Winter Storm Page 9

  “If you can put in a decent attack on the town, my division is in a good position to strike across that river to the north—that is if the rain is not too bad this afternoon.”

  “What about Loeper?”

  “He’s already engaged—put in a well organized attack further north that seems to be making some progress.”

  “Good, but we should not wait for daylight. We must attack tonight, and take Ivan while he’s settling in for supper!”

  “Agreed.” There was a glint in Model’s eye, for that was already what he had decided to do. “We will eventually get support from the remainder of the Panzergruppe, but it may be several days before they get here, or weeks. 17th and 18th Panzers are still well south of Orel. In the meantime, we cannot sit on out thumbs and let the Russians dig in. We must keep pushing.”

  Loeper’s division had run into two rifle brigades of the 1st Siberian Shock Army. They had come in by rail that very morning, taking a thin spur that ran from the main line up to a copper mine along the river near the small hamlet of Chrikovo. Now they were suddenly hit by six German battalions, the infantry dismounted and storming over the river to force the 9th Brigade back in some disorder. But near sunset, the sound of an infantry charge rolled over the misty fields, and the whole of the 329th Rifle Division, which had been in reserve just behind the river, was thrown at 1/20th Grenadier Battalion.

  The attack was well supported with artillery, and the battle was hot and furious, with the Germans forced back to the river by dusk, where they reorganized to put in a counterattack timed with the surprise attack KG Munzel was planning. All that afternoon, into the gloaming of sunset, the whole of 3rd Panzer Division had moved again, grateful that the enemy was on the run, or so they first believed. By dusk Model was up on the same hill Gruner had surveyed the ground from that morning, listening to the sound of battle in the low, flat valley below.

  He waited until Langermann’s attack hit Plavst head on, hoping to catch the Russians at dinner, but he found them digging in a row of stone houses at the edge of town, and it was clear this would be no easy fight. For a while, Model watched the stream of tracers from machine guns and tank fire at the edge of the town, and in the fading light, it looked as though the squat houses and barns were chunks of charcoal, as the edge of the town slowly began to burn.

  Gruner’s report had been very accurate, even his weather forecast. It had begun to rain more heavily in the late afternoon, and in places, pools of dirty brown water were forming on the tracks made by the division’s passing, the sodden ground becoming a thick, viscous mud. He saw a truck full of support troops get stuck, the men leaping out and putting their shoulders to the back of the vehicle as they labored to push it forward. He shook his head.

  How do the Russians do anything here, go anywhere in this endless country? There are so few good roads, and all the rail lines are useless until our construction battalions convert them to true European gauge. And now comes this damnable rain and mud. I’m a panzer leader. I make my bones with shock and maneuver, and under these conditions, we may soon find ourselves fighting the last war again, digging trenches, sewing mines and wire, and waiting for the artillery. This will not be as easy as OKW might think, yet the troops are still in good spirits, and they fight hard.

  With skilled honed in a score of engagements over the long summer, the German Panzergrenadiers put in a persistent, and effective attack. KG Seiden pushed into the town, fighting house to house, where the withering fire of their machineguns proved most helpful in suppressing the Russian infantry while the assault teams rushed forward, sprinting from low stone walls, across the muddy streets. By midnight they had pushed into the town center, with buildings blackened and burning on every side, and a thick pall of heavy smoke overlying the whole scene.

  The Russians were stubborn, and they fought hard, but they were not supermen. These were the Guardsmen who had already fought at Mtsensk days earlier, and then made the long grudging retreat up the main road through Chern and Gorbachevo to reach this place, tired, hungry and needing rest. KG Wellmann had his two battalions just north of the town, and in spite of their fatigue, the Guardsmen joined a regiment of the 328th Rifle Division and launched a midnight counterattack against Wellmann’s 2nd Battalion.

