The Upper Bay: In the cold waters of this great anchorage in the mouth of the Hudson River there is additional carnage. The nuclear blast over Manhattan caught a number of ships unawares, the flash melting the superstructures and the blast wave capsizing them. Today the mouth of the river is clogged with half sunken hulks, nearly blocking off all access to the river from the Atlantic. Only small boats and brave pilots make the effort. Dozens of rusty hulks sit in the bay around the lower tip of Manhattan, masts and superstructures above water. Some of the great liners of the world are wrecked here--even the SS United States, lying on her side below the Battery. As well, the Essex class aircraft carrier CVA-38 Shangri-La is here, half-sunken with her flight deck tilted into the water. Governor's Island: Home to the "Harbor Rats" the largest pirate gang in the New York area, with some 260 members. There are six boats ranging from a small cabin cruiser named the Cypress Queento a number of speedboats all in the 20'-35' range liberated from the city's marinas. The arms range mainly from small arms to a number of M14s and a few civilian rifles. They are based out of the Fort Jay Military Reservation, and the barracks and bunkers of the fort are stuffed with loot and booty. Their leader is named Barney Halverson, a self-proclaimed Viking who calls himself "Bjarni" and carries a looted Viking sword and battle axe. After having explored the area, The group has recently discovered an old US Navy frigate protected from the mostly intact in Bayonne, where many surplus warships were mothballed. They are not sure how to do it, but they have plans to use it as a mobile base for them in the future. Close to the shore of Governor's Island a large, rust-covered liner is beached on a mud bank. She was run aground at high tide, and at low tide she looms over the water, canted at a crazy angle. Returning from Europe when the first nuke hit Manhattan, the ship's blinded boatswain ran her aground. Ellis Island: Now totally deserted, serving only as a prison for the Harbor Rats. Roosevelt Island: Though severely damaged by the nuclear strike over Manhattan, the residents of this island have cordoned off the island and are now living in total isolation. They have blocked off the Queensborough and 36th Avenue Bridges. There is now a population of some 1,000 people on the island, led by one of the island's pre-war residents, a retired Marine colonel named Randolph Phillips. Under Colonel Phillips, an 80-man militia has been formed and drills daily. Small sailboats and converted motor launches patrol the approaches to the island. Several attempts at conquest by the various harbor pirate groups have been repulsed. They have farmed the limited land on the island, including the grounds of the hospitals, landscaping areas around housing developments and such. The several hospitals on the island all have heavily guarded stocks of medicines. The Statue of Liberty: Lady Liberty has stood strong, surviving the blasts with only a barrage of scars and her head blown off. The fires have coated her with a thick layer of soot and today she is black as night. Her massive severed head now sits in ten feet of dirty water right off Liberty Island with a colony of lobsters living in her nostrils, her spikes have been known to tear open the hulls of inattentive sailors. The Harbor Rats pirate gang considers her sacred territory now and keep people away from "Our Lady". New Jersey side: Most of the New Jersey side is a radioactive mess today. Fires leapt the Hudson River, setting ablaze the oil refineries of Hoboken and Jersey City. Jersey City burned fast, the flames whipped by a stiff eastward wind. Charred twisted spires are all that remains of skyscrapers, mounds of blistered wreckage and piles of blackened debris litter the landscape. Newark: Though devastated by firestorms, Newark is known now as the "Free City of Newark". The Verazano Narrows Bridge is blocked with an immovable crush of vehicles. Hoboken: The streets of Hoboken are still clogged with thousands of automobile carcasses blocking all but a few passages. Some of the clearways had been made by survivors and other gangs for purposes of routing traffic into their clutches. Hoboken is run by the "Two mayors". The mayors are two pilots that took over and organized the city out of the post-nuke chaos, consolidating power and gaining almost cult like status amongst the survivors. One of pilots, a former USAF test pilot and aspiring astronaut, is the visible spokesman, the other a silent behind-the-scenes type. The reason for his secrecy is that he is in fact the pilot of one of the Tu-95Ms that was shot down shot down over the city in 1962. Of even more special note, his Tu-95M, which crashed south of Plainview on Long Island, is still there today with two intact 1 megaton bombs buried in the wreckage. 4) HUDSON RIVER VALLEY Here, fertile lowlands and a high water table have allowed farms to yield significant (if unspectacular) crops, and the Adirondacks still offer good fishing and hunting opportunities. The area was a main refugee route for the east coast cities and it shows. The road system is in sorry repair, and getting rapidly worse. Trees down here, poles broken there, surprising numbers of washed out culverts and impassable exchanges. Abandoned vehicles and landslides. Many bridges are blocked by horrendous traffic jams, others visibly unsafe with sagging spans, and still others actually collapsed and lying in the water. Albany: The state capital is still that, though it controls only the immediate area. On the first night of the war, Governor Nelson Rockefeller was in New York City and is presumed dead. A man named Jimmy Briscom took over the empty seat in December of 1962. he claimed to be the logical successor to Rockefeller, because he was the state's assistant secretary of commerce and the only one on the chain willing to take on the responsibility. He tried at first to bring Lieutenant Governor Wilson in Buffalo into the fold, but Wilson has refused to acknowledge Briscom's legitimacy. For whatever reason, probably for fear of drawing attention, Briscom moved the capital into the suburb of Rensselaer to the campus of the university there. Here he has some local police and some National Guardsmen to patrol the local area. The NG men are widely hated in the area, as they use their powers to loot and rape the people they are supposed to protect. Briscom's attempts to collect taxes are also unpopular. The city itself is in sad shape, with widespread ruin, crumbling and gutted buildings overgrown with trees and underbrush, the norm. The New York State Police armory and the former Watervliet National Guard Armory have both been looted of weapons but both still contain a variety of useful equipments, including spare vehicle parts and winter clothing. While there are no large scale gangs in the area, only small bands of up to ten people, Albany is one of those places that gunfire is heard almost every night. Indian Point Nuclear Reactor: Briscom's one ace in the hole might be the Indian Point nuclear reactor down in Westchester County near Peekskill, which had just begin full operation in October of 1962 and was quickly taken offline once the nukes started to fly. Briscom had heard as early as 1963 that although abandoned, the plant was intact and has sent a large contingent of 300 soldiers to check it out. The plant facility is now held by a largish unit of New York National Guardsmen that traveled down the Hudson River to here. This is a unit of the 42nd Infantry Division, that was in South Florida preparing supporting the invasion of Cuba when the nukes started to fly. While most of the unit was gathered up and shipped off to die in Europe, many of the men awolled, with many soldiers heading back north for home, including this particular group which is made up of men from a number of component units. The soldiers are not happy about being here instead of their homes but they understand that the power plant is the region's best hope for recovery and are determined to see it working. The reason this unit is here is that the commander, Major Charles Kane, was once on the station staff before being called up to active duty and therefore is in the best position to help in the recovery of it. The plant needs some minor repairs to the turbines and generators, and major work on the control circuitry, but Kane is confidant that the plant can be back in operation by early spring. With this in mind, he has his men out scouring the area for tools and wiring. Kane is aware of Briscom's dubious claim on gubernatorial power and is secretly planning on turning independent once the plant is operational, selling the power to the highest bidder. Agents of Lieutenant Governor Wilson in Buffalo are currently making their way down to Indian Point to negotiate with him. Newburgh: Now home to some 18,000 souls. It is the capital of the "Republic of Katskil" and "Emperor" Brian Williams, formerly the Mayor of the city. Organized in 1963 as a provisional government center to aid in the restoration of state power, Mayor Williams soon fell into a crazy illness and began to run the city like a monarchy, so much so that by early 1964 he had taken the title of Emperor and was calling everyone his "loyal subjects". He is an efficient organizer and good to his people, so the citizens just play along, even taking some pride in their Republic. Governor Briscom is currently working to have him killed. Kingston: A survivor enclave and an active trading partner with both Albany and Newburgh, Kingston has become an almost totally agrarian town, with fields and farms where there once was concrete and brick. 5) NORTHERN NEW YORK Once a popular vacation area, the war caused the people to leave. Now the forest is busy taking the buildings, the road and everything else man-made back into itself. Many of the larger towns in the Adirondacks region, such as Tupper Lake, Lake Placid and Saranac Lake, are deserted and looted, uninhabited except for a few transient families combing the ruins for salvage. The flu came through this area last winter, further weakening the population. New America controls many of northern New York's surviving communities and a marauder band/cult called the "Army of the Pure Bible" is active in the area as well. Camp Drum Military Reservation: Fallen into ruin and there is nothing more than foundations filled in with the wreckage of what once was. A rumor amongst the locals s that the place is haunted, a place of death, shunned even by animals. Some speculate that chemical weapons stored at the base are responsible. Plattsburgh Air Force Base: Home of twelve empty Atlas F ICBM silos, located at Champlain, Millsboro, Lewis, Au Sable Forks, Riverview, Redford, Dannemora, Brainardsville, Ellenburg Depot, and Moeers plus two located on the other side of Lake Champlain in Vermont at Alburg and Swanton. The complex was just completed in early October of 1962, and the missiles had just arrived when the Cuban War exploded. Nevertheless, the missiles were hastily launched on their deadly missions, leaving only empty silos. 6) CENTRAL NEW YORK Syracuse: Most of the residents of Syracuse either fled to the mountains or scattered to seek the comparative safety of the small towns in rural New York. Today, a new city of sorts has sprung up around Syracuse-Hancock International Airport, thanks to it's centralized location in the region. As well, the remnants of industries in Syracuse still provide some material goods. Elmira: This small city is home of the CivGov 449th Government Unit, a 100-man reinforced company detached from the 27th Armored Division in Buffalo that is responsible for organization and relief efforts in this area of central New York. The company commander is a pompous, arrogant man who treats the citizens with utter contempt. He has had several citizens publicly flogged for "failing to show proper respect to a US Army officer." His men follow his example. The population are simply biding their time for the right moment to rise up. Griffiss Air Force Base: Now home to a healthy enclave of survivors and brains. In the hours before the mobs came, the fissionable materials from the AEC laboratories at Oak Ridge, Tennessee were crated up and shipped by air north here to Griffiss AFB where they remain today. They are kept in an underground bunker in the center of the base. The remaining staff of Oak Ridge has joined with the airbase personnel to create an oasis of safety in upstate New York. The base is in excellent condition, although it has no aircraft left by 1964, and it is well-defended and carries on trade with numerous local communities, who have become dependant on the base themselves. Trucks and wagons come and go everyday as the base trades technological goods for foodstuffs. The base has two old WWII cannons with less than ten rounds apiece and three tanks that are the backbone of the defenses. Ithaca: A small but growing survivor enclave centered on the Cornell University campus, led by "Commander" Peter Croucher and a militia composed of the remains of the Campus Police, local law enforcement, and levies. Commander Croucher is an interesting character. He had been a personnel manager at a textile plant in Boston before the war. Drafted soon after the nuclear exchanges, he was sent to England and saw some hazardous adventures there. In mid-1963 he deserted along with some other men when his unit mutinied. Some of the mutineers stole a plane, and with Croucher on it, and flew it to Newfoundland. From there he worked his way west back to his sister's home in central New York. By early 1964, he had used his managerial skills to work his way into a position of power within the struggling campus security force. Ithaca had been suffering greatly from cholera and marauder raids for nearly a year before Croucher arrived, but he was able to whip them into shape and protect what was left. Croucher now runs the campus, which has absorbed most of the remaining population of the town, with the help of a council of academics. He has set up a hygiene program and reorganized food production to meet demands. Romulus: There are rumors that there are rogue soldiers occupying the former military weapons depot here, where chemical weapons are also rumored to be held. These soldiers are a collection of deserters and marauders from the New York City area. This Army depot has been a treasure trove for them. The depot held a few dozen old Sherman tanks in the war-reserve stockpile into the 1960s and these vehicles have made them a major force in the region. There are a lot of Garand rifles at the depot, as well as other WW II surplus that are showing up on the local markets as the soldiers begin trading them for foodstuffs. 7) WESTERN NEW YORK Even with the devastation of New York City and the collapse of Military Region 1, the western counties of New York state have managed to maintain some semblance of order. Immediately after the nukings. Lieutenant Governor Malcolm Wilson, who was in Buffalo when the bombs fell, once he learned of the disappearance of Governor Rockefeller, tried to return to Albany to take over the state government. But the capital city was being swarmed with thousands of refugees from New York City, many of whom were battling police and rampaging through the city. Wilson decided then to go back to Buffalo and took personal charge of the area, effectively abandoning the eastern region of the state. The Great Lakes coast of New York was becoming the last stop for a number of refugees from Ohio and Pennsylvania. The fields of western New York produced enough food to support the reduced population, though the last year saw a decline in the region's fortune as more refugees sought entrance and then needed to be turned away. Due to further pressures on the militia from marauders and from the Now America enclave in the north, more militia needed to be armed, stricter measures enforced, and less ground held. Wilson has never recognized the legitimacy of Jimmy Briscom, the new Governor in Albany. Clearly, if Wilson can manage to control to a small enough area around Buffalo to defend, yet large enough to grow food on, his government may survive. The local county militias, along with state police units and 105 surviving members of the Fort Drum military staff, have formed a more or less unified command, although they are too few in number (only 650) to watch the borders and provide internal security. Wilson, who now claims the title Governor/Mayor of Buffalo and Major General David Dellvechio is head of the combined militias. He has declared the new capital to be Buffalo. The bulk of the New York National Guardsmen of the CivGov 27th Armored Division (2000 men, 30 AFVs) are now garrisoning the area. The division is very strong, with some 2,000 men under arms, and is well equipped with automatic rifles, large quantities of ammunition, grenades, man-portable anti-tank rockets, heavy machine guns, as well as some 21 assorted artillery pieces. For vehicles, the unit still operates 30 tanks, 90 trucks and 42 jeeps. The various airfields and airports in the area still house 32 jet fighter-bombers, 12 helicopters, and 15 wide-bodied transports, but these are mostly grounded for lack of fuel. Engineers have occupied and partially restarted the hydroelectric plant, providing the area with a trickle of semi-reliable power. However, western New York is being forced to share the hydroelectric plant with the new Canadian government, reducing the power available. Today, some 28,500 people live in the Buffalo area. |
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NEW JERSEY
