California Invasion

The SCO invasion of the North American West coast started on the 3rd day of May in 2052 with airborne troops and marines landing in Anchorage and Seattle, the American and Canadian responses to prevent both cities from falling into the hands to the SCO forces was successful. With the Navy and Airforce busy in the south pacific and the SCO using civilian ships under the disguise of refugee freighters managed to launch attacks against Seattle and Anchorage. However, the SCO had no real desire to occupy either Seattle or Anchorage even though both cities were vital to the FSA war effort these attacks were only feigning strikes.

The ULS military command had sent many of its armored divisions, airborne units and naval assets to reclaiming the false targets. The SCO commanders had duped much of their forces as they did the Americans and Canadians. Troops from China and North Korea that had gone into battle with the mindset of capturing the cities, when in reality as the battle for Seattle and Anchorage entered the third day, soon found them without fire support and no extraction. The FSA had destroyed much of the SCO Navy in the Pacific North West. The ruse, however, wasn’t revealed until it was too late as the battles for Seattle and Anchorage came to a close ten days after they had begun the SCO launched a full-scale amphibious assault on Los Angeles, Long Beach, and San Diego. The Californians were largely a segregated group of Americans from the rest of the Free States of America; a wall had been built to keep Californians from entering Oregon, Arizona, and Nevada much like the border wall with Mexico. As such the SCO forces were widely welcomed by local Liberal socialists and those that didn’t lack the much needed firearms to resist the SCO.

The FSA military forces that weren’t destroyed by initial attack began to organize a retreat. The majority of the retreat was given air support from the Air National Guard out of Arizona. Several commanders in California had chosen to stand and fight while others ordered retreat this confusion aided the SCO landings to the point that San Francisco’s ports began unloading heavy armor from transport ships and onto the railway systems. For the better part of the first few days of the California invasion, SCO troops were unhindered and openly ignored scattered American soldiers. Day four saw the scattered American troops rally under a young Phoenix born Captain David Harrison. Harrison knew full well holding up in the vast forests of the California National Parks would be a death sentence, he also knew that California was a lost caused and there was no pointing in trying to fight for it, so he planned a raid. Harrison stated, "Yes Mao owns California, but we won't make this easy for him."

Harrison coordinated a daring raid to destroy vital infrastructure throughout California. Electrical substations, power plants, water treatment plants, bridges, tunnels and interstate crossing were razed by helicopter-borne troops with the last available artillery and air assets in the area most of which were outright destroyed. Harrison has dubbed the assault ‘operation lights out’ the Chinese had mostly left these important targets lightly defended. Harris had the devil's luck as his attack was launched a full hour before the Chinese made their first coordinated large-scale assault to destroy the American forces remaining in California that failed to make it to the wall.

The Chinese responded quickly to the American’s scorched earth tactics, but were largely unsuccessful; only two targets were untouched Diablo Canyon and Moss landing having been the Chinese’s most heavily defended targets. Harrisons raid and retreat had earned him a place in history however his disregard for the lives of Californians had earned him the title of War Criminal by the SCO it’s said that the charge brought a crass smile to his face when he was informed upon his return to Phoenix central command. His raid had earned him a field promotion to major. The effect on the SCO occupation and formation of the Pacific States puppet regime was severely delayed. The next SCO assault into Nevada and Arizona resulted in massive casualties to the SCO and with California in need of extensive repairs the FSA military and industry had gained precious time to prepare for future assaults.

Harrison's efforts provided the time needed to assemble the forces to retake and occupy California. 8 months after the invasion the long road to destroying the Chinese Empire's totalitarian rule over Asia began. After the reclaiming of California many socialist collaborators soon fled to China only to realize how dire and awful the situation was for any person living and working outside the Chinese Communist Party's doomed city sectors safe from the polluted air and toxic water that had begun to over run the nation. While the UN and NATO now lacking the military might of American and the reach of the New Commonwealth (UK) the tides in the Pacific shifted after the first 3 years of WW3. However this turning point in the war only saw much more suffering and heavier fighting. The desperate Chinese forces began various suicidal attacks to buy time for their forces to loot various nations all across the Pacific.