With the memory of Mtsensk still fresh in his mind, Eberbach realized he was in water three times deeper here. So he got on the radio and looked for some help, which soon arrived in the heavy Lions of II Battalion, Schwerepanzerbrigaden 101.
Now the Russians tankers of the 6th Brigade were about to make the acquaintance of the Big Cats. Their supporting infantry had been out in front, and as the German reinforcements came up, they paled before the heavy growl of the new German armor.
Lightning flashed at the edge of thunder, soon joined by the sharp crack of the main tank guns. There were 24 Lions in II Battalion, supported by 12 Leopards, and just down the road was the remainder of Westernhagen’s Heavy Panzer Brigade, yet another full battalion of Germany’s fearsome new armored gladiators. Throwing in KG Munzel on the left, and everything Eberbach had, the Germans would field over 200 panzers to face the Russian attack, and a monumental tank battle would rip through the dawn like a raging tempest.
The Germans would be elated to see just how well their Lions could fight. The new 7.5cm KwK main gun also had new ammo to go with it, designated PzGr 40/42 series, and it could penetrate 149mm of armor at 1000 meters, and 100mm at twice that range, more than enough to pierce the 81mm armor on the T-34, as Kurt Knispel’s long shots had already proven at Malakhovo. And that is exactly what the German tank gunners were doing.
Suddenly the Russian tankers, just getting used to the belief that they could face down the best of the German tanks and come off the better, had this illusion soundly shattered. The Lions lined up like the phalanx of steel that they were, and the sharp crack of their guns chased the lightning as the battle opened. To their great delight, they saw the enemy tanks hit at good range, and stopped cold with a single shot from the new gun.
3rd Battalion of the Soviet 6th Tank Brigade was smashed in ten minutes, and the Lions roared on. In the swirling, wild battle that followed, the Germans lost six Pz III-Ns and three Pz IVs in Eberbach’s 1st Battalion, but not a single Lion was put out of action in the heavy battalion, which lost only two of the lighter Leopard tanks. For the loss of these ten tanks, they took down 25 T-34s and another 18 T-60s. The up armored KV-1s fared better, with only one lost, but the Russians had two of three battalions shattered in the Brigade, losing 44 tanks, a loss of 50% of its fighting power in the twenty minute action.
*
When they reached the edge of the woodland north of Malakhovo, the men of the ABC Brigade were relieved to see reinforcements had come at this most opportune time. It was Mikhail Katukov’s vaunted 4th Tank Brigade, the heroes of Mtsensk that had so bedeviled KG Eberbach some weeks ago. The 4th had come on the scene just in time to witness the carnage of Colonel Antonov’s folly. A platoon commander with the 4th Armored Brigade emerged from the tree line and halted, surveying the chaos of the battlefield, seeing T-34s pointed in all directions.
“What are you doing?” an officer shouted. “Can’t you see where the fighting is? Get your tanks down there and join the attack!”
“Attack?” Lavrinenko shook his head. “That’s a nightmare, not an attack. What were you thinking? The Germans had the town, and you cannot rush a position like that without taking heavy losses. You must flank them!”
“You flank them then, by God. Get moving!”
“Who are you?”
“Antonov’s Battalion, 5th Brigade.”
“Well, this is 4th Brigade,” said the Sergeant. “We stay right where we are. In fact, back us a little deeper into those trees, Yuri. The Germans will be after that mess out there soon enough. Lieutenant—the best thing you can do now is pull back north of Slobodka. Don’t even think of mounting another attack here. They’ll eventually come after you, and they won’t expect us to be in a good flanking position in these woods. Let them come out into that open field there east of the main road. We’ll take them at a kilometer out—side shots—and see how they like it!”
Dmitri Lavrinenko was finally about to come face to face with Germany’s very best, and the outcome of Guderian’s advance on Serpukhov would ride in the balance.
