Winter Storm

by John Schettler

  “All the better,” said von Schweppenburg. “These rains are slowly turning the ground into a sea of mud. It remains passable for now, but another two weeks of this weather and we’ll need three good roads to Moscow to have any chance of ever coming near the place. But we will do our part. I’m told the heavy battalion in 7th Panzer is very near Tula now. It is just a question of time.”

  The roll of thunder served to underscore Schweppenburg’s remark. An old soldier would have taken it for enemy artillery, but this time it was just another storm threatening. Neither man knew which was worse, the rain of fire from the Russian guns, which seemed to be a constant feature of these battles, or the rain from the sky that was slowly bringing on the Rasputista, the time of no roads. A Panzer Korps needed those roads, for it relied as much on its ability to maneuver as it did on the striking power of its armored vehicles.

  Guderian was under no illusion that the battle would be as easy as he intimated to his Korps commander. He shrugged, tightening his overcoat against the cold. This was nothing, he knew. We will learn what cold really is if we fail to get to Moscow before the first snows of winter.

  “Leo,” he said, addressing von Schweppenburg with a different tone in his voice now, almost as if the use of the other man’s first name was a sign that what he now said was to be his real mind on the campaign, with all bravado and posturing aside. “Even if we do get Tula,” he said, “then we’ll still need another long drive from there to Moscow, and to do that we’ll have to get over or around the Oka River.”

  “There’s no getting around it,” said von Schweppenburg. “It will surely be defended, and every map I’ve consulted shows much heavier woodland the minute we cross.”

  “Yes,” said Guderian. “Here we at least had the option to move off road while the ground was still firm. Yet if we do manage to get over that river, something tells me we will be road bound from that point on. The enemy will know that, even as I do. They’ll fight to block every road they can. It’s taken us ten days to get from Mtsensk to Plavsk. I can only imagine what things will be like closer to Moscow. So if you do break through, move quickly. Take ground fast. We might get kilometers under our belt now that could cost us days or weeks of fighting if the enemy gets established again. We must get over that river as soon as we possibly can.”

  “Where?” asked Schweppenburg. “Serpukhov?”

  “That is the most direct crossing, but yes, it will likely be the place they defend first. East of that Kashira presents another opportunity, and also a good road from there to Moscow. If we don’t get either one, then the only other place to cross is Kolomna. It would mean we move even further east, and Ryazan will be on our flank—another place they’ve been using to muster reinforcements.”

  “The problem is this,” said von Schweppenburg. “Getting to that river is one thing, holding the right flank as we move there is another. We’ve very little infantry, barely enough to hold the line from Orel to Tula. It would seem to me that Hoepner’s axis of attack is much more promising. He will have infantry on both sides, and a much shorter route to Moscow—only half the distance we will have to go.”

  “And yet,” said Guderian, “Every division they deploy here against us is one less they can put in front of Hoepner.”

  Von Schweppenburg pursed his lips, hearing the real truth now in what Guderian was saying. The man knows we’ll never get to Moscow on this road, he thought, but he can’t very well say that now, can he. There are some roads that should not be taken, he thought. And I think this is one of them.

  “Leo,” Guderian said again, his voice hushed now. “Can you get over that river?”

  Von Schweppenburg smiled. “I will see that Langermann knows what he is to do come nightfall,” he said. “Now then… I’d better go light a fire under Model. He’s a real thoroughbred, that one. If anyone can get over that river, he’ll lead the way.”

  Chapter 14

  The 3rd Tank Corps was one of the first to adopt the new structure that the Soviets hoped would eventually win the war. It was a large formation, with two tank brigades, an armored cavalry brigade, but with a full Motor Rifle Division attached. What would have been the third tank brigade had each of its three battalions distributed to the three rifle brigades in that division. So in effect, it had the same material composition as a new tank corps in the old history, only it was two brigades stronger in motorized infantry.

