Initiative (The Red Gambit Series Book 6)

by Colin Gee

  However, the brand new Schwarzjagdpanthers were a cut above even them, outperforming the old but excellent field conversion Jagdpanther in all departments.

  The surviving two Alligators engaged the T34s immediately, scoring hit after hit, although not every hit resulted in a kill.

  The Schwarzjagdpanthers took on the IS-IIs and halted the heavy tanks in their tracks, sometimes literally.

  The 128mm shells were more than capable of penetrating the thickest of the IS-IIs defensive armour, and the attacking Soviet tanks started to fall back as more of their number were smashed to a halt.

  Some crews even abandoned their vehicles without attempting to withdraw, their morale suddenly broken by the new arrivals and the sights of battle around them.

  Peters screamed and screamed at the nearest tank, or more accurately the commander of the Schwarzjagdpanther, who had his head out to survey the battlefield, but who was unable to hear the words of warning.

  The IS-IV stopped and made the minutest of adjustments, before sending a 130mm shell smashing into the side of the SPAT.

  The impact scattered the road wheels and severed the track at top and bottom points, rendering the vehicle immovable.

  Abandoning their crippled vehicle, the slowness of the IS-IVs reload saved the panzerjager crew further wounds, although the turret machine gun sped them on their way as they quickly sought cover.

  A Legion shell struck the IS-IV.

  Peters held his breath, waiting to see what happened, but the Soviet tank merely moved off, seeking a different position from which to enfilade the Legion flank.

  The IS took up a text book angled position and fired, or at least Peters thought it did, although the shot, if it happened, was lost in the most violent explosion he had ever witnessed.

  The fire took hold of the experimental tank in the briefest of moments, and no one escaped the brewing vehicle.

  Fascinated by the sight and sound of the jet of flame that rose from the blasted open hatches, he was distracted by a movement beyond the smoke and flame.

  Although he didn’t recognise the type, he knew it was a friendly vehicle by the colour scheme and markings.

  Peters moved quickly away from his hiding place to help the wounded members of his rocket crew, leaving the victorious Einhorn to find a position from where it could visit more mayhem upon the retreating Soviet tanks.

  The battlefield started to quieten, with only the occasional whoosh of an X-7 or crack of a tank gun to mark the end of the Soviet attempt to cut Route 40.

  Whilst the battle had raged on the banks of the Fulda River, a smaller but equally deadly game of hide and seek had been played out in the lanes in and round Knickhagen.

  A deadly game in which there could be only one winner… or two losers.

  1700 hrs, Monday, 24th June 1946, south of Knickhagen, Germany.

  Kon called for the driver to pull in behind a small barn, the brick and wood structure probably slightly smaller than the tank that attempted to hide behind it.

  Whilst he intended to run his tank into the flank of the Legion hillside positions, Kon did not intend to fall foul of any forces in Knickhagen.

  He slipped out of the turret and clambered onto the roof of the dilapidated barn, gaining a little extra height.

  Had he seen anything in and around Knickhagen, then his options would have been greatly reduced, as would his area of operations.

  A fleeting glimpse of an enemy vehicle moving back towards Allied lines made him feel that the forces opposite him had quit the village and that the way was clear.

  But he had not got to survive the battles on the Russian Front by making assumptions, so he planned accordingly.

  Kon decided to drive further up Route 40 and take a right before the village, far enough away as to not risk tangling with any anti-tank soldiers or armour that might be present.

  The arrival of his infantry grape, panting and wheezing, brought a smile to his face. The man had jumped off when the tank engagement first started, which he could not blame them for.

  However, he needed them now and he beckoned the commanding NCO to join him on the roof. Pointing out the outskirts of Knickhagen, describing what he expected of the NCO and his men, Kon detailed the initial plan to the red-faced Starshina commanding the ten man group.

  The infantry NCO dropped back down onto the deck of the IS-IV and encouraged his men to climb aboard.

