Turning Point (Kirov Series Book 22)

by John Schettler

  “Then what do you propose to do? We either stop this attack here, at the outset, or they will get through to take that position.”

  “Their spearhead will get through, but not the shaft of that spear. I intend to let this heavy leading force pass, with as little cost to our mobile divisions as possible. Then we hit the troops that must inevitably be following that spearhead, and we hit them with everything we have.”

  “And what if this spearhead does not proceed as you suggest? What if their intention is to engage and destroy our panzers?” Crüwell was covering ever possibility.

  “In that instance, the divisions will adopt the hedgehog defensive formation we have drilled on these last few months. In every engagement where you are faced with these new heavy tanks, the infantry is to make liberal use of the new Panzerfaust, and form the outer crust of your line. If they can get mines out in front of them, all the better. The panzers are to be held behind that front, and hull down wherever possible. They have a new main gun as good as our 88s, and with very long range. They were killing tanks well over a kilometer in range, so keep that in mind. Deploy your artillery and the infantry will call it in, but be ready to move it immediately. Their mastery of counter battery fire is demonic.”

  “You have said nothing about my division,” said Fisher.

  “Ah yes… On my signal you are to move it smartly, back through Mechili, to this position here. Place your main front here along this wadi, and the bad ground to either side will protect your flanks. Gentlemen, if these dispositions are carried out as ordered, we will then have all three panzer divisions abreast, and we will attack south in one united push. Our intention will be to cut off the spearhead of their attack. Once it is isolated from the shaft of the spear, which I believe will be the regular 7th Armor Division under O’Connor, then that leading assault unit will have only two choices. It can either go on to Agedabia by itself, or it can turn to attempt to re-establish contact with O’Connor.”

  “And after that?” Crüwell frowned.

  “Well, let us see what happens first, General Crüwell. Let us see if my tea leaves tell me the truth.”

  They looked out from the high point they were on, the bleak desert now swathed in hues of red and gold with the setting sun. Rommel took in the stony smell of the land, with just a hint of cooling in the air as night approached. The desolate beauty of the scene impressed him, but the thrum of anxiety within him belied the peaceful aspect of the land. This empty, forsaken place was soon to become a battlefield, and one where the fate of his Afrika Korps might be written in the sands with blood and steel. He could feel the night coming, growing, an ominous thing building at the edge of that painted horizon.

  “The moon, such as it was, is already down,” he said quietly. “It will not rise again until a little after 05:30 tomorrow morning. After that sun out there finally sets, it will be dark as Satan’s cape. This is when they will come. So get to your units, gentlemen. If you hear me speak of the lion’s brew, that will be the code indicating the enemy is acting as I believe he will. On receipt of that signal, move like lightning, and make certain your pathfinders mark the route well. Notify me the instant you have your divisions on their assigned positions, and go with god, because the devil is coming to dance with us this night.”

  “And if this battle does something you don’t expect?” Crüwell remained the Devil’s Advocate.

  “I am more concerned that you may do something I do not expect, General Crüwell. But, if the situation deteriorates to the point where I believe a withdrawal is necessary, I will send the signal Westfallen.”

  “What should that mean?

  Rommel smiled. “Move west, Herr General, by any means possible, and as fast as you can. Get to Agedabia, or Mersa Brega, and stand fast. That is our last redoubt.”

  The generals departed, and not twenty minutes later, as the first tides of that dark night gathered like the edge of Satan’s cape, Rommel got the radio call he had been dreading, from Hauptmann László Almásy.

  “Herr General! You were correct! There is a large column of mechanized vehicles in the track heading west from Wadi Thiran! And I can see signs of another big move well to the north on the middle track.”

  “Very good, Hauptmann. Save yourself, and screen that southern flank as long as feasible.”

  Rommel waited for the briefest moment, then sent the word that he knew would be received by his generals with just enough time for them to react. The signal went out— Löwenbräu, Löwenbräu. Move!”

