Breakout (Kirov Series Book 38)

by Schettler, John

  The danger, as Bayerlein saw things, was at those two remote areas on either side of that vast semicircle drawn by the front. The Americans had a clear gap to exploit in the north, and he had little doubt that there was as yet unseen power behind O’Connor’s leading elements in the south. It appeared that Patton was driving on Chartres, while O’Connor was pushing for Orleans. If either of those thrusts gained any real momentum, the entire front between them could be cut off. If O’Connor should reach Orleans, he would then be 120 kilometers behind Bayerlein’s division, due east!

  He picked up the telephone, ringing the German central exchange that had been set up in Paris. “Get me Generalfeldmarschall von Rundstedt,” he said, waiting. Long minutes passed, and the voice on the other end of the line then indicated that the Field Marshal could not be found. Bayerlein hung up the receiver, a quiet anxiety in his gut. If it were his to command it, he would immediately order the withdrawal of all those forces to the south, and everything in the vicinity of Tours. That would eliminate the bulge in the line, shorten the front to the point where it could again be held by infantry, and allow the extrication of the mobile divisions.

  But it was not for a division commander to issue such sweeping commands. All he could do was watch his front, do what he could to manage the nearest enemy penetration, and keep trying to reach von Rundstedt in Paris.

  It was once said that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Bayerlein had an uncomfortable feeling that things could easily get out of hand here. That infantry in the south was relatively slow….

  * * *

  Bayerlein was not the only man looking at a road map that night. General Patton had studied the annuals of the Normans to see how they used the road net in France centuries ago. He shrugged to realize that his impulse to engage and destroy the German Panzer Lehr Division with his new armor had been ill advised. The division had engaged just west of the town of Bouloire that night, where Bayerlein pondered his maps. Behind that town was the thick woodland of Foret de Vibraye, and he knew the Germans would surely mount a breakwater defense there. But there was a valley just north of those woods, following good road and rail connections to La Ferte Bernard. In 1906 the racing cars of the Grand Prix had sped along those roads when the event was centered on that city.

  Now Patton had a mind to do a little race car driving of his own. He took off in his jeep, looking for his armored chieftains. He now had 2nd, 3rd, and 6th Armored behind his front, all three having rested and refueled for a day behind the lines. Now he intended to throw that armored corps up north to support 4th Armored, and he would also use that valley to La Ferte Bernard, which he dubbed “Grand Prix Alley.” His combat commands were soon given their marching orders, rampaging through the night in the hope of stealing a march on the Germans.

  Bradley found Patton after a two hour chase, wondering what he was up to.

  “George, what in blazes are you doing out here in the dark? You could run up on a Kraut patrol.”

  “And I’d make a quick end of it. Brad, we’ve got to swing further north, and follow 4th Armored. I just send 3rd Armored up there, and I’m going to push the 2nd right up this road.” He was already getting back into his jeep, rolling over his hand to prompt the driver to fire up the engine.

  “Well, where are you going now?”

  “I want to see what’s up with my new creation. TF Abrams is just a few miles south, and I just got word his recon elements found a hole in the German line. I knew I could count on Abrams. I'm supposed to be the best tank commander in the Army, but I have one peer — Abe Abrams. He's the world champion.”

  He tapped the driver’s shoulder, and the jeep sped off, leaving Bradley standing there nonplussed, hands on his hips, and a bemused expression on his face.

  Bayerlein would not get any sleep that night. The “hole” Abrams had found after dusk was very near the seam between Panzer Lehr and what was left of the 15th Panzergrenadiers. He had tried to widen it by attacking Bayerlein’s troops, but they would not budge. So Abrams just sent through his cavalry, a battalion of tank destroyers and the 768th Tank Battalion, with one company of Pershings attached. Moving fast in the confusion and darkness, they made right for Bouloire, the division artillery park and Bayerlein’s HQ.

