Impasse (The Red Gambit Series)

by Gee, Colin

  Braun’s force was suddenly relieved of pressure as his opposition became aware of the greater threat posed by Alma.

  Accepting the casualties of a swift attack, the main Legion assault smashed into the Alsatian town, and overran the enemy defensive line, scattering units in all directions.

  Some withdrew down Route 47, immediately coming into contact with vehicles from the 412th Mechanised units that had been split off and sent to bolster Brumath.

  The traffic jam became a bloodbath as Uhlmann, then Knocke, ordered an artillery attack on the disorganised Soviets.

  The Legionnaires of Alma pressed close, so close that a handful of casualties were caused by friendly fire, but the net result was the Brumath fell in less than half an hour.

  Consulting the map, Knocke ordered Alma to take Route 140 to the north-east, aimed at Weitbruch, but always watching for an opportunity to fall upon the force that had given Braun such a hard time.

  Knocke’s own force was ordered to advance and hold position on Braun’s units, although Knocke expected that he would move his men on quickly.

  As per plan, one platoon of tanks and two of infantry moved to the south of the river, acting as a covering force.

  The Allied artillery was called off, its work of butchery near complete, and Alma pushed forward again.

  Senior Sergeant Ivan Balyan could not believe his bad luck.

  This was not his fight. He’d just taken the opportunity offered by his recent wounding to travel south to visit his brother, Igor.

  His own unit, 1st Guards [Motorised] Sapper Brigade, was part of 1st Red Banner and had seen extensive action in recent weeks.

  Wounded during an air raid near the Hunte River, Balyan was patched up and took advantage of eight days leave to visit his younger brother’s anti-tank unit in Alsace.

  The Legion’s whirlwind attack, and the frenzied defensive efforts of the Soviet commanders, saw him temporarily assigned to the AT company salvaged from 3rd Guards Tank Corps and absorbed by the Cavalry Corps until, as the NKVD Lieutenant had shouted as he waved his pistol in all directions, Balyan was otherwise ordered.

  Sat to the left of the deadly anti-tank gun, Balyan operated a covering DP machine-gun, his job to ensure that enemy infantry did not overrun the gun and crew. It also provided him with an excellent view of his brother, who would act as one of the loaders on the BS-3.

  A few had been salvaged from the destruction of the Corps; others had been acquired from units similarly savaged.

  The 100mm BS-3 had been acquired by accident, the weapon, prime mover, and ammo carrier, all found in perfect condition at Dingsheim, north-west of Strasbourg.

  Igor Balyan’s ‘new’ officer had no hesitation in acquiring the killer weapon and, as one of his best men, the younger Balyan found himself assigned to its crew.

  Fig#97 - The Battle of Brumath, Third assault and Soviet counter-attack, 4th December 1945.

  3rd Guards Tank Corps had gone into combat with 76.2mm Zis-3s, and most of them lay smashed or abandoned in Alsace.

  The Soviet anti-tank gunners, as always masters of camouflage, waited patiently as target after target emerged from Brumath.

  The order was given and, as the sky was filled with the white light of flares, the one and a half companies opened fire.

  The 100mm’s gunner knew his craft and targeted a Panther tank moving behind the first wave, clearly faster than the rest, but also quite clearly being skilfully manoeuvred from cover to cover by a man who knew his business. The extra aerials the vehicle sported helped in his decision making.

  The shell had taken the Legion tank in the lower hull side, immediately under the turret.

  The tank lazily coasted to a halt, and flames could be seen quite clearly through the round hole that marked the penetration point of the solid shot.

  Men, uniforms smoking, or worse, emerged from the stricken tank to be met by fire from infantry weapons and, although none were killed, two of the men clearly staggered away wounded.

  The Soviet artillery added to the defence, engulfing the advance of Alma with Katyusha rockets, and shells from a 203mm Howitzer company.

  One such huge shell descended on a Legion halftrack and left little of the vehicle and its twelve-man crew behind.