  Almásy had run into 12th Royal Lancers, screening the southernmost column on that track with four companies of Dragons and Scimitars. They came up so quickly that one of his three detachments was overrun, and he barely had time to send his plaintive warning to Rommel. Behind them came the long lines of the 4th Indian Division, intended as the southernmost flank guard for this advance, but the main attack was that other movement he had detected on the middle track. Led by the 3rd Mercian Battalion, it was reaching like a steel gloved hand into the desert just south of the line Rommel had selected to post his three panzer divisions. Behind it came two more battalions, the Highlanders and the Scots Dragoons with the bulk of the Challenger IIs.

  Three battalions. That’s all they were, but it had been enough in past engagements to smash right through a German panzer division like a wrecking ball. It would seem that the combined mass and weight of three German panzer divisions would be enough to roll down and smash such a small force, but things were not as they seemed in this desert war. The advantages possessed by Kinlan’s forces extended well beyond the thickness of their armor. Their mobility and firepower was many times greater than their size might indicate.

  To begin with, from the German perspective, every vehicle they were seeing was a tank. The Warrior AFVs had a quick firing 40mm main gun that had the hitting power of a German Pak 50, yet one that could fire up to 200 rounds per minute on full automatic. That was seldom done, but compared to the typical rate of fire of a German 50mm gun, no more than 12 rounds per minute, a single Warrior AFV was therefore capable of putting out 16 times the firepower, and ranging out 2500 meters. The Dragon AFVs were equally capable, and the Scimitars could fling out their Armor Piercing Discarding Sabot rounds 4000 meters.

  Then came the real tanks, the juggernauts that moved with alarming speed and smashed everything in their path. The Challenger IIs had topped off with 55 rounds each, a mix of HESH and CHARM 3 depleted Uranium armor piercing rounds. No armored vehicle the Germans possessed would survive a hit from the 120mm main gun, which meant each tank had the capability of destroying 55 enemy AFVs, and it could do so while remaining largely immune to enemy counterattack. The Chobham 3 Armor would defeat any weapon the Germans possessed. The only hope Rommel’s tankers had was in inflicting lucky hits that might destroy external equipment, tracks, or perhaps a wheel, rendering the Challenger temporarily disabled, but not killed.

  To get any of those lucky hits, the Germans had to fire from well inside the maximum range of the Challenger’s main gun. Given the enormous sensory capability that Kinlan’s forces possessed, there would be no surprise ambushes here either. Battlefield drones were up, scouting ahead of the columns to find enemy concentrations. These were then noted on a digital map and tracked by computer as updated information came in. This kind of ‘situational awareness’, even in the black night beneath Satan’s cape as Rommel put it, was a massive force multiplier. The British optics and infrared were also invaluable when forces began to close with one another. So those 55 rounds in each Challenger II were going to find targets, well beyond the range of the German counter fire, and they were going to kill every one they hit. It was simply combat power beyond the reckoning of the German commanders, and the Devil was indeed coming to dance that night.

  Part XII

  Hill 498

  “And so there must be in life something like a catastrophic turning point, when the world as we know it ceases to exist. A moment that transforms us into a different pers
on from one heartbeat to the next.”

  ― Jan-Philipp Sendker: The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

  Chapter 34

  Gazala Line, 15 March, 1942

  The battle that was now gathering form and shape southwest of Tobruk was a strange mirror image of the ‘Gazala Line’ battle that was fought in May of 1942 in Fedorov’s history books. In that battle, the British had established a heavily mined front backed up by brigade “boxes” to the rear at vital locations like Knightsbridge, Bir Hacheim and El Adem. Rommel moved four mobile divisions southeast, refueled in the night and then sought to complete a wide enveloping movement around the mines and boxes, sweeping up towards Acroma and Tobruk.

  This time the inverse would be true. Chastened by severe checks earlier at Bir el Khamsa and Tobruk, Rommel had adopted a strategy similar to the one the British put up in the real history. It was his Gazala line this time. The defense was anchored astride the main coastal road to Derna, where the newly reformed Italian 10th Corps deployed two infantry divisions, backed up by the Ariete Armored Division, and both Trento and Trieste Motorized Infantry Divisions. South of the escarpment shielding Gazala, a line of German infantry began with the 99th and 100th Mountain Regiments, and then came the 90th Motorized Division with a newly arrived formation dubbed the 164th Light.

