Peter Idone - Red Vengeance

As the tanks approached, high-explosive shells ripped into machine gun emplacements and rifle pits. At least from what Wilms could see within his immediate vicinity, no direct hits had yet occurred. The machine guns continued to fire. One T-34 passed over the trench lines and didn’t stop. The concentrated artillery fire had rendered useless the mine belts laid around and between the platoon strong points. Pieper lowered himself, closed the hatch, and peered through the cupola’s periscopes. Hofinger stood amid the shells that lay on the gun deck. He had an armor-piercing round loaded in the breech. The gunner, Naumann, had an eye to the sight mount of the fire control scope. He targeted the lead tank as it raced over the strong points, crashed through sections of barbed wire, and wove around the cratered mine fields. He called out range adjustments.

“Seven hundred meters… six hundred meters…”

“How tight are you going to play this?” Hofinger asked the gun commander.

“You know I like my targets close,” Pieper responded coolly.

As the T-34 veered out of the view field, Naumann called for a vehicle traverse to the right at thirty degrees; once that compensation was made, he had the target back inside the sight brackets.

“Five hundred fifty meters… five hundred…”

Pieper exhaled noisily. “Fire!”

Through the threefold magnification of the scope, Naumann watched as the T-34 disintegrated in a sheet of fire and smoke. A hot shell casing ejected out of the breech, and Hofinger loaded another armor-piercing round.

“Straighten her out and advance one hundred meters,” Pieper ordered the driver.

The engine groaned as the Stug III eased out of a hollow. Once again, Pieper had by now concluded, he had been given an objective that exceeded the capability of a single vehicle and its crew. An entire regimental sector was to be defended against an incursion of enemy troops and armor. Silently, he said a short prayer for the crew, himself, and the machine as it rattled forward.

Awhirlwind of lead and steel filled the air. As the ground shuddered under his body, Angst could hear metal fragments pelt against the berm of earth and sandbags that surrounded the rifle pit. Suddenly, he heard a noise that made his blood run cold. The Nebelwerfer battery started to launch. Every six seconds, long trails of smoke streaked overhead, accompanied by a deranged noise, which increased in volume. If any weapon could be characterized as intrinsically insane, it was the Nebelwerfer. It was the sound produced by this multi-barreled rocket projector that caused Angst to anthropomorphize this piece of hardware. When ejected, the squat, stubby missile screamed with a voice of unreason. Beginning with a high-pitched howl as the flaming rockets arched across the sky, the sound intensified into an earsplitting wail. To hear a battery let loose was to unbar the door to hell and listen to the collective scream of ecstasy as havoc and homicide were given free reign upon the world. When the rockets detonated in the air, hundreds of steel fragments shot outward and down, tearing gaping holes in the ranks of Russian infantry. Where this lethal rain fell, all flesh was torn utterly, horribly. Numbers of Russian troops tried to make a run for it, back to the perceived safety of the ravine, only to be caught by another series of air bursts and flattened like sheaves of grain under a scythe. Despite the holes punched in the line, the ranks managed to close, and the Russians continued to advance, shoulder to shoulder, an army of blank-faced automatons. Angst’s blood turned colder still.

In the nearby emplacement, the heavy machine gun clattered away at the rate of five hundred rounds per minute. Angst took careful aim with the Mauser 98k carbine and fired one round, after another, throwing the bolt quickly and fluidly after each pull of the trigger, trying desperately to maintain accuracy. He detected movement from the left field of his peripheral vision, and as he turned to look, he saw Old Max, without a helmet, run past. Angst scrambled out of the rifle pit, caught hold of the grenadier’s cartridge belt harness, and pulled him down. Confused by this resistance, Griener started to climb out of the trench. Angst tried to heave him back down, only to find himself carried along. Suddenly Max’s head jerked violently and all his panic-induced strength dissolved. He toppled over Angst, his skull shattered by a bullet, as they landed back in the trench. Angst gagged and spat out a clump of hair and scalp, his face covered by the dead man’s warm blood. Paul Hermann crouched nearby, looking numbly at the gaping hole in Griener’s head, and started to heave. Angst shouted at the youth to get back to his rifle pit. To hell with them all , he thought, revolted and humiliated. I can’t save them. I can’t even save myself . He returned to his carbine and resumed shooting furiously at everything that moved.

A T-34 straddled the trench, swiveled its turret to nine o’clock, and fired. The turret swung around again and had just brought the cannon to bear on a target on its right flank when it was struck. The Stug III fired an armor-piercing round dead center in the sloping front end. The tank’s magazine, ignited by the exploding armor-piercing shell, brewed up. Pieces of hull flew in all directions, and orange flame belched from every seam, rent, and hole.

Pieper ordered a traverse to the right; Naumann squinted through the fire control optics and spun the level and aim shift of the gun to the maximum twelve degrees of the central axis. Hofinger had another round in the breech. The crew had performed the drill so many times they operated like a precision timepiece.

“Target sighted,” Naumann said.

This T-34 had caught sight of the Stug III and fired while still on the move. Pieper waited before he gave the command; instinctively he knew the tank had fired wildly. The round fell short, justifying his experience. They never expected this kind of opposition, he thought; the Russians had full confidence the armored assault would roll up the battalion’s defensive line and resistance would fold, easily.

“Fire,” Pieper barked.

The armor-piercing round hit before the T-34 could get off another shot. The on board fuel reservoir started to burn. A thick plume of black oily smoke billowed. The tank shifted into reverse.

“Fire,” Pieper said as a second round finished it off.

The remaining tanks spun around and headed toward the ravine. In an effort to aid the withdrawal the turret of one tank swung around to six o’clock and fired at will. The gun layering was poor and no threat of getting hit existed but the high explosive rounds were annoying. Although well within range Pieper did not give the order to return fire. Smoke and dust had obscured the targets.

“Move in, Kurowski, slow and steady.”

The tanks would rendezvous in the cover of the ravine and, with the infantry, regroup for another attack. The assault gun advanced to within three hundred meters behind and to the left of the battalion command bunker. Pieper ordered the driver to stop.

“Contact brigade again, Hofinger, and demand air support. We can’t keep this up all day.”

“I think we’re doing rather well.”

“Don’t intimate that sentiment to the liaison officer, if you please.”

Pieper opened the cupola hatch and looked out. Two tanks drove aimlessly about the steppe east of the ravine, showing Mickey Mouse ears. German infantrymen had coined the analogy to describe the T-34s double roof turret hatches when raised. Pieper smiled as the pesky cartoon character came to mind, but then the hatches closed, and the tanks took on their more ominous profile. Naumann joined him above and watched the proceedings with binoculars. There was yet another tank stationed further back, well beyond the assault trenches of the Russian lines. Despite the distance, the tank appeared massive. Naumann thought it was another heavy KV.