Board Thread:Timeline Discussions/@comment-26092868-20150211224940/@comment-3428312-20150217222109

I once did an offsite TL somewhat based around this central idea. Best date for a PoD is on the 27th. A Soviet sub nearly fired a nuclear torpedo at some US destroyers, an American airplane was shot down over Cuba, and a U-2 strayed into Soviet aerospace requiring it to be rescued by nuclear-armed US fighters. Now, prior to this, President Kennedy had vowed retaliatory strikes against AA sites if US planes were fired upon and in OTL he was under heavy pressure to follow through by the Military. Basically, just have all these incidents go bad, and WWIII breaks out.

As to the war itself and aftermath, the USSR is utterly toast but Eastern Europe is just heavily damaged. Western Europe gets hit hard, and the United States takes a punch, but nowhere near as bad as the rest. Third way nations like China, Yugoslavia, Austria, Spain, etc... will most likely be hit as way, with China probably the worst.