  That unit had been in Greece, and was supposed to have been assigned as a garrison on Crete, but the attack there had never happened. It was therefore available as a replacement for the mountain regiment and Meindel’s tough Falschirmjaegers that had been taken from Rommel to make the attack on the Canary Islands. The infantry was the hard outer crust behind positions that were heavily mined and fortified, and this outer line was backed by well sighted artillery, and then the three panzer divisions Rommel was fortunate to have were held in rear areas similar to the brigade boxes the British had posted.

  The attack Rommel had felt coming would begin as yet another wide envelopment maneuver. All along that fortified front, the British had faced off against the Germans with their own infantry divisions. 9th Australian Division, about to fight its last engagement here before being returned to Australia, was posted on the main coastal road near Gazala. It would be backed up by two brigades of the 2nd New Zealand Division, followed by the newly arrived 2nd South African Division, which was strung out along the coastal road back to Tobruk.

  1st Army Tank Brigade was behind the Aussies, south of the escarpment that shielded Gazala itself, and it had 4th Indian Division on its left flank as the British line worked its way south towards Bir Hacheim, and 1st South African Division. These forces were all to be commanded by Montgomery, and Trigg Capuzzo was the dividing line between his XXX corps and O’Connor’s XIII Corps. The 5th Indian Division was south of the Trigg, its lines facing off against Rommel’s best infantry division, the 90th. Then came 2nd Armored Division, the 7th Armored Division, and the new British 50th Northumbrian Division to constitute O’Connor’s primary maneuver element. Kinlan’s 7th Heavy Brigade, as it was now being called by Wavell, was at the southern end of the line, intending to move through a long finger on the wrinkled hand of a terrain feature known as Wadi Thiran.

  This was the place where Rommel’s prescient inner sense had warned him to watch, and there was Hauptmann Almásy, the Hungarian, peering into the thick night with his binoculars when he saw the 12th Royal Lancers beginning their advance. The British plan was really a double envelopment. They looked at the center of the German line, a hard cauldron of well fortified infantry, and decided their best prospects lay in an attack on the flanks. It would be Monty’s job to smash the Italians and open the road to Derna, threatening Mechili from that direction as well. Kinlan and O’Connor would conduct the sweeping southern envelopment, around the southern edge of Rommel’s infantry line, which would put them in a good position to make that run to Agedabia that Rommel feared.

  The plan the wily German General had devised would be to quickly move those three panzer divisions to that flank, all abreast and facing south. That would present his adversary with a difficult decision. If Kinlan continued west towards Agedabia, then Rommel could order all three divisions to attack the regular British troops as they attempted to follow Kinlan’s troops. In Rommel’s mind, any force bold enough to move west like that would have to maintain a line of communications to supplies back east. His attack plan was aiming to cut that line, leaving the advancing troops to wither.

  When word came of the enemy advance, flashed to all mobile division commanders in that single code word, the lion’s brew was slow to ferment. The only division that moved was 21st Panzer under Ravenstein, and that was because Rommel was there to set things in motion with his ceaseless energy. Neither Fischer nor Crüwell had arrived back at their respective division HQs, and so those troops still awaited orders. For the Italians, the only unit that moved when the British 1st Tank Regiment struck the Pavia Division south of the escarpment was the recon unit of the Ariete Division.

  * * *

  Down on the southern flank, Major Peniakoff, the colorful desert scout the British called “Popski,” was still assigned to operate with Kinlan’s troops. He had his eye on a small rise designated Hill 557, and wasn’t surprised to see signs of German occupation of that outpost. There were vehicle tracks in the sand, and to his trained eye, a hasty withdrawal had just been made, probably by a small scouting force. So he radioed Kinlan immediately.

