So....My Tank Corps in Prussia...

[Commissar D, the Evil]

Hate to think what my wife would say about me!

But seriously, I don't think that Wirblewind has flown out of this Tale.

Bestens,
David

[Tom Houlihan]

Naw, he's just sitting in his barracks, practicing aerobatics!!

[Jager1945]

Hi David and Forum Heros,

This is very funny stuff...great satire, self depreciation and kameraden bonding. I like it!

I noticed today was my 1 year anniversary on Feldgrau. Feldgrau for alle, Alle fur Feldgrau!

Thanks for making me feel welcome and thanks for the great year all.

[Commissar D, the Evil]

Hi Jaeger!!!!!

Congratulations on your one year anniversary on Feldgrau!!!!

I hope you stay with us for many more anniversaries!!!

When it comes to good folks, Feldgrau can't be beaten! When it comes to research, Feldgrau can't be beaten! So what more can one ask other than camaraderie, which I hope you've sampled here!!?

I FOR 'UM
YOU FOR 'UM
WE'RE ALL
FORUM HEROES!!!!


Bestens,
David

[Jager1945]

David,

Thanks. And thanks again for the marvelous tale your weaving.

I look forward to reading each installment.

Best regards,

-Jaeger

[Commissar D, the Evil]

Hey, no problem Jaeger.

On the other side, a forty minute electrical blackout in New Jersey just managed to ruin the next installment, as I hadn't saved it......

Funny how New Jersey manages to ruin a lot of things............................

Bestens,
~D

[David W]

On the other side, a forty minute electrical blackout in New Jersey just managed to ruin the next installment, as I hadn't saved it......

You have my sympathy, this has happened to me too.

[Jager1945]

David,

When I started in Technical communications my "box" crashed and I lost about 5 hours of work. I set my "tools" to catch and save after 10 minutes always now. The company I worked for previously used to be downstream from a river and we always seemed to get "Wet" from melting, downpours, etc. The powers that be learned and always backed up on tape after that.

I still lose precious production every now and again, but hopefully nothing much that a little tweeking can't fix.

I hope you didn't lose to much and are able to recover most of the action. We have great faith in your abilities!!!

Best Wishes,

Forum Hero Jaeger

[Commissar D, the Evil]

North is Red (Draft Copy, as Saved from the Power Outage!)

“F**k! F**K! F**k!” Upon receiving the news that the Russians had occupied the South of the road and with the roar of tank engines filling his ears from the North, Von Bellow unleashed a stream of blue expletives before issuing the orders for his flanks to pull in and adopt an all around defense perimeter. He rapidly dispatched his two Hetzers to take up ambush positions in the South, but, considering the approaching storm from the North, he had to consider his rear as a secondary matter. They were well and truly trapped.

At least Sidirov hadn’t chosen his ground well. Any Russian tank attack from the North had to negotiate a gently winding, snow-covered road that was exposed to tank fire for a good 1,000 meters. But while Von Bellow needed every heavy gun he had to keep the road to the North clear and he was forced to recognize that his rear was wide open and therefore, forced to dispatch the two least battle-worthy gun platforms—the Hetzers—to protect them from any tank advance from the South. So he cursed his head off, while Kruger’s Tiger, the two Panthers and Jan-Hendrik’s Jagdpanther did their best to find cover and camouflage on the side of the road.

As they did so, the German infantry closed in on the road and established their own positions. The few remaining panzerfausts and panzerschrecks were carefully distributed to troopers whose expertise and courage were acknowledged by their brethren. Von Bellow’s mortar troop established themselves in a hiding place in the woods just off the road and the MG teams set up in the most advantageous spots to shoot down any Red infantry. Then everyone waited. Just sat in the snow and waited.

It would be an outright lie to say that they awaited the inevitable with equanimity. Even the most hardened Nazi ideologues amongst the S.S. troops could be glimpsed dropping to their knees in Christian prayer, although they supposedly only believed in runes and the ancient gods. Others lay completely prostrate in their shallow holes, terrified and unable to move at all. While still others squirmed from tree to tree, bush to bus and hole to hole in a vain attempt to find the “perfect” spot.

Best off were the tank and MG crews, who, unlike the individual troopers, had each other and their equipment to worry about. But even their nerves were frayed after the long fight to get into a position that now seemed hopeless.

Von Bellow and Braun stayed with the radio operators in their armored half-track, pulled into the woods with its engine running, but only because they couldn’t think of a more logical place from which to direct the men forming the “hedgehog”.