The current government is loyal to the Military Government of the United States for several reasons. Governor Charles R. Samson, the pre-war district attorney of Gloucester County, was a WWII vet sympathizer and former veteran himself. There are two main enclaves of the military, at Fort Dix and at Cape May. The proximity of these large MilGov enclaves to the CivGov capital in Northern Virginia is one of the main reasons that CivGov is planning on moving to the Great Lakes region soon. Out of all the mid-Atlantic states New Jersey has had a decent, if meager, harvest. The farmlands of central and southern New Jersey brought in a fairly substantial crop during the autumn harvest, ensuring that the large populations still here will have something to eat over the long winter to come. This, combined with the productive fishing industry, will most likely see New Jersey as the most intact Northeastern state come the spring of 1965. 1) NUCLEAR TARGETS None, though the state has been severely damaged by nuclear strikes in New York City and Philadelphia. 2) ORGANIZED MILITARY FORCES IN NEW JERSEY The state's main National Guard unit, the 50th Armored Division, was mobilized in late 1962 and sent into the firestorm of Europe, leaving the state to be policed by smaller NG units and state-funded militias. The 78th Training Division in Newark was destroyed in the chaos and has ceased to exist. As there was a lot of destruction following the nukings around the state, it was difficult to keep a unit together and by 1964 most of the state's defenses are manned by militias. 77th Infantry Division--Fort Dix (1000 men, 11 AFVs) ------Able Company, 1st Battalion /612th Infantry Regiment--Cape May (50 men) 1st Regiment NJSM--Fort Dix (300 men) 3rd Regiment NJSM--Cape May (200 men) 4th Regiment NJSM--Fort Dix (275 men) 5th Regiment NJSM--Fort Dix (370 men) 6th Regiment NJSM--Fort Dix (350 men) 1st Cavalry Squadron NJSM--Fort Dix (75 men) 2nd Cavalry Squadron NJSM--Cape May (100 men) 3rd Motorized Squadron NJSM--Fort Dix (240 men) 3) EAST BANK OF DELAWARE RIVER Towns such as Palmyra and Berlin suffered severely during the nuclear attack on Philadelphia. Uncontrolled fires helped to destroy 85 percent of all structures in these areas. Trenton: Formerly the state capital, Trenton was destroyed by liquid propane firestorms ignited by the blast across the river at Philadelphia and then finished off by refugees from Philadelphia rioting with locals in the year or so after the nuclear exchange. A great deal of salvage lies untapped, too far away to safely reach at this time. Less than 500 starving refugees live in the ruins, many in a bank building in the financial district. 4) FORT DIX MILITARY RESERVATION A large pre-war basic training center, Fort Dix is now the economic and military center of New Jersey and the MilGov HQ for the region. Once the radiation died down and it became clear that the military could provide protection for refugees, people started to flock to the area. Pemberton, Brown's Mills and several refugee camps provide an economic base, supplying MilGov with food and manpower in exchange for protection. Currently, 250,000 residents and refugees reside in a 10-mile radius around the Fort, stretching to Tom's River to the east, north to Long Branch and to the Forked River/State Game Farm to the south. Dix was a typical pre-war military base--a group of generic buildings, home to the army's Cooks and Bakers School, as well as a training ground for drivers. In 1964, the engineers took the precaution of building a ditch and a berm with a firing step around the main camp. This protective measure is just over half a mile long. After the 77th was reformed, sandbagged observation towers were installed every 150 yards along the berm, with bunkers evenly spaced between them. The ditch was filled with sharpened stakes, and the top of the berm was strung with barbed wire. The base hospital is up and running, a godsend for the local area. McGuire Air Force Base on post is home to some operational air assets including six F-101 Voodoos, four F-84 Thunderjets, three UH-1 Iroquois, and six CH-43s. The 77th: The Fort Dix area is home to the MilGov 77th Infantry Division with 1,000 men and its attached militia and support units. The unit was a Army Reserve training division based in the New York City area that was thrashed during the evacuation of New York City and retreated here to reform. It was re-designated as an infantry division upon reforming in 1963. A good portion of the men include Manhattan taxi drivers, Bronx tailors, Brooklyn factory hands, Wall Street executives and first generation emigrants. The division has been strengthened by small numbers of returnees from Europe and survivors from Dover AFB and Philadelphia Ship Yard. This unit has been building its strength, stores, and morale since its crushing defeat. Their headquarters has been promised reinforcements from the USAEUR returnees, but so far only a few dozen have shown up and they are mostly New Jersey natives who came on their own. Support weapons include three recently received 105mm howitzers, eight 4.2" mortars, and thirty 60mm mortars. Main muscle of the division is a single M48A2 Patton tank, ten M-42 Duster AA tanks (only half of the Dusters are working still) and ten M59 APCs. The New Jersey State Militia: Fort Dix is also home to the state armory, a large collection of small arms without which the New Jersey State Militia would never exist. After the New Jersey National Guard left for Europe, state armories were bare. Though the legal framework and manpower were available to raise a state militia, there were no weapons to issue. The prize cache was 4,000 Garand drill rifles removed from Annapolis when the school was abandoned before the war, and sent to New Jersey for safekeeping. The weapons were reactivated and became standard issue in the militia. Additional weapons were obtained from gun stores, a large civilian weapons parts company, and the inventory of a local importer/manufacturer of Thompson submachine guns. The end result was a pile of hardware, ammunition and parts that would give teeth to the state tiger (and turn into a quartermaster's nightmare). NJSM forces in the area today are formidable. They include the 1st Regiment (300 men) and 6th Regiment (350 men) both assigned to security duty north of the Fort Dix/Tom's River area and patrol as far north as New Brunswick-Perth Amboy, and the 4th Regiment (275 men) and the 5th Regiment (370 men) both assigned to garrison duty and training at Fort Dix. As well, there is the 3rd Motorized Squadron (240 men), which was formed from remnants of the state police and local law enforcement units, mounted on cross-country motorcycles and used for reconnaissance and peace keeping and the 1st Cavalry Squadron, which consists of 75 horse mounted troopers armed with carbines and two M60 machineguns. They also carry a miscellaneous collection of sabers looted from a local museum. This unit was initially formed around a cadre of a half-dozen civil war reenactment enthusiasts, and some of the troopers use their reenactment uniforms and equipment. They, currently operate north of the canal, sometimes deep into the interior on recon missions. 5) CAPE MAY Cape May was a pre-war resort community catering to an older crowd. It was also home to a Coast Guard station and a small fleet of fishing and pleasure boats. Early in the war the Coast Guard was brought under military command and, with Philadelphia being destroyed, Cape May was reclassified as a naval base (CMNB). This town is built on a tip of land extending into the Delaware Bay, separated from the mainland by a canal 120 yards wide. Currently this canal serves as the main defense line for Cape May. Watchtowers were built every 200 yards and are manned around the clock and scrap chain link fencing, barbed wire and an abatis protect the entire length of the south side. The Cape May area has a small runway for light fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft, fuel and ammunition bunkers, barracks, docks and a fairly well-equipped, though small, military shipyard. By sea: The naval fleet stationed currently at Cape May consists of stragglers and survivors of the Atlantic Fleet plus local ships impressed into service. As always, fuel and maintenance are problems, but the ships are kept up as best they can. In addition, a large civilian fishing fleet uses the harbor, with 35 large fishing vessels and 85 small fishing vessels. Operational vessels here include: Farragut class destroyer DLG-14 Dewey Forrest Sherman class destroyers DD-942 Bigelow DD-947 Somers John C. Butler class radar escort DER-540 Vandivier Landing Ship Tank LST-1154 Tallahatchie County Five small Coast Guard cutters Twelve small inshore patrol craft (PCF) One oceangoing tug The sailing ship USS Hyman Rickover Two Cape May/Lewes car ferries Four LCMs One immobile 10,000-ton tanker By land, traditional: Ground forces stationed here include the 3rd Regiment and the 2nd Cavalry Squadron, both of the New Jersey State Militia. The 3rd Regiment is a 200-man unit that is willing though generally ill-trained, with many of the men being former service and support detachment staff, survivors of sunken ships, retired naval veterans, civilian recruited from the refugee crowds, and a handful of young soldiers. They are armed primarily with M1 Garand rifles, though some members carry shotguns or hunting rifles and others have acquired extra firepower by various means. It is hoped that, if called upon to defend their homes, they will make up in tenacity what they lack in training. The 2nd Cavalry Squadron has 100 troopers carried by ten armored bank trucks and they are responsible for road patrol in and around Cape May, north of the canal. The 2nd Cavalry Squadron is mostly made up of the survivors of the New Jersey Volunteer Militia, a well-equipped pre-war organization of conservative survivalists and gun store commandos once numbering 1,000. The main stopping muscle is provided by the Able Company, 1st Battalion /612th Infantry Regiment, a 50-man rifle company of the 77th ID with four .30 cals and two 60mm mortars providing last-line security for the naval base. By land, nontraditional: Additionally, there are other, nontraditional units at Cape May, including the "Red Dragons", a mercenary group of 50 Chinese-American refugees (formerly a Philadelphia street gang), trained by a cadre of ex-military types. This group is fiercely loyal to the commander of the Naval Command at Cape May and is currently used as an amphibious strike force. As well, there are "Piseck's Commandos", named for Peter Piseck, the unit's commander, consisting of eighteen ex-Riot Squad team members from the Philadelphia and New Jersey State Police. They are currently deployed as an amphibious commando team and are well-armed with light military weapons. And finally there is the 301st Independent Artillery Battery, which is currently providing fire support for the Naval Base. Staffed with 80 ex-military "graybeards" culled from the refugees, the unit has three M202 howitzers and six 120mm mortars salvaged from National Guard and Army Reserve armories. By air: Cape May County Airport is now a government installation, with the hangars, fortified control tower, and four runways (the longest is 5,000 feet) constantly patrolled. Navigation aids and control equipment have been scrounged from every other field in South Jersey. Fuel and spare parts are scarce, so flights are restricted to a minimum, and the fuel bunkers are guarded. Aviation assets include the 112th Naval Aviation Squadron with two P-2 Neptune patrol planes, three 0-2 Cessna twin-engine spotter planes, each rigged with a 7.62 machinegun, and two OH-23 Raven helicopters (ex-crop dusters). Fuel limitations prohibit the larger Neptunes from flying at all but there is enough fuel to occasionally turn over the engines and to fly extremely critical support missions with the Cessnas. Other: What remains of the supertanker Amoco Arabia is just outside the entrance to the bay. Abandoned in late 1962 off Cape May after taking four torpedoes from a Russian submarine, it is burnt out and falling apart--pieces sporadically wash ashore after storms. 6) SOUTH JERSEY The deserted coasts of South Jersey have been a haven of smugglers, pirates, and back-water political intrigue since long before the days of the American Revolution. In the year 1964, nothing much has changed. Marauders run across the state, raiding farms, and attacking merchant convoys and passing ships. The predominate terrain feature of South Jersey is flat, fertile land which becomes sandy toward the coast. The area has been supporting agriculture since it was first settled in the mid-1600s. The great forest of the colonial times has vanished, replaced by the light woods of today, but a large pine forest thrives in the sandy soil of the eastern part of the state and gives the area its name--the Pine Barrens. The state is susceptible to the whims of the weather. The Atlantic coastal islands are constantly shifting, and gales and hurricanes have destroyed more than a quarter of the dwellings in the last two years. The lowlands along the bays are regularly flooded during the rainy season and the forests threaten to burn during the dry season. Although it has dissipated, radiation from the west is a problem. The nuclear attacks around Philadelphia and New York (plus disease, starvation and chaos) killed millions. Many more fled the state and New Jersey was seriously depopulated. The survivors in South Jersey, however, are relatively prosperous by 1964 standards--they farm enough to eat well and even export a bit. Dietary protein comes from fish and chicken with goats, sheep, cattle and horses raised primarily for government consumption. Salvage and remanufacturing are thriving cottage industries, and pay the taxes in the MilGov protected areas. Leesburg and the State Prison: One of the pockets of safety operated by what remains of the New Jersey state government--a MilGov program of "local autonomy" intended to add some prestige and legitimacy to local rule. Beyond a 3 mile radius, it's everyone for himself. A 100-man militia company is quartered within the walls. The local populace is to use the prison as a fort when threatened. After the nuclear exchange, inmates seized control of the prison. Some left to scatter across the countryside to sow horror and chaos. An armed group of convicts held the prison (and some fifty hostages) until mid-April 1963 when a raiding force of militia and state police eliminated them. Millville: Presently the location of a south Jersey New America cell that was overrun by marauders in 1963. All of their papers and communication gear was destroyed in the fire that consumed their fortified farm. The survivors moved south and settled in an abandoned trailer park near the town. The idea was to somehow link up with or contact another New America cell, so they moved into a community hoping to get word of the eventual New America uprising. They number 35 men and women, are well armed, and act friendly to visiting government forces, even providing guides upon occasion. 120 farmers, herdsmen, and their families live in and around Millville. Bridgeton: A healthy cluster of buildings acting as a community center and seat of government for the 3,200 farmers and their dependents in the area. The population resides within a 8 mile radius of the town, between the bay and the Cohansey River. Trade and traffic with the outside world are conducted via the river, as caravans along Route 49 to the cape disappear before they reach Millville. Although the government patrols are aware of the situation, they can do little. The feeling in Bridgeton is that the folks in Millville might have something to do with the lost caravans. Stow Creek Lodge: A marauder hangout in a sprawling old cluster of farmhouses and outbuildings. The marauders are 23 convicts from Leesburg. Most are novices poorly armed with stolen and makeshift weapons. One of them, however, was a former artilleryman in the Army and he is constructing several trench mortars for their use. They hold fourteen women and three children captive. They force the captives to do some farming and keep house for them. Three small sailboats are used for local raiding. The marauders fooled a militia patrol that visited last year into believing that they were honest locals and refugee farmers. Another 400 people live in single-family units around the area--they want little to do with outsiders. Atlantic City: The vacation capital of the east which drew hundreds of thousands of tourists and millions of dollars of revenue a year to the state before the war is now officially abandoned. In the rubbled lobby of one of the stately hotels is a vault rumored to contain hundreds of thousands of dollars in gems and jewelry. However, the vault door is closed, and nobody knows how to open it. Although the weather has wiped out many smaller buildings and the first floor lobbies of the hotels, society's dregs have somehow managed to survive in the ruins, living in a twisted parody of civilized society. Four hundred of society's misfits now call Atlantic City home. They are escaped criminals, army deserters, marauders, and other lowlifes who scavenge, raid the mainland for food, and fight among themselves. MilGov has mounted a couple of operations against these inhabitants, but both failed because all the inhabitants scrambled into the tangle of high-rises to hide. In frustration, the captain of the Bigelow once shelled three hotels, reducing one to a heap of rubble with a lucky shot and eliminating over 100 inhabitants. The raids decreased in frequency for a month afterward. Two groups now vie for control of this lonely island. One is lead by a former Mafia drug smuggler nicknamed "the Indian"; the other is a group of counter-culture types known as "those punks." Each group numbers about 50; the rest are neutral bystanders. So far conflict between the groups has been minimal, as pressing concerns (like eating) have required everyone's attention. The Indian plans to end this situation soon. The Pine Barrens: From Route 30 north to Fort Dix extends this lonely pine forest that, in spite of two years of unchecked plagues of diseases, insects, and fires, stands relatively intact. After the nukes, nature quickly reclaimed her turf. Dense growths of pine and heavy underbrush thrive in sandy soil, making off-road movement difficult and reducing visibility all year round. In the warmer months, mosquitoes, ticks, and snakes make it unhealthy for man, but game deer, fowl, and wild pigs fare somewhat better (especially small animals and birds). Quicksand, lightning fires, and unsociable, superstitious hermits dissuade casual travelers. There is one other local hazard--the legendary "Jersey Devil." As frequently happens in mankind's darker moments, the Jersey Devil has recently returned with a vengeance. In the 21st century, his appetite has expanded to include people. Away from the coastal areas, there is no civilization. Fifty thousand people live in the interior, on farms of three families or less, or in wandering groups of less than 50 marauder/refugees. The vast majority of these people are antisocial, extremely xenophobic, and just plumb crazy. Roads are usually narrow, twisted, and blocked by wrecks. This makes overland travel through the area lethal and practical only for heavily armed convoys. The federal government stashed a lot of stuff back in the 1940s and 50s here, and there are a couple of Mafia drug gangs that had stashes in the Barrens before the war. The locations and status of these caches are still unknown. |
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PENNSYLVANIA