  That night there was intermittent fighting along the whole river line, extending some 20 kilometers north of the town. At dawn the Germans found out what they had run into, not simply the blocking force they had been chasing up the road, thinking to hold one last time at Plavsk, but now an entire new Soviet Army. Von Loeper had sent his grenadiers across the river only to run into the three divisions of the 17th Siberian Rifle Corps. In the town itself, the remnants of 5th and 6th Guards Rifle Divisions were still battling for the main square, and in the south, Kuzma Podlas was suddenly much more than he had seemed the previous day when the Germans had routed his unprepared divisions at the village of Ulyanovka.

  Kuzma Podlas had not come alone.

  His was the first rifle corps to arrive, tramping up the long road from Yevremov to the southwest, as there were no trains available on the main lines to Tula. He had boldly walked right into the teeth of the German advance earlier, and paid a very high price, but there were two more corps behind him, Morozov’s 57th, with a pair of fresh rifle divisions, and Dubkov’s 8th Cavalry Corps, with two cavalry divisions and the army artillery. The 1st Red Banner Army from the Far East Command, troops that had been slated to fight on the upper Volga, had finally arrived where the war mattered most, and now it would join the 1st Special Rifle Corps, and the 1st Siberian Shock Army. Sergie Kirov had bet heavily on those numbers, and the three ones were now massing like a brooding storm on Guderian’s front.

  Model was watching it come from the vantage point of Hill 864, even while Langermann of the 4th Panzer Division studied the situation from his outpost to the south. Little by little, an awareness was building that this was something much more than a temporary check. Things had been stacking up, like bad cards from a greedy dealer, one after another. First there was that unexpected bloody nose for Eberbach at Mtsensk, and for a man with a rubber nose, that was saying something. Those new Soviet T-34s were going to be a great deal of trouble if they were ever produced in numbers.

  Yet it was more than that, more than hubris, or the sudden appearance of new enemy hardware. There was something in the wind, something on the rain, and it was a difference Langermann and Model could both feel. The Russians were fighting now. They knew their backs were up against the wall, and they were fighting with a newfound will, sharpened with the edge of desperation.

  When the Siberian Guard Corps arrived the following day, the situation would suddenly turn from difficult to desperate for the Germans as well, prompting Model to make his plaintive call to Guderian…

  “We have hit a brick wall south of Tula,” he had said. “These are fresh troops, a new army, and they fight like wildcats. My men have been in active defense all morning, and still they come. We are holding out, but many of our positions have been swamped by these incessant attacks.”

  “Tanks?” asked Guderian.

  “Not many,” said Model, “but they do not even need them. I must be facing at least five strong rifle divisions, and they have good artillery support. Under the circumstances, any further advance is impossible, and I will need help—the sooner the better.”

  “Very well,” said Guderian. “Hold on. I will see what I can do as soon as possible.”

  That had always been enough in the past. The Generals had always been able to do something when difficulties were encountered, reach into their haversacks and pull out a new division, and Guderian knew exactly where he would look for one that day. Hoth was supposed to be right behind him, with two fresh Motorized Korps, and plenty of armor, and that was the man Guderian called, kicking the can further down the road.

  “I’m told you have all the new tanks, Hoth. Don’t be stingy! I need them south of Tula. Can you send me anything?”

  The G
eneral was very pleased when his appeal was answered without hesitation. “Seventh Panzer has been refitting since early August, and it received some of the newer tanks. I have much less opposition on my front, so you can have the entire division. For that matter, you can have Schwerepanzerbrigaden 101, as well. They are much closer to your operation than my main line of advance. I will cut the orders immediately.”

  Schwerepanzerbrigaden 101… thought Guderian. That was the new unit Halder had crowed about at the meeting, the Big Cats, as all the officers were now calling the new tanks starting to make their way to the front. That unit has the cream of all the new heavy tanks we have managed to build in the last several months. Well, now we will see how well they hunt. In the meantime, I have a battle on my hands, and I had better get forward to see what Model and Langermann are worried about.

  Mtsensk was one thing, but the action now underway would dwarf that engagement, and leave a lasting impression on Guderian for some time. For he could feel it too, feel it with some inner intuition that was an old tanker’s sixth sense. Things were changing.

