Winter Storm

by John Schettler

  The two men began a long rivalry there in Samara, both serving in the eastern campaigns against the Orenburg Federation, where each gained valuable combat experience that was now serving them very well. Rokossovsky avoided the persecution and torture he would have had to endure during Stalin’s purges, and was instead handpicked by Sergei Kirov, who moved him quickly through his historical commands in the 5th Cavalry Corps, and then the 9th Mechanized Corps at the outbreak of Operation Barbarossa. There he had been a rock in the stream, holding up both 13th and 14th Panzer division with his implacable defense, and then counterattacking the 25th Motorized Division left behind to guard that axis while the Germans took another road.

  Now he served under the man he had once dismissed as being broadly inexperienced, and the 16th Army, which had been recently destroyed at Smolensk, was raised from its own ashes to mount the last line of defense by a regular Soviet army on the western approaches of Moscow. To flesh out the new units, men from penal battalions were swept up from all over the front rear areas, and hastily organized into new rifle divisions.

  In the real history, Stalin had also placed the Rock in command of that same army, seeing a man who had survived the brutality of his own Great Purge as the perfect candidate to lead the tough felons recruited from the penal system. He had once commented that one no longer had to wonder what Rokossovsky might have under his fingernails, for the NKVD had pulled most of them out when he was detained in the Gulags, accused of treason. He also had steel teeth, for the NKVD had knocked his own out of his head in those same hard days.

  But none of that had ever happened. Rokossovsky still had his fingernails, and no steel in his mouth in this telling of events. The question remained as to whether he still had the steel that made up his backbone in that older history. Soon that would be put to the test. He gladly accepted his new command, again a motley collection of misfits, ruffians, mavericks and mad men from the far east, with a sprinkling of new Siberian volunteers to finish it all off.

  On the morning of the 14th of September, the tired 6th Panzer Division made its first inroads, throwing three battalions at a single fortified complex held by Russian special forces, and eventually bulling their way in. But the 6th was low on supply, and needing time to rest, with little real offensive punch left after its long drive along that bitterly contested road. They would soon be relieved by a fresh division, the 2nd Panzer, Heinz Guderian’s old unit, where he first drilled his armored doctrines in 1938. It was now coming up the road that had been fought for, and cleared, by the blood and fire of the 6th.

  And this new German unit was now about to meet the Rock.

  *

  The men of the 810th Machinegun Battalion leapt off the train at Odinsovo, right where Rokossovsky had established his headquarters for 16th Army, just 20 kilometers southwest of the Kremlin. The Germans had attacked the middle defense line of the city the previous day, relying on the fresher 2nd Panzer Division for the main effort. In reprisal, strong reserves in the 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps had come down from the north to try and break through behind them, and cut the road that stretched west to Mozhaysk. It had taken Hoepner’s Korps two weeks of hard fighting to push up that road, a distance of a little over 50 kilometers. And now they were breaking through.

  The surly, grizzled fighters of the 16th Army threw everything they had at the enemy, using sheer malice when they had no more grenades, or the ammunition ran dry on their inadequate 45mm AT guns. They knew they were the last hard rock in the stream before the river of enemy troops might reach Moscow, but Hoepner was a hammer, and he kept pounding them, day and night.

  Rokossovsky could see that his men were at the limits of their strength to resist. It was only the fact that Hoepner had no infantry to secure his flanks that the danger was not greater. Of the four German Panzer Divisions making this attack, the 1st Panzer was strung out well to the rear facing down elements of the 22nd Army to the north, the 6th Panzer Division was worn out, and now trying to hold back the 2nd Guards Cavalry, 11th Panzer was finally clearing op the last pockets of resistance south of the road, where remnants of the 16th Rifle Corps had retreated all the way from Mozhaysk.