1) NUCLEAR TARGETS Date Type Target 10/28/62 SS-7 Philadelphia 10/29/62 1 mT bomb Pittsburgh 2) ORGANIZED MILITARY FORCES 28th Infantry Division ------Div HQ/2nd Brigade--Harrisburg (1000 men, 2 AFVs) ------55th Brigade ------------HQ Section--Scranton (70 men) ------------1/109th Infantry Regiment--Scranton (250 men) ------------337th Engineer Battalion--Scranton (100 men) ------------2/112th Infantry Regiment--Lewiston (100 men) ------------1/108th Artillery Regiment--Scranton (80 men, 1 AFV) ------------2/103rd Armored Regiment--Scranton (100 men, 3 AFVs) ------------3/103rd Armored Regiment ------------------Baker Company--Lewisburg (75 men, 1 AFV) ------------------Able and Charlie Companies (Rogues)--Williamsport (90 men, 1 AFV) ------228th Forward Support Battalion--Fort Indiantown Gap (200 men) ------28th Aviation Company--Fort Indiantown Gap (100 men) ------28th Military Police Company--York (150 men, 1 AFV) ------109th Artillery Battalion (Rogues)--Carlisle (100 men, 3 AFVs) ------56th Brigade (Rogues)--Delaware Forest (200 men) ------------111th Infantry Regiment--Hazleton (250 men) 3) PHILADELPHIA The war and aftermath: On October 28, 1962, Philadelphia was hit by a 6 megaton SS-7 air burst aimed at the oil refining and storage facilities and the naval port. The center of the city is now a complete and utter wasteland, the skyscrapers are just metal and concrete skeletons. The Delaware River is still on fire in 1964 as the nuked oil refineries along the west bank are still burning out of control with little hope of closing the broken well heads anytime soon. The black cloud of oil soot stretches for thousands of miles, they get occasional black snowfalls in Connecticut and Boston. The nuclear attack created an unofficial "forbidden zone" along the Delaware as far north as Trenton. Downtown and along the riverfront, signs of life are limited to a few crows and buzzards. Of humans, there is no sign except an occasional scavenger. Scattered individuals do inhabit the northern half of the city, although most suffer from "dement" symptoms. Of the 15,000 hiding in the ruins, only 200 are "normal," and they are extremely wary of the prowling human animals. Only brave or crazy people venture toward the ruins of downtown Philadelphia for any reason. The dements are solitary types, with any groups numbering less than a dozen, and luckily they have not exhibited any sign of organization. Islands: Due to it's location near the edge of the devastated area in eastern Philadelphia, the Bryn Mawr College campus was chosen as the headquarters for the local relief effort in the days following the nuking of the city. Today, the area is still a large enclave of security. Modifications to the college have been done for the sake of security. Key areas around the campus have been sandbagged and an eight-foot high concertina wire fence envelopes the campus, with beer cans woven into the stuff as an informal alarm. The Campus Police HQ was hardened, with firing loops around the building, and has affectionately been termed "Check Point Charlie". The garrison unit is currently a unit of Pennsylvania State Police with a few M59 armored personnel carriers loaned from the CivGov 28th Infantry Division. The unit has been at platoon strength, 40-50 effectives, since the cholera outbreak in August and is requesting to be rotated out to recover. Some three miles from the college is the large, bleak brick buildings of the Haverford State Hospital. A detachment of State Police is here salvaging the medical equipment. Another detachment, augmented by some US Army engineers and civilian workers is beginning to salvage the Boeing-Vertol factory for parts for helicopters. The plant, located on Route 291 along the Delaware River south of the city, has been ravaged by the weather and looters, but many of the invaluable dies and machine tools are still intact. Other areas of the city: However, even with huge expanses flattened or burnt, major sections in the northern reaches of the city around the airport and Huntington Valley are still standing, though empty. Salvage is more abundant here in the north, primarily in the industrial neighborhoods along the Delaware north of the fallen Betsy Ross Bridge. This has not been tapped by the Jersey salvage crews, however, as the area is isolated by two fallen bridges, long stretches of residual contamination, and legends of missing salvage teams. Rogues: Valley Forge National Historic Park in the southwest is held by several bands of kids--orphans who have turned the park into their personal hunting grounds. 4) EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA The area of industrial cities and pastures north and west of Philly between the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers was rampaged over by swarms of refugees from Philadelphia and New York and was swept away. Although not nuclear targets, the cities of Lancaster, Lebanon, Reading, Easton, Pottstown, Allentown, Scranton, and Wilkes-Barre are still in anarchy, and are nearly as devastated as The City of Brotherly Love. In each city the overall conditions are pretty much the same. The suburbs are home to refugee camps. Including the original inhabitants, each now numbers just a few thousand. Sanitary conditions are abysmal, but shelter is relatively easy to find as many undamaged buildings are available. They all have a militia, though it is usually haphazardly armed, trained, and led. The cities cannot agree, even among themselves, upon any course of action. I-80, I-78 and I-76 across the state were main evacuation routes for urbanites fleeing Philadelphia and New York. The eastern halves of the interstates are carnage, wrecked cars and overturned trailers caught in the crush of traffic trying to escape in those first few days after the nukes came. The wolves ate well that first winter. The flood of hungry refugees stripped and looted most of the small towns along the interstates, leaving them empty shells to this day. Delaware State Forest: This wild, wooded forest stretches for many miles along the west side of the Delaware River in the northeast corner of the state. In refugee migrations of 1962, some 80,000 refugees entered the forest, trying to escape the chaos in the cities. By today, however, only 2,000 have survived the cold winters, bandits, lack of supplies, and lack of hope. The refugee camps, which number between 50 and 500 in population, suffer raids by bandits and the southern camps are sometimes raided by marauders from New Jersey. The northern camps are better off and some refugees are able to get work on some of the smaller farms in the area. This will probably end as food supplies get tighter. A group of note in the area is the remnants of the 28th ID's 56th Brigade, which was stationed in Philadelphia and was largely destroyed by the nuclear strike there. The unit tried to reform but was under too much pressure and went rogue during that first winter and what still remains (about 200 men) is now holed up in the Delaware State Forest. Scranton: The HQ and main strength of the 28th ID's 55th Brigade is stationed at the Scranton-Wilkes Airport. A powerful transmitter has been erected atop Montage Mountain, near the Airport to keep in touch with the division's scattered units. The whole compound is huge (almost 3 square miles), and nestled in the mountains near Pittston and Avoca. Total manpower in the compound is around 600 men. There is a civilian workforce numbering about 200 men, and a training company that accepts recruits and runs them through Basic of sorts. Main intact units of the brigade here include the Headquarters section (70 men), the 1st Battalion/109th Infantry Regiment (250 men), the 337th Engineer Battalion (100 men), the 2nd Battalion/103rd Armored Regiment (100 men with one M103 heavy tank and two M75 APCs), and the 1st Battalion/108th Artillery Regiment (80 men with one M40 SPG {w/o ammo}, three 81mm mortars and six 60mm mortars). The division has ample stocks of ammunition for most of their weapons, thanks to a small ammunition plant in Scranton and the Tobyhanna Depot to the south. The airport is home to some 15-20 aircraft, including helos, prop planes, and jets, both civilian and military. All sizes are represented, from tiny Cessnas up to a C-130. Aviation fuel is even scarcer than gasoline or diesel, and so, as valuable though they are, the planes are grounded pending aviation fuel. Most are stored in improved bunkers, with hopes that someday they can operate again. There are numerous ground vehicles within the compound, again both civilian and military, and of all sizes/purposes. Most common would be the jeeps or civilian 4x4's pressed into military service. White Aryan Alliance: At the northern edge of Scranton is the Baptist Bible College and Seminary and the Griffin Reservoir. The hills surrounding the reservoir are the home to the "White Aryan Alliance", a white separatist group formed from a core of fundamentalist Baptist students. The Alliance is made up of three distinct classes: the lowest are the Foot Soldiers of God who are the rank and file soldiers, next in line is the Professors who are generally over 40 years old and who run the day to day operations of the Alliance, and at the top of the list are the White Berets Special Forces. The White Berets are the best the Alliance has to offer, a combination of senior leadership teamed with demonstrated combat skills, the WB lead from the front and are the top leadership of the Alliance. Surprisingly, the goals of the Alliance are not to hunt down non-white people and kill them, but to exist as their own separate state. Conflicts with the WAA are rare, due to their isolationist nature. The current “top hat” of the WAA is Wyatt Carmichael, late XO the US Army Special Forces 10th SFG, who was visiting his son who was attending the Baptist college when the war broke out. Total strength is over 1,000, most are Foot Soldiers of God but approximately 50 are Professors and about fifteen are WB. Major vehicles include 4x4 trucks and modified civilian cars mostly. They are also in possession of three WW II-vintage M2 half-tracks and several commercial armored cars. There are signs that there is disagreement as to whether they should try to take a more dominant role in area politics, but for now things are calm. Wilkes-Barre: A former large factory town to the north of Philadelphia, now the center of power of the "Red Raiders", a motorcycle gang originally from the Jersey City, New Jersey area. They occupy the Wilkes University campus and hold court there weekly. They fancy themselves as knights errant, always on the lookout for fair damsels to rescue and riches to protect. Except that the “rescue” and “protection” means being taken to their base and used as they see fit. Total strength of about 150 men, with mostly motorcycles, a few trucks, and several “liberated” police vehicles. They eventually want to take over the old Harley-Davidson plant in York and are planning on moving down there next year. Pottstown: The small survivor enclave at Pottstown was hit by marauders from Philadelphia in May 1963. During the raid, the local militia, which had been reasonably successful at holding out before then, was caught out in the open while constructing earthworks. They fought while their ammo lasted, but were cut off and the marauders ran rampant through town. Thirty families (some 300 people) still live here now, but keep out of sight. Pottstown was an industrial town, with Bethlehem Steel, New England Auto Parts Co, Dana Corp, and other heavy industry fueling the local economy before the war. Some of the milling machinery is still intact, though slowly rusting in the wet Pennsylvania winters. Reading: The factory town of Reading was reduced to a ruin during food riots in the spring of 1963 after its population, swollen by refugees, ran out of food following a period of reduced rations. Afterward, it was raided by a number of marauder and scavenger bands, which reduced its ability to defend itself. Its current population is less than 2,000, most of whom hide from each other as well as any outsiders. There is very little of value left in Reading. The Reading Railroad Yards on the west side of the river were once the largest freight classification yard on the East coast. Back in the 20's, it would be nothing to see hundreds of blue Conrail diesels sorting cars and making up trains here. Now the yards are wrecked, the twisted metal of once-busy tracks resembling an overturned bowl of spaghetti. Hulks of engines, and charred frames of freight cars are all that remain. The "Pagoda", a famous restaurant/tourist trap/reputed 19th century ex-brothel, located on Mount Penn overlooking Reading is now the keep of a local marauder overlord. His forces are small, but there is little for him to control. The warlord has yet to discover the treasure of Reading. Further up the Schuylkill River is a little oil reclamation company know as Berks Associates, which recycled various petroleum products. While inoperable, the stocks of oil and gas here would be quite a find in these fuel-starved times. Lebanon: Lebanon and the surrounding area is under the control of a marauder gang called the "Blackhawks". The Blackhawks were not the first marauders in the area, but they have stayed in the area since late 1963. They "tax" the local residents a share of produce for their protection, which is spotty at best and winter supplies are running low. Fuel, medicine, and ammunition are all confiscated by the gang as part of taxes. The Blackhawks actively patrol as far north as I-78 and as far west as the edges of Harrisburg, but normally just to forage. The area is sparsely populated, with about 2000 families left in Lebanon itself, though there are as many families living outside on small farms as in the town. Of the towns surrounding Lebanon, Cleona, Sand Hill and Iona are each home to about 30 families and actively patrolled by the Blackhawks. In the deserted town of Quentin, destroyed by fire after a marauder attack, the Blackhawks maintain a watch station at the west end of town, guarding Highway 322. Lancaster: Lancaster was home of a State Center for MH/MR clients. 100 clients are still there in 1964. The city was also home to a Regional HQ for FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). It was a nuke-proof shelter constructed in the 1950's and supposedly well stocked with cookies, blankets, and so on... everything you would need for a come-as-you-are disaster. Marauder/guerilla activity is real hot in the area with displaced city gangs roaming the countryside, stealing livestock and killing those who resist. The deserted streets of Lancaster have seen action between marauders and local militiamen. Hazleton: Hazleton is doing very well, actually. It is home to a small US Army garrison, remnants of the 56th Brigade's 111th Infantry Regiment (250 men), and a MASH hospital set up in the high school gym, one of the only sources of medical aid in the area. Generators keep the power running to vital facilities and people are flocking here. Stroudsburg, once a vibrant survivor enclave, was destroyed last month by a terrible tornado, leaving houses and corpses scattered everywhere. Raven Rock/Site-R: This is the underground Pentagon, operational since 1953, but largely forgotten about in the years following the atomic strikes. As the staff of the Pentagon was mostly killed in the strike on Washington in 1962, alternate national command was never transferred to Raven Rock. Over the last two years, most of the staff here has been transferred to Mount Weather (see Virginia), leaving just a caretaker force behind. Recently, the remnants of the Marines from Camp David have moved up here on orders from the President to keep the locals from looting the place. It’s located near Waynesboro just north of the Maryland state line. 5) CENTRAL SUSQUEHANNA VALLEY The Susquehanna River valley cuts through the center of the state, a lush valley of farms and urban centers that has suffered much in the last two years. While there were no nuclear targets in the region, the chaos still invaded here. For the first few months after the collapse of authority, marauding bands stripped the central Susquehanna Valley clean of food, vehicles, technology, and other equipment--literally anything of value was either taken or destroyed. Disease and starvation claimed hundreds of people's lives in small communities and riots wracked the larger cities. By now, however, the bandits have been largely run out, the fields replanted and life is struggling to go on. For the purposes of this gazetteer, we will deal with the section of the valley stretching from Williamsport in the north south to the Maryland border, including the cities of Harrisburg and York. The dominant force in the valley is the CivGov 28th Infantry Division, a Pennsylvania Army National Guard unit which was moved into the region in 1963 to help restore order and continuity of government in the state capital. In the past year the division has pacified the bandits and kept the peace relatively well, but has also fragmented, several subunits even turning rogue. Harrisburg: Pennsylvania’s state government in Harrisburg is besieged and is really just a city government by 1964. The bulk of the 2nd Brigade of the 28th Infantry Division and the division's HQ is here in the city now, having moved here in 1963 to help bolster the government's attempts to stay in control. They have about 1,000 men and one M88 ARV and one other AFV here, and several subunits stationed in select communities in the river valley. These National Guardsmen protect the capital and quell the numerous riots and unrest in Harrisburg, with the three surviving officers of the 2857th Special Search and Rescue Squadron providing direct bodyguard security to the governor. The 2857th SSRS was a pre-war unit based at Olmstead Air Force Base sout of Harrisburg, whose mission was to rescue the President from the Executive Shelter under the White House in the event of a nuclear war. In the hours after Washington DC was nuked, the team made the attempt, but were turned back by engine failure in their plane. These three men are all that is left of the unit today, and they are probably the best trained killers in the state. Amongst the local militia, morale is bad, security worse and the civilians are beginning to feel the effects. The local populace has ceased voluntary food contributions to the unit and forced collections are now necessary. Fuel is drastically low, severely limiting the units mobility. One of the last remaining commercial radio/TV stations broadcasts from Harrisburg, and the news from there is "limited" by the government. The downtown Capital complex has become an armed camp, with heavy concrete barriers set up to discourage car bombs, machine gun posts atop the Capitol building and the State Museum. The riots and gang activities in the Capital contribute to the danger in the city, and no patrols generally go out in less than two-squad (section) strength. The state government still claims power over the state, but in reality just blows steam and the few hundred State Police in the capital are really it's only strength other than the 2/28th ID. Naval Inventory Control Point (NAVICP): Located just a few miles to the west of Harrisburg, the Naval Inventory Control Point houses not only a store of valuable military hardware but also the Green Beret team "Brightstar". Brightstar occupied the NAVICP during the first days after the nuclear strikes and have been providing site security ever since. The Green Beret members have worked with the staff of the NAVICP to provide a safe, secure location for the local survivors. Brightstar's commander is Ridley Fox, though nominal civilian leadership is through the base's civilian manager, Dan Klinger. The NAVICP has an agreement with York Hospital to supply material and protection in return for medical assistance. The security forces here well equipped, but this one was equipped better than most. Add the Green Beret team, and the NAVICP became a veritable fortress. Under Fox's leadership, the base has become a haven of stability in an area