  “Listen General,” he said. “Jerry had eyes out here and its fairly certain they saw our boys move north of that hill. Too bad we haven’t got that helicontraption the Russians were using. It might come in handy as a scouting unit in the pre-dawn hours.”

  “Good show, Colonel. But don’t worry. We’ve already got up surveillance drones, and only one of the three panzer divisions has moved, well behind the front. You just ride with Lieutenant Reeves and watch the ground—keep the lads out of silt bogs and such.”

  “We’re over that finger of Wadi Thiran already,” said Popski. “So it should be good ground until sunrise.” He signed off and went to look for Reeves, unable to dismiss the uncomfortable feeling in his gut.

  This man Kinlan has a head on his shoulders, no question there, he thought. And he’s got those monster tanks under him, and all the rest of this lot. But the other fellow out there is thinking too, and he damn well knows what we’re up to here. That’s not just any General on the other side, it’s Erwin Rommel.

  * * *

  Yet even Rommel’s orders had a way of being loosely interpreted by Crüwell, a General that thought he knew better given all his experience on the eastern front with Guderian. He looked at the map and could see that Ravenstein’s division would take some time to reach the position Rommel had indicated, and so he called Fischer, asking where his division was.

  “I’m on the Trigg al Abd, as Rommel wanted,” said Fischer. “I’m supposed to cover that road.”

  “Yes, well where is Ravenstein? He’s supposed to be on my right, but there isn’t a sign of his division here yet. You are much closer. Why not simply move east and link up with my flank. Then Ravenstein will be in reserve when he arrives.”

  “But what about that Trigg?”

  “Let Ravenstein cover it as he comes south. It’s well behind our front, and there’s no threat there.”

  “Rommel wanted all three divisions abreast, not two up as you are suggesting.”

  “Rommel wanted to go to Alexandria six months ago,” said Crüwell sarcastically. “And look where we are now.”

  “Very well, General, but suppose you call Rommel and tell him what you have asked me to do.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll handle everything on that end. Just get moving. Almásy has already seen those lighter enemy scout tanks on the move.”

  Crüwell had no intention of informing Rommel of anything. What he did want was Fisher’s division right on his flank, because he was going to attack south as soon as the opportunity presented itself. He would not have long to wait, because the attack was coming t
o him in the swift moving 7th Armored Division under O’Connor.

  The British advance aimed to turn the flank with two concentric shock columns, one composed of that division on the inside orbit, and the other being Kinlan’s Heavy Brigade farther south. Crüwell had moved up as ordered, positioning his 15th Panzer Division due west of the southern end of Rommel’s line, which was anchored by the tough Hermann Goering Brigade, battle hardened from the Eastern Front. That unit was up on a low plateau, dug in well, and the British had no intention of attacking it. O’Connor went right around it, following the track that led up to Bir Hubash and Sidi Mansur, an old shrine and mosque in the middle of the desert.

  Crüwell’s advance had seen his recon units arriving there just as O’Connor’s tanks came up, forming themselves in a long line abreast, with 7th and 8th Hussars on the left, and 2nd and 3rd RTR on the right. The four battalions fielded all of 338 tanks, with over 90 of the new American Grants with a much better 75mm main gun. The tank was a big, blustering, ungainly and downright ugly vehicle. Compared to the sleep yet ominous lines of the German Lion, it looked like a throwback from the first war. The main gun was offset to the right lower portion of the chassis, and the high turret mounting the secondary 37mm armament gave the tank a prominent profile in combat, and made it an easy target.

  The United States shipped all of 2,855 of these tanks to the British, and they had modified the secondary upper turret, which gave those tanks the name “Grant,” while the Americans would use the original turret design and name their tanks after the famous southern General Robert E. Lee. It had many other drawbacks, riveted hull plating that saw the rivets break off and become internal bullets when the tank was hit by a round that failed to penetrate. It also lacked a radio in the upper turret, and the British thought the side hull mounted main gun was the least favorable position for that weapon. But beggars cannot be choosers.