  That left only 2nd Panzer, which struck the line of the Soviet defensive positions like an arrow, its steel head being its well established panzer regiment, which had 24 Lions in the spearhead of the attack. They punched through, the German infantry crouching behind them, and then more following in half tracks and armored cars. The Rock was stubborn, rallying his troops while he got on the phone to Moscow and appealed to his old subordinate, and now superior officer, Georgie Zhukov.

  “The Germans have a new tank! He declared, his voice surprisingly high and shrill, even though he was a big, barrel-chested man. Zhukov had heard the same plaintive calls from the commander of the 3rd Tank Corps, though he had not yet seen the beasts that were now prowling the battlefields out there. “I’m up against several panzer divisions,” said Rokossovsky. “Send me anything you can find!”

  “I will get you help,” said Zhukov. “But under no circumstances may you withdraw. You must hold that road, hold your position at all costs.”

  Some hours later the Major commanding the 810th Machinegun Battalion tramped into Rokossovsky’s headquarters and saluted. He had just been pulled off the inner defense ring, well north of the city, a sector that was not being threatened, and his men had come through the sullen night to join the fight.

  “Good,” said Rokossovsky. “How many are you?”

  “Twenty-seven squads, sir, but eighteen of those have heavy machineguns.”

  “Twenty-seven squads? What else is there?”

  “It’s just me and my men sir,” said the Major. “Unless there’s another train behind us.”

  There was no other train. The 810th Machinegun Battalion was all that Zhukov could find to send that day. He had People’s Militias on the inner defensive ring, and several other battalions like the 810th. But there were no more Armies to commit to the fight, no more Rifle Corps, no divisions in reserve, and no more tank brigades. The 2nd Siberian Shock Army was still a thousand miles to the east, hastily assembling as it scrounged to outfit its units with any weapons they could find. The 10th Army was closer, but it was coming through Ryazan to try and stop Guderian, and would not arrive until the following day.

  Zhukov had already sent the last of the 4th Para Brigade the previous day, and they were fighting south of the main road. Then he had stripped the flak batteries from the airfields around the city, and sent them into the buzz saw of the fight. The only trained, professional troops that remained in the capital were the three battalions of the Kremlin Guard, Sergei Kirov’s personal bodyguards, and Beria’s internal security troops. He could not touch those. All he could send was that hapless Major and his single battalion of machine gunners. If the line was going to hold, and the city was going to be saved, it was up to Rokossovsky. Implacable as he was, the General could nonetheless see the grim reality of his situation.

  If I leave my bandits and brigands where they are now, he thought, the Germans will get through with those damn tanks, and then the city will be defended by nothing more than the old men and boys in the Militias, while my men cling to these bunkers and fox holes.

  At least my troops can still fight, and Moscow is a very big place. I’ve been ordered to hold this damn road, contest every bunker, and every meter of ground, but I would much rather be fighting in the built up areas closer to the city. It would be house to house there, not so comfortable for the people who live in them, but much better for my infantry. Here we deploy on a single hard line. There we could defend in much greater depth. In such a case we will force the Germans to clear every building, every cellar and attic. As it stands, once they get through…

  He decided there and then to appeal the order he had received from Zhukov, but to whom could he make such an appeal? Marshal Boris Shaposhnikov was still Chief of the General Staff. Technically that staff served the interests of the Army as a whole, whic
h Zhukov now commanded, but he made his appeal in any case.

  “You want the Germans in the city tomorrow night? Who will fight them there, the Babushkas? Let me get my men back to more favorable positions on the outskirts of the city. If we stay here, the Germans will move through and that will be that.”

  “Very well, General, you may withdraw to the inner defense ring, but what makes you think you can hold there if you cannot stop the enemy where he stands now?”

  “Because Doctorov’s Cavalry are to the north. If I fall back the Germans will have to cover that entire northern flank if they follow me, and that will seriously dilute their striking power.”

  Rokossovsky had found a way out of the trap he now believed he was in, and he immediately gave orders for a planned withdrawal that night. But somehow word reached Zhukov, who was furious when he learned that his subordinate had tried to go over his head. He telephoned Rokossovsky, hot with anger, and rescinded that order, telling him he was to stand where he was.