Chapter 18
Lavrinenko was waiting in the shadows of the trees, the grey light and rolling early morning mist his friend that day. Visibility had fallen to about 700 meters, and the field was still strewn with damaged and destroyed tanks, their fires burning and adding the dark char of black smoke to the scene. He had planned on firing at longer range, but 700 meters suited him fine. All accounts as he listened to the radio chatter with his radio operator, Corporal Borzoi, were frantic exclamations about this new German tank. What was out there? He would soon find out.
His driver, Private Bedenny, was waiting for any order to move, knowing the Lieutenant well enough to realize he would often fire, then move to a new position he had already selected in his mind as he surveyed the ground. His loader Private Fedotin, had a round chambered, and the second at the ready, though he knew the Lieutenant seldom needed more than one shot to get what he was aiming at. The wreckage of so many T-34s gave him a lot to think about that morning. He had become accustomed to feeling relatively invulnerable in this tank, able to withstand most AT guns the Germans had if they did not get in close. So for him the fog was an ominous sign, and he kept looking at the Lieutenant, who had his head up through the top hatch, eyes lost behind his field glasses.
Then he was all business, down through the hatch and hanging the glasses on a hook, his eyes quickly pressed to the optics of his main gun.
“Column on the road, 500 meters. Be ready, Fedotin!” He was sighting, waiting, almost holding his breath. Then he squeezed off the gun trigger, and the round leapt out, hitting the enemy tank right where he wanted it, on that sloped frontal armor to test its strength. If this was a Panzer III, he would blow clean through at this range, and he would have kill number twelve.
But it was not a Panzer III…
*
The Germans could see that the enemy attack had been broken, and now it was time to pursue. Kleber had a wounded leg, not his own, but that of his new Pz-55 Lion. So Knispel put his tank in the number five position as the platoon pulled out of Malakhovo, probing north along a narrow side road, into the smoke and mist of the enemy retreat. The thin stands of trees crowded close to the road as they exited the town, many no more than six to 8 feet high, and with thin sapling width trunks a few inches wide. Yet they still made visibility into the fields beyond difficult in places. The road also gained elevation, ever so gently, but Knispel was watching the crest of his near horizon very closely, not wanting to be surprised.
The Sergeant was in the number two spot, and they passed a burning T-34 on the right, seeing the body of a dead crewman hanging from the open turret. As much as he would make his fame by killing tanks, he always hated to see one like that, for they died in their own steely agony, and it was often a gruesome site.
The death of the tank, like the man, was a striking, visceral experience. It wasn’t just the bruised and buckled armor where the tungsten tipped shell had blasted through. The tank would burn inside, its innards ravaged by fire. Thick acrid smoke from burned rubber would hang in the air for hours after, a choking aura of death. Parts of the engine and other components would melt, leaking from gashes and wounds in the metal, like bright silver mercury that was the blood of this mechanical beast. It would run down the scarred exterior, drooling onto the tracks, and pool in the dull grey mud like the blood of that soldier, a hapless tank commander, running red from the deep gash in his upper chest. He had been the last man to try and get out, but did not make it to safety.
Knispel knew he went forward now by the grace of God, and the skill of his own quick eye and hand, the strength of the steel in that forward armor on his panzer. Yet one look at that tank spoke volumes within, for its commander had once enjoyed a brief summer where he and his vehicle had every chance of meeting and beating the enemy on the road ahead. This was the sad end of that illusion of invulnerability, and he chided himself inwardly that he, too, would one day meet ano
ther tank, another gun, that would be fully capable of destroying his own armored chariot. He shook his mind alert, and peered ahead.
Hans Jurgen was in the lead tank, his head also up through the top hatch, field glasses raised. Then the first round came, like a hot comet of molten fire as it hissed in to strike Jurgen’s tank right on the frontal armor. It failed to penetrate, but the resulting explosion sent shrapnel up and back, taking Jurgen in the neck with a bad wound. Knispel saw him hunch over and fall back through the open hatch, and he cursed under his breath as he dove into his own tank and slammed the hatch shut.
“All crews! Hatches tight! Targets left center!”