where there are no organized communities, just lawlessness. Total strength is approximately 500. There are 17 men of the original 20 man Green Beret team left, they provide the core of leadership in military affairs. The inhabitants are armed with a variety of modern military weapons and are trained in small unit tactics. The NAVICP has several jeeps for base security, as well as half a dozen M8 Greyhound armored cars that were provided for defense. Also on-site is one fire battery of 75mm AA guns. All personnel have a deep feeling for family and friends and are well aware of the losses that have been suffered during and since the fall. They realize that they are sitting on a gold mine for the future, and will act to preserve the site. The future generations will need supplies, and the NAVICP will be there to provide it. The inhabitants rarely venture off the base so not much is known on how they operate. Fort Indiantown Gap: The pre-war headquarters for the Pennsylvania Department of Military Affairs and the Pennsylvania National Guard, "The Gap" is now home to the 28th ID's 228th Forward Support Battalion, Company F (Medical) (200 men) and the 28th Aviation Company (100 men). The AvCo is strong for the times, with helos collected from all over the PA, NJ, NY, WV area, some coming from even further south. All told, there are fifteen CH-34 Chactaws and two CH-21 Shawnees, variously armed with rocket pods, door guns, and forward-firing MGs on the skids. However, there is little fuel left, and a security platoon has been formed from out-of-work aviators, air traffic controllers, aviation electronics techs, air weapons techs, chopper grease monkeys, and fuelies. This platoon is named Platoon 5 and is a bit over-strength at 78 effectives. The base garrison sends out patrols in squad strength, usually augmented with one or two vehicles, and regular convoy service is operated with Harrisburg. There is some sort of Communist Party "Fifth Column" movement operating in the area, and occasional raids are directed at the base. Carlisle: Further to the west of Harrisburg is Carlisle. Early this summer, elements of the 109th Artillery Battalion, a 28th ID unit that was garrisoned here, turned marauder. Today, most of the men (about 100) are cloistered at the US Army War College. They are short on everything--food, ammo, and medical supplies. Further rogue elements of the 109th are thought to be scattered south of Carlisle and Harrisburg at various points in Adams and York counties. The rogue camp in Carlisle has one M-60 tank, one M16 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage, one M84 (M59 APC with a 107mm mortar mounted), one M75 APC, two deuce-and-a-half trucks, and some civilian vehicles mounting MGs. Lewisburg: Lewisburg is the main home of the local 28th ID's 55th Brigade's 3rd Battalion/103rd Armored Regiment (35 men), which was moved up here early this year to act as a picket for marauders in central Pennsylvania. Since that time the unit has fallen apart at the seams and many men have deserted to either wander home or to become marauders themselves. Able and Charlie Companies deserted and are now in Williamsport. What is left of the 3/103rd (a reformed Baker Company) has reorganized and is now a tight unit. They welcome any and all who would swear loyalty to the civilian government and it's officially appointed representatives, to join them and many local civilians have joined the unit recently. The camp is surrounded by multiple rings of wire and pillboxes made from sandbagged concrete highway dividers, and they a Civil War-era M1848 6-pounder fieldpiece and one M75 APC. Perhaps half of the 1,200-1,600 total civilians still living in Lewisburg live on the grounds of Bucknell University, a private, nearly Ivy League school, farming the extensive open greens of the university. The "Loyalists", as some referred to the 3/103rd troops here in the garrison, maintain an agricultural area west of the town, and they are currently setting up trade agreements with some farmers from Mifflinburg. Williamsport: To the north, Williamsport is an ugly town of squatters and dirty refugees, now in the hands of 90 deserters from the 3/103rd camp at Lewisburg. These men are almost the entirety of Able and Charlie Companies. The Williamsport Community Hospital, once specialized in cancer treatment and rehab, and is now the marauders' prize. It is staffed by three doctors, forced into many of their decisions by the soldiers. There also is a National Guard Armory here in enemy hands. The soldiers are the ones who run things--they can shoot anyone, anytime, anywhere. The people mostly toe the line, they're scared. This group has some vehicles at their disposal including an M84 (M59 APC with a 107mm mortar mounted), two jeeps, two cargo trucks, and the groups prize "toy"--a M48A1 Patton tank (ammunition for its main gun is scarce, however, and the group is anxious to get more). Mansfield: Home base of the "Bucktails", the nickname of the "Northern Tier Militia". This is an actual unit which fought at the Battle of Gettysburg before being converted into a state militia. They claim as their territory the counties of Potter, Tioga, Bradford, or Susquehanna and much innocent blood has been spilled supporting those claims. Lewiston: Home of the 55th Brigade's 2nd Battalion/112th Infantry Regiment (100 men). This unit is still claiming loyalty to Brigade HQ in Scranton, but it is doubtful that they really mean it. 6) YORK The city is in anarchy and is divided up into areas controlled by different groups. Ghouls: The center city area of York is the territory of the "Ghouls", an amalgam of gangs that somehow survived the collapse. They earned their name from the cannibalistic activities that are ritually practiced. They are most active at night, although anyone entering their territory is fair game. They have few weapons other than small arms, but are thought to have an M-31 ARV stashed somewhere in the city. Their domain is clearly marked by banners and small piles of skulls on street corners and they generally do not venture outside of their territory, except for some trade and to visit the hospital. The Company: The area along Route 30, between Sherman Street and I-83, is controlled by the group known as "The Company", the remains of the Pennsylvania National Guard 28th Military Police Company that was stationed at the Eden Road Arsenal in early 1963 and has since been largely on it's own despite the main body of their parent 28th ID being just up the road in Harrisburg. The Company controls the hotels overlooking I-83, the Harley-Davidson plant, the old Coles plant, and the Caterpillar Tractor factory, their major holding is the old Scrivner’s food warehouse at Sherman and Route 30. They keep a watchful eye on the road and are willing to trade food for other needed items. Since almost everybody in this group rides Harleys, locals have started calling them, “Harleys Angels,” much to the displeasure of The Company. Company people are fair, and practice a code of military honor, they consider themselves the last bastion of the way things were, and will use all means necessary to keep it that way. This unit is a veteran of Mexico, the Middle East, and Black Sea. The Major, who is the leader of the Company, is a shrewd man, prone to take proactive options, rather than to just sit and wait for things to happen on their own. It is this trait that has given the Company some of the fearful reputation that it has with some of the more troublesome groups. Total strength is 150 effectives with two M113 APCs, one M-60 MBT, several jeeps and semi tractors. They usually keep the heavy metal under wraps. Hospitals: The area between Rathton Road and Albermarle Street house York's two college campus’. Since the collapse, the York College campus has absorbed Penn State-York campus. Before the collapse York College had a nursing program in conjunction with York Hospital. That has been kept, but in a more reduced capacity. The program now focus’ more on practical medicine than theory. The college also offers education to children so the new generations will not loose all that earlier ones found. Strictly neutral in alliances, YCP does have one alliance that is rock solid, the one with the Hospital. There are approx. 150 people here and a small defense militia is kept at the college to deter any looting and to act as a tripwire in case anything more serious were to occur. The Senior Professor, Dr. Harold Angstler is beginning to push for an increased fee for education and also for more real power. Church: The York Fairgrounds to the west are the home of the "New Church of Apocalyptic Enlightenment". The church was founded in the last days before the fall by Joseph Deeviers, a radical environmentalist. His view of Christianity was that God was returning the world to the way He had intended it to be like, no evil industry to pollute the environment, a minimum of humanity to corrupt the world, and an end to the political system he had fought so hard to bring down. The Church is opposed to the use of animals as anything but “life companions”, and is a vegetarian society. Deeviers rules the Church with an iron hand disguised as the soft hand of benevolence. If there is dissent, then that person is invited to the church in the main building and shown how he is disrupting the harmony the Church has brought to so many happy people. There are actually two classes of people in the fairgrounds; the common congregation and the "Gaian Guards", the church's soldiers. The only contact the Church has on a regular basis with the outside world is during the market at the shopping center next to the old Vo-Tech. They do not readily accept outsiders and often turn them away rather than let them enter the fairgrounds. Total strength is about 400, with about 50 additional Gaian Guards. They have some cars and light trucks modified to run off of alcohol, and numerous pieces of construction equipment. Not normally violent, but have been known to engage small groups of wanderers. Extremely antagonistic toward the Ghouls. Gun club: To the northeast, the Rocky Ridge Park area is controlled by the Rocky Ridge Rod and Gun Club. The club, which dates back to the 1900's, is situated on the north slope of Rocky Ridge and contains the main compound, the ranges, and the lake. The main compound, dominated by the stone clubhouse, is home to the majority of the club's population. George Stein is the leader of the club, elected President by the members at the end of last year. Under his guidance and leadership, the club has fortified its grounds and withstood several marauder attacks. The members of the club are good, honest, Americans who are trying to keep the memories of what once was America alive. Not interested in an ideological crusade, the Club views most groups that have some sort of ax to grind with suspicion and distrust. Total strength is about 200, and of those, most are capable of using weapons and about 40 have had prior military/police training. Several British-built Land Rovers and dirt bikes are here and they also have a semi with a modified dump trailer. The Club has no goals for expansion, they remember what America was and what it stood for. They are extremely displeased with the fictionalization they see happening to the York area but realize that they are in no position to make others see things the way they do. They are hunters and they know the art of the hunt; concealment, ambush, fire and move, and use it to good advantage. They have access to sophisticated weapons, many of the members being collectors or sport shooters, with a level of firepower surprising for such a small group. Dead Zone: South of York, the southern York county area around the towns of Fawn Grove and Peace Bottom has been termed "The Dead Zone," by the locals. Reports of strange lights and sounds mixed with strange odors have served to build a paranoia about this area. And the fact that few people who venture into this part of the county ever return. Depot: Southwest of York is the Letterkenny Army Depot, in operation since 1942. While mostly depleted of stocks by the government to feed the war in Europe, there are sure some vehicles, explosives, Nike-Ajax/Hercules missile components, ammunition, refurbished artillery, tools, food, and lots of other good things to plunder. Other groups: To the northwest of York is Wellsville, home of the Bowhunters Warehouse & the Archer Irregulars, and Roundtop Ski Park and Gifford-Pinchot State Park, both home only to slavers and general riff-raff. 7) CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA The remote mountains of the area are insular from the rest of the state, and the east-west highway artery of Interstate 80 is terrorized by bands of marauders. Militia groups and survivalists abound in the sparsely populated northern forests and hills. Most of the fallout from the Pittsburgh strike was cast due east, spreading deathly silent across the fields and farms and rugged hills of central Pennsylvania. Altoona: In the wooded hills of western Pennsylvania, Altoona was a gritty steel town of about 25,000 people when the war began. Dusted by fallout from the Pittsburgh strike, many of the citizens died off that first winter, and by the winter of 1962, it had been flooded with refugees. Although most of them were gone by the following spring, chased off by hunger or bandits, some still 4,000 remain in small camps along the Juniata River just south of town. Some refugees march into town for work, accepting small amounts of food as pay. Altoona is just far enough from the major cities not to be bothered by them, though there are enough smaller wandering bands of marauders to keep the militia busy. The current population is about 2,000, with another 2,000 on small farms within eight miles of the town. The center of Altoona is occupied, with many of the streets blocked off with rubble and there are ruined buildings all around the outside of town. There are usually 100 resident militia members on duty at any given time and they charge a toll to pass through town on I-99 or Highway 22. The militia also maintains a small outpost in Ashville that observes traffic on Highway 53, though they are a bit at odds with the few residents here who have refused to relocate to Altoona, and the militia will not come out to defend them. The Altoona militia also maintains a similar outpost in Water Street that observes the crossroads in the center of town where Highways 22, 453, and 45 meet. The outpost's mission is to merely report on traffic to Altoona. Johnstown: Johnstown is home to about 24,000 people, a mix of locals and refugees. The Cambria County Airport is an important meeting place for large numbers of survivalists and such who live in the area. State College: Penn State University in State College seems to be doing OK , still functioning as independent communities. They have everything they might need, structures, their own power plant, educational resources, educated personnel, and agricultural equipment and supplies. If they could find some more soldiers and more ammo, they might be able to hold the area long enough to make a difference. The local militia, consisting of militamen and some National Guardsmen, patrol the region daily. They have emplaced a couple of pieces of medium artillery (155mm or up) sited on Nittany Mountain which are able to dominate quite a bit of territory. State College is also the home of the "Nittany Lion Farmers Co-Operative". This group consists of several farming groups in the State College area. They provide a large portion of the fresh food at the various farmers markets that now operate in the town. They are very clannish in their group organization and have a strong sense of loyalty to that group. There is no leader per se, but Lynette Harlow is the "spokesperson" for the Co-Op. She is in her mid thirties and runs the most productive farm in the Co-Op. The different farms are all fortified into small forts, able to defend themselves from the casual raider, but not from any sort of organized military action. The Co-Op barters most of its crops and animal products at the markets. They are one of the most important groups in the area due to the food they produce. Realizing this, they are slowly starting to exercise that power to increase the value of their goods. If you displease one Co-Op member, you risk your entire group being cut off from food. There are about twenty farmsteads in the Nittany Lion Co-Op area. Each farmstead houses from ten to forty people. The farmsteads are armed with a variety of weapons, about half are civilian sporting weapons and the rest are military of police in origin, they also have some heavy weapons in the LMG class and farm equipment and light trucks. For winter use there are a large number of snowmobiles. The current goals appear to be focused on gaining more leverage over the other local inhabitants of the area by controlling the food supply. Currently the hospital has been very solid in its refusal to pay the higher premiums, it just raises the rates for Co-Op members accordingly. This has caused some friction in the past several weeks. Hospital leadership feels that the Co-Op has the potential to be the spark that starts mass conflict in the area if its practices keep up. The Co-Op operates much like its pre-fall counterpart; sort of a farmers union or guild to control the prices paid by the consumers. Where other groups may operate in a strong arm or predatory fashion, the Co-Op uses the economics of food to fight their battles. 