Kirov Saga: Devil's Garden (Kirov Series) (2 page)

Wellman
was watching from the rear and now knew he had a real battle on his hands. He
had never seen such a violent reprisal from what looked to be a hand held
anti-tank weapon! He had seen an early prototype of the new
Faustpatrone
AT weapon for infantry, but it was still in development. It would be another
long year before this weapon, and its successors, became the
Panzerfaust
that was so effective for the Germans later in the war. Even that could fire no
more than 30 meters, but this new Russian weapon had knocked out his armored
cars with lethal accuracy at least 100 meters away! He immediately radioed back
for additional support.

“Becker?
Where are you. I need tank support on the coast road north of the rail yard.
The Russians are dug in and putting up quite a fight!”

“We’re
five miles behind you,” came the reply. “But we will hasten up as quickly as
possible. Get some artillery on them!”

It
was good advice, and Wellman cranked up his radio to get hold of Kersten’s
artillery battery, deploying north of the city for just this purpose.

There
was a brief lull in the action as Wellman sized up the situation. In ten
minutes time he had his A platoon chewed to pieces and all three armored cars
put out of action. B Platoon was in the oil tank farm to the left of the main
rail yard building, which looked to be the Russian strong point at the moment.
It was a good position, with excellent fields of fire in all directions and
little cover for infantry trying to advance across the rail yard. Who were
these troops? The volume of machine gun and automatic fire they could put out
was far beyond anything he had seen from Russian infantry before. Not even the
NKVD or Guards units were so lavishly equipped.

Under
other circumstances he might consider simply swarming the position, but the
rate of defensive fire coming from the building was intense. He reasoned they
must have a machine-gun platoon in there, and perhaps a few small AT guns. He
needed to put strong suppressive fire on the position to have any chance of
taking it with infantry. His only other option was firepower from heavy
weapons.

“Heintz!”
He shouted at a nearby sergeant. “Get the Schwere platoon up, and be quick
about it!”

Word
soon came in from the regimental headquarters under Franz Westhoven. His
column, dubbed KG Westhoven had met with similar stiff resistance on the main
road to the town.
“We are south of the salt lake now, and they have tanks
and APCs blocking the advance. I’ve lost two half tracks. This is a well
defended position. We will not be able to take it in an attack from march. I
suggest you bring up the remainder of your Kradschutzen battalion and then let
us plan a deliberate attack. I’m sending out the Cossacks to scout that low
hill south of the city. We may be able to work around that flank as well. Hold
on. Kertsen’s guns will be ready in five minutes.”

“They
should have been ready before we made contact, Generalleutnant Westhoven. We
underestimated the Russians here. They know there is nothing to stop us if we
take this place.”

“Then
take it we will,”
came the voice on the other end of the line.
“We have the entire regiment at
our disposal, Wellman. Plan your attack.”

Troyak’s
well positioned Marines had stopped the German advance cold, just as he had promised
Fedorov. But the 23rd Panzer Division was a tough and experienced formation.
They had fought their way across Russia for well over a thousand hard miles,
and this was just one more battle. Troyak had 180 men, lightly armed by modern
standards with just two tanks and a few APCs in support. The Germans had
considerably more at hand, and the battle was only just beginning.

Note:
Maps of these deployments and battles can be found at the writingshop.ws web
site.

Chapter 2

The
artillery started falling on the rail
yard ten minutes later. The first rounds were short, blasting the dense
railroad tracks and sending splinters and fragments of the wooden ties spinning
up into the air when they exploded. Soon the spotting rounds began to walk
forward, until the Germans found the range as one plowed into the roof of the marshalling
yard building with a loud crash.

“Stay
low!” Troyak shouted. He had expected this, and now he radioed back to the
Anatoly
Alexandrov
where Dobrynin was serving as a command and control relay
station.

“We
need you to find the German artillery and radio the coordinates, Chief. They’ll
cut my men to pieces in half an hour!”

The
rounds started coming in threes exploding just short of the building now, and
one hitting a big crate storage area there. But Dobrynin had the Mi-26 up just
off shore in the grey clouds, and it was using radar to track the arc of the incoming
German fire. The onboard computers easily calculated the location of the German
batteries, and minutes later the Chief was radioing back to Troyak with the
information.

The
Sergeant ran in a crouch, leaping behind standing crates when an artillery
round smashed the overhead roof and blew a good section away. Pale light
flooded in, illuminating the dust and smoke from the explosion. He was up and
running again, to the back of the building and out a door where he had
positioned his fire support teams. Now he stared at his map to cross index the
coordinates, frowning to see that the German artillery was well north of the
city, almost 7 kilometers out and well beyond the range of his 82mm mortars.
But he did have one 120mm 2B11
Sani
at hand, and it could put harassing
fire on the German guns and possibly suppress them, or at least force them to
withdraw out of range. That would buy them valuable time.

“Fire
at these coordinates,” he ordered. “You can just make the range, and pour it
on!”

The
sound of the rounds popping off was reassuring, though he knew the Germans
would quickly move their guns farther back. He made his way into the main
building, an enormous warehouse with rail spurs that would allow train cars to
be moved here for repairs. The northern quarter of the building had received
three direct hits, and a fire was burning there now. Yet his men were
disciplined, many veterans of the third Chechen war in this same region, fought
in 2018. They had been under fire before, and hunkered down with grim
determination.

Ten
minutes later the barrage lifted, and Troyak heard whistles and deep throated
shouts from non-coms on the other side. The Germans were making another ground
attack with infantry, trying to cross their half of the marshalling yard to an
island cluster of a few sheds and buildings about 100 meters from the main
Russian position. They moved quickly, running low, but even after reaching the
island they were soon disheartened to see that the artillery had not yet done
its job. The Russian Marines opened up again with their AK-74s and the rate of
fire they put out quickly stopped the German advance. Casualties were heavy,
and the Germans fell back across the tracks to take cover in and around a
number of old train cars there.

