Winter Storm (14 page)

Guderian
was under no illusion that the battle would be as easy as he intimated to his
Korps commander. He shrugged, tightening his overcoat against the cold. This
was nothing, he knew. We will learn what cold really is if we fail to get to
Moscow before the first snows of winter.

“Leo,”
he said, addressing von Schweppenburg with a different tone in his voice now,
almost as if the use of the other man’s first name was a sign that what he now
said was to be his real mind on the campaign, with all bravado and posturing
aside. “Even if we do get Tula,” he said, “then we’ll still need another long
drive from there to Moscow, and to do that we’ll have to get over or around the
Oka River.”

“There’s
no getting around it,” said von Schweppenburg. “It will surely be defended, and
every map I’ve consulted shows much heavier woodland the minute we cross.”

“Yes,”
said Guderian. “Here we at least had the option to move off road while the
ground was still firm. Yet if we do manage to get over that river, something
tells me we will be road bound from that point on. The enemy will know that,
even as I do. They’ll fight to block every road they can. It’s taken us ten
days to get from Mtsensk to Plavsk. I can only imagine what things will be like
closer to Moscow. So if you do break through, move quickly. Take ground fast.
We might get kilometers under our belt now that could cost us days or weeks of
fighting if the enemy gets established again. We must get over that river as
soon as we possibly can.”

“Where?”
asked Schweppenburg. “Serpukhov?”

“That is
the most direct crossing, but yes, it will likely be the place they defend
first. East of that Kashira presents another opportunity, and also a good road
from there to Moscow. If we don’t get either one, then the only other place to
cross is Kolomna. It would mean we move even further east, and Ryazan will be
on our flank—another place they’ve been using to muster reinforcements.”

“The
problem is this,” said von Schweppenburg. “Getting to that river is one thing,
holding the right flank as we move there is another. We’ve very little
infantry, barely enough to hold the line from Orel to Tula. It would seem to me
that Hoepner’s axis of attack is much more promising. He will have infantry on
both sides, and a much shorter route to Moscow—only half the distance we will
have to go.”

“And
yet,” said Guderian, “Every division they deploy here against us is one less
they can put in front of Hoepner.”

Von
Schweppenburg pursed his lips, hearing the real truth now in what Guderian was
saying. The man knows we’ll never get to Moscow on this road, he thought, but
he can’t very well say that now, can he. There are some roads that should not
be taken, he thought. And I think this is one of them.

“Leo,”
Guderian said again, his voice hushed now. “Can you get over that river?”

Von
Schweppenburg smiled. “I will see that Langermann knows what he is to do come
nightfall,” he said. “Now then… I’d better go light a fire under Model. He’s a
real thoroughbred, that one. If anyone can get over that river, he’ll lead the
way.”

The
3rd Tank Corps was one of the first to adopt the new
structure that the Soviets hoped would eventually win the war. It was a large
formation, with two tank brigades, an armored cavalry brigade, but with a full
Motor Rifle Division attached. What would have been the third tank brigade had
each of its three battalions distributed to the three rifle brigades in that
division. So in effect, it had the same material composition as a new tank
corps in the old history, only it was two brigades stronger in motorized
infantry.

The
Corps was arriving piecemeal over the tortuous rail net serving Tula. Coming
from the northeast in the depot cities of Ryazan and Kolomna, the rail net
provided no direct connection to Tula. Instead the lines snaked through Kashira,
then ran north and west before finding the main rail from Moscow to Serpukhov.
The line would then turn south, running with the main road for a while before
diverting slightly east through the town of Yasnogorsk, some 20 kilometers
north of Tula. It was here that the Armored Cavalry Brigade detrained, along
with most of the Corps artillery. The two tank brigades were following this
same route, but had not yet arrived.

Further
east, the motor rifle division had been forced to take another route, down from
Kashira to Venev. From there the line ran much further south before branching
off to approach Tula from the southeast. Yet the urgency of the hour found the
troops detraining at Venev, then mounting their trucks to motor due east where
the fighting was already underway.

The
Siberian Guards, and the best infantry units of the 1st Special Rifle Corps,
had all fallen back the previous day, racing north into the sprawling built up
areas of Tula to prevent the Germans from storming in and taking the place in a
coup de main. But Funck’s 7th Panzer Division had simply bypassed the city to
the west, and on his left, Model was also racing north with the aim of securing
a vital bridge over the Oka River at Alexin.

The
Ghost Division had swept through Fedorovka, and then found the Siberians
arriving at Leninskiy, which was a town about the size of Plavsk some 10
kilometers northwest of Tula. There the infantry of KG Rolm dismounted and
engaged the enemy, with their principal intention being to cut the vital rail lines.
But what the Germans really wanted was control of the main road that led north
from Tula to Serpukhov.