  The effect upon the Legion soldiers was almost tangible, the veteran Red Army soldiers sensing immediately that a blow had been dealt, which immediately caused them to redouble their efforts.

  The Legionnaires still attacked, but with less focus than before.

  The artillery of both sides repositioned, removing that element from the battle temporarily, but the anti-tank guns, a pair of SU-100’s, and the repositioned Pershing continued to flay the Alma soldiers.

  More Soviet tanks resisted Knocke’s flanking move, and that too came to a halt.

  Knocke understood that the seesaw battle had, once again, tipped in favour of the enemy, and sought a way to snatch the initiative back.

  “Berta-One, Berta-One, Anton-One, over.”

  Knocke repeated the message, although he suspected he would do so in vain.

  There would be no reply, for the Balyan’s BS-3 had killed Uhlmann’s tank with its first shot.

  He closed his eyes in a brief plea to higher authority and spoke to the next in line.

  “Caesar-Zero-On...”

  The 122mm struck the Tiger’s gun mantlet, shaking everything from radio to man, but not penetrating, although the hot glow of its strike made it through the armour to the left of the gunner’s sight.

  “Crew, report in.”

  “Driver ok, engine fine, Sir.”

  “Loader ok and ready, Herr Oberfuhrer!”

  “Gunner, weapon up and ready, S-S-Sir.”

  The last report betrayed the fright the man had just received.

  Meier reported in again.

  “Willi’s dead. He’s just dead.”

  Eyes dropped to take a look and the man was clearly that, eyes open and distantly fixed, head lolling back beyond the point of comfort.

  “Driver, reverse and left, gunner sweep centre to right.”

  The Tiger moved immediately, the white-hot trail of another 122m shell punching the air where Knocke’s tank had been a moment before.

  “Target tank, Stalin type, nine hundred metres. Halt!”

  “ON!”

  “FIRE!”

  Nothing.

  “Again.”

  Still nothing.

  “Driver, reverse and left again. Gunner, fix it now.”

  Immediately the gunner spotted the problem and repaired the linkage issue caused by the direct hit.

  He waited until the tank stopped moving again.

  “Target tank, Stalin type, nine fifty metres.”

  “Fire!”

  The 88mm recoiled as it spat its deadly shell in the direction of the enemy vehicle.

  The target was concealed by a shower of white-hot sparks as shell met armour plate.

  “HIT!”

  “Well done, gunner. Again.”

  Knocke observed as the Tiger’s gunner put an 88mm right on the money, the IS-III again erupting in a cascade of tortured metal.

  The monster shrugged off the hit, and put its own shell in the air.

  Knocke smiled as the enemy shell tore high and wide.

  “Again.”

  Knocke watched as another shell struck the Stalin tank, the tracks disintegrating. Even at that distance, and in the weird light of a night battle, Knocke could observe two of the heavy track links scythe through a group of supporting infantry, metal tearing flesh in an unforgiving fashion.

  “Again. Between the tracks.”

  The IS-III, hit whilst attempting to move, had exposed its wounded side sufficiently for ‘Lohengrin’s’ gunner to make a telling hit but the light suddenly went and he baulked sending a shot into darkness.

  “Lost target!”

  Knocke rejected the flare pistol, knowing he would illuminate himself more than the target.

  One of
Alma’s mortar crews did the work, tossing illumination almost perfectly, so perfectly that the other tanks adjacent to the IS-III became immediately apparent.

  “Got the schwein. ON!”

  “Fire!”

  Knocke ignored the break in procedure.

  The 88mm took the heavy tank just above the nearside front road wheel.

  Deflected upwards by the bulk of the floor plate, it entered the fighting compartment, moving through the driver’s seat and striking the turret ring. Again deflected, the armour-piercing shell passed through the commander’s body before striking the back wall of the turret and exploding.

  “Well done, gunner. New target, left eight, range nine forty.”

  The IS-III was clearly dead, and now provided excellent illumination of the surrounding area, revealing a cluster of four adjacent tanks to the Tiger’s gun.

  Knocke went through the motions of tank commander automatically, aware that the crew around him were a special group of men, a team, welded together in adversity.