  We are reaching the high tide mark, he thought, and the sea behind us is weary. After chasing the Russians for over a thousand miles, winning one engagement after another, the real war is now beginning for the 2nd Panzergruppe, and every man here who survives it will never forget these hours and days, for the rest of his life.

  Chapter 11

  Generaloberst Herman “Papa” Hoth would come to regret his generosity. A wizened and experienced officer at the age of 56, he nonetheless had a great deal of personal energy, and confidence in the deadly craft of armored warfare in which he specialized. He had led the XV Motorized Korps into Poland, ran on Guderian’s right shoulder in the mad dash across France. Now, as commander of 3rd Panzergruppe, he was moving up behind Guderian’s advance on Orel with seven divisions in two Motorized Korps. The German mobile forces were bypassing the stubborn Soviet defenses around Bryansk, threatening to create a pocket in the Russians did not withdraw, while also posing a growing threat to Moscow itself on this axis.

  For this operation, Hoth had grouped three divisions in each Korps, holding one in his Panzergruppe Reserve, the newly outfitted 7th Panzer. He had watched Rommel’s 7th Panzer outpace all others in France, and was elated when the ‘Ghost Division,’ as it was called, had followed him to Russia. It was to be one of the first regular Army Panzer Divisions to be refitted with Germany’s newest tanks. But in a moment of camaraderie, he had given the elite unit away.

  Hoth once had them all, the Leopards, Lions, and even a few Panthers added to the mix for early combat trials. Most were grouped together in the new 101st Heavy Panzer Brigade, a dreadful formation that contained all of Germany’s latest tank designs. There were 36 new PzKfw-35, Leopards, a fast, well armored tank with a new 50mm gun that was meant to replace the entire Panzer III series, and become the new recon tank of the Wehrmacht in all divisions. Next came a single medium battalion of 24 prototype PzKfw-V Panthers, all experimental vehicles at this point, yet a design that was to prove particularly effective for Germany’s mainstream medium tank. But the real thunder in the brigade was in the 48 PzKfw-55L Lions, monsters that would rival the legendary Tiger in ferocity in this retelling of events.

  7th Panzer was not so lavishly equipped, but it was lucky even to be on the list at this early stage. All the units in the elite SS Korps had been clamoring for the new tanks, and were getting them sooner than any other divisions. Hermann Goering had curried favor with Hitler, and secured a heavy battalion for his Herman Goering Panzer Division. And when it came time to use the last available tanks in the initial production run, Hitler personally chose Rommel’s old outfit, the Ghost Division, which was given 36 Leopards in the light battalion, a full medium battalion of 36 newly designed PzKfw-IVF tanks, with a much better long barreled main gun. And a single heavy company of 18 Lions.

  When Guderian ran into the tough 1st Siberian Shock Army south of Tula, his plaintive call to Hoth for support saw him send both of these newly outfitted units over to 2nd Panzergruppe, mostly because all his other divisions were much further west, and not following Guderian as Halder had promised. Now he regretted his generosity, as his advance had been pulled further to the left, and he soon found himself involved in an entirely new operation, with all thoughts of supporting Guderian’s headlong drive for Moscow suddenly forgotten.

  *

  As it so often happened in war, events on the ground savaged the carefully laid plans of the General Staff at OKW. The Soviet Smolensk defense group had been encircled, and what looked to become a protracted battle to reduce it was aided by a frantic and desperate attempt by the Russians to break out of the trap.

  “They would have been much wiser to sit in their prepared positions and force us to pry them out,” said Halder. “As it stands, we have them on the run, and out in the open now.”

  “They tried to force a breakout along the main road to Moscow,” said von Bock, “but we stopped them. The early reduction of that force now allows us to plan an even bigger kesselschlacht centered on the city of Kirov.”