Guderian
had determined that, if he threw his Panzers directly at Tula, they would
certainly become embroiled in a long urban fight for the city. The lessons of
Mtsensk and Plavsk were still fresh in his mind, and the sudden breakthrough by
7th Panzer Division had given him back a mobile battle. Now he wanted to
exploit that opportunity by getting as far north as he could.

In so
doing, his thrust was also flanking and enfilading the Siberian 4th Cavalry
Corps on his immediate left, and the Soviet 5th Army defending at Suvorov
further west. Fearing envelopment, both these formations were already
disengaging from their defensive positions and falling back to the north towards
the Oka River. So the maneuver had certainly shaken things loose in the enemy
camp, but, as von Schweppenburg had warned, he also needed a way to supply his
spearheads if he sent them for the vital river crossing at Serpukhov. To do that,
he needed to control the main road. There would be one segment of the supply
line leading south that would remain difficult, west of Tula, but he reasoned
that could be managed by establishing a depot in that area.

Von
Schweppenburg still had his misgivings about the plan. “Bypassing Tula sounds
inviting now,” he said. “We are both old horse soldiers at heart, and we like
to feel the wind when we move. But mark my words, the Russians will build up
strongly in Tula, and it will serve as a launching place for counterattacks
against our flank as we move north. So if we do this, we need infantry. It will
not be sufficient to simply screen off Tula. We need to get into that city, and
take positions that can be strongly held. We are already fending off attacks
here.” He pointed at the map. “And there are new forces arriving north and east
of the main road.”

“I will
get support on your tail end as soon as possible,” said Guderian. “The 29th
Motorized has come up. At the moment, they are pushing the Russians back and
away from Plavsk, where they have been very stubborn. After that, I can send
them north to secure that area you describe. Just get north, as far and as fast
as you can. Get control of that main road!”

That
was the plan, but at that moment neither man expected a full Soviet Tank Corps
to be assembling like a bad storm to their northeast. General Zhukov was
directing the defense now, and though he was more than unhappy with Kirov’s
order to commit the 1st Siberian Shock Army this early, he was going to do
everything possible to stop the Germans south of the Oka River.

3rd
Tank Corps was the hammer he reached for, and it was now preparing to strike
its first blow, the first time in the war that the Germans would be faced with
a fully assembled mobile corps equipped with new T-34s. He wanted as much of an
armored fist as he could get, and so orders were also given to Mikhail Katukov
to bring what remained of the 4th and 11th Tank Brigades north to augment this
corps. They reached the munitions factory district in the eastern segment of Tula
on the morning of September 12, fueling up and taking on much needed
ammunition.

Further
north, it was the Cavalry Brigade that would be the first element of the new
Corps to face off against the advancing German columns. It consisted of two motor
rifle battalions, a battalion of armored cars, and engineers in half tracks and
trucks, with support from a new Katyusha Regiment. Rockets had already darkened
the seas with their lethal striking power, and ever since, all sides in the war
had been busy with rocket technology. There were 24 BM-8s with 82mm rockets,
and 8 larger BM-13s, and the first unit to feel their bite was Reinhardt’s new
III Battalion of the Panzer Regiment. For all their thunder and bluster, and
the shock of the new weapon seen for the first time by the Germans in this
sector, the RS-82s did very little damage to the German armor.

That
night, Langermann’s 4th Panzer came up to relieve the Ghost Division in the
fight for northern suburbs of Tula, but Funck’s troops were simply too heavily
engaged to pull out. So it was decided that Langermann would push on up the
road, and attempt to drive off enemy incursions against that vital artery from
the east.

As for Model,
he saw the opening in the enemy line and went through it like a champion
fullback. Now he was racing north, and just after sunset, KG Westhoven’s 1st
Battalion of the 394th Panzergranadiers reached the bridge over a small
watercourse at Leninskiy, a town about five kilometers west of the road. Finding
it completely unguarded, they took the bridge, gaining the barest toehold on
the other bank of the river, but the alarm was raised and the startled troops
in the vicinity rushed to the scene. Men of the 422nd Flak Regiment began to
spray fire at the tiny incursion, but the real resistance would come from a the
men of the 156th NKVD Regiment, whose commander was already getting a bawling
rebuke for failing to have proper security on that bridge.

Behind
that single German battalion was KG Munzel, with two battalions of tanks, and
then the rest of Westhoven’s column. It represented a significant threat to
Alexin, which presented the only crossing point on the Oka the Germans could
reach on short order, with two good bridges. From there, the river ran almost due
north for over 30 kilometers until it bent east beneath Serpukhov. That town
was the real southern gateway to the Moscow inner defensive zone on Guderian’s
axis of attack, but there was still a very long way to go, even if it was
taken.

Further
northwest, the grenadiers of Hoepner’s 11th Panzer Division fought until well
after dark to secure Naro-Fominsk, while his 6th Panzer Division took Kublinka.
This was truly the most promising route to Moscow, and Hoepner’s spearhead was
now no more than 45 Kilometers from the Kremlin itself, while Guderian would
have to travel twice that distance, and fight his way over the Oka for the privilege
of making the last half of that drive to Moscow.