  The gunner drew his critical eye and he took in the man’s decorations, including the shiny new Croix de Guerre.

  Something clicked in his mind, and he spoke his thoughts.

  “Ah, Lohengrin.”

  Köster smiled.

  “You remembered, Oberfuhrer.”

  “Target tank, nine hundred.”

  “Fire! Indeed. Général St.Clair spoke of little else for some time... Sergeant Köster?”

  Posed as a question, the acting loader could only grin and nod as he ejected the smoking shell case and slotted another home.

  “Target tank, left six, nine hundred. I’ll give you your Tiger back as soon as possible, but for now, you’re stuck with me.”

  A shell dropped next to the Tiger, the clatter of metal fragments sounding like a rain shower on the vehicle’s side.

  “Target tank, eight seventy.”

  “Fire! Driver, relocate, forward and left.”

  ‘They’re moving forward!’

  Burning tanks and vehicles littered the ground east of Brumath.

  A line of tanks and half-tracks indicated the high-water mark of the Alma advance, to the east of them numerous fires betrayed the price the Soviet defenders had paid to stop them.

  Fire illuminated the battlefield, outdoing the efforts of the moon and stars, whilst producing smoke that tried hard to smother the battlefield.

  The night was sometimes clear, the next moment the men on the ground could see no more than a few feet in front of them and, often, found themselves choking in thick acrid smoke.

  The artillery and mortars of both sides, now in new positions, added to the creation of a living nightmare.

  Knocke was correct in assessing that the Soviet force was advancing again, but could neither assess its strength nor objective, although he could take a guess at the latter.

  After a radio exchange with the Alma’s commander, St.Clair, he understood that things were out of control. The units of ‘Normandie’ were all stretched beyond their normal limits, and finding well organised and aggressive defence turned into counter-attacks, almost in the old SS style.

  Radio messages from hard-pressed units brought more and more contact reports, building a picture of a growing Soviet presence on the field; certainly one well in excess of the intelligence reports.

  Again, leaving the crew of ‘Lohengrin’ to fight the enemy to his front, Knocke concentrated on the bigger picture, pencilling marks on his map and rattling out an order here and there.

  The tank moved unbidden, forward and left, angling itself behind a ramshackle wall.

  The 88m roared; the crew celebrated another kill.

  Knocke heard all and gathered everything in the background of his mind as he concentrated on the radio messages; one message in particular, that spoke of a disaster in the making.

  ‘Schiesse verdamnt!’

  One of his units was in dire need and Knocke acted immediately.

  “Gun, cease fire. Driver, reverse back to the track and then swing north-west. Best speed, Meier, best speed.”

  Köster took up his seat, blowing out his cheeks and rubbing his aching arms, sparing the Legend a quizzical look.

  The Tiger surged forward up the track, Meier coaxing the very best out of the Maybach engines that propelled the fifty-six ton tank according to his will.

  “Part of Martha’s about to be overrun, and we’re all that can stop it, Sergeant. Ammo?”

  “Mostly HE now, Oberfuhrer. Nine AP shells only... and we don’t have a logistics train with us.”

  Tannenberg was away to the south, and neither Camerone nor Alma had any Tigers on their strength.

  Knocke, in a way that only Knocke could carry off to perfection, spoke with conviction.

  “Nine will do the job nicely.”

  ‘Lohengrin’ did not let them down.

  “Martha-Two-Two, Anton-One, nearly with you. Hold on. Over.”

  One of Camerone’s flak units had moved up with the Alma, and it was their cry for help that Knocke had heard.

  “Driver, turn right fifty metres. See that clump? In behind that, left side.”

  The Tiger took the turn, and Meier skilfully dropped Lohengrin in on the left side of the clump of trees.

  ‘Not a moment too soon!’

  “Numerous enemy to front. Gunner, target tank, left eight, four hundred.”

  The electrics whirred, bringing the 88m online and filling the gunner’s sight with the green metal side of an IS-II.

  “Target tank, four hundred.”

  “Fire!”