8) PITTSBURGH The war: On October 29, 1962, a Russian Tu-95M Bear A slipped through the weakened ring of fighters and missiles and dropped a nuclear bomb on Pittsburgh. The 1 megaton weapon exploded nearly on top of the US Steel plant right downtown near the confluence of the three rivers. Only the streets are constant now, still faintly visible headed towards the hypocenter. Rain has turned the crater into a lake. Following the nuke, the urban sprawl around Pittsburgh dissolved into chaos, taking most of the locals with them. Much of it now looks like a cross between Hiroshima and Berlin, circa May, 1945. Depopulated and then repopulated by refugees and scavengers, entire sections of city are leveled, fallen or in disrepair and precariously standing. The city is now teeming with rats and ferocious feral dogs, along with billions of cockroaches. Local government has long ago broken down and in 1964 the city is run by marauder warlords. The Madman cometh: Due to the hilly terrain of the city's eastern side, most of the eastern suburbs escaped much of the direct blast and heat effects of the bomb. It is in these areas that life struggles on today. In Pittsburgh, real gasoline can be purchased, and electric service can be had, from a certain syndicate of businessmen. There is some manufacturing going on, but it is geared to military and agricultural needs. Still largely intact though struggling with the problem of large numbers of refugees and a lack of food. Large parts of the city have been burnt down, and cleared for planting crops, but there is neither enough land or food to feed everyone and the situation is boiling over. The largest marauder band in the region is led by Jeremy Fitzpatrick, the former Congressman from the 12th District, who is in fact the puppet of the "Steel City Madman", a powerful pre-war celebrity turned warlord. He is a former professional wrestler and rock star idol in Pittsburgh, but also well-educated and once an Olympic wrestler. They have established their base in a huge shopping mall in the eastern suburb of Monroeville, which is the area of the largest refugee concentrations. They also have bases at the Pittsburgh-Monroeville Airport and at Boyce Park. The marauders are armed with a variety of arms, including M-14s, a few .30 cal LMGs, 3.5" bazookas, grenades and such from ransacked National Guard armories. The Madman often is seen in his prize possession, a fully functional M60 tank found in another armory. Power and wealth is provided by the huge coal mines that line the Monongahela River, the same mines that made Pittsburgh the city it was. The largest of these is now in the suburb of Homestead, where slave labor is used to chip the rock and pull the carts under armed guards. Conditions are deadly and the miners are fomenting rebellion daily. Ironically, this was the same mine that in 1892 was the scene of one of the nation's worst mining strikes and the scene of much bloodshed when the Pinkerton Agency was called in to break it up. The most prosperous, marauder-free area is the southern suburb of Clarion. Clarion is well defended and organized, with schools and trade and has a population of around several hundred. They are occasionally raided by marauders from Pittsburgh who are looking for spoils and slaves. The airport at the western suburb of McKeesport is home to the Madman's small air force, consisting of a couple of DC-3 transports, and an old turbo-prop cargo plane. 9) SOUTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA Uniontown: Uniontown is home to a band of mountain militiamen known as "Jurgen's Ridgerunners". They are about 200 strong and are based in an old British 18th century fort above the town. Washington: To the southwest of Pittsburgh, Washington is home of the "Washington Militia", who are trying to keep the Pittsburgh warlords from expanding too far south. The HQ is in the Washington Courthouse. Ruff Creek: At this small town on I-79 is forming a local rebel movement. Right now it is just a collection of men and women, miners, former National Guardsmen, and such, and going by the name of the "Citizen's Liberation Group.". They have plans to eventually liberate Pittsburgh from the Madman's grip. 10) NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA Northwestern Pennsylvania was not densely populated before the war. Small mill towns or farming communities dot the hills and forests. The oil boom first struck here, but left as the wells dried up and easier drill sites were found in Texas, Oklahoma, Indiana, and California. The Allegheny Mountains run through here. Travel off the roads should be considered in mountains unless within 45 miles of Lake Erie. Much of the area is also wooded. Fortunately for the local inhabitants, there are no worthy nuclear targets nearby, so the area has not suffered too much from nuclear effects. A fairly quiet region today as most of the excitement in western Pennsylvania is centered further south. There are few marauder bands about and very few remaining farmers. However, neither group is friendly. Otherwise, towns and villages are isolated, under populated, usually hungry and unfriendly. There hasn't been much authority, law, or order around here for nearly two years. Allegheny National Forest: South of Warren is the expansive Allegheny National Forest, a large hardwood forest preserve between the south bank of the Allegheny River, the New York state border, and US-219. The forest is rough territory, little settled before the war. The few towns along its few roads have been mostly emptied by marauders, but there is little to keep the marauders here, either. A few villages of very tough local farmers have successfully banded together for defense here. Erie: After the nuclear attacks, Erie found itself as a last stop for refugees from points west and south trying to enter New York. The population swelled beyond anything the local authorities could cope with and by the spring of 1963, no authority in Erie had any control and services broke down. There were riots over food and shelter--but there was none to be had. Gangs arose to seize by force what authority no longer offered. Many died, some fled south, and some fled across the lake to Canada. Many people live in hovels and shantytowns, the shells of warehouses and factories--few people live alone (for safety). Gang warfare, rioting, and bandit raids have decreased the population to less than 10,000 by now and the death rate from starvation, disease, and violence is still high. All strangers are attacked for any food, medicine, and weapons by any number of gangs numbering between five and 100 people. There are even rumors of cannibal gangs attacking others for food. I-79 passes by the eastern outskirts of the city and some gangs stay in that area hoping for pickings off the highway. In fact, they sometimes fight each other for the right to block the road. New Castle: New Castle is home to a very large refugee camp. Total population of the camps is around 188,000. The city was the scene of a pitched battle between refugees and local land owners fought near a large refugee camp. Butler: The life of this town changed when the nuclear fireball swept over Pittsburgh, spawning chaos and anarchy throughout the area. After some semblance of order was restored, it was found that the facility and base came away almost half-intact. The local National Guard unit that had been stationed in Butler was able to defend the community with the help of citizen militias and the community survived that first horrible winter into the spring. They repaired and then started expanding as they grew ever so slowly. The survivors realized that knowledge was power in this new world, and thus they guarded their knowledge and the men with the smarts. When the community was finally settled down, they realized there was a way that they could help themselves and other settlements relatively nearby. Rudimentary production lines were set up and immediately began producing and reloading ammunition. The community started exchanging this valuable commodity with the other settlements for food or other necessities. Today, some 10,500 people live in the immediate area. Butler is also the site of an old IRS underground storage bunker holding duplicate tax and social security records. Sharon: Sharon is home to a militia band known as "Alli's Rangers" numbering several hundred who control a long stretch of I-80. The population of the town itself is about 6,000. Oil City: After waves of refugees flooded through the big town of Oil City, some staying, others driving out the original residents, the population stabilized at about 4,000 by this past summer. Then came a marauder band called the "Razz", from Cincinnati and led by Malcolm Xavier, who beat the town militia in a series of skirmishes and battles in July. The Razz are now based in Oil City in the police station and an adjoining building. They keep a tight rein on the town and the surrounding area, though they do not range as far from Oil City as the Blackhawks do further north. The locals are not happy about the Razz, who rule with a distinctly heavy hand. The locals, however, are disorganized, demoralized, and mostly unarmed. The Razz run regular patrols mounted in pickup trucks, jeeps, and 4x4s. Rouseville, north of Oil City, and Reno, to the west, are both nearly empty except for Razz outposts. Movement through either will be reported to Oil City, prompting a strong Razz patrol. Razz patrols and Franklin militia have clashed in Reno in recent weeks. The Razz's leaders became aware of the potential oil in the area when they caught two would-be salvagers who wandered into check for existing wells, though the Razz do not know of any working wells in the area. Meadville: Meadville is the Crawford county seat, but has lost control of anything more than a dozen miles beyond town. Its population first swelled with refugees then shrank as people left looking for safer places and its current population is about 1,600, with another 800 living on a couple dozen farms within a seven mile circle. It's militia, developed from the county sheriff's office, numbers about 90 and is armed with a variety of sport weapons and two M14s. This "county" militia has fought a number of skirmishes with the Razz over the past month and has held them off, but needs to keep part of its strength guarding the town from other directions. The seldom venture out to protect outlying farms. |
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MARYLAND
Maryland suffered mightily in the war and its aftermath. The state was hit by a nuclear weapon of its own and blanketed by fallout from others in the area. Still, its history as the governmental center of the nation has kept people in the area, and even the civilian government has been loathe to leave the shadow of the Capital. 1) NUCLEAR TARGETS TARGET DATE TYPE SIZE Fredrick 10/29/62 SS-N-4 1 mT 2) ORGANIZED MILITARY FORCES The Maryland National Guard was in the process of being called up when the war exploded in 1962. Of the three battalions that were organized at the time, none of them survive as effective units in1964. The 1st/115th Infantry was destroyed in the crush of refugee evacuation in the suburbs of Washington, and the 1st/175th Infantry was thrown together in Baltimore and sent overseas. Only the 2nd/115th Infantry, based at Chestertown out on the Eastern Shore, was kept in the state. Over the years, attrition and disease have disentigrated the unit, though some survivors still provide militia cadre in various survivor enclaves in the state. "7th Marines Cavalry"--Fort Meade (450 men) 3) EASTERN MARYLAND Fredrick: Nuked on October 29, 1962 by an overshot 1 megaton SS-N-4 air burst fired from the RussianGolf I class ballistic missile submarine B-40. Probably meant for either Baltimore or as an insurance strike on Washington DC, the nuke burst some 18,000 feet above a field outside the city. Fredrick was reduced to rubble and few people live here today. Although the northern one-third of the city is still relatively intact, it is largely uninhabited. This section has been extensively picked over, even though some iron and steel structures are still dangerously radioactive. The rest of the city is virtually abandoned except for a few scavengers and harmless (or are they?) loonies around the outskirts. Motorcycle gangs have raided the area lately, prompting the 3rd Infantry Regiment in Mount Weather to post a small subunit here. Eastern Maryland cities: The large urban areas in the eastern half of the state have been horribly effected. Radiation clouds, firestorms and rampaging refugees have devastated the state. Baltimore: Baltimore has been ravaged by savage rioting and numerous fires which gutted large parts of the central and western sections of the city. The entire harbor area has been burned to a crisp by the explosion of chemical and fuel tanks along the waterfront in the chaos of 1962. The entire area beginning at Dundalk Marine Terminal and continuing in a counter-clockwise line through Fort Holabird, up to the foot of Federal Hill around to Waterview Avenue and Landsdowne, and to Frankhurst Avenue and Fairfield. The harbor is full of hulks burned to the waterlines and barricades by half-sunk wrecks. Now home to the "New Baltimore Catechist Order", a religious group based in the old Baltimore Cathedral, the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The largest enclave of survivors is now on the city's west side. There is now a reasonably defensible perimeter enclosing about 2,000 homes and other buildings with a total of nearly 12,000 residents. About 300 of the locals are organized into a militia under arms. A small militia garrison is located in old Fort McHenry. They have tacit control the approaches to Baltimore harbor with a few mortars and antiaircraft guns, though they rarely even have men at the guns anymore. Annapolis: Annapolis was largely deserted by 1963. Fort George G. Meade: Along with much of the Washington-Baltimore corridor, this fort was evacuated when fallout from the Washington strike drifted across the area but was quickly reoccupied by CivGov loyal forces when the capital was reestablished at Mount Weather. Meade was the home of the Second Army headquarters and as such it was felt important to reoccupy it as soon as possible. The fort is now held by the CivGov 7th Marines Cavalry (450 men), a unit recently returned from Europe. Of special note, CivGov sent a special team from this Marine unit last month into the ravages of DC to recover the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence from the nuke-proof subterranean vault under the National Archives building where they were sealed in just before the nukes fell. They successfully did this despite the gangs and warlords in the city and transported them to a bank vault in Mount Weather. Olney: In Olney, at a FEMA relocation center there is a mystery. A lone nurse, the only staff member to survive the last two years, has recently shown up in town with an amazing story. In the hours following the first sneak nuclear strike on Washington DC the center's staff was flooded by wounded civilians. Because the center was new and not well known, these numbers soon multiplied and the center had to shut down from a lack of supplies. Two days after the strikes, two badly wounded men stumbled through the door of the center looking for help. Only one was lucid and he claimed to be a Secret Service agent who demanded treatment for his companion. The Agent stated that the man was President John F. Kennedy, and the nurse also claims it was. The Agent claimed that the Presidential helicopter was escaping the White House when it was caught in the blast wave of the nuke and tossed into a ravine east of the city. When he came to several hours later, only he and the President was alive, though gravely wounded. Nothing more is known as the nurse had to leave soon after and never knew what happened next. Aberdeen Proving Grounds: Now taken over by a strong local militia called the "Knights" led by a woman named "Commander Losaba". They have total control of the military reservation and the upper end of Chesapeake Bay, and their area of direct influence extends throughout the northern half of Harford County and the lower half of Cecil County. They have garrisons at the VA hospital in Perry Point and the Naval Training Center in Bainbridge. There is also a large garrison at the hydroelectic power plant at Conowingo. While currently offline, this plant could provide power to the enclave if it can be restarted. They have a light tank running now. To help patrol the canal to the Delaware River, they have a small navy of four motorized patrol boats and seven sailboats, most armed with deck guns and lighter arms. They have a base set up on Spesutie Island for the navy. Commander Losaba believes that she is keeping the reservation intact for the day when the US government will be restored to its former glory. The Edgewood Arsenal was home of a huge store of WW1 and WW2 mustard gas, now kept under lock and key. There were a large number of military retirees who settled in the area before the war, and a lot of the militia in the enclave are retired military, bringing a level of skill and professionalism not seen in most local militias. Indian Head Naval Base:Here there is a holdout of US Navy personnel and impressed civilians. They are still loyal to the civilian government in Mount Weather, and receive some support and communication from that enclave and from Richmond. At the base, the sailors, under the command of Captain Kennecott, have gathered an impressive amount of naval weaponry from the surrounding military instelations. This treasure includes torpedoes, artillery shells, rockets, depth charges, mines and the like. There are some ships here as well, though they rarely sail anymore except to occasionally make a supply run down the Potomic to the forces at Norfolk. The five ships based here are one very old frigate, three fishing boats and a small river tug. As well there is one old CH-37 Mojave transport helicopter that is kept in excellent repair. 4) WESTERN MARYLAND Along the western arm of the state, conditions vary from valley to valley. Hundreds of thousands of refugees swamped every town in their search for food and safety. Most towns, especially along the major roads, are now just empty burnt-out shells. Other communities are better off. Refugee influx has balanced out the lost of the locals and things are stable in most towns. The residents live by hunting and fishing and farming. There is nothing like an organized militia but the residents will come together in a time of crisis. Hagerstown: Much of Hagerstown was destroyed in the food riots during the chaos. Townspeople have been returning over the years and rebuilding, though the current population is still just a few hundred. A militia has been established and outsiders are viewed with suspicion. A ferry operates here, taking passengers and small vehicles across the Potomac River in exchange for food and barter. Cumberland: Home to two competing marauder groups. The least dangerous is the "Brick Patrol", a bandit band composed of some 35 underfed high school punks led by an ex-con named Guido. The most troublesome is the motorcycle gang called "Runner's Crew". The leader is a Native American named Runner and he has led his bikers on raids deep into both West Virginia and Pennsylvania. |
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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
