World War III was a global war that lasted from 14 August to 14 October 2016 that involved the vast majority of countries in Europe and took place across mainland Europe, the United States (predominantly the East Coast), parts of Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Sierra Leone, and Somalia), and South America (Brazil). The war was fought for only two months in late 2016, beginning with a Russian invasion of the United States after it was discovered that a Central Intelligence Agency operative assisted in the Zakhaev International Airport massacre as a part of a deep cover operation with Vladimir Makarov. The first few weeks of the war saw the Russians attempt to take over the East Coast, but they were defeated at Washington DC, Baltimore, and New York City and routed. President Boris Vorshevsky was in favor of making peace, but the extremist Makarov seized power and took Vorshevsky hostage, attempting to interrogate him about the Russian nuclear launch codes. Under Makarov, Russia launched chemical attacks on major European cities and began an offensive that penetrated up to central France and the borders of Italy, while Russia also took over Scandinavia and parts of the Middle East. However, NATO defeated Russia at the Battle of Paris and the Battle of Berlin, routing the Russians. Delta Force rescued Vorshevsky from a mine in Siberia, and Vorshevsky returned to leading the government. He agreed to peace with NATO at Hamburg, ending the war. Around 1,000,000 people were killed, with many of them being civilians killed by Russians during their chemical attacks on Europe or by their soldiers during the occupation of Eastern and Central Europe.
Background[]
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, some people living in Russia were angry at the end of one of the largest land empires in history, which they had seen as a glorious representation of Russia's might. One of these people was Imran Zakhaev, who decided to gain funds for his revolution by selling nuclear rods and becoming an arms dealer. In 1996, the Special Air Service of the United Kingdom mandated his assassination, the first ordered killing by them since World War II. An SAS team was dispatched to Pripyat, a ghost town still containing radiation pockets from the Chernobyl disaster, where Zakhaev was going to sell nuclear rods to some armed men. Zakhaev's arm was severed by a sniper's shot, and the SAS team barely escaped from the armed men overseeing the deal. In the following years, Zakhaev was believed dead due to his arm being severed, but he continued his arms deals and eventually gained the support of millions of Russians. In 2011 he armed the OpFor insurgent group in the Middle East with a nuclear bomb which they used to kill 30,000 American soldiers. The Americans took a large blow there, but the US Marine Corps and SAS sent troops to hunt down Zakhaev. The succeeded in killing him and preventing the launch of missiles at the USA, and it seemed that they had won.
However, the Second Russian Civil War raged on, with Zakhaev's Russian Ultranationalists eventually overthrowing the government of Russia in August 2015. This led to further violence as the moderate faction led by Boris Vorshevsky, who became the President of Russia, fought against the extremist faction of Vladimir Makarov, which became the terrorist "Inner Circle". While Vorshevsky was at peace with Europe, Makarov launched terrorist attacks against the West, including the bombing of Piccadilly Circus. The USA and United Kingdom were hostile towards the new government, and tensions were high by 2016.
The Zakhaev International Airport Massacre
General Herschel Shepherd, a high-ranking American military man, decided to test the military might of his country by leading them into war with the Ultranationalists. He was angry at the world watching the nuclear bomb explosion that killed 30,000 US troops, so he decided to engineer a new war with Russia to prove that America was still strong. He arranged for a satellite to be downed over Kazakhstan, resulting in the Russians capturing an ACS module and holding it at their airbase in the Tian Shan mountains. Shepherd, the leader of the elite NATO special forces group Task Force 141, sent a team to recover the downed ACS module from the airbase, and they killed many Russian troops in the process. Shepherd then decided to hunt down Makarov to end his terrorist attacks, and he plucked US Army Ranger Joseph Allen from his squad in Afghanistan to take part in a deep-cover operation to take out Makarov. Allen was inserted with Makarov's group on the day that they decided to carry out the Zakhaev International Airport massacre, and he was forced to kill innocent people to gain his trust. In the end, Makarov killed Allen before he left in the getaway ambulance, as he knew about his operation. Vorshevsky was enraged when he found out that the Central Intelligence Agency had assisted Makarov in the massacre of around 250 Russian civilians, and he declared war on the United States.
War[]
Brazil operation, 13 August 2016[]
General Shepherd sent Task Force 141 to track down the people responsible for the massacre, with Captain John MacTavish leading a team of TF 141 operatives to Rio de Janeiro after the shells used in the massacre were traced to Brazilian arms dealer Alejandro Rojas. The team subdued his assistant at first, and half of the team interrogated him while the other half went through the favela to track down Rojas. Gary Sanderson led the favela team, and both "Meat" and "Royce" were killed by the Brazilian Militia. However, Sanderson pushed through and reached Rojas, seeing fellow TF 141 soldier Simon Riley tackle him from a window onto a car below. Rojas was interrogated by the team, who found out that Captain John Price was being held in a gulag in Petropavlovsk, Russia. The team then fought their way out of 200+ Brazilian militiamen and reached a Pave Low extraction helicopter, and they were taken out of Brazil, which had denied its airspace to the USA.