  The solid shot struck home fatally.

  “Gunner, target tank, right three, four hundred.”

  “Target tank, four hundred.”

  “Fire!”

  Like automatons they worked, smashing the IS-II’s in turn. The fifth shot was a total miss, and two targets needed a second AP shell to ensure the kill.

  The solid shot came and went, and then HE was used, with no chance of penetration, not that the Soviet tankers knew that.

  Having lost six of their number to the single enemy tank, the tank unit lost heart and started to fall back, hastened along by the spectacular impacts of 88mm high-explosive shells.

  Blagoslavov’s command had been reinforced and Knocke had fallen upon the flank of a heavy tank company, just in time to save his Flak unit.

  “Well done, Kameraden, damned well done.”

  The crew of Lohengrin had added another chapter to the tale of their exploits, and it would spread and grow, the more so because the commander of Camerone had fought the tank for most of the battle.

  “Eighteen HE shells left, Oberfuhrer.”

  “Then I’ll ask no more of you and your men today, Sergeant.”

  Knocke had spotted an infantry command vehicle behind a barn two hundred metres away.

  “Your tank, Sergeant Köster... and thank you.”

  Making sure the crew could all hear him, he continued.

  “Gentlemen, it’s been a privilege. Get yourselves back and sorted. When this is over, we’ll speak again.”

  “Now,” Knocke braced himself on the cupola to address Köster and prepared to pull himself out, “Get your tank fit for action and your men rested.”

  “Zu befehl, Oberfuhrer.”

  Knocke found himself at the command vehicle of the 2nd Battalion, 1st RDM, being briefed on the unfolding disaster by a wounded Commandant Emmercy.

  Clearly, there were more Soviet formations, tank heavy ones at that, than they had expected.

  The Red Army had counter-attacked in strength from the north, and Alma was being forced out of Brumath, electing to withdraw through choice, and with control, rather than risk being driven out in a disorganised fashion.

  Knocke, presented with a full size map properly annotated, acted immediately, issuing orders to get his command out of the growing disaster around Brumath.

  The Legion would retreat in a controlled fashion, and regroup south and southwest of Bru
math, shortening the line.

  Braun’s force had already moved back over the river while it could, orienting defensively to halt any attempt to cross, as well as protect the approach from Hœrdt.

  Elsewhere, the Legion assaults had been blunted in a bloody and expensive fashion, the cost in men and materiel high on both sides.

  However, it was at Brumath, and to the east, that the greatest sacrifices had been made.

  The 412nd Mechanised Brigade lost all but seven of its tanks, and a quarter of its infantry lay dead upon the field.

  One in ten of the Alma lay dead, other units that had been in support equally savaged.

  Losses in Legion equipment were huge, worst in tanks and SP guns.

  And Uhlmann was missing.

  It had been an extremely difficult night.

  Rest did not come for many at the French First Army Headquarters.

  Throughout the night, the Legionnaires and GIs of the Corps D’Assault laboured against growing odds, mostly without gain, and always at cost.

  Each and every assault had been stopped in its tracks, although the Soviet strength grew as that of the Corps D'Assault declined, the hospitals and dressing station full to overflowing with the injured legionnaires and GIs of the US supporting forces.

  Command Group Normandie had taken the brunt of the serious fighting and remained the heaviest engaged of the three groups. The 16th US Armored Brigade was in reasonably good shape, despite the fact that it had tangled with some very serious Red Army tank formations. Alma was mauled, as was Camerone.

  Command Group Lorraine had fared much better. Tannenberg was relatively intact, but was spread thin in an effort to relieve the pressure on its comrades from Normandie.

  Sevastopol was moving to take over some of Tannenberg's ground, so her sister unit could close up again.

  Command Group Aquitaine had the lightest load, and it was presently being manoeuvred into positions where it could take over from Camerone's decimated units, supported by the arrival of the 7th Regiment Tirailleurs Algerie from Corps reserve.

  Général d’Armée De Lattre received an extremely difficult phone call, the more so as despised the man who had made it.