There
came a brief lull, and all they could still hear was the sound of their own
120mm mortar firing behind them. Troyak knew the rounds were pounding the
German artillery now, and the silence from the other side meant they had found
the range. He reasoned it would take them half an hour to move the guns out to
a position beyond the range of his mortar, but before that he would face yet
another challenge—German tanks.

They
heard the dull rumble coming from the north, and Troyak worked his way forward
to a good viewpoint, raising his IR assisted binoculars. He saw a column of
armor, five tanks advancing down the rail line just as the armored cars had
come. The gritty Sergeant wasted no time. He pinched his collar mike and gave
an order.

“Shilkov,
is your team ready?”

“Ready,
Sergeant.”

“Then
say hello to those tanks and let them know we are here!”

Shilkov’s
team was sitting behind an SPG-9 recoilless rifle with an effective range of
1300 meters using the 73mm PG-9VS shaped HEAT round. It could penetrate 400mm
of armor, and with good accuracy using a laser optical sighting system. The
Germans were about to get yet another nasty surprise.

*
* *

Oberleutnant
Wellman
had neglected to tell
Becker about the new hand held Russian AT weapon, but no fire could challenge
the German tanks as they moved up, some 600 meters from the main rail terminal
building—or so he thought. There came a sharp report and a streak of light from
what appeared to be a small caliber AT gun. The lead tank in Becker’s column of
five, a Pz III-L, was struck flush on its frontal armor by the HEAT round,
which easily penetrated, even after being reinforced with an additional 20mm
steel plate on top of the standard 50mm frontal protection. The Germans were
being hit with ordnance designed to defeat heavy modern day tanks with armor
over ten times the thickness of the Pz IIIs.

Wellman
was shocked when the first panzer went up, smoking and set afire by the sudden
hit. The Russian 37mm AT gun might penetrate 50mm of armor, but at the near
point blank range of just 100 meters. They had not lost any of the newer Pz III-Ls
with the extra 20mm steel plate to a 37mm gun since they deployed. The enemy
45mm AT gun was no better. Only a 76mm gun could have killed that tank, he
thought, but he could see no signs of enemy armor here, though Westhoven had
identified two tanks blocking the inland road to the south. His forward
infantry had not identified any large AT gun position, so this had to be a new
recoilless rifle. Two surprises in one day should have been quite enough, but
the third surprise was jaw dropping.

The
Oberleutnant watched, astounded, as two rockets came streaking out from the
Russian position, finding Becker in tank number two and putting an end to his
promising military career, and then smashing the number three tank for good
measure.

“Mein
Gott! Was werden sie schlagen mit uns?” What are they hitting us with?

The
Russians called it the, Mongrel, but NATO called it the AT-13 Saxhorn-2
Anti-Tank missile, with tandem HEAT rounds. The weapon had taken down modern
Israeli Merkava tanks in Lebanon, and so the relatively light armor of the
Panzer IIIs was no challenge. The Germans could have rolled up a heavy Tiger-I
or even one of their monster tanks from later in the war. It would have made
little difference. The missile would have blown through the 185mm armor of a
Tiger II with little difficulty.

Wellborn
was on the radio at once. “Westhoven? Come in. What is your situation?”

The
commanding officer had no better results on the inland road.
“Heavy
resistance! We can’t get armor into firing position. They’re hitting us with
something new. We’re waiting for the 88s, and then we’ll put ranged fire on
those tanks.”

“Same
here—some kind of rocket. They just killed Becker and three of his panzers!
Where is Kersten’s artillery? Why have they stopped firing?”

“They
were hit by mortar fire and fell back another two kilometers out of range.
We’ll get supporting fire back soon enough. And I’m calling for air support as
well.”

“Air
support? Way down here?”

“Meindel’s
Stukas are up over the Terek now. Just you wait and see what a few 500 pound
bombs will do!”

That
was good news, but Wellman had a strange feeling in his gut about this
engagement. “I don’t like this Generalleutnant. These weapons have neutralized
our advantage in armor. I tried two infantry assaults but the volume of
defensive fire is very heavy. We must have an MG platoon in front of us.”

“We
thought the same, but listen, Wellman. I know the sound of every Russian
machine gun we’ve ever seen. No, this is something new, and it’s some kind of light
machine gun. This is most likely a Guards SMG platoon.”

“Well
enough… But if the Russian infantry fights like this from here on out…” He did
not have to finish the sentence. Thus far the Germans had been able to handle
anything the Russian Army put in front of them, but Wellman had an inner
feeling that the law of overstretch was now coming into play. They were
reaching the high water mark for the tide of steel and fire that had swept into
Russia. The enemy was fighting hard at Stalingrad, and now they seemed to be
equally tenacious here, and at Grozny to the northwest.

A
Guards SMG platoon? Yes, that made better sense. Perhaps something more was
afoot here as well. He could feel it, sense it. Something was wrong with this
engagement. His troops should have been able to sweep into that rail depot in
an hour. Instead he lost six armored fighting vehicles and nearly a full
platoon of infantry. The rest of the column was coming up, but he ordered their
75mm Infantry gun to deploy further back and was planning to use it in an
indirect firing role. He took a deep breath, watching corporal Schmidt to his
left, who had been listening to the whole conversation. Wellman gave him a
sidelong glance.

“Don’t
worry, Schmidt. Did you think they would give us the road to Baku without a
good fight?”