Russian invasion of the United States, 13-17 August 2016[]
Although Task Force 141 was busy in hunting down the perpetrators of the airport massacre, the Russians were already on the move, preparing for their massive assault on the United States. The Russians copied the ACS module captured in Kazakhstan, allowing for them to deploy ghost dots on NORAD's computers to make it appear as if they were invading through the Pacific Ocean and attacking Maine. However, their main invasion forces attacked the Chesapeake Bay states of Maryland and Virginia, and they attacked with naval forces, VDV paratroopers, Spetsnaz special ops troops and Russian Army personnel. The Russians also landed BTR-80s to assist in their ground offensives. Fighting was taken to the suburbs in northeastern Virginia in the first few days of the war, with the US Army Rangers attempting to hold back the Russian assaults. They were surprised by the Russian assault, but their forces succeeded in inflicting heavy losses on the invaders. Using IFVs against the Russians to clear out suburban neighborhoods, the Americans then proceeded to push the Russians from the suburbs.
The Russians proceeded to assault the capital city of Washington DC, nearly overwhelming it in their powerful assault. They bombed evacuation sites and killed or wounded many civilians, so the Rangers were dispatched to protect the evacuation sites as well as to assist the US Army in the counterattack. Washington DC was nearly overrun as Russians even captured the White House, and General Shepherd even considered using a nuclear bomb to kill 30,000-50,000 people, including the Russian army in the city. However, Colonel Kirk Marshall mustered up his forces for a counterattack against the White House, and the Americans proceeded to attack the Russians. The Americans were ironically given the lead when an EMP missile struck the East Coast, disabling all Russian electronics and vehicles; it was fired by Task Force 141 from Petropavlovsk. Although the missile destroyed the International Space Station and killed a few innocent people, it allowed for the Americans to launch a counterattack that could end the war in one day. The White House, Justice Building, Eisenhower Building, and all other key buildings were retaken, and the American troops popped green flares to signify that they had recaptured the buildings; the US Air Force planes dispatched to bomb the city did not have to destroy it, after all. The Russian army retreated from Washington DC, a blow to their invasion.
Not only was the center of the East Coast under threat, but Russians also assaulted New York and New Jersey. The Battle of New York City was a brave attack by the Russians against the American soldiers, with a large Russian fleet arriving. It had enough missiles to level the entire Eastern Seaboard, but Delta Force set out to destroy the Oscar-II submarine Olga, the lead submarine. They manipulated the missiles to destroy other Russian ships, destroying their enemies' fleet. In addition, the Americans won a counterattack in the city. The Russian armies, which had been scattered on the East Coast, were now in full retreat. America was victorious against the Russian invaders, and only sporadic fighting continued with the Russians there. President Vorshevsky now considered making peace with his American foes, having lost several battles.
Operations in Russia[]
While the Russians invaded America, Task Force 141 and the Navy SEALs worked together for a counterstrike in the Pacific Ocean. They rescued captured oil rig workers from an oil rig used by the Russians as a SAM site, and the Russian forces suffered a setback. The US 6th Fleet proceeded to take out the other three oil rigs, and the Americans and British operatives of Task Force 141 then assaulted the Petropavlovsk Gulag to rescue Captain Price from the Russians. The gulag offered serious opposition, but it was destroyed in a navy bombardment as the Task Force 141 operatives barely escaped death by friendly fire. Shortly after, Price led the assault on a Russian sub base and launched an EMP towards the Eastern Seaboard of the USA to give the Americans the upper hand against the Russians, whose tanks, helicopters, and other technologies were winning. The EMP destroyed the ISS in orbit, but it disabled the Russian Army's vehicles and allowed for a counterattack against the Russians that allowed for the Americans to defeat the Russian invasion.
Hunt for Makarov in Asia[]
On 15 August 2016, Task Force 141 set out on a two-pronged attack with the goal of killing Makarov. One team assaulted his safehouse on the Russia-Georgia border, while another headed to the airplane boneyard in Afghanistan to find him. The two teams encountered heavy opposition without a sign of Makarov, although the team sent to Russia located a gold mine of intel on Makarov. General Shepherd headed to collect the intel and proceeded to kill the Task Force 141 operatives, as he wanted to cover his tracks; he had dealt with Makarov in creating the war, and he needed to make his lie a truth. At the same time, Captain Price and MacTavish were attacked in the boneyard by both Russian Ultranationalists and Shepherd's elite Shadow Company troops. They barely escaped, and they resolved to kill Shepherd. After infiltrating his base at Site Hotel Bravo, they proceeded to chase him down a river in Zodiacs, and MacTavish killed him by throwing a knife in his left eye. Shepherd's death landed them at the top of an international wanted list, as they had killed what the public saw as an American war hero. However, they took out the architect of the war, which was about to rapidly escalate.