If their own nerves were temporarily frayed, that all swiftly changed when the Russian tanks and infantry came charging South into their guns, cheering and yelling “Urrah!!”

First up were the 88s and both Kruger and Jan-Hendrick’s gunners opened up as soon as the Reds were in range. Tank after tank exploded under their fire, whose thunder was soon enough joined by the whipping crack of the Panthers’ long 75s. But despite loosing a tank every 100 meters, these Russians kept coming.
From somewhere on the German line, a lone MG-42 added its “RRRRRPPPPPPPPPPP” to the slaughter and the Russian infantry fell by the score. Yet they still advanced relentlessly.
“RRRRRRPPPPPPPPPPP”
The Russian infantry, being only mortal men made of flesh, went to ground, but were quickly replaced by much thicker-skinned T-34s firing their 85mms at the still only partially dug-in S.S.

Phylo, buttoned up and directing his gunner through the vehicle's split periscope, thought that these Russians were like the stories he had heard about South American army ants, who crossed wide rivers over the bodies of their dead. So great was their sacrifice that even Phylo knew in his heart that the Kampfgruppe would never be able to advance past the twisted corpses of their burnt-out tanks over this road, even if they ultimately crushed the red assault.

But crushing the assault seemed to be an opium pipe dream at best. Despite horrendous losses, the T-34s entered into their own guns' effective range and the German panzers were the first to suffer.

Again, Kruger’s Tiger took multiple hits, including one in the running gear that blew off a pair of road wheels. Fearing that this hit had crippled him, Kruger ordered his driver to get them back on the road and its relatively level ground, where they at least stood a chance at repairing the tank. The fearsome beast made it, but only barely, as the track broke as soon as they reached the middle of the road and wound itself around the drive sprocket, effectively gluing them in place to the middle of the Russian zone of fire. Immediately after it stopped, the great Tiger II began absorbing hit after hit.

Phylo decided not to wait for the axe to fall and followed behind the Tiger. But, unable to use his machine’s speed and maneuverability, it was only a matter of time before the Reds caught him as well in their sights.

An 85mm armor piercing shell struck a glancing blow to the side of his turret. It ricocheted off, but the impact bent in the turret’s side armor, breaking it at the welds. It was an amazing sight to him indeed to actually see sunlight glinting in through the weld seam-line in the Panther’s turret. Simply amazing. He marveled at it just as another round struck the front hull and rattled the entire 45 ton machine. Then an 85mm shell struck his right tread and severed it neatly in two.

As they weren’t going anywhere, Phylo called out target after target to his gunner Werner, who, sionce the egine was still running, was able to traverse the turret quickly enough to fire on each of them.

Luckily or not, they were stuck dead in the shadow of Kruger’s immobilized Tiger, which took many of the shots meant for them. Phylo saw Kruger’s turret hatch flung open, but no one emerged as, in the next second, an 85mm round struck the tank square on the side of the turret, fired from a range of less than 500 meters.

A great white light filled the interior of the Tiger, like a gigantic flare. Then a blast like a blowtorch in its intensity blew the Tiger’s already open turret hatch high into the air.

While aware that the Tiger was burning, Phylo only slowly noticed the smoke filling the Panther’s fighting compartment.
“Get out, we’re on fire!” Phylo screamed into the intercom.
“No, wait!” Werner yelled back. From the gunner’s sights, he was aware that Russian infantry were swarming around the Panther. Getting out of his seat, he jumped up, reached for the roof and pulled the trigger on the Nahverteidigungswaffe (a very close range mortar mounted as a self-defense weapon on only a few Panthers, close to the rear of the turret roof). Werner was one of only a very few Panther crewmen to even remember the weapon’s existence, much less to use it in combat. After a moment he placed another round into its breech and fired it off. Phylo grabbed an MP-40 mounted on the turret wall and tossed the other to Werner. Both men abandoned the tank at about the same time, Phylo out of the commander’s hatch, Werner using the rear loader’s hatch, and both got out while firing their submachine guns into the remaining mobs of Russian infantry as flames from the engine compartment licked their boots. The other three men in the Panther’s crew climbed out through the forward hatches, but the Red infantry running up to the front of the tank cut them down almost instantly.

Running back to the German lines on the edge of the road, Werner took a bullet through his thigh and fell. Phylo turned around to help him, but a Russian tank machine-gunner was faster and ripped a burst across Werner's back before Phylo could reach his out-stretched hand.

Like a fool, Phylo stood straight up and burned off his one magazine against the impenetrable hull of the T-34 that shot down his friend. His courage and fury were so apparently irreproachable that the shocked Russian gunner didn’t fire back before he leaped into the nearest hole.