  No amount of reasoning would move Zhukov, and Rokossovsky hung up the phone, angry and resentful of the man who thought he knew better, when he was nowhere near the field of battle! He folded his arms, thinking, brooding, and knowing what he had to do. Yes, it might end up costing him his head, or at the very least the fingernails and teeth that he still had because Josef Stalin had not lived to take them from him. But he knew that there were some positions that should not be held, some roads that should not be defended, and some orders that simply could not be obeyed.

  That night, he personally went out and rounded up his Division and Brigade Commanders, telling them exactly what they were to do.

  *

  Off to the south and east, Model reported that he had beaten off the counterattack of the 156th NKVD Regiment, and now had most of Leninskiy under his thumb. “I’ve punched right through at Leninskiy,” said Model on the radio. “Yet the question remains—where do we go from there?”

  Guderian had studied his map carefully, looking for a way forward, but not finding one. “There is a secondary road running up to Alexin from that town—two good bridges there.”

  “Yes, I can probably get to the Oka in a few days, weather permitting, but where with that take me? I would have to push another 30 kilometers north along that river to reach our real objective, Serpukhov. There’s a secondary road along that west bank, but we don’t even know if it can be used until I reconnoiter it.”

  “I’ve done that by air,” said Guderian. “It’s a small road, just as you say, and the ground near the river gets a lot of drainage. I’m afraid we will be up to our knees in mud if you take that road. Better leave that to the infantry on your left. Instead, I want you to move east to help me take and clear the main road to Serpukhov.”

  “Isn’t that what they’ll expect us to do?”

  “This time we’ll have to oblige them. It looks like a whole new Russian tank corps has materialized in front of us. That was what they pulled off the trains to the north. But if we can beat them I doubt they’ll have anything left. I want to hit them hard, then break through for Serpukhov.”

  “Very well, Herr General, so we still dance.”

  Model wasted no time, ordering KG Munzel and his tanks back across the river and along the good road that linked Leninskiy with the main road to Tula. It would pass through a smaller town called Salkhovo, and there they ran into the Soviet 21st Tank Brigade, engaging them in a sharp duel that was won easily, given the fact that Munzel had all three Panzer battalions at hand, with a hundred medium tanks, though they were all Panzer III variants. But that was more than enough, even though there were 32 T-34s in that brigade. The Germans knocked out 18 of these, and that broke the brigade, sending its disorganized remnants scattering in all directions.

  The Soviets retreated west towards Alexin, but maintained a lot of pressure so that Model was forced to follow them with most of his Panzergrenadiers to screen that flank. This meant he would now form the strong right shield to the west of the main road, with Langermann’s 4th Panzer Division screening the eastern approach. The Germans were slowly prying open that corridor north to Serpukhov. The only question now was what they could scrape together to send up that road.

  It was Guderian’s gut instinct not to take the road less traveled that would make all the difference that night. Model had a clean shot at the bridge at Alexin, but it was simply too far south to matter. What he really wanted was Serpukhov, and to get there, the roads less traveled would be inviting even more delays than the mud on the main road had forced upon them. So he decided to stay the course, his eyes fixed on the solid dark line on his map from Tula to Serpukhov. That was where he wanted to go.

  Yet just down that road, the Germans were going to meet up with yet another Soviet Tank Brigade, the men and tanks that had first bushwhacked 4th Panzer Division two weeks earlier. It was Mikhail Katukov, who had moved north, swinging east of Tula, and then up to join the armored corps and become its third tank brigade. He had 32 T-34’s now, picking up stragglers from the 3rd Corps as he came. He also had 11 KV-1s, and Gusev’s battalion had over 30 older BT-7s. And he had something else with those T-34s, men named Samohin and Lavrinenko who knew how to use them, squeaky wheel and all.