  The Corps was arriving piecemeal over the tortuous rail net serving Tula. Coming from the northeast in the depot cities of Ryazan and Kolomna, the rail net provided no direct connection to Tula. Instead the lines snaked through Kashira, then ran north and west before finding the main rail from Moscow to Serpukhov. The line would then turn south, running with the main road for a while before diverting slightly east through the town of Yasnogorsk, some 20 kilometers north of Tula. It was here that the Armored Cavalry Brigade detrained, along with most of the Corps artillery. The two tank brigades were following this same route, but had not yet arrived.

  Further east, the motor rifle division had been forced to take another route, down from Kashira to Venev. From there the line ran much further south before branching off to approach Tula from the southeast. Yet the urgency of the hour found the troops detraining at Venev, then mounting their trucks to motor due east where the fighting was already underway.

  The Siberian Guards, and the best infantry units of the 1st Special Rifle Corps, had all fallen back the previous day, racing north into the sprawling built up areas of Tula to prevent the Germans from storming in and taking the place in a coup de main. But Funck’s 7th Panzer Division had simply bypassed the city to the west, and on his left, Model was also racing north with the aim of securing a vital bridge over the Oka River at Alexin.

  The Ghost Division had swept through Fedorovka, and then found the Siberians arriving at Leninskiy, which was a town about the size of Plavsk some 10 kilometers northwest of Tula. There the infantry of KG Rolm dismounted and engaged the enemy, with their principal intention being to cut the vital rail lines. But what the Germans really wanted was control of the main road that led north from Tula to Serpukhov.

  Guderian had determined that, if he threw his Panzers directly at Tula, they would certainly become embroiled in a long urban fight for the city. The lessons of Mtsensk and Plavsk were still fresh in his mind, and the sudden breakthrough by 7th Panzer Division had given him back a mobile battle. Now he wanted to exploit that opportunity by getting as far north as he could.

  In so doing, his thrust was also flanking and enfilading the Siberian 4th Cavalry Corps on his immediate left, and the Soviet 5th Army defending at Suvorov further west. Fearing envelopment, both these formations were already disengaging from their defensive positions and falling back to the north towards the Oka River. So the maneuver had certainly shaken things loose in the enemy camp, but, as von Schweppenburg had warned, he also needed a way to supply his spearheads if he sent them for the vital river crossing at Serpukhov. To do that, he needed to control the main road. There would be one segment of the supply line leading south that would remain difficult, west of Tula, but he reasoned that could be managed by establishing a depot in that area.

  Von Schweppenburg still had his misgivings about the plan. “Bypassing Tula sounds inviting now,” he said. “We are both old horse soldiers at heart, and we like to feel the wind when we move. But mark my words, the Russians will build up strongly in Tula, and it will serve as a launching place for counterattacks against our flank as we move north. So if we do this, we need infantry. It will not be sufficient to simply screen off Tula. We need to get into that city, and take positions that can be strongly held. We are already fending off attacks here.” He pointed at the map. “And there are new forces arriving north and east of the main road.”

  “I will get support on your tail end as soon as possible,” said Guderian. “The 29th Motorized has come up. At the moment, they are pushing the Russians back and away from Plavsk, where they have been very stub
born. After that, I can send them north to secure that area you describe. Just get north, as far and as fast as you can. Get control of that main road!”

  That was the plan, but at that moment neither man expected a full Soviet Tank Corps to be assembling like a bad storm to their northeast. General Zhukov was directing the defense now, and though he was more than unhappy with Kirov’s order to commit the 1st Siberian Shock Army this early, he was going to do everything possible to stop the Germans south of the Oka River.

  3rd Tank Corps was the hammer he reached for, and it was now preparing to strike its first blow, the first time in the war that the Germans would be faced with a fully assembled mobile corps equipped with new T-34s. He wanted as much of an armored fist as he could get, and so orders were also given to Mikhail Katukov to bring what remained of the 4th and 11th Tank Brigades north to augment this corps. They reached the munitions factory district in the eastern segment of Tula on the morning of September 12, fueling up and taking on much needed ammunition.