The very last Panther stood under a tall tree and fired into the rolling maelstrom of T-34s. Finally, a Russian tank flanked it and put a very well placed shell through its thinner side armor, which set off its ammunition storage and blew it to pieces. Like the Tiger, not a single of its crewmen got out alive.

And then the Russian tanks encountered the last remaining panzers. They quickly blew to pieces the armored half-tracks, including Von Bellow’s command track; but and seeing his intended executioners approaching, he, Braun and the radio operators abandoned the vehicle in time to save their lives.

Which only left Jan-Hendrik’s Jagdpanther for the Reds to deal with. Jan-Hendrik was a cool and calculating killer. The sight of the oncoming hordes of Russian tanks at first took his breath away, but he watched them from a very well-sited, hull-down position nearly invisible in the trees and at least 500 meters behind the forward German lines. Kruger, Phylo and the other Panther had torn great gaps in their ranks, but the tankists drove implacably on.

“I don’t want to sound overly pessimistic,” Rudi, their gunner, said calmly over the intercom, “but I think we’re all about to die gloriously…”

Jan Hendrik ordered him sharply to shut up and start firing.

Like the proverbial Hand of God, the Jagdpanther’s 88 plucked a 35 ton T-34 seemingly at random from the approaching ranks and hurtled its flaming turret bodily into the air. Another shot devastated the T-34 following the first. And a third shot clogged the road with the corpse of another T-34, making it impassable until the Reds took the time to haul away the wreckage.
The suddenness with which this happened finally discouraged the tankists, who couldn’t locate the Jagdpanther hidden in the forest to fire back at it. The Red tank column slowly recoiled and milled about behind the roadblock of dead T-34s.
Although the Jagdpanther’s ammunition was running low, Rudi put three more shells into the halted column. The Reds responded by driving, in some confusion, off the road and to either side of it, where the only thing left to stop them was Von Bellow’s infantry.

And neither Jan-Hendrik nor Rudi could do much against the Russian infantry who proved to be just as stubborn as their armored comrades. They insinuated themselves into every gap in the line. They came at first in their traditional waves, dying by the dozens in front of every MG nest, but always with the faith that one of them might get close enough to throw a grenade into it and silence the enemy guns.

For their part, Von Bellow’s S.S. troopers fought back with incredible ferocity. They didn’t expect mercy, nor were they accustomed to giving it. The fight for each hole and every trench developed into a miniature last stand for the S.S. troopers, the small battle waged with rifles, submachine guns and, at last resort, with entrenching tools, daggers and bayonets.

As the Red Army tanks and infantry worked their way slowly South, Sidirov’s last attack came in from the West, his lead T-34s crushing every physical obstacle between themselves and the road and crunching into the frail German infantry perimeter protecting it.

The great bulk of Von Bellow’s infantry were, in fact, West of the road, but caught between the two Soviet assault forces, their lines inevitably splintered. Under the overwhelming weight of the Soviets, what had been a relatively coherent line quickly became a scattered, disconnected series of isolated fighting positions, incapable of communicating with or protecting each other.

Stuck in a trench and under heavy fire himself, Von Bellow struggled over the radio to pull his men back to the road. But his company commanders and their radio operators were in deep trouble themselves and by this time fighting only to save their own skins. Leaderless groups of soldiers began to appear on the road below the roadblock, looking for anyone who could give them direction, only to find themselves scattered again by Soviet tank fire.

Further to the South, Sidirov’s formerly quiescent assault group finally woke up and drove North towards the sound of the battle. The two Hetzers and the German rear guard made them pay a toll for using the road, but it wasn’t enough. One Hetzer was lost, blown up in its ambush position by a T-34. The other Hetzer, seeing the phalanx of Red tanks pouring past its destroyed brother, withdrew into the woods after knocking out two tanks and escaped North.
Sidirov’s trap was closing. It hadn’t been exactly a masterpiece of tactical planning, but it was working—primarily because the Guards Tank Corps was an elite unit whose individual soldiers were used to making heavy sacrifices.

Just as the Southern rear-guard gave way, Von Bellow’s trench itself came under close assault by the hard-bitten Russian troops. A grenade sailed into it, followed by a cheer and then the onrush of a line of Russian infantry.

The single MG-34 set up at its edge chattered, burning through a belt of ammunition before another grenade blast washed its crew away from the gun. The Soviets jumped into the trench, their bayonets glistening brightly.

