Chapter 515: Inexplicable

Boom! Marcus’s tank fired its second shot. This one finally, just barely, penetrated the frontal armor of the KV-2’s hull, turning the tank into a pile of scrap metal.

But Marcus was already covered in a cold sweat. Fighting an opponent who could take you out at any moment—no one would feel any sense of security in that situation. He still missed the days when the Panther tank ruled the world. At least in the winter of 1937, Germany’s opponents had not yet equipped any weapons that could penetrate the Panther’s armor.

Those were truly the good old days! The enemy was all driving around in tin cans, just waiting to be slaughtered. You could easily open fire from several hundred meters away and reap a harvest of kills, as pleasant as a game of target practice. Now, the enemy’s tanks were a lot more formidable. At least in terms of firepower, they had improved by more than one level.

Back in Poland, all they had encountered were 37mm tank guns, which were no different from being tickled. In France, they had started to see 47mm high-velocity guns and 75mm howitzer-equipped tanks. Now the Americans were starting to use short-barreled 75mm cannons, and the Soviets were also starting to use 76mm guns as their tank cannons to counter the German long-barreled 75mm.

But all of that was small potatoes. The insane Soviets had actually mounted a 152mm cannon on their tanks. This was definitely something only a madman could think of, right? Who makes such a leap in one go? It was twice the caliber of the mainstream tank guns! If a shell from that thing were to hit a target, it wouldn’t even matter if it penetrated or not. The concussion alone would be enough to kill the crew inside, right?

But there was no time for Marcus to think. He immediately adjusted the angle of his cannon and fired another shot. This one hit a T-26, and watching it turn into spare parts, Marcus seemed to have regained some confidence in the 88mm cannon in his hands.

Rein, at this moment, had already fired his sixth shell of the day. Beside him, Andre, like a god of slaughter, had already taken out 7 Soviet tanks with his precise shooting. This included 3 of the most threatening improved KV-1 tanks and 4 of the small-fry T-26s.

He was deliberately not aiming at the KV-2s, which had a low hit probability and an extremely slow rate of fire. He was using his own terrifying rate of fire to first reduce the number of enemy tanks. He was making a gamble, a gamble that the quality of the enemy tank crews was low, a gamble that they had no chance of hitting him.

Boom! With practiced coordination, tank 113 fired its seventh shell of the day. This one once again accurately hit its target, penetrating the frontal armor plate of an improved KV-1 that was attempting to aim at him. By this time, the Soviets had already lost nearly 20 tanks of various types. The entire tank battle was as one-sided as regular target practice.

Only Rein and the others in the three tanks knew that this was not as simple as target practice. The enemy was trying hard to close the engagement distance. Once the 76mm short-barreled cannons of the improved KV-1s got within 500 meters, they would be in constant danger of being destroyed.

Unfortunately, to achieve the effect of an ambush, the initial engagement distance had been a pitifully short 700 meters. At this distance, if the Soviet tanks could hold on for just a few more minutes, they could get close enough to destroy the German tanks.

What was even more frustrating was that Rein’s Tiger was running low on ammunition. He only had about fifty-odd rounds in total. Excluding the remaining high-explosive shells, the number of armor-piercing rounds he could use was not plentiful. Now, having already fired nearly ten rounds, the pressure on his ammunition supply was even greater.

“High explosive! Load!” Rein ordered through gritted teeth.

Bruce, of course, did not hesitate. Their long-term cooperation had made him forget the meaning of the word. Without a moment’s pause, he pulled out an HE shell, stuffed it into the cannon’s breech, and then closed the breechblock.

Seeing that the gun was ready, he shouted to his comrades, “HE loaded!”

“Fire at the T-26!” Rein’s idea was to use the HE shells against the most thinly armored T-26s to save his armor-piercing rounds for the tougher KV-type tanks.

Boom! After a simple re-aim, the Tiger’s main gun roared once again. The HE shell directly hit a distant T-26. After the massive explosion, the T-26 seemed to be in an even more miserable state than if it had been hit by an AP round. It immediately began a secondary explosion of its ammunition, and its engine also blew up.

The armor of the T-26 was clearly too thin. It was completely unsuitable for facing the German Tiger and Panther tanks. Its frontal armor plate was a pitiful 15mm thick. Even when it was doubled to 30mm later to cope with the German armored threat, it still could not withstand any ammunition fired from the barrels of the Tiger or the Panther.

