Soviet forces have now hit West Germany hard in a vicious exchange of nuclear-tipped SRBMs on both sides, and they are still pouring through the Fulda Gap and the North German Plain. West Berlin falls to the Russian Army. World War III is now fully engaged as Soviet nuclear warheads hit European cities and industrial areas. Bombers attacking London are stopped by the RAF, but the city is destroyed by a firestorm caused by Soviet MRBMs raining down on it.
President Ford orders all America's nuclear forces into action, utilizing preliminary plans laid out in the National Security Council's NSC 162/2 directive. US B-52 and FB-111 bombers are launched towards their targets in the Soviet Union. Russian Tu-95 and 3M bombers launched simultaneously swarm over the Canadian frontier.
Over 200 warheads are detonated in Russia; 27 reach their targets in the United States, specifically Washington DC, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Spokane, and eighteen military bases including ICBM Sites (most in the North, but including the Norfolk shipyards and bases in Virginia). In Russia, over two dozen Soviet cities are blasted, and nearly as many major military sites.
Top leaders like Yuri Andropov (Chairman of the KGB) and Mikhail Gorbachev (First Secretary to the Supreme Soviet) are killed at military bunkers in Western Russia; Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev survived.
Some 80% of American and 90% of Soviet strategic forces are destroyed in the initial days of the war. By November it is estimated that the Soviets have less than a dozen nuclear-capable bombers and very few operational ICBMs and SLBMs remaining. At the same time, some forty American B-52s are still operational.
Nuclear exchange has so far been limited to the United States, the Soviet Union and Europe. Surviving NATO forces and WESTPAC units are deploying to counter the remaining Soviet threat. The world stands on the brink of extinction....
"Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death..."
The Lawgiver (as spoken by Cornelius in Planet of the Apes)