Von Bellow fired away with his MP-40, Braun used a rifle he had found, tossed it aside when it was empty and un-holstered his automatic pistol. But neither of them could keep the Reds at bay. Von Bellow’s MP ran out of ammunition and he was inserting another clip when a Soviet soldier drove his bayonet into the Standartenfuhrer’s chest. Braun shot the Russian in the head, but another Russian shot him in turn, the back. The two radio operators were killed by a burst from a Russian PPSh and the remaining S.S. died one by one as more Reds filled the trench.

Oberleutnant Lasch turned up at the trench, looking for new orders from Von Bellow, only to find it already overrun by Russian troops. They were stripping the wristwatches and other valuables from the German corpses and didn’t notice his arrival. Cursing, Lasch cleared the trench with a long burst from his MP-40. Running down its length, he found Von Bellow lying on his back, with Braun’s body crumpled up a few feet away.

Von Bellow wasn’t dead, but his time was obviously nearing. Lasch stooped next to him and offered him a drink from his canteen.

“To die in a ditch.” Von Bellow said hoarsely, refusing the drink so he could talk. “For five hundred years my family lived here in Prussia and I have the singular last honor to die in a ditch on this land.”
A puddle of blood was forming under his Knight’s cross. As Lasch watched helplessly, the black puddle deepened and seeped over the silvered edges of the black Maltese cross to swallow it. But, by that time, Von Bellow was dead.

Leutnant Lasch stood up and moved off to gather the remnants of his company together. He halted a fleeing soldier by simply asking him where he was going. Brought back to his senses, the soldier explained that the Russians were through the rear guard and on their way. At the same time, the Hetzer from the rearguard drove up and its commander bolted from the tiny tank destroyer and ran over the Jagdpanther to consult with Jan Hendrik.

Lasch ran over as well and joined the conversation. It quickly became apparent that they were all about to be overrun from one direction or the other. Jan Hendrik suggested that they go deeper into the forest on the East side of the road and head North as long as possible, while the Russians were still busy reducing the bulk of Von Bellow’s command. Lasch saw this as running away—he was right, Jan Hendrik conceded, but asked him in the same breath if he had a better plan than waiting to die in place.

Lasch agreed to the hastily improvised plan and ran off to collect what men he could. Jan Hendrik sent the Hetzer commander back to his jagdpanzer, ordering the man to take the lead in the drive into the forest, as the Hetzer was small enough to be inconspicuous and could go places the heavier Jagdpanther could never go. In short, the Hetzer would scout ahead and the Jagdpanther would provide fire support when things got really sticky.

As soon as Lasch returned with a few men, Jan Hendrik backed the Jagdpanther out of its position and the group moved into the woods.

Shortly after that, the first Russian tanks barreled up the road from the South. Aside from those men that followed the little Hetzer into the forest, none of Von Bellow’s command was destined to survive that day. SImply put, the Russians weren’t inclined to take prisoners and the S.S. weren’t inclined to become prisoners…

[Me-109 Jagdfleiger]

OUTSTANDING WORK D!
Jahn

[Commissar D, the Evil]

Thanks Jahn. I was really worried--it took me all day and finally a 1 and 1/2 hour call to technical suport in India to get on line after last night's storm and blackout. Luckily, my wordperfect saved most of the pages when the electricity came back on, but then I couldn't post it because I couldn't get on the net!!

I have to give the tech support in India its just due, the guy talked me through an hour and a half of restarting my computer and dealing with an IP address conflict so that I could post this crucial part of the story.

WHEW!!!! (The Commissar wipes his brow in relief......!)

Glad you liked the effort! Sad for the Northern road, but there is still the town and the Southern column to write about.

Bestens,
David

[Commissar D, the Evil]

GRUSINOV

In many ways, those qualities that made Grusinov a fine cavalryman were exactly those qualities that made him the worse possible choice for the job of rounding up the refugees fleeing towards Neuburgh. He was hot-tempered and impatient. He was proud and fearless—personal danger meant nothing to him, but then to, neither did the harsh discipline of the Red Army. So there was a purpose in his leaving behind the Soviet Armored Reconnaissance Company assigned to his troops.

As a Cossack first and foremost, he tended to regard any attempt to combine his men with a regular unit of the Red Army as an attempt to hobble his work at making sure that the Cossacks came out of the war with something more than saddle sores.

The long twisting column of German civilian was like a moving bank vault to his men and him. So he resolved to crack it before any Army unit could interfere. Worse, the slaughter of nearly two of his squadrons by a lone German fighter-bomber frankly infuriated him, blinding him to any purposes except revenge and loot. It might have been the better part of valor for him to keep his cavalry regiment in the forest and strike out from there, but seeing the dismembered corpses of men and horses that belonged to him was more than enough to persuade him otherwise.