Moreover, the caliber of this light tank’s cannon was only 45mm, and its simplified aiming system meant that it could only accurately hit a target at a range of 300 meters. Coupled with the slow reaction time caused by the commander and gunner being the same person, this had laid the inevitable hidden danger for the T-26’s huge losses in battle.

The experiment was a success! It seemed his HE shells could also have some effect. Only then did Rein feel a sense of relief. At least he could use these HE shells to destroy some of the numerous-looking T-26s. In this way, it seemed they still had a fighting chance.

Boom! Good things come in pairs. Not far away, tank 115 destroyed another KV-2 with one shot, which further reduced the number of Soviet tanks that could threaten the German ones. Rein ordered an AP round to be loaded and continued to fire at the nearest KV-1.

After this shot was fired, Rein discovered that the Soviet tanks opposite him had begun to retreat. This stunned him. He really couldn’t understand why the other side, after having gotten so close to his position, had suddenly retreated.

What on earth was going on? What were the Soviets thinking? On the main front, the German infantry who had been holding on grimly were also stunned. A part of their position had just been captured by the Soviets, and they had already retreated into the small town to fight a difficult delaying action in the streets. And in the last battle, they had lost a full 30 soldiers. Now, there were not even 40 German grenadiers left who could fight on the main front.

And now the Soviets were retreating? Are you kidding me? If you had just pushed a little harder, you would have won! And you’re retreating at a time like this? Do you have no professional ethics? Do you have no sportsmanship… okay, that’s a bit off-topic.

Including Rein and Marcus, all the German soldiers felt that today would be a life-or-death battle. Everyone felt that the battle might reach an extremely brutal stage. Rein had even already thought about how to retreat, how to fall back to the other side of the river and continue to hold on… But in the end, the battle had ended so abruptly.

And what was even more baffling was what happened next. A moment later, a few Soviet officers, waving white flags, came to the German position and expressed their willingness to surrender. This time, the several main German officers went mad. They didn’t know why the other side would surrender so readily.

But later, these Soviets told Rein and the others the answer. On both sides of a road not far away were piled up industrial equipment that had been transported out of Kiev. These machines were piled up like mountains, and surrounding them were thousands of workers who depended on this equipment for their livelihood. Among these people were even engineers of German nationality, and some technical experts from Germany who had been building the railway.

This Soviet armored regiment was not a real armored regiment, but had been hastily assembled from an infantry regiment. The tanks they had were equipment they had commandeered while moving, and after some simple training along the way, they were crewed by worker representatives and members of the Communist Party and sent to the front.

Their purpose was very simple: to break through the German lines and cover the retreat of the various industrial equipment behind them to the Soviet interior. But the attack just now had made the Soviet commander despair. His best fighting troops had been wiped out, and the tanks that had just been produced had not played their proper role. So he had, as a matter of course, surrendered.

With this explanation, Rein and the two German company commanders understood. In fact, this Soviet unit was not as strong as they had imagined. To put it bluntly, they could only fight for one wave. If they were to continue the attack, it wouldn’t be the Germans who were driven off, but they themselves who would “show their true colors.” It was precisely because they knew their own strength that they had rushed over, hoping to surrender to the German army and save the lives of the several thousand people behind them. Of course, there was another, most important reason: this Soviet regimental commander was a Ukrainian.

Rein accepted the surrender of the Soviet unit on behalf of the entire German defending force. But he did not dare to let several thousand Soviets get close to his own weak-as-the-wind troops. So the two sides agreed on a location and temporarily camped and rested at a mutually safe distance. Rein contacted the battalion headquarters by radio and canceled the air force bombing that was already on its way.

About half an hour later, the reinforcements from Army Group G finally arrived at the small town of Y107. A battalion of German soldiers looked on, dumbfounded, at the boundless sea of Soviets, stunned beyond belief by Rein’s achievement.

A full 5,000-plus skilled workers and over 400 Red Army soldiers, nearly 70 tanks of various types, and nearly a hundred trucks, along with the thousands of machine tools on them—all these strategic resources had been captured by a few dozen German grenadiers and three tanks…

“I’m convinced! I’m completely convinced! Today I finally know what luck is! If you told me now you could capture Stalin, I’d believe you!” the battalion commander who had come to reinforce Rein said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Can you tell me when something like this will happen again?”

Published: 2025-09-01T04:02:37.000+00:00
Last Edited: 2025-12-07T17:59:43.000+00:00
URL: https://www.patreon.com/caleredhair/posts/mtr-c515-137832277

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