  Further north, it was the Cavalry Brigade that would be the first element of the new Corps to face off against the advancing German columns. It consisted of two motor rifle battalions, a battalion of armored cars, and engineers in half tracks and trucks, with support from a new Katyusha Regiment. Rockets had already darkened the seas with their lethal striking power, and ever since, all sides in the war had been busy with rocket technology. There were 24 BM-8s with 82mm rockets, and 8 larger BM-13s, and the first unit to feel their bite was Reinhardt’s new III Battalion of the Panzer Regiment. For all their thunder and bluster, and the shock of the new weapon seen for the first time by the Germans in this sector, the RS-82s did very little damage to the German armor.

  That night, Langermann’s 4th Panzer came up to relieve the Ghost Division in the fight for northern suburbs of Tula, but Funck’s troops were simply too heavily engaged to pull out. So it was decided that Langermann would push on up the road, and attempt to drive off enemy incursions against that vital artery from the east.

  As for Model, he saw the opening in the enemy line and went through it like a champion fullback. Now he was racing north, and just after sunset, KG Westhoven’s 1st Battalion of the 394th Panzergranadiers reached the bridge over a small watercourse at Leninskiy, a town about five kilometers west of the road. Finding it completely unguarded, they took the bridge, gaining the barest toehold on the other bank of the river, but the alarm was raised and the startled troops in the vicinity rushed to the scene. Men of the 422nd Flak Regiment began to spray fire at the tiny incursion, but the real resistance would come from a the men of the 156th NKVD Regiment, whose commander was already getting a bawling rebuke for failing to have proper security on that bridge.

  Behind that single German battalion was KG Munzel, with two battalions of tanks, and then the rest of Westhoven’s column. It represented a significant threat to Alexin, which presented the only crossing point on the Oka the Germans could reach on short order, with two good bridges. From there, the river ran almost due north for over 30 kilometers until it bent east beneath Serpukhov. That town was the real southern gateway to the Moscow inner defensive zone on Guderian’s axis of attack, but there was still a very long way to go, even if it was taken.

  Further northwest, the grenadiers of Hoepner’s 11th Panzer Division fought until well after dark to secure Naro-Fominsk, while his 6th Panzer Division took Kublinka. This was truly the most promising route to Moscow, and Hoepner’s spearhead was now no more than 45 Kilometers from the Kremlin itself, while Guderian would have to travel twice that distance, and fight his way over the Oka for the privilege of making the last half of that drive to Moscow.

  KG Keller had shrugged off that Katushka attack and pushed on north, still fighting for the main road, but the rocket attack was no more than hail before the storm, which was now about to break. The men of the 7th Motorcycle Recon Battalion would be the first to feel it, when the motor rifle brigades of 3rd Tank Corps had finished assembling and moved west towards the main road. They encountered the Germans in a heavily cultivated area that straddled the main road on two sides near the hamlet of Octobirskiy. For the first time in many days, the warning of enemy tanks rattled the German signals traffic. There were 29 T-34s in the battalion supporting the Russian infantry, and the attack was coming right at the lead elements of Model’s 3rd Panzer at Leninskiy.

  There were a good many more tanks yet to come, for both tank brigades of the corps had just detrained at Yasnogorsk. About nine kilometers northeast of Tula. Each brigade had three battalions, and a total of 90 T-34s, 33 light T-60s, and another 18 KV-1s. The Russians now had 282 tanks poised to make a daring night attack, something the Germans had not seen since the early frontier battles in Operation Barbarossa. Since that time, there had been very little enemy armor in the field, but now third Tank Corps was on the scene with the bulk of all the operational tanks available in the entire theater.

  *

  The men of Burda’s Battalion, 4th Tank Brigade had been on the road for some time now. After refueling in Tula, they skirted east of the town, hearing the fighting all night as they moved slowly north.

  “Where are we going?” said Samohin, adjusting the straps on his ear flaps. It sounds to me like the fighting is over there!” He pointed a gloved hand west, where the glow from exploding artillery fire silhouetted the ragged edge of the town.