1) NUCLEAR TARGETS Date Type Target 10/28/62 Frog Washington 2) ORGANIZED MILITARY FORCES None. The "Old Guard" 3rd Infantry Regiment pulled out of the city when the government left in 1962 for Mount Weather, leaving only police and National Guardsmen to attempt the hopeless task of controlling the city. 3) THE DISTRICT AT LARGE Sneak attack: Late in the evening of October 28, 1962 there was a Liberian-registered freighter docked in Baltimore harbor, having just arrived there the previous day. Her captain had refused to let the harbor patrol aboard for a routine inspection that afternoon, causing the Harbor Police to be called in during the evening. Just as the situation began to escalate, the police noticed that the ship's crew had, during the stand-off, disassembled a large shipping container on the foredeck. Before they could even ask, there was a cloud of smoke and a streak of fire as a stubby-winged Frog surface-to-surface missile shot off to the west towards Washington DC. This was the ultimate culmination of a Russian plan devised and planned for since at least the late 1950s, where a nuclear first strike against America would be preceded by a sneak attack to catch the government in a trap and thereby possibly delay any retaliation until the Russian nukes had already done the deed. The Frog missed a little and the 12 kiloton warhead burst low over a residential area in the northwest part of the city, just outside the National Zoological Park, and a few miles from the Capital, killing fifty thousand people in an instant. Though the big apartment buildings in the area absorbed a lot of the shock, the blast wave rolled north right up the open space of Rock Creek Park, demolishing Walter Reed Hospital, crushing that area and sending firestorms racing east and north. The blast and firestorm shattered a large area to the west and east, but favorable terrain to the south saved much of the actual government district from being totally destroyed. The damage to the buildings was serious enough, however, to force the evacuation of all surviving government personnel. To catch a President: The intended effect was to decapitate the US government with a sneak attack--particularly the president and his staff--and it worked to perfection. There were helicopters at Andrews AFB whose sole job was to get President Kennedy and his family out of DC if needed. That evening, Kennedy was nearing a nervous breakdown in the Oval Office, the pressure of the morning's debacle on the beaches of Cuba crushing his spirit. Even when a frantic call to his office warned of satellite sightings of the dreaded ICBMs being launched from the Russian heartland, Kennedy dithered too much and didn't allow the evacuation request to go out until nearly the last minute. Then there were communications problems between the White House Signals Office and Andrews AFB--someone didn't have the right authentication codes and the colonel in charge was afraid to act without them. That ate up a lot of minutes and when the helicopters finally got into the air, the Frog from Baltimore was racing in, unbeknownst to virtually everyone. It is assumed, due to lack of substantial evidence to the contrary, that in the race between the helicopters and the missile to get to the White House, the missile won. The city today: Today, half the city is now rubbled out and the rest is being fought over by at least twenty rival gangs. The city is marked by vast burnt sections of houses, toppled monuments and once white marble walkways and statues now black. On the southwest side of town one of the bigger gangs, several hundred strong, is the "Red Dog Family". Other gangs in the metro area are the "Georgetown Boys" to the northwest. And Rushton's "American Union" who hold the remains of Capital Hill, which they have cleaned up. Several hundred strong, they claim a chunk of central Washington turf stretching from Union Station in the north to Fourth Street in the east to Route 395 in the south and the National Gallery of Art and the Air and Space Museum on opposite sides of the Mall, the rest of the Smithsonian being a no-man's land between the American Union and Tide Camp lands. And to the east on both sides of the Anacostia is Louis Farrakhan and his "New American Nation of Islam". And up along Rock Creek Park are the "Gold Coasters"--a mostly black gang in the formerly affluent black neighborhood area between Rock Creek Park and 16th Street that is led by a former Princeton professor, it is a community of several hundred who have cleared a good chunk of the park for cultivation. And the mostly Puerto Rican "Super Machos" around Columbia Road. And then innumerable smaller organized gangs such as the "Nuclear Winners" who live on the edge of the park a half mile north of the Gold Coasters and are even doing a little cultivation in Rock Creek Park as well as scarfing and scavenging, the "Bloods"--who are 40 strong and hold the North Capital slums that had not been too badly damaged by the blast, the "Rangers", and the "Warlords", even the nationwide Black Liberation Army has a unit in the urban renewal area north of New York Avenue, and then the straight-out scum and bandit groups such as the "Rebel Runners", the "Pagans", the "Pirates", and the "Death Commandoes". They, and all the other gangs on this side, are subservient to the "Lord of the Tidal Basin". The Lord is an ethnic Chinese from Thailand named Soong, and is in fact the former leader of the backup White House Secret Service Security Detail. He has the power over the gangs in the area and has made it very clear to them that the White House is off limits. Out of fear of retribution from the Lord, the gangs leave the grounds of the ruined White House sacrosanct, even though there is only rubble left of it on the surface. In the intact subbasements of the White House are a lot of valuable gear and supplies just sitting there. They also hold the Court of Claims and the Treasury Annex and the intact Federal Bureau of Engraving and Printing and plan to begin reissuing money soon. The Lord's base is in the Lincoln Memorial and he has hundreds of well armed men, some with anti-tank weapons. The core of his fighters are all former enforcement types: police, DEA, FBI, and Secret Service agents that survived the nuke and chaos. They also have a 81mm mortar and a 4.2inch mortar which are zeroed in on the White House perimeter in pre-selected firing patterns. The reason that so much attention is paid to preserving the White House is that Soong's people are slightly deluded and crazy, and are waiting with Second Coming anticipation for the President to return to Washington DC and resume the head of the nation. They are working the Tidal Basin, having set up rice paddies and fields to feed the people. The fields are worked by a large Asian-American population that have migrated here over the years. The Highway One bridge was dropped by the blasts but a plank and rope bridge has been fashioned using the existing pillars to cross the neck of the Washington Channel where it runs into the Tidal Basin. All the bridges on the Potomac and the Anacostia are down, from the Woodrow Wilson Bridge clear up to the Beltway Bridge in Montgomery County to the west and the suburb of Brentwood in the east. On the island of East Potomac Park they have more fields and paddies, the lower half of the island, once a pampered gold course is now a well-ordered shantytown for several hundred field workers. The major neutral ground in the district is the "Rubble Mart", a cleaned out shopping mall on the far northwest side of town almost to the Maryland boundary and a few blocks west of the edge of Rock Creek Park. The mall is open to all comers and offers all manner of salvaged goods. Security is by hired guns but the mall is so valuable to everyone that no one dares to cause trouble there. The Washington Monument is now a broken off stump. West Potomac Park is now a tangled jungle of out-of-control weeds and trees. The Jefferson Memorial was leveled, all that remains are several shattered columns and the cracked and ruined dome lying on the ground. A group seized Theodore Roosevelt Island and declared it an independent republic and now live and in-breed in reclaimed truck trailers around the ruins of the memorial. At Andrews Air Force Base to the southeast, today, amongst the scattered wreckage of F-106 Delta Darts, there only remains left-behind GIs, MPs, and nutcase National Guard types. The Pentagon across the river in Arlington was devastated by fires and abandoned. However, in recent months, the civilian government in Mount Weather has picked up intermittent, weak signals from what are believed to be the underground bunkers beneath the foundation of the Pentagon, perhaps meaning that someone has survived down there. |
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DELAWARE
1) NUCLEAR TARGETS None. 2) ORGANIZED MILITARY FORCES None. 3) NORTHERN DELAWARE Before the war this was a fertile and populous plain, home to high-tech industries and horse-drawn Amish buggies, oil refineries and cornfields. The nuclear attacks have created an unofficial "forbidden zone" along the Delaware as far north as Trenton. Bracketed by nuclear strikes, the residents of Wilmington panicked and headed northwest on routes 100 and 202. As the winter took its toll and no more warheads dropped from the sky, some people returned. 8,000 souls now make their livelihood salvaging all manner of heavy machinery, raw materials and luxury goods. The Delaware Memorial Bridge is still standing but is structurally unsound. Dover: Formerly the state capital of Delaware, Dover now has a population of 7,800 gathered in several walled-in neighborhoods. They are cautiously friendly with anyone who isn't obviously hostile and will trade salvage for food with outsiders. Dover Air Force Base had been operating at a reduced level, the aircraft and support elements dispersed to other facilities, when it was hit by a several non-nuclear cruise missiles. The control buildings and hangers have been destroyed. 4) SOUTHERN DELAWARE The southern half of the peninsula is marked by farms. These are scattered along the east coast of the state, usually within 15 miles of the shoreline. About 100 are still in operation, between Wilmington and Cape Henlopen, where New Jersey merchant vessels and the Cape May/Lewes ferry still frequently visits in good weather. Nearly identical, these farms are fortified and house three to five families (10-50 people). Between these islets of civilization are few marauders, usually in small groups of a dozen or so. The largest town in the area is Milford, a thriving seacoast town with nearly 10,000 residents. They are primarily fishermen and have an extensive fishing fleet. A medium-sized oil processing center located along Route 36 provides the town with fuel for their boats. |
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SECTION NINE: New England (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island)
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MAINE
Maine is not doing as well as it should. With the isolation of geography and the type of population, Maine should be well into recovery. The problem is food, the harvests have been lousy with the growing seasons screwed up by the nuclear autumn, and the winters have been especially cold. It seems like everyone in the state is hungry and sick. Governor John Hathaway Reed is doing what he can, having long ago defederalized the National Guard and done pretty well at keeping most of the out of state refugees out. Since then, however, he has been forced to become more and more autocratic, and the NG has served more as his own private army than anything else. 1) NUCLEAR TARGETS None. 2) ORGANIZED MILITARY FORCES None other than the reformed and reorganized remains of the Maine National Guard, which are largely garrisoned in Augusta. 3) MAINE ATLANTIC COAST The coast is an environmental disaster area, severely reducing the fishing crops which were once the staple of the state. In January of 1963, two fully-laden oil tankers were torpedoed off the mouth of the Bay of Fundy by a Russian submarine. Both broke up and spilled their crude oil cargos over the beaches from the Bay of Fundy south down the Maine coast to as far as Portland and as far east as Brier Island off Nova Scotia. The sludge still stains the rocks and sand. 4) SOUTHERN MAINE While a few power-plants remained functioning for some months after the nuclear exchange, the skilled personnel and the upkeep equipment required were not to be found, and eventually all power plants were shut down, plunging the cities into darkness. In the cities, life is now difficult. Augusta: The state capital and the center of Governor Reed's power. The majority of the National Guard is here in the city and industry and trade are flourishing. The city's defenses include an anti-aircraft regiment, nine platoons of a National Guard Battalion, a couple of police companies, a couple of engineer companies, and twenty militia companies which could be called up. The AA regiment's guns are mostly obsolete guns of various calibers and there are very few rounds per gun. The population is growing as the food situation deteriorates out in the countryside. Bangor: Recently a group known as the "Red Knights of the Communist" has appeared in Bangor. Originating in the devastated area around this city, this radical group is spreading directly north, taking villages and disrupting life as it goes along. Portland: Portland, being the southernmost city in the state, was repeatedly sacked by bands of people fleeing radiated and devastated areas to the south and is a shell today. The docks are kept alive by an outpost of the Gloucestermen. 5) NORTHERN MAINE With the major population centers to the south ravaged by rioting and the collapse of civil control, and most communication equipment rendered useless by EMP, the people of northern Maine have been forced to revert to pre-1900 levels of existence. Pumas have begun to reappear in the northern forests for the first time in a century and the bears are an increasing problem. The country-wide white supremacy group New America has a large enclave in the north woods of the Maine (and across the border in New Brunswick), where they now exercise effective control over a number of larger towns in the area. |
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VERMONT
Being a mountainous region with little industry, Vermont escaped much of the war damage seen elsewhere. The state is occupied now by numerous self-governed villages, and no form of government exists above this level, though many villages in this formerly staunch democrat state are still loyal to the civilian government. Vermont has reverted to a pre-colonial lifestyle that most people actually prefer. Urban centers were small and rare in these parts, and after the chaos they are even smaller. Much of the region is self-sufficient and the area has reverted to an old semi-feudal croft system, where a collection of small farmsteads are protected by a larger town in return for a share of the crops. The inhabitants of this state are a hardy folk who are wary of strangers (basically anyone from outside of Vermont, and sometimes from outside their valley). Weaponry is common--mostly shotguns, backed with a few pistols, and a gradually increasing number of military small arms. Because of the difficulty of the terrain and the small population, few marauder groups operate in the state. Those that do are small, ranging in size from 10 to 20 men, all poorly equipped. Canadian troops are occasionally spotted in the northern counties hunting for salvage and loot. 1) NUCLEAR TARGETS None. 2) ORGANIZED MILITARY FORCES 172nd Infantry Regiment--Burlington (450 men). 3) THE STATE AT LARGE Burlington: In Burlington, however, the remaining population has been active. They are planning on obtaining small amounts of petroleum from rigs in the coastal waters off the Canadian coast, piping through a pipeline connecting Burlington with the coast. This pipeline was built just before the war and has never been used. The remaining bulk of the state's National Guard is here in Burlington. The remnants of the 172nd Infantry Regiment that were not shipped to Europe in 1962 (some 450 men, mostly service and rear area personnel given rifles and some training provide security along the length of the pipeline as well as perimeter defenses for the city. Internal security is composed of several ad-hoc units including a scratch force composed of a group of 350 very young trainee soldiers of Ethan Allen Military School and several local college ROTC programs. Most of them are between 16 and 18 years old and many are too small to lift an ammunition box. They have some mortars but a number of them only have uniforms and high hopes. Royalton: On the grounds of the old Vermont Law School in Royalton now stands a pagoda-style castle, right out of Ran. The area within and surrounding is open to fields and farming. The town has around 450 people within it's environments. Forest Dale: Home to the state's only large marauder band, the 100 men of "John Campbell's Wildcats." In 1953, John Campbell joined the Canadian Army and went through officer's training. By 1958 he had attained the rank of Captain. In 1962, shortly before the Soviet nuclear attack on North America, Captain Campbell was stationed at a communications facility on the Vermont border as a security officer. After the chaos, he moved south and went marauder. Island Pond: Home to Vermont's only pro-MilGov resistance group, the 75 men of the "Bluff Mountain Warriors." West Hill: This town up in the mountains with a population 3,000 was fortified by a near-legendary, fair and just leader named Felix, nicknamed “King Ultraviolet.” A survivor and hero of World War II, Felix came to lead a band of followers and pilgrims up from New York City to a series of natural mountain valleys in Northern Vermont to escape the chaos. With him he brought many talented men and women, and children as well, to populate his new “kingdom among the peaks.” Modeling this new society after the legendary knights of the Round Table and the kingdom of Avalon (with himself as King Arthur), Felix set about creating a peaceful paradise where men could live in harmony, maintaining a peace relatively secure from the raiders and savages of the outside world. Felix’s efforts have culminated in a small but stable community high in the Green Mountains, colored by dreamy ideals of the rule of law, peaceful intentions, and universal brotherhood |
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NEW HAMPSHIRE