  They broke out cigarettes as they waited for Kon to finish his reconnaissance, hands emerging from the turret hatches to share in the looted US tobacco.

  Kon had nearly finished his sweep when something caught his eye… ‘what’s that?’ … he stared hard… ‘I swear there’s something there’… but there was nothing there… his eyes burned through the lenses of the binoculars, seeking an answer to the question… but there was nothing… ‘Are you sure?’… had been nothing… “Really sure?’… nothing at all… ‘Nothing at all. Shit but I’m getting jumpy’…

  He slid off the roof and dropped into the cupola, all in one graceful movement.

  “Driver, move up, turning right onto the track.”

  Köster held his breath, not daring to risk the slightest of movements of his chest, resisting even the urge to blink as he braced himself against the small tree trunk in order to reduce the possibility of movement to nothing.

  He could sense the unknown enemy’s eyes seeking him out, boring into the lush green undergrowth around him.

  Time stood still, and seemingly an age passed before the man disappeared from sight, and the process of respiration could resume in safely.

  Through his own binoculars, Köster had seen the very distinctive headwear of a Soviet tanker, and he knew that the ramshackle building hid the object of his search; the enemy tank.

  Slipping back into the small copse, he turned and ran as fast as he could, to where Lohengrin sat waiting, purring like the pedigree cat she was.

  Climbing on the front glacis, he paused to brief Meier.

  “He’s there… down in the valley… cautious tank commander this one…not just coming in with all guns firing… we must be careful with this fellow, Klaus.”

  “Did you see the bastard, Rudi?”

  “No… it’s hidden behind a farm building… but I saw the tank commander out having a recon… he’ll be coming up this way shortly. We need to reposition.”

  Köster hauled himself up onto the turret and quickly dropped inside, where he slipped on his headset, connected up, and growled a few orders to Lohengrin’s crew.

  The Tiger I backed up and then swung off to the right, seeking a position of cover.

  Having selected a convenient patch of trees and undergrowth. Köster was taken aback when the chosen lump of greenery spouted streams of heavy calibre bullets.

  The hidden ZSUs burst from cover and charged, seeking to get close enough to find some way of disabling the Legion tank and flee the field.

  “FIRE!”

  Jarome shouted automatically, acting without orders, simply needing to kill the thing that filled his sights. The shell slammed straight into the hull front of the rushing KV based AA tank.

  No one was more surprised than Jarome himself when the shell ricocheted downwards into the earth, failing to stop the tank’s rush.

  Schultz slammed another shell home.

  Köster called the target.

  Jarome fired the gun.

  The ZSU staggered under the impact and slowed perceptibly, but did not stop.

  Soviet crew men appeared, smoke issuing from the tank’s innards as they popped their hatches.

  They rolled off the moving tank and sought cover, leaving the dead driver to ride his tank forward, until the impact with a reasonably sized tree was enough to stall the engine and let the lazy fire slowly consume vehicle and undergrowth at leisure.

  The other ZSU took a different course, one that spelt danger for Lohengrin and her crew.

  The driver pressed his accelerator to the floor and drove hard at the Tige
r, intent on ramming the vehicle, as his uncle had done at Prokhorovka in 1943, although, unlike his uncle, he intended to live.

  Jarome lost the target, Köster didn’t realise what was happening, only Wintzinger and Meier could really see the intentions.

  Wintzinger was speechless and could only manage to fire his machine-gun, hoping to ward off the approaching ZSU.

  Meier shouted into the intercom.

  “Traverse the gun full right now! Brace yourselves!”

  The Tiger swung to the right as the KV bore down on it.

  The manoeuvre saved Lohengrin from substantial damage, the call to move the gun preserved the tube from harm.

  Instead of hammering into the offside leading edge and shattering the track and sprocket as the Soviet tanker had hoped, Meier’s move had presented the flat front of Lohengrin to the flat front of the KV chassis.

