Winter Storm (16 page)

It was
Guderian’s gut instinct not to take the road less traveled that would make all
the difference that night. Model had a clean shot at the bridge at Alexin, but
it was simply too far south to matter. What he really wanted was Serpukhov, and
to get there, the roads less traveled would be inviting even more delays than
the mud on the main road had forced upon them. So he decided to stay the
course, his eyes fixed on the solid dark line on his map from Tula to
Serpukhov. That was where he wanted to go.

Yet
just down that road, the Germans were going to meet up with yet another Soviet
Tank Brigade, the men and tanks that had first bushwhacked 4th Panzer Division
two weeks earlier. It was Mikhail Katukov, who had moved north, swinging east
of Tula, and then up to join the armored corps and become its third tank brigade.
He had 32 T-34’s now, picking up stragglers from the 3rd Corps as he came. He
also had 11 KV-1s, and Gusev’s battalion had over 30 older BT-7s. And he had
something else with those T-34s, men named Samohin and Lavrinenko who knew how
to use them, squeaky wheel and all.

That
night, another man came on the scene, providing the answer to what the Germans
would now push up that road. His unit had arrived from the south, up the rail
line from Orel that the Germans had been feverishly converting for a supply
corridor. The tanks were fresh off the rail cars at the old copper mine spur
that the Russians had once used to rush troops to this sector. The other half
of Hoth’s generous gift to Guderian had finally arrived with Westernhagen’s 101st
Heavy Panzer Brigade. If the Russians thought they had more than enough
with the Lions roaring with the 7th Panzer Division in Tula, over 100 more had
just come on the scene, for the brigade quite literally had ‘the Lion’s share’
of all the heavy tank production Germany had managed in the last two months.
And with them was another man who knew how to fight with those tanks—Kurt
Knispel.

Part VI

Malakhovo

“I am sometimes the fox and
sometimes the Lion.

The whole secret is knowing
when to be the one or the other.”

―
Napoleon Bonaparte

The
gritty Sergeant was taking a very long look at the new
Russian tank captured in the previous day’s fighting, and all around him the other
German panzer crews were waiting for his studied appraisal. They had all seen
Knispel shooting in the practice drills, and were amazed at his ability to hit
distant targets with speed and accuracy that astounded them. The targets would
become real enemy tanks soon enough, and the men wanted to see what they would
be fighting up close.

The
T-34 had begun to appear in small numbers at first, but now the Soviet tank
brigades were fielding many battalions that were largely composed of between 24
and 36 of these new tanks. The Germans had been surprised that their 37mm AT
guns, and even the 50mm guns on many of their PzKfw IIIs could not hurt the
Russian tank, and that they were now receiving enemy fire from the new Russian
76mm main gun at much longer ranges than before. It was only the skill and
tactics of the more experienced German tankers that had allowed them to hold
their own against the T-34.

But
Knispel was not impressed.

He
climbed up on the captured vehicle, crept into the turret and sat there,
peering out through the view slots and optics. When he emerged, his commanding
officer, Lieutenant Hellmann, was there to take his report. He knew Knispel to
be a very sharp gunner, and a hands on operator when it came to the panzers.

“Well?”

“Two
man turret,” said Knispel, “just like all their older models. The tank commander
must be aiming the gun, and the optics are terrible—just a single periscope for
him, and not even a radio, at least in this one. I’ve been told the Russians run
these about in uncoordinated rushes—no wonder! I think they are still relying
on visual cues for maneuvers.”

“Maybe
so, but what about the gun?”

“Look
at it!” Knispel waved his hand dismissively. “I don’t think it can depress more
than a few degrees, which means they won’t be able to fight from reverse slope
hull down positions like we can. Given what I have seen, I would say this tank
will have very poor fire control. Our new panzers are superior in every respect.”

“Yet
the armor is fairly good, and sloped at 30 degrees,” said Hellmann. “Our Pak
37’s with the infantry cannot penetrate it. One Panzer Jager company reported a
battery hit one of these damn things over twenty times, and they could not kill
it.”

“Yes? Of
course the 37mm gun will not penetrate this frontal armor, but the guns we have
now will do so easily enough. And were they hit even once by the tank? You see
what I mean? Lousy fire control and poor optics. If my tank took a hit from an
enemy gun, they would be very lucky if they got a second round off before I
killed that little bastard. Yet this new tank couldn’t even hit the damn AT gun
once! I will make very short work of this T-34, rest assured. You know what
this tells me? They don’t have good situational awareness in this tank. So they
will not stop me from maneuvering to a position where I can easily kill them.
And even if they see me, they could not react quick enough to do anything about
it. Maneuver! I could beat this tank in a Panzer III, just like I beat all the
others. We should kill at least five or six of these for every one of our tanks
they get, and in a Lion, I think I will kill ten or twelve before they even
begin to bother me. That gun will not penetrate our frontal armor on the PzKfw-55,
so the tables are turned.”