  Now the General would soon see what his young Leutnant had been trying to tell him. 15th Panzergrenadier fell back on the north side of that small gap, and in poured the torrent of Abrams new division. Bayerlein had no choice but to order yet another ‘adjustment’ of the line to free up troops to try and seal the breach. Observing the action at dawn from the bell tower of a small church, he noted the new Panzers Leutnant Willy Neubert had warned him about, and he knew this would bode nothing but trouble. The American Sherman was an old friend, stolid, predictable, the devil they knew. This was something altogether different.

  Bayerlein would then suffer the indignity of an intense artillery bombardment as the first light of dawn brought a much stronger attack. He hurried down the steps from that bell tower, and in the nick of time. It suffered a direct hit soon after and was reduced to a smoking, broken tooth of shattered stone. The road southeast took him and his HQ staff quickly away from the scene, under the dark protective eaves of a small wood. There he sat with his radio crews, slowly getting a grasp on what was happening.

  It seemed the main thrust of the American attack was north of the town, into the lines of 15th Panzergrenadier Division. At least four armored divisions had been identified from radio traffic, but only three were in actual combat. He did not think the enemy would try to push that armor due east, for that would put the attack into Foret de Vibraye. He was still holding on to a piece of Bouloire, and so he decided to cover the road to St. Calais. His nine was no longer in contact with 15th Panzergrenadiers, but it could not be helped. An hour later, he finally got through to von Rundstedt.

  “They are shifting more strength north,” he told him.

  “They want Chartres next,” said von Rundstedt. “Himmler’s troops have arrived on the flank of that northern thrust, and I am moving more troops this way from Normandy. We will be there as soon as we can, with a little more.”

  “What about all the troops to the south?” asked Bayerlein. “The line goes all the way to Tours!”

  “Don’t worry about it. I will issue the necessary orders. Your iron is in the fire, so look to your immediate front. How is the division holding up?”

  “We still have a good cohesive position, but they hit us quite hard. They have a new Panzer in the field now, and with a better main gun.”

  “Then we will have to deal with that. Hold on, we are coming with a few new tricks of our own, and very soon.”

  Von Rundstedt was keeping his cards very close to his chest in all this. He made no direct mention of Berg’s new Schwerepanzers , but now he could hear the sense of urgency in Bayerlein’s voice. That man had seen far worse on the Russian front, but he could tell his nerves were frayed.

  This Patton combines three key things that make his offensives truly dangerous, he thought. He has mass, speed, and all fueled with a heedless aggression. The only way to best him is to catch him on the move, and now we have just the right weapon to do this—our great grandsons. He is going for Chartres, so that is where I will advise Kluge to send this new Brigade. So, the Americans have a new Panzer? They will soon see that we do as well.

  It was then decided that Berg’s 21st Schwerepanzer Brigade would move that very night, directly to Chartres by rail. In the discussion that gave rise to that order, Guderian came to realize that this was the main event.

  “It is Patton we must stop first,” he said. “He is the only one who truly masters the art of combined arms mobile warfare. Montgomery has stopped to resupply, and we must keep an eye on O’Connor, but Patton is the real threat. The good news for us is, that General Berg and his astounding new Brigade will not be alone. 10th Panzer is coming, and I have requested that it be routed directly to Paris.”

  “Does this mean you will reta
in the Brandenburg Division in the east?”

  “No, I see no crisis there at the moment. So I will send it to Orleans. There it is—all the forces we will be able to muster here for the next month or so. Anything else will have to come out of Russia. I think the decision not to defend Normandy was the key here. It will allow us to fight a flexible withdrawal on that flank, pulling the line back from Avranches to the vicinity of Caen. Depending on what happens here, we will discuss a move behind the Seine.”

  “That line may not be as good as you might think,” said von Rundstedt. “It makes eight or nine hairpin loops, and will not be easy to defend. Yes, we can hold all the key bridges, but they will find it easier to cross than the Loire. And then there is Paris….”

  “I think we will not want to fight there,” said Kluge. “It would be a major cultural disaster, not to mention the humanitarian concerns.”