  The impact was still tremendous and, despite the warning, the crew were flung around.

  The squeal from Wintzinger was drowned out by the awful shattering of his radius and ulnas in both arms, as the braced limbs failed to halt his forward momentum, disintegrating simultaneously in the mid-forearm area.

  His scream was cut short as his head smashed against the metal, rendering him insensible, and unable to feel anything when the KV rose up onto the Tiger’s front plate and drove the machine-gun into his throat with deadly force.

  Meier, shaken but in charge of himself, gunned the engine and continued pushing forward.

  Köster, Schultz, and Jarome all had matching nosebleeds, plus Schultz had the makings of the darkest and widest of black eyes, following a coming together with Jarome’s elbow.

  The graunching of metal was incredible, but quickly stopped, as the Tiger stalled and the KV stuck fast.

  Meier restarted the engine as Köster decided to risk a look.

  He immediately saw three shaky figures rolling off the ZSU, all seemingly intoxicated.

  Grabbing his pistol, he fired at them, putting one down hard, and adding extra speed to the wobbly withdrawal of the others.

  “Back her up, Klaus. Quick as you can.”

  Supervising the manoeuvre, Köster spared a look in other directions, praying not to see a dark shape in the undergrowth.

  The graunching started again, and the KV chassis slid off for the briefest of moments before clinging to Lohengrin like a child to its mother.

  “Stop! Whoa!”

  Köster waited until the motion ceased and then rose up out of the cupola, sliding across the turret roof to have a closer look at the problem.

  It was easy to see what was causing the Soviet tank to hang up.

  The impact had displaced one of the bottom plates, and the lip was now sat proud of the rest, and had hooked onto the top of Lohengrin’s glacis.

  He had left his comms attached, so whispered into his microphone.

  “Klaus, I’m still on the turret, so nice and steady. Ease forward about six inches.”

  The engine note changed and the vibrations showed that Meier was gently slipping the clutch.

  The weight held the KV in place for the briefest of moments until the engine overcame the resistance and Lohengrin pushed gently under the hull.

  “Good… whoa… enough.”

  The Tiger stopped and the engine tone dropped off…

  …and another engine tone reached Köster’s ears.

  “Scheisse! Engine off!”

  His instincts, honed to a razor edge in combat all over Europe, understood the situation immediately.

  He slid quickly backwards and held his hand over the top of the gunner’s hatch, demanding that it be filled as quickly as possible.

  “Smoke grenade… quick… no one moves, no one fucking breathes.”

  The grenade hit his palm, and was up and primed in the blink of an eye.

  He dropped it underneath the KV’s hull and those inside heard it roll and bounce down the front of the Tiger, before the silence indicated it had hit the ground.

  No one dared move… they hardly dared breathe…

  The sound of the heavy growling transformed into the distinctive sound of heavy diesel engines labouring to propel something large at high speed.

  Cursing his head position, Köster used every ounce of his self-control to avoid moving for a look at whatever it was, although, in his heart, he knew it was the enemy tank.

  The chemical smoke was intrusive, making his eyes smart and disturbing his attempts to breathe softly.

  Fuel leaking from the damaged ZSU was ignited by the grenade’s heat, adding burning fuel to the list of worries.

  On reflection, it probably saved them, as the smoke grenade petered out very quickly, and a light breeze sprang up, shifting the product of its labours away.

  Köster staved off a cough with the greatest of difficultly, all the time feeling fear test his bladder and bowel control… knowing how exposed he was… how vulnerable he was… how they all were…

  “Slow down… gunner… mark your target… enemy tank right four degrees… close range… hold your fire…”

  The IS-IV slowed and Kon stuck his head out of the hatch, straight into the line of sight of the infantry NCO, who waited for orders.

  “Wait a moment, Comrade. I need you up there.”

  He shouted into the tank.

  “Tank halt!”

  The IS-IV came to a swift halt and Kon made a decision.