Sergeant
Knispel’s sweeping rebuke of the T-34 was enough to bolster the morale of all
the crews who had gathered there to see the new enemy tank. With one cursory
inspection he had skewered the myth that the T-34 was the finest medium tank
ever built.

“But
what if they get a lot of these, Kurt?” said Hellmann. “I heard we had trouble
at Mtsensk a while back.”

“Then I
will get to kill a lot of them.” Knispel smiled. “Frankly, that is all they can
do—build so many tanks that they smother us. But where? Don’t we have most of
their factories by now?”

The
other tank crewmen laughed at that, but no one knew that the Soviets would
build merely 50,000 of these tactically inferior tanks, and possibly win the
war with them by so doing.

*

The
following morning Knispel was going to get to test his
pronouncements personally when his battalion moved up the main road through the
orchards flanking the small farming town of Octabyrskiy. The road ahead was
thick with mud, and the heavy Lion’s only made the situation much worse as they
struggled on through. After three kilometers of toil, taking more than an hour,
they reached the town of Malakhovo, nestled against the tree-sewn banks of a
river to the west, and fringed by orchards to the east where the main road
wound its way around the town. The terrain beyond was farmland, disappearing
into yet more woodland ahead.

The
Russians could see the Germans were slowly prying open a wedge along this road,
and that morning they determined to do everything possible to close it. Model’s
3rd Panzer was on the left, now fighting well west of Malakhovo, and
Langermann’s 4th Panzer was on the far right, engaged with the infantry of 3rd
Motorized Division about 5 kilometers east of the main road.

Up that
road came Knispel, riding with the vanguard of
Schwerepanzer 101
, and he
was soon to be treated like a most unwelcome guest. The Russian 5th Tank
Brigade now came charging out of the grey rain streaked dawn, surging down the
road from the north, and threw itself right on Westernhagen’s heavy battalions.
The Russian unit was known as the ABC Brigade, because of the names of the
three battalion commanders: Antonov, Borisov and Cherkin. It did not know what
it was about to encounter, and the Lions roared, most opening up at under 700
meters due to limited visibility, except for one tank, commanded by a ragged
Sergeant with a very keen eye.

Kurt
Knispel was keeping a close eye on the fringes of the town as his
platoon column moved up. He was looking at the condition of the streets, their
width and layout, the nature of the buildings there, and thinking how he might
maneuver to that side if the situation should warrant. He was in 2nd company,
and soon heard the crackle of a warning over his headset earphones—enemy tanks
ahead! It was like a dinner bell ringing in his mind, and he smiled, tapping
his driver on the shoulder.

“Jog
left,” he said quickly. “I want to get off this damn road and into that town.
The platoon will follow me.”

The
growl of the Lion’s engine was reassuring as they pivoted off the muddy road
and found better traction when they approached the town, where the locals had
laid down a lot of gravel in places to strengthen the road beds. Knispel had
seen the grey stones gleaming wet in the morning light, and knew that was where
he wanted to be—anywhere but on that muddy road where his heavy tank would
labor to move even a few feet.

“We
were like a herd of elephants back there,” said Knispel, “snout to tail on that
road, and just as slow. Now we’ve better ground under us. Head for that
alleyway there.” He had his head out the open top hatch of his Lion, scanning
the buildings on either side as they lumbered into the town. The four other
Lions in his Pride followed him, grinding on in his wake. It was then that he
heard the sharp crack of gunfire, and knew the enemy had finally arrived.

“That
was one of our 75’s,” he said, knowing the sound of the new German gun easily
enough. Three muffled reports followed, and Knispel listened, hearing two more
after that. Five enemy tanks had answered that fire, and he nodded to his gun
loader, Willi Brom. “A full battalion,” he said calmly. “Good hunting today
boys! Get to the northern edge of this town. That will give us the best angle
on the main road.”

Those
few minutes of listening had told Knispel where the enemy was, east of the
road, and approaching from beyond the high ground designated Hill 896 on his
map. There, another small town called Slobodka lay at the base of the hill on
its western slopes, and he had no doubt that the Russians would want that high
ground if they had any infantry support. A secondary road emerged from the eastern
fringe of the woods to the north, then ran along the flank of the hill between
the two towns. The enemy would use that road, he knew, and now he was
maneuvering to get into the best possible location to cover that approach.