Besides, he needed to quickly “crack open” this walking, stumbling group of fat, rich townsfolk and for that, he needed space to mass his regiment and open space to allow his guns to work at creating the opening. His own pack horses pulled behind them four 45mm cannon with their ammunition. To use them effectively in splitting the refugee column into sections, he needed a clear field of fire, something that could only be found out of the cover of the forest.

And, like any Cossack, he found an unknown and un-reconnoitered forest ever so slightly intimidating.

So he and his men rode hard and fast to a spot in the open fields—once farmland, now hard earth buried under the robe of winter snow--and set up the cannon out of range of rifle fire and aimed at the last third of the escaping Germans. His plan was simple; blast open a huge and irreparable hole in the column, rush in and chop the defenseless people apart, then loot their corpses before any authority, Soviet or German, had the time to intervene.

They bypassed Leutnant Jaeger and his rear-guard with ease. The spot they picked was on a slight rise in the ground, within sight of the Germans, whom they taunted with upraised sabers, jeers and plentiful rifle shots into the air. There were only a very, very few armed German soldiers mixed in with the townsfolk at this point in the column. Most were chain-dogs, who lacked any unit cohesion and were basically just armed men alone and on the run. Seeing the Cossacks set up real cannon induced most of these men to run away.

The civilians were, after struggling through the forest, physically incapable of running away, although mothers pushed their babies' prams faster and husbands hugged their wives closer to them. Some few families ventured into the forest, only to find small Cossack bands waiting for them in there that murdered them on the spot, hoping that each of their screams would further disorganize and demoralize the column.

But for the masses of refugees, there was nothing for it except to keep slogging along in the tracks of those who went before them. By this time too, the majority of civilians lacked any hope of rescue and their despair was rising to the point of utter hopelessness. Indeed, not a few of the townsfolk simply stopped marching and sat down in the snow, to await either the embrace of a frozen death or the cutting edge of a Cossack saber.

“Wham! Wham!” The first shells passed over the column, but Grusinov’s gunners quickly corrected their aim. The next salvo fell directly on the people, throwing them and their belongings into the air or simply obliterating them on the spot. Men and women began to scream helplessly.

Left far behind this scene, Leutnant Jaeger nonetheless heard the muffled sound of shellfire, but that else he heard worried him much more.
“Tanks.” Jaeger concluded.
Hansen was listening as well. There was no avoiding the conclusion, even in a snow covered forest with its own peculiar echoes and strange noises.
“Definitely tanks,” Hansen agreed, “not T-34s though, something else.”
It was true that once a soldier had heard a T-34 at a distance, he never forgot the distinctive sound.
Leutnant Jaeger looked at Hansen. “Well, you know what we have to do…”
“Being an officer, Sir, I figured that you would ask me and my men to go out and do some damn stupid thing, like ambush the tanks and try to lure the infantry into our machine guns.” Hansen answered.
“That’s what I like about you Hansen, you think just like I do.” Jaeger said.
Against anyone’s expectations, Arajs was sitting alertly behind the armored half-track’s rear MG. His four Latvian S.S. men pushed their way over to him, but he barked something at them in their native language that sent them back to Hansen’s side.
Probably told them to go along with the German arsehole and not let themselves get killed, Hansen mentally guessed at a translation of what Arajs might have said to them.
Smiling, Arajs waved at Hansen, which confirmed Hansen’s dark suspicions. Leutnant Jaeger passed the half-track's store of panzerfausts out to Hansen and his Latvians. After receiving them, the five men quickly, if sullenly, loped off into the forest in the direction of the tank noises.

As they left, Jaeger radioed a quick, short message to Hauptmann Rath, advising him of the unlucky prospect of Russian armor closing on his position.

[Tom Houlihan]

Ya know, I sure hope this story ends soon. I'm running out of viable superlatives!!

David, story saved to this point. The un-edited page count is 138

[Commissar D, the Evil]

Yeah Tom, you and me both! At 138 pages, this has to be the longest thing I've written in a decade and a half. Hmmm, how about this for a next episode:

"and nightfall came and they all died......"

I'm afraid to admit that, in the last few days, I have been sorely tempted.....

Anyway, I do hope to wrap this up by next weekend, Gods Willing!

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR SAVING THE STORY!!

Bestens,
David

[Tom Houlihan]

"and nightfall came and they all died......"

Methinks that might cause a mutiny!