  “Comrade Starshina… two of your men… quickly run up there and toss a grenade inside the fucking thing. I’d put a shell in it, but I’ve none to waste.”

  Ammunition stowage on the IS-IV, like all IS series vehicles, was at a premium, and Kon was not prepared to waste one on a dead tank.

  Two soldiers dropped off the tank and sprinted to the destroyed Tiger, light smoke bathing the front of the vehicle, and a darker, more pungent variety, wafting slowly from the open turret hatches.

  Inside Lohengrin, Schultz held a steel helmet containing a few oily rags, all of which were lazily burning, the crew’s effort to help paint a convincing picture of the Tiger’s destruction.

  The sound of someone climbing on the tank meant that Schultz moved slightly to one side and was replaced by Jarome, his Beretta-35 handgun held ready to obliterate the face of anything stupid enough to look inside the turret.

  Having been reminded forcefully of the need for speed, the rifleman simply primed his grenade and dropped it into the open hatch, rolling quickly away and onto the ground.

  The two soldiers ran away as fast as their legs could carry them, intent on putting distance between them and the likely effects of the grenade in a vehicle filled with ammunition.

  Both men stifled a squeal of terror as a grubby hand dropped a deadly egg grenade into their laps.

  Schultz, unable to think of anything better in the micro seconds available, turned the helmet over and forced it down over the grenade, dropping his body on top of the stahlhelm.

  There was not even time to utter a prayer.

  The grenade exploded, firing Schultz upwards into the breech of the 88mm, snapping two of his ribs and adding more injury to his head and face, knocking him out in the process.

  His leg broke as he was forced upwards and the limb was left behind, caught up under the gunner’s seat. Something had to give, and his tibia and fibula conceded the unequal struggle. His unconscious state prevented the inevitable screams of pain.

  The blast scattered the remnants of the burning rags, sending fiery sparks in all directions, some through the open hatch, adding to the evidence of an explosion for the watching eyes at the IS-IV.

  “Driver, move forward… follow the track.”

  The IS-IV leapt forward, almost sending three of the riders flying.

  “Remember we have passengers, Leonid!”

  Kartsev was an impeccable driver, but the new clutch configuration was, in his own words, a bitch from hell.

  Leaving the two ‘dead’ tanks in its wake, the IS-IV moved on towards the outskirts of Knickh
agen, now totally abandoned by the Legion and home only to a few hardy German residents.

  Köster decided that he could now breathe again and risked a gentle movement of his head, catching the last moment of the IS-IV’s presence before it disappeared from sight.

  His sigh of relief was audible to those inside the tank, and brought forward a rush of words loosely based around two themes.

  “Has the bastard gone?”

  “Max is hurt bad!”

  Köster stuck his head into the turret and winced at the sight of Schultz’s mangled leg.

  “That’s got to fucking hurt!”

  Jarome, who was figuring out how best to move the insensible loader, could only agree.

  “He’s out for now, so best we get him moved before he comes round or they’ll hear his screams in Berlin.”

  “Dolf, keep an eye open whilst…”

  “He’s out cold. Broke his arm at least in that impact.”

  “Right… Klaus?”

  “Ok, I’ll do it,” and the hatch opened up enough for the driver to look out for approaching trouble.

  Köster slipped inside the tank, careful not to step on anything that might object.

  He and Jarome managed to organise the broken leg and propel the loader up and out of the turret, where Jarome fished some medical equipment out of the turret bin.

  “Right, let’s drop that heap of Russian shit off our beautiful Lohengrin, and get out of here quick as we can. Anything, Klaus?”

  “Nothing. Engine sound has disappeared, so either he’s close and silent or moved off. It went bit by bit, so I think he’s gone away.”

  Acting on instinct, Köster made the call.

  “Start her up, Klaus. On my mark, slow reverse, full left.”

  The Maybach roared, and those that could, even Jarome, spared a look in the direction that the huge Russian tank was last seen.