  That night, another man came on the scene, providing the answer to what the Germans would now push up that road. His unit had arrived from the south, up the rail line from Orel that the Germans had been feverishly converting for a supply corridor. The tanks were fresh off the rail cars at the old copper mine spur that the Russians had once used to rush troops to this sector. The other half of Hoth’s generous gift to Guderian had finally arrived with Westernhagen’s 101st Heavy Panzer Brigade. If the Russians thought they had more than enough with the Lions roaring with the 7th Panzer Division in Tula, over 100 more had just come on the scene, for the brigade quite literally had ‘the Lion’s share’ of all the heavy tank production Germany had managed in the last two months. And with them was another man who knew how to fight with those tanks—Kurt Knispel.

  Part VI

  Malakhovo

  “I am sometimes the fox and sometimes the Lion.

  The whole secret is knowing when to be the one or the other.”

  ― Napoleon Bonaparte

  Chapter 16

  The gritty Sergeant was taking a very long look at the new Russian tank captured in the previous day’s fighting, and all around him the other German panzer crews were waiting for his studied appraisal. They had all seen Knispel shooting in the practice drills, and were amazed at his ability to hit distant targets with speed and accuracy that astounded them. The targets would become real enemy tanks soon enough, and the men wanted to see what they would be fighting up close.

  The T-34 had begun to appear in small numbers at first, but now the Soviet tank brigades were fielding many battalions that were largely composed of between 24 and 36 of these new tanks. The Germans had been surprised that their 37mm AT guns, and even the 50mm guns on many of their PzKfw IIIs could not hurt the Russian tank, and that they were now receiving enemy fire from the new Russian 76mm main gun at much longer ranges than before. It was only the skill and tactics of the more experienced German tankers that had allowed them to hold their own against the T-34.

  But Knispel was not impressed.

  He climbed up on the captured vehicle, crept into the turret and sat there, peering out through the view slots and optics. When he emerged, his commanding officer, Lieutenant Hellmann, was there to take his report. He knew Knispel to be a very sharp gunner, and a hands on operator when it came to the panzers.

  “Well?”

  “Two man turret,” said Knispel, “just like all their older models. The tank commander must be aiming the gun, and the optics are terrible—just a single periscope for him, and not even a radio, at least in this one. I’ve been told the Russians run these about in uncoordinated rushes—no wonder! I think they are still relying on visual cues for maneuvers.”

  “Maybe so, but what about the gun
?”

  “Look at it!” Knispel waved his hand dismissively. “I don’t think it can depress more than a few degrees, which means they won’t be able to fight from reverse slope hull down positions like we can. Given what I have seen, I would say this tank will have very poor fire control. Our new panzers are superior in every respect.”

  “Yet the armor is fairly good, and sloped at 30 degrees,” said Hellmann. “Our Pak 37’s with the infantry cannot penetrate it. One Panzer Jager company reported a battery hit one of these damn things over twenty times, and they could not kill it.”

  “Yes? Of course the 37mm gun will not penetrate this frontal armor, but the guns we have now will do so easily enough. And were they hit even once by the tank? You see what I mean? Lousy fire control and poor optics. If my tank took a hit from an enemy gun, they would be very lucky if they got a second round off before I killed that little bastard. Yet this new tank couldn’t even hit the damn AT gun once! I will make very short work of this T-34, rest assured. You know what this tells me? They don’t have good situational awareness in this tank. So they will not stop me from maneuvering to a position where I can easily kill them. And even if they see me, they could not react quick enough to do anything about it. Maneuver! I could beat this tank in a Panzer III, just like I beat all the others. We should kill at least five or six of these for every one of our tanks they get, and in a Lion, I think I will kill ten or twelve before they even begin to bother me. That gun will not penetrate our frontal armor on the PzKfw-55, so the tables are turned.”

  Sergeant Knispel’s sweeping rebuke of the T-34 was enough to bolster the morale of all the crews who had gathered there to see the new enemy tank. With one cursory inspection he had skewered the myth that the T-34 was the finest medium tank ever built.