The situation in New Hampshire is much the same as in neighboring Vermont, but a higher level of government control is evident, especially in the urban areas. The main body of the New Hampshire National Guard is based out of the state capital Concord and is actively engaged in anti-bandit operations. 1) NUCLEAR TARGETS None. 2) ORGANIZED MILITARY FORCES The New Hampshire National Guard has a current strength of 2,000 men, with the majority of the manpower being in the Concord-Manchester-Portsmouth triangle. 3) THE STATE AT LARGE Concord: Home of the state government and the bulk of the National Guard, including the state's remaining operational armor assets--six M41 Walker Bulldog tanks and five M8 Greyhound armored cars. Portsmouth's nuke: On October 29, 1962, a 4 megaton Titan I ICBM landed near Portsmouth, fired originally from the Ellsworth complex in South Dakota. The missile malfunctioned and did not separate in the upper reaches of the atmosphere as it was supposed to. Instead it landed on the beach on the east side of a small island off Portsmouth virtually intact. On low tide days the battered rusting missile is still visible buried in the sand. The locals avoid it like the plague, although lately they are beginning to realize that it might be a goldmine if they can salvage the warhead. Portsmouth itself is now a small fishing community struggling to survive by remaining hidden. There are no militia troops in the area except a couple companies of young boys, armed with little more than rifles and a couple of bazookas. Led by the headmasters of a local military school for boys, they are a hindrance at best to the defenders. An alarm battalion of conscripted refugees, stiffened with some men from a National Guard engineer company. The militia battalion in reality musters no more than 113 men. They have three sorts of machine guns, including several Russian ones, a flame-thrower lacking essential parts, three Spanish pistols, and 28 rifles in six different calibers. Nashua: Once a thriving survivor city, but now virtually abandoned by the state government as too much expense to defend, Nashua was been wracked by food rioting the past year, killing off much of the surviving population. Keene: Home base of the "Army of Vermont and New Hampshire", known mostly as the "ARVEN". This semi-legitimate militia group is made up of conscripted scum with higher-trained recon units. The core of the group comes from the remnants of the 1st Battalion/172d Artillery Regiment, a New Hampshire National Guard unit that was stationed in southern New Hampshire on the eve of the war. They have maintained many of their vehicles and possibly have a tank or two saved for a special purpose. As well, they have a paddle-wheeler riverboat that they use along the Connecticut River. There are too many people and too many settlements in the area for them to control and tax to keep them operational. Newcomers: Canadian troops are beginning to cross the border in the north. Since communications are so bad and the land is so empty, the Canadians are slowly working their way furthers south looking for salvage and hunting bandits. The troops here are mostly from the garrison of Sherbrooke, Quebec and include elements of the Lake Superior Scottish Regiment and the Royal Canadian Regiment. There is some thought of eventually annexing the northern part of the state at some point. These incursions are being monitored and sometimes forcibly opposed by a few a small contingent of National Guardsmen, citizen militiamen and drafted US Forest Service officers. Rochester: This once thriving industrial town is now the home of several large marauder bands, including the "Iroquois Rangers" from Massachusetts and the "New Jacobites". |
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MASSACHESETTS
1) NUCLEAR TARGETS None. 2) ORGANIZED MILITARY FORCES The 2nd Brigade of the 5th Infantry Division was based at Fort Devens in 1962, but was fed into the European furnace early in 1963. 26th Infantry Division--Boston (2000 men) 211th Military Police Battalion--Westover (400 men) 3) BOSTON The war: The city wasn't hit by the bombs, but, like most large cities, order broke down pretty completely afterward. The police and the local National Guard tried to calm the people, but they would have nothing of it. And then the chaos started. For nearly three months you didn't go out at night, you always carried a gun, and if you could, you fled the city. This fact, coupled with the loss of electricity and water to the city, resulted in massive riots and looting followed by a mass exodus out of the city. A serious anti-science binge of violence raged through Boston at the end of 1962, fuelled by people's fear of the unknown. Libraries, laboratories, and colleges all went up in flames. MIT, Harvard, all the museums downtown, all were torched and looted. The brutally cold winter put an end to most of the violence, only those who had shelter survived. Aftermath: Today, the city is under the double hit of the gangs and a plague attack. The spread-out nature of the scattered settlements in the city is helping to keep the outbreak controlled, but people are dying by the dozens by the day still, both gang member and civilians alike. Boston Commons has been designated as a dumping ground and mass cremation site for infected bodies to try and localize the germs. With the plague, looting and marauding have increased as people get desperate. In the harbor are three ships holding supplies that are afraid to dock until the plague runs it's course. Law and Order: The remains of the state government now operates out of the a high-rise building in downtown Boston--formerly the Prudential Life Insurance building. The US Army is still enforcing the Martial Law decree in the city, the main muscle being the 26th Infantry Division, a Massachusetts National Guard unit that works with the State Police to keep the gangs out of the vital port areas. Loyal to the Civilian Government, the "Yankee" Division has a total strength of some 2,000 men. The area the military and the state government now control is small, limited to a narrow strip bordering the harbor running from Logan Airport in the north, south to Dorchester Bay, and then west to roughly Highway 3, where the line of control blurs with the local street gangs. This is a relatively small area, but it is well-organized and protected. The University of Massachusetts-Boston is a seat of power today, housing some of New England's last scientific community. This university was strangely not destroyed during the chaos, perhaps because while MIT and Harvard were private schools, UM-B was a public school open to all Bostonians. The school's football stadium is now a garden. The gangs: The gang problem in Boston's traditionally immigrant poor neighborhoods is almost completely out of control. Following the nuclear strikes, gangs took up protecting their local neighborhoods. They were initially resisted by citizen's militias and the remnants of organized crime in the city, but the gangs won. The non-gang population is dwindling fast as they leave the city for safer areas and in another few years the gangs will be the majority. The Army here is really just concerned with protecting the docks and industrial facilities and feeding those who are of value to them. This uneven distribution of food is one of the main causes of the increase in gang activity. Some of the larger gangs are the "Skull Krushers", the "Brother Hoods", the "Night Knights", the "Blood Bandits", the "Banditos", the "Death Watch", and the "SkiBooms". All of these gangs survive largely on raiding and looting each other. Their longevity is probably short once the food runs out. Roxbury: Right at the edge of the Army-controlled zone is the "Jaguar" gang, hold the western Roxbury area from a base in an old warehouse. They are led by a man named Horrigan. Weymouth Naval Depot: Controlled by a gang called the "Black Widows", who, as their name implies, are a female-only gang known for their viciousness and ferocity. The depot is mostly empty, everything having been taken long ago, all that is left are some old torpedoes that the gang is trying to figure out what to do with. Razor Heads: The largest Boston gang by far is the "Razor Heads", led by former rock and roll guitarist turned gangster Dain B. Dangerous, a charismatic and brilliant, but psychopathic and violent leader. The Razor Heads number some 1,200 effectives and are twice as large as the next largest gang in the city. They are noted for wearing outlandish clothing and hairstyles. Northern coast: In the northern outskirts of Boston the "Gloucestermen", an alliance of fishermen, control Gloucester and have fortified the city against the starving hordes. Mostly formed by old-timers who formed the core of the fishing industry along the northern coast of Massachusetts. These people are opposed to the heavy hand of the UBF to the south and their encroachments into their fishing grounds. They are also mad that the Army in Boston has done nothing to help them, though they realize that the UBF provides Boston with twenty times the fish that they do. The Gloucestermen operate diesel-powered speed boats (running on alcohol), sailboats, and a few wood-fired steam vessels, but their patrols are limited to coastal areas. A strong militia in Newburyport works for good, patrolling by jeep in the Plum Island area and keeping the Iroquois Rangers at bay (see below). Salem: Salem, located north of Boston, is one of the strongest, more intact survivor cities in New England. Much of the original central city remains intact and has been strengthened by various forms of fortification. Fortifications have also been constructed around the downtown area to help protect it from the ravages of bandits and marauders. The city has a total population of 22,500 people and the surrounding areas have a population of around 17,500, mostly refugees from Boston. After the city successfully defeated the first waves of attacking marauders, a council was formed from the surviving leaders and politicians. With the assistance of civic leaders university professors, especially from Salem State College, the city and its surrounding area are mostly independent and could survive on their own if needed. Greenhouses, being relatively simple technology are popular and a large amount of winter vegetable and fruit are grown in them. The biggest food supply comes from fishing of various type. Salem has a large (for 1964 standards) fishing fleet which one of the major jobs of the militia is to protect. The extra from fish harvests is much of what helps to purchase materials from other places. The city even sells fish products to the gangs of Boston although they are very careful to keep their identity private. Most of the industrial areas of Salem were destroyed in the attacks of marauders after the chaos started. What was left was some light industry only mainly in textile areas. As a result, most jobs today are related to food production and storage. The militia force is based on residents of the city who were members of the Massachusetts National Guard. It numbers some 600 effectives with large numbers of vehicles for fast transport. These include eight armored bank trucks, four armored dump trucks, and one US Army M57 APC. Salem's fishing "fleet" includes four former Coast Guard cutters, eight PT boats, and two patrol boats. 4) EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS Plymouth: Destroyed by a hurricane two months ago. Many people were killed, the rest have evacuated the town because some strange chemical weapon stored in the pre-war naval arsenal here was detonated by the storm. This weapon, instead of causing death, was a hallucinogenic, generating the most believable and deranged of visions. New Bedford: Burnt by a series of fierce fires in 1963 that left much of the city in ruins, this city has recovered nicely in the last year. The city has a large militia/police force that is relatively well-armed and trained. There are about 2,000 men at arms, 120 horse cavalry, three armored dump trucks, an M-103 heavy tank, and two self-propelled howitzers. There is also a fishery protection force with four inshore patrol boats, two patrol torpedo boats, and a civilian observation helicopter. 5) NORTHEASTERN CITIES Once a major industrial region, the strip of gritty manufacturing cities stretching from Chelmsford to Haverhill was devastated in the rioting and chaos of 1962. Now, the area is dominated by elements of the "Iroquois Rangers"--a large marauder band. The surviving locals live in a reign of terror. Many have fled the area, but many more have been unable to. Many of them are now force to grow food for the Rangers, but they are allowed to keep a little for themselves. The Rangers now have some 1,300 effectives, including many hangers-on and wanna-be's, and have one AFV. Their current plan is to secure the cities in the area and then move south to take on Boston by next summer. To this end, the Raiders are actively recruiting military men, especially officers, to join them for a promise of a share of the loot. The "Lowell Liberation Army" has arisen out of this dire situation, but numbers only some 50 men and is poorly equipped. Since Ranger reprisals are brutal, the people commit few acts of resistance. Appeals to the CivGov Army unit in Boston have been met with silence--they have enough to deal with in Boston. 6) CAPE COD The United Brotherhood of Fishermen: Nominally CivGov but really themselves, the UBF is headquartered on Nantucket Island, and is a coalition of fishing and fortified communities under the control of a strongman named John Carlucci and his thugs. They control most of the coastal communities from Nantucket northward and effectively "own" all of Cape Cod. The UBF is based on the remains of the powerful Longshoreman's Union that controlled the fish industry along the Massachusetts and Rhode Island coasts since the late 18th Century. The UBF is the main provider of fish for New England and as such is virtually untouchable. The strong military forces both in Newport, Rhode Island and in Boston both are unwilling to risk disrupting the supply of food to the hungry masses. The UBF, knowing this, have taken full advantage to carve out an empire. They have a large private army and numerous armed boats to protect their industry and do a little pirating on the side. Carlucci is pro-CivGov for no other reason than they are his main trading partners in New England and Boston in particular. He does, however, harbor illusions of being president once things return to normal. The Arm: Cape Cod is the heartland of the empire that John Carlucci is carving out for himself. The Cape Cod Canal is the border and is heavily fortified with machinegun-armed guard towers and barbed wire and patrolled by armed speedboats and walking patrols. Peace and public order are the rule all along the peninsula. The area is no longer under curfew and people are very wary of strangers. Highway 6, the main road in the area, is in good repair and is the convoy route for the UBF. They usually save fuel by hitching draft animals up to the trucks for all but the heaviest loads. Otis Air Force Base: Otis AFB lies in the Cape Cod territory of the UBF. The base is still operated by CivGov assets, but they are basically tenants in UBF land. Carlucci uses full advantage of the base and personnel here to legitimize his control further, letting it show that he is working hand in hand with the civilian government and not against it. In truth, the base is dependent on UBF food shipments and is rapidly switching allegiance. The base is still home to the remains of the Massachusetts Air National Guard's 102nd Tactical Fighter Wing. Operational air assets include three F-86H Sabres, an old F-80 Shooting Star, a trainer-version B-66B Destroyer, two C-130s, a Piper Cub, and two T-38 Talons--former NASA trainers from Florida now homeless. Total personnel strength is around 500 and most of the pilots are Massachusetts Air National Guard. The pilots and ground crews occupy GI housing inside and outside the AFB, others started building anew. Hyannis Port: Of special note, the Kennedy family compound at Hyannis Port on Cap Cod is now something of a memorial. The family members here scattered and the compound was burned to the ground by angry mobs in late 1962. In 1964, the ruins are frequently visited by those that do not wish to forget. Martha's Vinyard: Still isolated, making due without supplies from the mainland. The ferries have stopped running and there is no fuel left to be wasted on airplanes. The regular residents of the island were better prepared to fend for themselves than most mainlanders. 7) WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS The western half of the state was once a fairly productive agricultural area, but the drought conditions of 1964 have changed that. The rugged timber regions have not been effected much by the drought, but local farmland has been burnt dry over the summer and is now virtually worthless. Springfield/Westover Air Force Base: This former B-52 base is home of one group of the MilGov 211th Military Police Battalion (MA NG), one of the few MilGov loyal units in all of New England. The 211th has about 400 effectives, mostly Massachusetts National Guardsmen. The MPs are here for the long term and have began a vigorous program of planting every available acre of land with seeds, often using laborers from the refugee populations of the area. They have a compound in Holyoke along the Connecticut River. There is one old river tug here that they are fixing up to serve as a monitor. Not surprising with the security it brings, there is a large and growing shanty town of refugees around the Westover AFB encampment. The shanty town is built in and on the ruins of Smith Highlands--a suburb of Springfield. The population here has risen to 14,000 and shows no sign of stopping as many more arrive from Boston. Many of these people do the labor for the Battalion, planting and sowing crops and collecting salvage. They also have recently garrisoned a 40-man unit at the Quabbin Reservoir and are trying to restart the hydroelectric dam here. The Reservoir is also used for fishing, though it is polluted and not much use. To cover both the Westover base and the Quabbin base, the Battalion has erected an artillery firebase midway between the two at the Hemlock Hill resort. Here there are 50 men and nearly all the Battalion's heavy ranged weapons, including four towed 155mm howitzers and six 4.2inch mortars. The other half of the Battalion mutinied late last year and has since been entrenched around Fort Devin Military Reservation to the east. Neither half of the Battalion represents a significant fighting force any longer, and both are now nothing more than heavily armed warlords. Neither would obey any orders from Colorado Springs even if they received any. Other groups of the Battalion's soldiers, usually in groups about 30-strong, struck out on their own during the mutiny and have become marauders in the area. Many of these smaller groups have hired themselves out to various tin-pot warlords in the Springfield area. |
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CONNECTICUT