They had come to a gap in the trees crowding close to the narrow road, and off to the left was a bare brown field, a perfect open field of fire, thought Knispel. The dark, ragged edge of another tree line in the distance held his attention, his heavy brows low on his forehead, hair wild as the mane of a lion as he peered through his periscope, waiting for the second shot that he knew was coming. Lavrinenko did not disappoint.
As Jurgen’s tank careened left off the road, it entered a low gully, nose down at a sharp angle for the barest moment, but that was when the second round came in, right on top of the turret, penetrating the thinner armor there and putting an end to Jurgen’s gasping struggle for breath where he was slumped inside, his bloodied hand pressed tightly against his neck. The blow jolted the turret left, and Knispel saw that it did not correct, knowing the worst, yet the tank’s momentum carried it up the other side of the gully, which was acting as a perfect anti-tank ditch in that one spot in the road where Jurgen had been unlucky enough to turn. Knispel saw the place in the distant tree line where that second enemy round came from, rotated his turret, coming right about five degrees.
“Gun ready!”
He fired, seeing the enemy fire their third shot at Jugen’s tank at almost the exact same moment. It was only then that he knew he was going to be just a little wide to the right with that shot, which had been a good guess from the first. Now he knew where his enemy was, and he would not miss again.
*
“Back!” Lavrinenko shouted at his driver. “Then come left and sprint to that lower ground at three o’clock!” It was a low depression in the field, almost crater like, and ringed by trees. That was his number two firing spot, and his route would be screened by a clump of thin trees as he went. There would be mud, but he trusted to the good wide tracks of his T-34, and hoped it would not be too deep.
He moved just in time, his eyes widening when he saw a hot round burn right through the spot where his tank had been just moments before. Someone out there was very good, he thought. Yet this only stiffened his resolve. As the T-34 raced ahead, tracks grinding through the wet field grass and dark brown earth, Lavrinenko was watching closely, elated that his third shot had hit the underside of the lead German tank as it climbed out of the gully. This time he had a clean penetration, and he got that twelfth kill, though he knew well enough he had been very lucky. The other four tanks had much better ground off that road, and there they were, all in a line abreast, and one was already tracking his movement as the T-34 raced on behind that thin screen of sapling trees.
“Ready Samohin?” he said through his radio set, one of the units privileged to have radios in every tank in his four unit platoon. The Russians had laid a very careful trap. Lavrinenko opened the engagement, but none of the other tanks in the platoon fired. He got his hits, then backed off and was sprinting to the depression he had spotted earlier, and he knew the Germans could not see it from that road. To them it would look as though he were making for a little stand of trees for cover, and his idea was that he would draw the enemy’s attention long enough for his other three T-34s to get a good bead on the advancing tanks.
The plan worked exactly as he hoped, but with only seconds to spare. The Germans were tracking on him, and the number two tank fired, just as his T-34 jolted into that depression, the round streaking right above the tank, which would have been skewered had it not descended below the rim of that depression. Then Samohin, and the other two tanks in the platoon that had been waiting silently in the tree line opened fire, each one sighting on a separate tank. The sharp crack of the 76s cut through the chill morning air, and an instant later there were three hard thumps, one after another, for all three rounds hit home.
But all three struck that heavy frontal armor on the Lions, and bounced clean off, and at just under 500 meters!
*
Knispel saw what the Russians had done, momentarily stunned to hear the hard thunk on the armor of his own tank, but knowing it had held against the violence of that attack. Now his blood was up. This was personal. Someone had hurt Jurgen; probably killed him and possibly his loader as well, and put his hands on his own tank at the same time! These were not the Russian tankers he had been killing so easily before. If he and his men had been in Panzer IIIs, they would all be dead now, statistics in the deadly game of counting those confirmed kills. He was determined to even the score.
He saw where the enemy was on that tree line, realizing what that first tank had done in opening the action and bating the German fire. It was a very carefully laid ambush, the same sort he had heard about when the operation opened and 4th Panzer Division had trouble at Mtsensk. The Russians had set up on good, concealed positions, with that lovely open field of fire to the road, and then the lead tank lured the Germans in.