KG
Keller had shrugged off that Katushka attack and pushed on north, still
fighting for the main road, but the rocket attack was no more than hail before
the storm, which was now about to break. The men of the 7th Motorcycle Recon
Battalion would be the first to feel it, when the motor rifle brigades of 3rd
Tank Corps had finished assembling and moved west towards the main road. They
encountered the Germans in a heavily cultivated area that straddled the main
road on two sides near the hamlet of Octobirskiy. For the first time in many
days, the warning of enemy tanks rattled the German signals traffic. There were
29 T-34s in the battalion supporting the Russian infantry, and the attack was
coming right at the lead elements of Model’s 3rd Panzer at Leninskiy.

There
were a good many more tanks yet to come, for both tank brigades of the corps
had just detrained at Yasnogorsk. About nine kilometers northeast of Tula. Each
brigade had three battalions, and a total of 90 T-34s, 33 light T-60s, and
another 18 KV-1s. The Russians now had 282 tanks poised to make a daring night
attack, something the Germans had not seen since the early frontier battles in
Operation Barbarossa. Since that time, there had been very little enemy armor
in the field, but now third Tank Corps was on the scene with the bulk of all
the operational tanks available in the entire theater.

*

The
men of Burda’s Battalion, 4th Tank Brigade had been on the
road for some time now. After refueling in Tula, they skirted east of the town,
hearing the fighting all night as they moved slowly north.

“Where
are we going?” said Samohin, adjusting the straps on his ear flaps. It sounds
to me like the fighting is over there!” He pointed a gloved hand west, where
the glow from exploding artillery fire silhouetted the ragged edge of the town.

Dmitri
Lavrinenko shook his head. “That’s no place for our tanks,” he said. The
Siberians are in there, fighting tooth and nail for the city. Word is the
entire 7th Panzer Division is there, and the Guards are trying to hold them
off. As for us, we go north. There’s a new tank corps arriving, but they’re one
brigade light. Katukov got the word yesterday, and we’re now that third
brigade.”

“Suits
me fine,” said Samohin. “Where is this new corps?”

“Coming
down the road from Serpukhov, and the infantry detrained at Yasnogorsk.”

“Infantry?”
said Samohin. “All we need now are tanks, and as many as we can find. I’ve
heard rumors, Dmitri.”

“What
kind of rumors?” Lavrinenko was checking the stowage of his tank’s ammo, his
head half lowered through the top hatch of the T-34.

“The
Germans have a new tank, and it’s big! They say it has a much better gun too.”

“Who
told you this?”

“Just
talk I heard when we moved east of Tula. Siberians say the Germans put some new
heavy tanks into the fighting at the north end of the town. the anti-tank
rifles the infantry have are useless! And the 45mm AT Gun bounces right
off—this is what I heard.”

“Those
rifles always were useless,” said Lavrinenko. “Unless you know where to aim.
Infantry see a tank and just take a pot shot at it without thinking. I don’t
blame them, and that tank usually sees them too, and those machine guns can be
very troublesome. I’m surprised the Germans put armor into that town. I would
think they would want to push everything they still have up the main road.”

“That’s
what Katukov thinks,” said Samohin. “He says the Germans were after the bridge
at Alexin, but that will take them nowhere. It’s the bridge at Serpukhov they
need.”

“So now
you know where we’re going,” said Lavrinenko. “Yes, they’ll need that bridge,
and the long road behind it all the way back to Tula. That’s why they are
fighting so hard for the town now, but I don’t think they expected the
Siberians. We gave them a nice little surprise at Mtsensk, eh? I’ve got eleven
kills! That will teach them to be cautious on that road.”

“I’m
right behind you,” said Samohin. “The Major says my last shot was confirmed, so
that makes ten for me.”

“Good
for us both!” Lavrinenko closed the top hatch with a dull clank, and looked
around. “Now where is Yuri? He was supposed to look at that right front wheel.
It’s been squealing like a pig.”

Samohin
leaned on the tank, still listening to the battle for the city. “Hard to think
this is going on for a hundred miles over there. I heard we still have Kaluga,
but with the Germans near Alexin who knows how long we’ll hold that.”

“It’s
Moscow that matters,” said Lavrinenko. “That’s what Hitler wants now. I knew it
the moment they took Orel. They could have swung around Bryansk, and eventually
did, but someone out there wanted to try this road. I intend to make him pay
for that mistake. There are some roads you do not try, and this will be one of
them.”

“Did
you hear?” said Samohin. “Someone said the Germans took Mozhaysk, and pushed
right up the road towards Moscow. Why are they putting in this new Tank Corps
here. That is much closer to the capital than we are.”