  “In this, the Führer’s death solves another problem. If it were his to command, he would most likely order that city reduced to rubble before we relinquish it. Now it sits here like a table set with fine linen and china in the midst of a barroom brawl, the waiter standing by has his hands on the silver, not to steal it, but to plunge it into our backs.”

  “Yes,” said Guderian. “I have had to keep three battalions of the Charlemagne Division there, along with three more security battalions and several fortress engineer units pulled from the coast after their work was completed. Frankly, I doubt if the Allies will go directly for Paris, even if it would be a clear political target.”

  “The French will certainly want it liberated,” said Kluge. “De Gaulle will insist on it.”

  “That he will, but he has to go a hundred miles, through difficult terrain, and cross the Loire east of Orleans. Yet we have a problem, because Paris sits right in the middle of this fight. If we defend it, then we will have to do it here, at Versailles.”

  “That would make a ruin of this fine chateau,” said Kluge. “And furthermore, should we find it necessary to retreat, the best roads will all take us through Paris. Then we have that waiter to deal with. It is estimated that there may be a group of dissidents some 20,000 strong. That could seriously complicate movement through that city. It may therefore be better to leave the front door open, and dig our trenches in the back yard.”

  “You mean, defend north of the city?”

  “Precisely. The terrain to the south is very good for defense, but we should use it to simply delay the enemy advance. Make our main line of resistance north of the city, in the woodland. But all this is speculation. We must first deal with this offensive. If we can redraw the line, say from Caen, to Chartres and Orleans, then we can hold behind the Loire east of Orleans. So yes, keep an eye on O’Connor, because we will not want him gaining a bridgehead there. Gentlemen, this is the main event now. The next few weeks will decide much. I will stay with you here, and ride with my protégé, General Berg. Hopefully we can stabilize the situation. Then I will return to OKW and see if I can explain just how we did it.”

  “You mean they know nothing of Berg?”

  “Not at the moment. I have described his unit as a Schwerepanzer Brigade, but said nothing of its true origins. It may be better to keep quiet about it, and keep it off the situation maps as well. And though your idea of seeding it into the Brandenburg Division is interesting, General Guderian, something tells me that the less that is known about this brigade, the better.”

  “That will be difficult once it gets mixed up in battle.”

  “Difficult, but not impossible. I have described it as a product of the Wunderwaffe programs, and for the moment, we must leave it at that. Now then, the hour is late, and I think we have a train to catch.”

  He smiled.

  Part IV

  The Second Labor

  “T hereby was wrought the Hydra, many-necked, flickering its dread tongues. Of its fearful heads some severed lay on earth, but many more were budding from its necks, while Hercules and Iolaus, dauntless-hearted twain, toiled hard; the one with lightning sickle-sweeps lopped the fierce heads, his fellow seared each neck with glowing iron; the monster so was slain…”

  —Quintus Smyrnaeus: Labors of Hercules

  Chapter 10

  That very hour, von Rundstedt ordered the divisions in the south to begin withdrawing. His intention was to eliminate the wide arc that extended the line to the lower Loire near Tours. This saw the movement of the 361st, 276th and the remnant of the 352nd falling back to a shortened line of defense, which allowed the 16th Reichsführer Division to come off the line and begin moving up on the road to St. Calais to assist Bayerlein. The troops arriving from Normandy on the northwestern flank were the 711th and 716th Infantry Divisions, nothing more than line holders, and troops that were not deemed very reliable.

  In O’Connor’s sector, the arrival of the fresh 226th Division from the 27th Welle would try to put a good brake on that advance. Then the first two brigades of the Brandenburg Division came by rail directly to Orleans. Two additional brigades were bound for Chartres, where they would make the acquaintance of Berg’s Brigade. When the first train arrived, Berg’s men were already there, and the two groups eyed one another, the younger soldiers wondering if their great grandfathers were out there somewhere. Berg and Kluge watched as the train was unloaded.

