John Schettler: Devil's Garden

Under other circumstances he might consider simply swarming the position, but the rate of defensive fire coming from the building was intense. He reasoned they must have a machine-gun platoon in there, and perhaps a few small AT guns. He needed to put strong suppressive fire on the position to have any chance of taking it with infantry. His only other option was firepower from heavy weapons.

“Heintz!” He shouted at a nearby sergeant. “Get the Schwere platoon up, and be quick about it!”

Word soon came in from the regimental headquarters under Franz Westhoven. His column, dubbed KG Westhoven had met with similar stiff resistance on the main road to the town. “We are south of the salt lake now, and they have tanks and APCs blocking the advance. I’ve lost two half tracks. This is a well defended position. We will not be able to take it in an attack from march. I suggest you bring up the remainder of your Kradschutzen battalion and then let us plan a deliberate attack. I’m sending out the Cossacks to scout that low hill south of the city. We may be able to work around that flank as well. Hold on. Kertsen’s guns will be ready in five minutes.”

“They should have been ready before we made contact, Generalleutnant Westhoven. We underestimated the Russians here. They know there is nothing to stop us if we take this place.”

“Then take it we will,” came the voice on the other end of the line. “We have the entire regiment at our disposal, Wellman. Plan your attack.”

Troyak’s well positioned Marines had stopped the German advance cold, just as he had promised Fedorov. But the 23rd Panzer Division was a tough and experienced formation. They had fought their way across Russia for well over a thousand hard miles, and this was just one more battle. Troyak had 180 men, lightly armed by modern standards with just two tanks and a few APCs in support. The Germans had considerably more at hand, and the battle was only just beginning.

Note: Maps of these deployments and battles can be found at the writingshop.ws web site.

Theartillery started falling on the rail yard ten minutes later. The first rounds were short, blasting the dense railroad tracks and sending splinters and fragments of the wooden ties spinning up into the air when they exploded. Soon the spotting rounds began to walk forward, until the Germans found the range as one plowed into the roof of the marshalling yard building with a loud crash.

“Stay low!” Troyak shouted. He had expected this, and now he radioed back to the Anatoly Alexandrov where Dobrynin was serving as a command and control relay station.

“We need you to find the German artillery and radio the coordinates, Chief. They’ll cut my men to pieces in half an hour!”

The rounds started coming in threes exploding just short of the building now, and one hitting a big crate storage area there. But Dobrynin had the Mi-26 up just off shore in the grey clouds, and it was using radar to track the arc of the incoming German fire. The onboard computers easily calculated the location of the German batteries, and minutes later the Chief was radioing back to Troyak with the information.

The Sergeant ran in a crouch, leaping behind standing crates when an artillery round smashed the overhead roof and blew a good section away. Pale light flooded in, illuminating the dust and smoke from the explosion. He was up and running again, to the back of the building and out a door where he had positioned his fire support teams. Now he stared at his map to cross index the coordinates, frowning to see that the German artillery was well north of the city, almost 7 kilometers out and well beyond the range of his 82mm mortars. But he did have one 120mm 2B11 Sani at hand, and it could put harassing fire on the German guns and possibly suppress them, or at least force them to withdraw out of range. That would buy them valuable time.

“Fire at these coordinates,” he ordered. “You can just make the range, and pour it on!”

The sound of the rounds popping off was reassuring, though he knew the Germans would quickly move their guns farther back. He made his way into the main building, an enormous warehouse with rail spurs that would allow train cars to be moved here for repairs. The northern quarter of the building had received three direct hits, and a fire was burning there now. Yet his men were disciplined, many veterans of the third Chechen war in this same region, fought in 2018. They had been under fire before, and hunkered down with grim determination.

Ten minutes later the barrage lifted, and Troyak heard whistles and deep throated shouts from non-coms on the other side. The Germans were making another ground attack with infantry, trying to cross their half of the marshalling yard to an island cluster of a few sheds and buildings about 100 meters from the main Russian position. They moved quickly, running low, but even after reaching the island they were soon disheartened to see that the artillery had not yet done its job. The Russian Marines opened up again with their AK-74s and the rate of fire they put out quickly stopped the German advance. Casualties were heavy, and the Germans fell back across the tracks to take cover in and around a number of old train cars there.

There came a brief lull, and all they could still hear was the sound of their own 120mm mortar firing behind them. Troyak knew the rounds were pounding the German artillery now, and the silence from the other side meant they had found the range. He reasoned it would take them half an hour to move the guns out to a position beyond the range of his mortar, but before that he would face yet another challenge-German tanks.

They heard the dull rumble coming from the north, and Troyak worked his way forward to a good viewpoint, raising his IR assisted binoculars. He saw a column of armor, five tanks advancing down the rail line just as the armored cars had come. The gritty Sergeant wasted no time. He pinched his collar mike and gave an order.

“Shilkov, is your team ready?”

“Ready, Sergeant.”

“Then say hello to those tanks and let them know we are here!”

Shilkov’s team was sitting behind an SPG-9 recoilless rifle with an effective range of 1300 meters using the 73mm PG-9VS shaped HEAT round. It could penetrate 400mm of armor, and with good accuracy using a laser optical sighting system. The Germans were about to get yet another nasty surprise.

* * *

OberleutnantWellmanhad neglected to tell Becker about the new hand held Russian AT weapon, but no fire could challenge the German tanks as they moved up, some 600 meters from the main rail terminal building-or so he thought. There came a sharp report and a streak of light from what appeared to be a small caliber AT gun. The lead tank in Becker’s column of five, a Pz III–L, was struck flush on its frontal armor by the HEAT round, which easily penetrated, even after being reinforced with an additional 20mm steel plate on top of the standard 50mm frontal protection. The Germans were being hit with ordnance designed to defeat heavy modern day tanks with armor over ten times the thickness of the Pz IIIs.

Wellman was shocked when the first panzer went up, smoking and set afire by the sudden hit. The Russian 37mm AT gun might penetrate 50mm of armor, but at the near point blank range of just 100 meters. They had not lost any of the newer Pz III–Ls with the extra 20mm steel plate to a 37mm gun since they deployed. The enemy 45mm AT gun was no better. Only a 76mm gun could have killed that tank, he thought, but he could see no signs of enemy armor here, though Westhoven had identified two tanks blocking the inland road to the south. His forward infantry had not identified any large AT gun position, so this had to be a new recoilless rifle. Two surprises in one day should have been quite enough, but the third surprise was jaw dropping.