Like most heavily urbanized states, Connecticut has suffered greatly since 1962. Literally millions of panicked people streamed out of the train wreck that was New York City following the nuclear hits. These mobs of refugees totally swamped and buried the western two thirds of the state under a tidal wave of violence and desperation. The first winter of 1962 thinned them out, and as soon as the food ran out those that still lived by the spring moved on north and west. Behind them they left needless devastation. Connecticut--along with most of New England--had very little stored food reserves and was one of the first states in the country to experience food shortages following the nuclear strikes, and thus some of the worst food riots. It was widely rumored amongst the civilian population that the military was hoarding food at the expense of the civilians, and military bases throughout the state were besieged by hungry and angry people. Once winter came and the great die-off began, people began to eat everything. The deer disappeared, even packs of dogs in the urban areas were hunted for food. By the spring of 1963 all that was left in relative quantity was fish. The few farms in the countryside were all swamped by refugees early, leaving little agriculture outside of small family plots. Throughout 1964 conditions in Connecticut have been getting worse--food is becoming more scarce and what law and order remains is either rapidly breaking down or becoming increasingly more autocratic in order to remain in control. Those civilians still in the state are very desperate. 1) NUCLEAR TARGETS None. 2) ORGANIZED MILITARY FORCES The state's component of the 43rd Infantry Division, three battle groups and an artillery regiment, were mobilized soon after the first nuclear strikes. Conditions in the state, especially following the nuking of New York City, rapidly degraded the National Guard's capability and by 1963 there were just a few places left where they were organized. The federal government was unable to rally the state to send the men overseas and so most of them have remained here. These units now owe their loyalty to the cities and towns they protect and there is little or no overall state command. 43rd Infantry Division ------169th Infantry Regiment--Hartford (520 men) ------2nd Battalion/192nd FA Regiment ------------Battery A--Norwich (55 men) ------------Battery C--Waterbury (40 men) 248th Engineer Company--Norwich (35 men) 3) CONNECTICUT URBAN CORRIDOR The New York-Boston corridor is lined with small, semi-suburban communities, all of them demolished to differing degrees by years of rioting and refugee migrations. The worst are Bridgeport and New Haven, with lesser (but considerable) difficulties being offered by Norwalk, Fairfield, Stratford, and New London. Most of these turned to fishing or farming after the initial period of famine that largely depopulated the area. As well, the marauder bands have preyed upon and savaged many of these communities. Many who had staked their hopes on farming have been ruined by the unfavorable weather and have either become hunter/scavengers or marauders. The Connecticut coastline now offers a number of smaller fishing communities with a tradition of fleeing instead of fighting. Greenwich: After the initial chaos, for several months this city was calm, life was hard, but people survived. Then the drought and the marauders came. Now there are only small pockets of people all over the city. There is no food, starving people are reduced to eating rats. The land north of the city is worthless for farming and their fishing fleet, once powerful, now sits rusting and rotting dockside. There are more diseases in the city than in any research lab, and there are few doctors and no medicines left. Stamford: This city was destroyed by rioting, out of control fires and fighting scavenger gangs. The city is now a checkerboard of fire-blackened ruins. The two dozen or so survivors are hiding in little pockets all over the city, terrified to go out. Danbury: In this upland town, the citizens tried to band together to defend themselves against the marauders and starving refugees. They were crushed and swept aside for their efforts. The city is rapidly falling into decay and ruin. The museums and finer homes have been looted, the libraries sacked. Dogs and cats have become food staples. Norwalk: Under control of gangs. They have raided extensively about the countryside, stealing food and women. Bridgeport: The city has been looted and savaged so many times that it is nothing more than a shell of what it once was and there was no one left to fight the hurricane-like fires that burned most of the city down. The 10,000 or so people who still live in this dying city are sick and malnourished. Cholera is rampant in the city today. Bridgeport Harbor is a cesspool of pollution and rotting skeletons. The northern suburbs are relatively intact and the many manufacturing plants in the area still hold many treasures. Fairfield: Burnt to the ground during the chaos, this city is empty today. Waterbury: There is some farming going on in the fields around the city. They have a militia that has successfully battled the gangs and kept the population down to manageable levels. The town's main protection comes from the remains of the National Guard's Battery C (105mm) of the 2nd Battalion/192nd FA, a former component of the 43rd ID (40 men). The citizens have tried hard not to let their city turn into a slum or be looted by vandals. In every space available, someone is growing a garden or raising chickens. The railroads leading into the city are useless, vandals have destroyed miles of track. Milford: Looted and sacked so many times it's only a hulk now. Pirates used it as a base for a time, but abandoned it and moved on. New Haven: Devastated by fires and rioting, this long-shadowed, burned city is now a hulk. Fires still smolder in the mounds of coal in the heavy manufacturing areas in the outskirts. Abandoned and smashed cars litter every street. Marauders occupy most of the city today armed with light weapons mostly, many are survivors of several Connecticut National Guard units stationed here that were swept away in the rioting. There are some 2,500 civilians left, many serving as slaves for the gangs. Wallingford: Looted and burned, with only a few hundred survivors. Hartford: Hartford is doing better than most cities in the area, having a stable population fed by gardens planted everywhere there is dirt. All the National Guard units in the area were consolidated and reformed under the banner of the 169th Infantry Regiment, a component of the 43rd ID. Total manpower is around 520 men at this time. Well-equipped with the stores and weapons in six area NG armories, the force is truly to be reckoned with. As well, there is an active State Militia organization in the city, led by the Governor's 1st Horse Guard Company (40 men) and the "Nathan Hale Battalion (60 men), made up of former University of Connecticut--Hartford ROTC cadets led by a former US Army colonel. There are several doctors still in the city and considering all that has happened, the citizens are doing well. The state government is still here, operating at vastly reduced levels. The state leadership has very little influence on affairs in Connecticut outside of Hartford County. 4) SOUTHEASTERN CONNECTICUT The southeastern corner of the state was mostly spared the ravages of the refugees, and the area is now the most secure in the state. Norwich: A mix of productive refugees and decent citizens occupy this city now, all trying to survive. The town's defenses are provided by the National Guard's 248th Engineer Company (35 men) and Battery A (105mm) of the 2nd Battalion/192nd FA, a former component of the 43rd ID (55 men). New London: Today, this city is a gutted and looted shell, home to just 600 citizens. Much of the factory facilities which supported the submarine base here were destroyed in the riots and civil disorder following the nuclear strikes. The Coast Guard Academy is now deserted and in ruins. The city of New London itself is largely empty. The few inhabitants make a living either farming roof gardens and sifting over the rubble for overlooked bits of salvage, or by brigandage. The former submarine base is occupied by a small group of a few hundred refugees. The factories have been looted of all but the heaviest machinery, and everything that can be pried loose has been taken away or broken. The riverside harbor is empty except for one half-sunken sub and a beached cargo ship. The sub is the Barracuda class SS-552 Bonita, which was undergoing an engine refit when rioters looking for food tore through her. The cargo ship was rumored to be carrying grain from Iowa for the military and was swamped by hungry mouths, only to find machine parts and rubber tires. Today there are about 30 US Navy men at the base from the CivGov enclave at Newport, Rhode Island working to salvage some electronic components from the ships. Groton: Just across the Thames River from New London, Groton is a different story. It too has been heavily looted, but it has a small permanent population--a few local fishermen operating out of the old harbor there and a couple of craftsmen who produce rope and netting for the fishers. Recently, a group of monks moved into the area and is providing medical care and acting as an impartial governing body to settle local disputes. The Submarine School is now deserted and in ruins. Mystic: Along the coast, this once quaint, little historic town is now the current equivalent of a minor metropolis. Dusted with radiation from the New York nukes, the town was initially abandoned. With a month, however, it was obvious that the area was safe and the people started to return. With a population of almost 30,000, many of them refugees from New London, Mystic now supports a vigorous fishing industry, as well as some coastal trade. Much of this is due to the contributions of the former employees of the Mystic Seaport and Marine Museum, who have kept the Charles W. Morgan, America's last wooden whaling ship, in operating condition. They have also managed to convert the other sailing craft in port into highly profitable fishing/merchant vessels, and they have an ambitious educational program for transmitting special maritime skills to an ever-increasing number of their young people. Not surprisingly, Mystic is particularly well defended, boasting several .30 cal machineguns and a pair of 81mm mortars, in addition to the more predictable selection of military, paramilitary, and sporting long arms. It maintains a low-power radio station for emergency broadcasts to its populace and for long-range contact with the rest of the world. Mystic's secret insurance policy is their cooperation with the CivGov Coast Guard enclave to the east in Rhode Island. In fact, the guard loaned Mystic the .30 cals and mortars eighteen months ago in exchange for the loan of the Australia, the historic schooner that had been part of the seaport exhibition. They are also serving as an advance base for the navy as they begin to salvage the New London naval yard. 5) NORTHWESTERN CONNECTICUT On a smaller note, in the northwestern corner of the state, is Goshen, a small village of a dozen or so buildings and an old rangers fire watch tower looms several stories above the town. The radical Church of Human Perfection is fast into weeding out the sick and old in the town to create a "perfect population". These islands of humanity are rare, however, as most towns are deserted and looted. |
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RHODE ISLAND
While the tiny state of Rhode Island was untouched by missiles, it's people had to then fend for themselves in the aftermath of that horrific day. Governor John Notte had placed the National Guard all along the border with in twelve hours after the missiles stopped, and only two after the refugees started arriving. Governor Notte also quickly made a deal with the National Guard 103rd Replacement Battalion stationed in his state. The commander saw quickly that he had to help the Governor if he and his family were to survive. So with three well armed forces under his command--the RI ANG, the 103rd Replacement Battalion, and the RI state police--the Governor was able to pretty much close the borders. Notte new that he needed the military to hold things together, so he worked with them to ensure that he and they were given the lions share of food and supplies. Still, the following harsh winter and the spread of disease took its toll on the population of Rhode Island. Within two years the state was down to less than 200,000 people. The population of the capital city Providence (currently at twenty percent of its pre-war level) presently forms a community which now calls itself the "Isolationists". Practicing what their name implies, the Isolationists have shut themselves off from outside governments and are attempting to become as self-sufficient as possible. The Isolationists claim all of Rhode Island but they only effectively control the parts of Providence and the adjacent area within the border formed by the Providence and Pawtucket Rivers and Scituate Reservoir. 1) NUCLEAR TARGETS None. 2) ORGANIZED MILITARY FORCES 103rd Replacement Battalion--Providence (1300 men) 3) THE STATE AT LARGE Providence: Much of Providence itself was ravaged by the disorder and starvation that was a mark of the chaos. Fires have gutted many of the large buildings in the downtown area. The area west of Cranston and east of the reservoir has recently been developed into a series of farming co-ops in an effort to break the city's dependence on fish and outside suppliers. Unfortunately, the city lacks a large body of experience in agriculture and animal husbandry. As a result, the yields are expected to by small. They are opposed by small gangs within Providence itself, and by the various bandit and marauder bands which wander New England. The gangs control the low-rent apartment ghettos and parts of the downtown Providence area, creating a siege situation with the Isolationist defense forces surrounding them. The reason that these gangs have not been wiped out is that Notte's daughter was kidnapped by them in 1963 and he refuses to burn them out until he finds her. Some of the larger gangs are the "Pigs on Wings", the "Killer Sheep", the "Rabid Wolf Lingerie Society", and the "Dogs of War". By late 1964, Notte's grand experiment with isolationism is breaking down. Shortages in power and spare parts have forced him to shut down factories and operations left and right. The is virtually no power left for private consumption. Notte's relationship to the Navy enclave and the UBF is becoming more strained by the hour as he is unable to fill trade orders and his work force becomes restless. The 103rd Replacement Battalion (1300 men) provides the bulk of the security forces for the city. Newport: Now a CivGov Coast Guard and Navy enclave, which is centered in the compound that was once the domain of the Naval War College and Naval Officer Candidate School, among other important navy institutions. Rear Admiral Nils HoIsgirder is the commandant of the Coast Guard forces here. The Rhode Island Isolationist community to the north in Providence is leery of Holsgirder, and something of an unspoken arrangement exists between them. Providence leaves Newport in peace and facilitates a limited amount of trade with the Isolationist community, while Holsgirder's force is their insurance against any change in the UBF's ambition. Although not large enough to defeat Carlucci, Holsgirder's swabs could deal the UBF a severe, perhaps crippling, blow in a fight to the finish. For now, however, the navy men are active traders with the UBF. The new Coast Guard is a mix of the old and the young. The officers and NCOs are all 40 or more years old; they are reactivated reservists, former academy instructors, and coast guard auxiliary inductees. Most of them (about 200) have seen limited combat. Almost 400 of these new swabs make up the rank and file of the new Coast Guard. The townspeople of Newport (approximately 18,000 of them) are mostly involved in fishing, light industry, and light farming. All people above the age of thirteen are required to attend four hours of militia training every week and two full weeks of intensive training every year (usually during the winter). Enough long arms are available to arm about half these people with something more effective than a .22. Handguns are not prevalent. The Coast Guard itself is armed with M14s and M60 LMGs. A few mortars are available, as are a number of M2HB .50 calibers. Body armor is somewhat rare, most of it being ballistic cloth vests, courtesy of commandeered police stores. Holsgirder wasn't left with much when the navy yanked almost every seaworthy vessel out from under him after the nukings to fight World War III. However, the commandant is a tireless and resourceful worker, and the new flotilla is a direct product of his industry. The primary assets include the medium-endurance cutter Chilula (WMEC-153), the small harbor tug Shackle (WYTL-65609), the inland buoy tender Elderberry (WLI-65401), ten coastal utility craft, the sail training cutter Eagle (WIX-327), the large auxiliary schooner Australia (WIX-999), and twenty various sailed auxiliary sloops. Basically, the tug and buoy tender are both smallish vessels, converted to alcohol, with a top speed of six knots and a complement of 10. The utility craft are models which are produced en masse by Monark boats and have been converted to alcohol; also, they are equivalent to a very small, high-speed cabin cruiser. As well as four merchant ships that sought refugee in Newport when the nukes started to fall. These are a container ship filled with obsolete electronic hardware that was on its way for sale abroad as a part of the Marshall Plan, another freighter with used British Army equipment for sale in New Jersey, and two oil tankers returning from the Persian Gulf loaded with fuel. Air assets, lamentably, are limited to one CH-34 Chactaw helicopter. The helicopter has been retrofitted with M60 MG doorguns. Holsgirder's last avgas is stored in deep vaults, and under no circumstances short of an all-out attack on Newport itself would he let this bird get airborne. It's the ace up his sleeve, and he won't show it unless he has to. The enclave is officially able to use the air assets at Otis AFB on Cape Cod, but they never have had use to waste their fuel and it is dicey whether or not the UBF would let them leave the base anyway. Holsgirder is also working secretly on reopening three oil platforms which once belonged to Texaco off the eastern coast of Nova Scotia. He is also in recent months beginning to salvage the New London navy yards, using the friendly town of Mystic, Connecticut as a staging base. |
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all I can say is WOW. I feel a new game in the works
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__________________
"There is only one tactical principal which is not subject to change. It is to use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wounds, death and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time." --General George S. Patton, Jr. |
#79
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Hi all,
I was directed here by a friend. I'm the dude who wrote all that Twilight 1964 stuff a million years ago (2003, eek!). It was a ton of work, but it was fun to do the research on the 1960s. I am surprised that anyone still had a copy of it, I don't think that page has been up for many years. I took it down when I started working on my similar Morrow Project Travel Guide, as it conflicted greatly. I'd be tickled pink if anyone actually used any of it for a game, I guess that's what I intended it for. I don't play these games, so I am not sure if it would make a good alternate game setting or not. If anyone wants to chat about it, my email is nmdecke@hotmail.com, I think I might have some additional files somewhere for T1964. Thanks, Nate |
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I am a fan of both the MP Travel guide and the T1964 so I am glad you stopped by for a visit. I have pulled details from both of them for my world so you certanly have my appreciation for all your hard work.
If you have any interest in posting any of your stuff here or on my MP forum I am sure there would be interest. |
#81
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Thank you for the offer Kato, but I'm not sure I would have anything to add to a game conversation. The odd fact is that I don't play RPGs, I just write for them
![]() Thanks for your interest, I appreciate it, Nate |
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Good to know you are still working on stuff. Once you finish it, an announcement om my morrow forum would be appreciated. I am sure there would be interest.
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