Bob Carruthers - Into the Gates of Hell - Stug Command '41

As with Tiger Command! , I’ve taken out a number of phrases such as “cleaned his clock”, meaning to kill a tank, as there is no real English equivalent. Unfortunately, once again, a large number of the jokes told by Otto Wohl have been lost in the rewriting process as they did not survive the act of translation with any semblance of humour still intact. Other German references have also lost some of their charm. If you don’t know, for example, that the German word vogel translates as bird, then you won’t get the reference made by von Schroif concerning the pun on the liaison officer’s name.

Other German phrases however have survived. “To bite into the grass” is recognisable as our own “pushing up daisies.” As it is utilised in a German setting, I have used the German phrase in preference to the English version. For those of you unfamiliar with the ways of the German language, Sturmgeschütz is singular, while the additional letter ‘e’ on the end signifies the plural.

Panzertruppenschule Kama , or KAMA for short, was a top-secret research and training facility, located near Kazan in the USSR. It was jointly operated by the Soviets and Germans between 1926 and 1933. Oberstleutnant Malbrandt was the Reichswehr officer who selected the location for the training and testing of military technology. The site was chosen to be as far away as possible from the prying eyes of League of Nations inspectors. It was a school for the study and development of armoured warfare. KAMA was the short form codename created by the fusion of the words Kazan and Malbrandt. KAMA came out of the brief period of Russo-German cooperation that was agreed upon as a part of the Treaty of Rapallo of 1922, and the Berlin Friendship Treaty of 1924.

Between 1926 and 1929, at least 146 German officers are known to have completed training at the Panzertruppenschule Kama. A great many more NCOs and perspective officers received clandestine assistance. The most famous ‘graduate’ of KAMA was Ewald von Kleist, future Generalfeldmarschall of the Reichswehr.

Generaloberst Lutz and NKVD Kommissar Josef Unshlicht were jointly responsible for conducting the training. Security for the facility was provided by troops of the NKVD.

Several armoured fighting vehicles were developed at Kama, under the alias of agricultural tractors. The German companies Rheinmetall-Borsig, Krupp and Daimler Benz were responsible for most of the development. The preliminary work at Kama resulted in the designs for the Panzer I, II, III and IV. The training and development which took place at Kama made the Panzerwaffe a reality.

When Germany’s leading tank ace meets Russia’s Steppe Fox it’s a fight to the death. Faced with overwhelming odds, Kampfgruppe Hans von Schroif needs a better armored vehicle and fast; but the new Tiger tank is still on the drawing board. Now, von Schroif must overcome bureaucracy, espionage, and relentless Allied bombing to get the Tiger into battle in time to meet the ultimate challenge.

Based on a true story of combat on the Russian Front, this powerful novel written by Emmy™ Award author Bob Carruthers and newcomer Sinclair McLay. It tells the gripping saga of how the Tiger tank was born and a legend was forged in the heat of combat.

Gritty, intense and breath-taking in its detail, this sprawling epic captures the reality of the lives and deaths of the tank crews fighting for survival on the Eastern Front, a remarkable novel worthy of comparison with ‘Das Boot’.

This edition published in 2013 by Pen & Sword Fiction

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First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Coda Books Ltd.

Copyright © Coda Books Ltd, 2012

Published under licence by Pen & Sword Books Ltd.

ISBN: 9781783462421

EPUB ISBN: 9781473847835

PRC ISBN: 9781473847941

The rights of Bob Carruthers and Sinclair McLay to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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