The
rest of the battalion had turned right off the main road, heading for Slobodka,
and that was where the action had started when the Russians began to mount a
T-34 rush with Borisov’s battalion.

Knispel
squinted into the dawn, smelling rain on the wind, and deciding he would use
Malakhovo as an armored castle to try and break the enemy charge. For the main
road led north into that woodland, and he had little doubt that the enemy would
have a column there, possibly setting up in those woods to stop the German
advance. Then he saw tanks ahead, moving like grey shadows from the edge of the
woods. He descended into the dark interior of the heavy turret, shutting the
hatch above with a hard clank.

“That
house on the right,” said Knispel. “Take us right through the wall.”

The
driver gunned the engine, and the Lion surged forward, smashing easily through
the stucco and light brick wall, and clean through the great room to open a
hole in the opposite wall.

“All
stop,” said Knispel, watching through his periscope, and then opening the upper
hatch one more time to peer outside. He was back with a grin a moment later.

“They
won’t see us here for a good long while. I’ll traverse left ten degrees,” he
said calmly. “Load A.P.”

“Now?
They have to be three kilometers away Sergeant.”

“Willi,
the fight is on! Don’t make me give an order twice!”

“Sorry
Sergeant. Loading A.P. …. Gun Ready!”

Knispel
looked long and hard through the range finder, adjusting his optics slightly,
and then fired. The round was hot from the gun, a streak of molten lava as it
lanced out at the distant shadows. There came an explosion, and then Knispel
saw the enemy tank he had been gunning for burning,

“A
kill!” he said. “Traversing right—five degrees…. Willi?”

“Gun
ready!”

Another
round pulsed towards a distant enemy tank, at least two kilometers off, for
Knispel would become famous for these long shots, his keen eye for depth and
range excelling in such situations to make him the lethal killer he was. Later
in the war he would get a T-34 at just over three kilometers, a shot for the
record books, which he was even now inscribing with his name. None of the other
tanks in his platoon had fired, as their gun crews had not thought they could
hit or hurt the enemy at such range. But Knispel heard Hellmann in his headset,
shouting out congratulations.
“Two kills, Sergeant Knispel. Keep up that
good shooting!”

The
Sergeant was only too happy to comply.

The kills
were as much a shock to the enemy as they were to the other crews who saw them.
The T-34s halted briefly, as if they were trying to sight and find the enemy
that had attacked them, and then they began to put on speed, a rush of eighteen
to twenty tanks heading for the edge of Malakhovo.

“Fools
rush in,” said Knispel as he watch the scene through his range finder.
“Traversing right…” Another shot, another kill, the third in the space of five
minutes. The T-34s began firing furiously as they charged, and Knispel took out
one more tank before he barked out an order to maneuver.

“Reverse
engine… Back five meters!” The Lion had plowed right through the wall of an old
farm house, and Knispel had been firing from inside the building, through a
gaping hole in the far wall where the tank had smashed through as it came to a
halt. As they pulled back, the Lion was now completely invisible to the on
rushing enemy tanks, its hull and turret littered with broken chunks of mud
brick and shattered boards.

“Platoon!”
shouted Knispel over his radio. “Open fire!”

The
sharp crack of the 75s split the air, and dark smoke singed by red-yellow fire belched
from the muzzles of the tanks. Knispel’s long shots had brought the wrath of
the whole enemy battalion down on that corner of the village, and the buildings
all around them suddenly erupted with hits from the enemy fire. It was
Antonov’s battalion, coming down the main road through the woodland, just west
of Borisov’s advance on the high ground near Slobodka. Yet they had no idea
what they were now closing on, a line of five Lion’s at the edge of the
village, four visible, one hidden in the rubble of the broken farm house.

The
Sergeant had been silently counting, after watching the enemy close as he
ticked off the seconds. He adjusted the barrel of his Lion downward a few
degrees, as if he already knew where the Russian tanks would be when he
re-engaged.

“Driver,
forward again, five meters!”

The
growl of the big engine rumbled as the treads ground over the shattered plaster
and brick. The long barrel of the main gun emerged from the yawning hole in the
far wall, and Knispel was ready with his order to fire. Again the gun blasted
away, and this time it was a glancing blow on the target, the round striking
the frontal armor of the T-34 at an odd angle and scudding off in a wild
ricochet.