“Oh, you’re a sly one,” he said under his breath, bringing the turret around to engage, “a clever little fox. But you sound like a mouse.” He could clearly hear what he thought was a bad wheel on that tank, squeaking whenever it moved. “I’ll deal with you in a moment. First to get your other friends in the nest.”
He fired at the middle position on the tree line where he knew the enemy must be waiting, his eagle eye remembering exactly where they had been seconds before. The Russian tank had started to back away, just as Lavrinenko had done, but it was not quick enough. There came a loud explosion, and he saw the entire turret blown up to the height of the tree tops, and knew he would not take any more fire from that rascal. He heard that telltale squeak, then he pivoted his gun around to cover that depression again, knowing his enemy had to move or be killed soon as his panzers closed the range.
There he was! The bold little mouse was already running from his hole, but it would be a difficult shot. Both tanks were jolting along, the trees on the rim of that depression were in the way, and he knew, instinctively, that he would not get the hit he wanted while moving. So instead he looked to see where that tank might be going.
“All stop!” he shouted, hearing the reassuring noise of the main gun loading. By stabilizing his tank, he had just doubled his chances of getting a hit—and he fired.
*
Lavrinenko was shocked when he realized what had just happened. His comrades got three clean hits, and yet not one of the enemy tanks was bothered a whit! That first test shot he had taken had also bounced, and now he knew the worst of all he had heard in those frantic radio calls from the men in Antonov’s battalion. The 76mm gun would not penetrate this new monster, not here at 500 meters, and certainly not at the longer ranges where he had so much success hunting the older German tanks. His platoon had done everything right, but they had counted on meeting Panzer IIIs. This was something else, something new, as tough as a KV-2, yet leaner, faster, and with a very good gun that could blow right through the frontal armor on his T-34.
A chill ran up his spine for now he knew the only way to get this new enemy tank would be to either find some thinner armor on the sides or rear, or to simply swarm it with superior numbers. Neither was going to happen today.
“Move right!” he shouted, “Fast! Fast! Run for the neck of that tree line!”
That was going to be his moment of greatest danger, but he hoped the sudden turn would throw off any enemy that was sighting on him. All he needed was a few seconds—but he was wrong.
Knispel saw the one place he wo
uld go himself in that segment of the tree line, a small notch in the woods where a fallen tree lay prone by a stack of cut timber. If this Russian tank commander was good, that was where he would also go. From there the enemy would have had an excellent hull down position, and so when Lavrinenko suddenly turned, he only smiled, adjusted his range, and fired.
The round hissed in to strike the T-34 square on the back, blasting through to the engine and exploding. The resulting shrapnel took Lavrinenko’s loader, Private Fedotin, in the stomach, and he would not survive, but his body had shielded Lavrinenko.
“Out!” he shouted, unhurt and glad to still be breathing. His driver was out the front hatch, and he followed, as thick smoke began to fill the close quarters of the tank. It was the second time he had lost a tank, and it would not be the last, but at least he was alive.
They made it to the tree line, where he knew the rest of his ambush team waited, three more T-34s from second platoon. “Move!” he shouted. “But aim low for their tracks, that frontal armor is too good!”
His only thought after that was getting to another tank, and he saw one close by, silent and still, a thin stream of smoke coming from the engine, which had seized up at a critical moment and left the tank immobile. But it still had a gun, he thought, and he raced for it, waving for his remaining crew to follow him.
“But Sergeant, we will have no power. The engine is dead. How will you maneuver or rotate the turret fast enough manually?”
“Even a broken clock is right twice a day,” said Lavrinenko. “Get in and load that gun! We’ll play possum.”
Lavrinenko knew that he was climbing into little more than a stationery pill box, but it was better than standing there in the rain. He was going to sit there in that dead cold steel tank, his eye glued to the gun sights, and wait for that clock to strike true. The Germans would be coming, and if he was lucky, one enemy tank or another would run right across his bore sight.
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