  “These are the finest troops in the entire Wehrmacht,” said Kluge. “Only one other division could be their equal, the Grossdeutschland Division on the Ostfront . With them at your side, you will slay this hydra easily enough, of that I am sure. Behind them, we will have the resurrected 10th Panzer Division arriving through Paris in another day or so. But that is all. We will have nothing else to commit to this front, so if we are to save the capitol and stop this offensive, it must be done, here and now, with what we have. I will be counting heavily on you and your men.”

  “We will do what is necessary,” said Berg. He was still more than a little conflicted by this whole state of affairs. There had been casualties in the Pas-de-Calais, men dead and gone, buried here forever in the past. The magnitude of what had happened to them had not really struck home, but now the men were starting to think about it. He would hear their thoughts in the questions they asked, as some realized that virtually everyone they knew and loved back home had not even been born yet. They were lost, adrift in time, and none could understand it, or begin to fathom a way they might return to 2021.

  Soon those dark thoughts and misgivings would have to give way to the reflex of battle, survival, and the cold and deadly art of war they had been trained to fight.

  “Alright,” said Berg, convening a meeting of his senior officers. “As you can see, we have a partner this time. Those are troops from the Brandenburg Division assembling out there, Germany’s best.”

  “Second best,” said Leutnant Kohlmann.

  “We’ll have to prove that,” said Berg. “I’m told those men have fought their way to the city of Baghdad in this crazy turn of events. Don’t ask me why this history isn’t playing out as we knew it—at least those of us who ever took the time to study the last great war. Back home, we stood ready to fight the next war, and it looks like we won’t get that chance now. Yet here we are. You can think of those men over there as our great grandfathers, but I prefer to think of them as our big brothers. They’re tough, competent, and they won’t let us down. So when we fight here, we fight to win.”

  All the officers nodded, as the doubts and reservations they had held gave way to the realization that battle was imminent.

  “Now,” Berg continued, “ammunition is going to be an issue here. I took general inventory, and it seems we’ve expended about ten percent in those brief actions in the Pas-de-Calais. We have to be stingy, gentlemen. Leopard main gun fire should be reserved for enemy tanks. Leave the halftracks and other vehicles to the Pumas, Boxers and Wiesels. Our 20mm and 30mm cannons should handle them well enough. Anyone who falls below 40% ready ammo is to pull out and move to a designated reserve station. Let’s face i
t—we’re only as good as the ammo we have. Once that is gone, we’re just a heavily armored empty shell. As for artillery, the Brandenburgers have that covered for us. Our job will be to move as the vanguard. We’ll find and fix the positions of the enemy spearheads, engage them at range, and stop their forward movement. Then the Brandenburgers will come up and do the rest. Understood?”

  Berg’s Brigade, as powerful as it was, would serve as a fast moving recon force. The 7th Recon battalion would operate its remote controlled drones to find the enemy columns, then Berg would maneuver his heavy armor into positions where they could ambush at range. He did not plan to heavily commit his infantry here, but to keep it as a fast moving, hit and run force in its own rite.

  The Puma IFV, or Schutzenpanzer , had the Rheinmetall 30mm autocannon, capable of firing air burst munitions at a high rate of fire, and out to 3000 meters. It also had a fin-stabilized round that was designed for armor penetration. With a theoretical firing rate of 200 rounds per minute, the gun could literally chew up an armored vehicle, though it would never usually fire at that high rate. The Puma had 200 ready rounds and another 200 in reserve, just two minutes firing at the maximum rate, so it would typically fire in small bursts of two or three rounds, and the gun could switch from air bursting to penetrating ammunition on a round by round basis.

  Some of the Pumas also had the turret mounted EuroSpike missile launcher to take on heavier armored vehicles and tanks out to 4000 meters. With the German Advanced Modular Armor Protection, the vehicle was good against medium caliber AT rounds on the front and sides, and could protect against all caliber MGs and even artillery bomblets or mortar rounds.