  All the other Generals around the table knew Hitler would love that city delivered to him before winter set in. The Russians had built a heavily fortified line, the Kirov Line, stretching from Vyazma astride the main road to Smolensk, and south 130 kilometers to the big industrial bastion of Kirov. From there it stretched another 90 kilometers south to Bryansk, another vital hub of industry and rail communications for the entire Western Front. Both these cities had been the object of German attention in the latter stages of Operation Barbarossa, which was to have concluded with their ultimate capture. But the Russians had poured enormous resources into that defensive belt, while also stubbornly holding out just north of Smolensk.

  In the middle south, when Guderian’s 2nd Panzergruppe broke out of Kiev, the experienced General took one look at the map and determined he would make no attempt to throw his panzers at Bryansk. The city was bisected by a marshy banked river, and fringed on every side by thickets of woodland.

  “That is work for infantry,” he muttered to his Chief of Staff when he got the order to drive north on Bryansk. “I’m going to bypass the damn place and take Orel instead. The terrain there is much more open, and suitable ground for fast mobile operations. And Orel is served by a good rail line all the way back to Kiev. Once we convert that, it will become the primary supply conduit for any further operations.”

  It was his opinion that once enfiladed by his swift moving panzers, the Russians would be forced to give up Bryansk, and losing its heavy southern anchor, this would in turn cause the collapse of the entire Kirov Line, but he was proved wrong. The Russians refused to budge, manning their heavy fortifications until the German 9th Army pushed up to Bryansk. In the center of the line, they held the Roslavl salient for two weeks, until finally falling back to better defensive positions closer to Kirov.

  Yet it was in the north that the real thunder would come, when the Smolensk group was finally pocketed, and then routed in its desperate attempt to break out to the east. This allowed Hoepner’s 4th Panzergruppe to turn the mop-up over to infantry, and surge northeast up the road to Vyazma. The Soviets stopped him there, and then he did something that no one on either side expected. Instead of massing his two mobile Korps to drive through Vyazma on Moscow, he instead opted to turn east and south, through the woodland country. It was his thought to envelop the entire Kirov line defense with this maneuver, which begged the question of who would be on the other side to form the right pincer.

  As Hoepner ground his way through the woodland, fighting through everything the Russians could get there to try and block him, Guderian was sweeping past Bryansk and pushing on to Orel, and Hermann Hoth was right behind him.

  That had been the plan in Halder’s mind. Those two Panzergruppen would be the swift moving sword that would sweep up and take Moscow from the south, but the stolid Russian defense of the Kirov Line, particularly in and around the cities tha
t anchored that line, served to change everything.

  “I finally convince Hitler that we can take Moscow before winter, and now look!” said Halder. “As Hoth came north, the infantry was too slow on his heels, and he had to use his motorized divisions to hold that left flank.”

  Von Bock gestured at the table map, a sour expression on his face. “Hoth had to move west,” said von Bock. “Otherwise his flank would be completely exposed as he pushed north of Bryansk.”

  “Yes,” said Halder. “But now the two Panzergruppe are operating side by side, and instead of one swift penetration on a concentrated narrow axis, the front of the advance has widened out considerably. I wanted Hoth to follow Guderian, not get into a horse race with him!”

  “But see the opportunity Hoepner’s 4th Panzergruppe now delivers,” said von Bock. “Turn Hoth west to link up with him, and we’ll have their entire Kirov Line in the bag. They must have at least 50 divisions there, half a million men!”

  The General’s estimate was very precise, and even Halder could see that if they could encircle that force, preventing its withdrawal, the situation would be much more favorable than fighting those same troops outside Moscow. For that had been the object of his planning all along—Moscow. Manstein could run wild in the south with his plan to link up with Ivan Volkov. In fact, he had done exactly what he said he could, crossing the Donets at Izyum, then pushing his vaunted SS Korps north to take Valuki, before turning east to Rossosh near the Don. It was there that he ran into growing resistance from new troops that had been grudgingly pulled from the Caucasus.

  “The good General Manstein is also stuck for a change,” Halder clucked. “The SS have stopped at Rossosh.”

  “Manstein insists he is merely consolidating,” said von Bock.

  “Oh? Then why has he moved Kleist? His troops were just about to take Kursk.”