  Dmitri Lavrinenko shook his head. “That’s no place for our tanks,” he said. The Siberians are in there, fighting tooth and nail for the city. Word is the entire 7th Panzer Division is there, and the Guards are trying to hold them off. As for us, we go north. There’s a new tank corps arriving, but they’re one brigade light. Katukov got the word yesterday, and we’re now that third brigade.”

  “Suits me fine,” said Samohin. “Where is this new corps?”

  “Coming down the road from Serpukhov, and the infantry detrained at Yasnogorsk.”

  “Infantry?” said Samohin. “All we need now are tanks, and as many as we can find. I’ve heard rumors, Dmitri.”

  “What kind of rumors?” Lavrinenko was checking the stowage of his tank’s ammo, his head half lowered through the top hatch of the T-34.

  “The Germans have a new tank, and it’s big! They say it has a much better gun too.”

  “Who told you this?”

  “Just talk I heard when we moved east of Tula. Siberians say the Germans put some new heavy tanks into the fighting at the north end of the town. the anti-tank rifles the infantry have are useless! And the 45mm AT Gun bounces right off—this is what I heard.”

  “Those rifles always were useless,” said Lavrinenko. “Unless you know where to aim. Infantry see a tank and just take a pot shot at it without thinking. I don’t blame them, and that tank usually sees them too, and those machine guns can be very troublesome. I’m surprised the Germans put armor into that town. I would think they would want to push everything they still have up the main road.”

  “That’s what Katukov thinks,” said Samohin. “He says the Germans were after the bridge at Alexin, but that will take them nowhere. It’s the bridge at Serpukhov they need.”

  “So now you know where we’re going,” said Lavrinenko. “Yes, they’ll need that bridge, and the long road behind it all the way back to Tula. That’s why they are fighting so hard for the town now, but I don’t think they expected the Siberians. We gave them a nice little surprise at Mtsensk, eh? I’ve got eleven kills! That will teach them to be cautious on that road.”

  “I’m right behind you,” said Samohin. “The Major says my last shot was confirmed, so that makes ten for me.”

  “Good for us both!” Lavrinenko closed the top hatch with a dull clank, and looked around. “Now where is Yuri? He was supposed to look at that right front wheel. It’s been squealing like a pig.”

  Samohin leaned on the tank, still listening to the battle for the city. “Hard to think this is going on for a hundred miles over there. I heard we still have Kaluga, but with the Germans
near Alexin who knows how long we’ll hold that.”

  “It’s Moscow that matters,” said Lavrinenko. “That’s what Hitler wants now. I knew it the moment they took Orel. They could have swung around Bryansk, and eventually did, but someone out there wanted to try this road. I intend to make him pay for that mistake. There are some roads you do not try, and this will be one of them.”

  “Did you hear?” said Samohin. “Someone said the Germans took Mozhaysk, and pushed right up the road towards Moscow. Why are they putting in this new Tank Corps here. That is much closer to the capital than we are.”

  “Roko is over there. He’ll stop them.”

  “Rokossovsky? I heard he was given a new army!”

  “He was given an old army,” said Lavrinenko with a grin. “The 16th. They just put new men into it, that’s all. And don’t worry… We’re only a hundred and twenty klicks from Moscow here. If they need us, we can get there very quickly. All the more reason to keep a full belly on fuel, plenty of ammo on hand, and to fix that damn squeaky wheel! Where’s Yuri?”

  Chapter 15

  The forces arrayed on the middle defense line of the capital were indeed the men of the newly reconstituted 16th Army under General Konstantin Rokossovsky, Roko, the ‘Rock of the East.” He, too, was an old Cavalry officer, having commanded the 7th Samara Cavalry in the upper Volga district against Volkov’s forces, leading a Brigade commander by the name of Georgie Zhukov at that time, whom he described as a disciplined and demanding man, while also being stubborn, painfully proud, and ‘broadly inexperienced as a military leader.’