Chapter 801: Melee in the Snowy Forest

What was this? They came charging forward with such force, only to retreat like this? From his tank, Markus watched the vast flames and the Soviet tanks ignite and explode, stunned and speechless. He’d prepared to fight to the death, only to find his desperate efforts were a joke to the Air Force pilots.

A Stuka II attack plane circled once in the sky before diving sharply, opening fire on the Soviet tank positions that were still shrouded in smoke. A straight line of tracer fire ripped across the target area, sending sparks flying everywhere. Before the smoke had even cleared, another massive explosion roared. Rein even opened his tank’s hatch, staring blankly at the national flag spread across the top of his tank.

If that flag hadn’t done its job at the critical moment, he would probably be burning in the inferno right now, without even a bone left, right? The advance of the era was changing warfare. The kind of fierce, head-on collisions would become rarer and rarer as weapons were revolutionized.

While Rein was quietly lamenting the changing times, a Soviet Stalin tank charged out of the thick smoke. The flames still burning on its engine deck made the whole tank look like a roaring, flaming beast as it charged madly in their direction.

But in the end, this tank could not escape its fate. Roasted by the fierce heat, the fuel lines and tanks around the engine finally exploded, blowing the dying Soviet tank into a pile of scrap iron. Two other Soviet tanks, which were too far from the Stuka II’s attack, managed to escape.

These two Soviet tanks had lost their earlier momentum and were now frantically reversing, trying to flee back into the woods they had come from. The thick smoke from the exploding tanks obscured the view. The Stuka II bombers did not continue their attack but circled above the battlefield like vultures, seemingly wanting to rack up a few more kills before returning to base.

BOOM! While Rein was staring at the battlefield in a daze and Markus was cursing, Andre was not idle. He had long since aimed at a Soviet T-34 that was not obscured by smoke. Now was the perfect time to fire, completing another attack of his own.

The shell struck the front armor plate of the T-34, punching through and killing the crew inside. But it did not cause a cook-off. The tank was paralyzed on the spot, motionless, as if it had lost its life.

“All tanks, advance! We’ll drive the Soviets out of that forest and then set up a defense line with our backs to it! Tank 111, you take the lead! … This is Rein, 1st Company commander. Grenadiers behind, we are continuing to advance, cover our rear!” Rein pressed his throat microphone, loudly contacting his units and rearranging the attack.

“There shouldn’t be any more Soviet tanks in the woods. They should have all charged out just now,” Andre said to Rein as he slightly adjusted his turret.

“They almost killed Markus just now! So I have to finish them all off! It’s that simple!” Rein said to Andre over the intercom. He then looked at Bruce. “Bruce, load armor-piercing! 2nd Platoon’s tanks, watch the left flank, don’t let a single suspicious target get away!”

“Understood!” Over on the 2nd Platoon’s side, they immediately began to execute Rein’s orders. Two Tiger tanks began to turn their turrets to the left, while the remaining two followed Rein’s flank, slowly moving into the woods.

The tank from 2nd Platoon that had just been hit, following Rein’s order to provide cover, stopped next to Markus’s Tiger, responsible for covering tank No. 112 with its broken track until the repair units arrived. The remaining eight tanks began to drive past the still-burning wrecks of the Soviet tanks.

“Rein! Damn it! You’re just leaving me behind and attacking on your own? That’s not fair! What’s the point of us fighting to the death like this? Those pilots just have to fly over, drop two bombs, and they can take out all the enemy tanks that we risked our lives to destroy! What’s the point of our existence?” Markus yelled in the headset, seemingly very unhappy that Rein was leaving him behind to launch a new attack.

“Of course there’s a point! We fight our battle, they fight theirs. That’s the point of our existence!” Rein said to Markus while observing the surrounding movements. “Also, I have to kill Wolf and end that nightmare. Isn’t that our purpose?”

“Who knows if Wolf is still alive! Maybe that guy was taken out by our bombers, maybe he was taken out by our attack planes. He’s probably long dead! Yes! He’s long dead!” Markus was still a little afraid when he mentioned Wolf, and his tone was somewhat unnatural.

“No! Markus! I know he’s still alive, and you know it too. He’s alive, he must be alive!” Rein said fiercely through clenched teeth.

In the front of the Tiger tank, the radio operator, Alice, was adjusting the channels. She had heard the conversation between Rein and Markus. She didn’t know how powerful that Wolf was, to make even Rein, whom she considered the strongest, so wary. She gripped the machine gun in her hands and thought fiercely: No matter how powerful you are, can’t a machine gun tear your body to pieces?

The German tank crashed through a small sapling and charged into a not-so-dense patch of woods. The Soviet soldiers there were fleeing, and some oil drums and other things were scattered around. Not far away, tank No. 114 fired a shot that hit a Soviet truck, sending the entire vehicle flying. With explosions and machine-gun fire, the German tanks easily broke into the Soviet camp.

“They were already retreating before we came in! They’re really fast!” Alice reported loudly to Rein as she fired her MG42 machine gun fiercely. “Left side! There’s a Soviet defensive position over there, a machine gun is firing! I can’t reach it from my firing arc! Damn it!”

These Soviet soldiers were not veterans who were on the battlefield for the first time. When they had set up their ambush in this patch of woods, they had not thought that they would be routed by the German army, so the entire camp had not made immediate preparations to move when the Soviet tanks launched their charge.

However, these Soviet soldiers were, after all, the elite that Rokossovsky had brought with him from the central front. After seeing the German attack planes arrive on the battlefield, they had immediately realized that the situation was not good and had begun to prepare for a chaotic retreat. So most of the really valuable equipment, like trucks and fuel tankers, had already left, leaving only some infantry for cover and a few unlucky vehicles that hadn’t left in time.

“Leave it to me!” On the other side, the German tank No. 115 had already aimed its hull-mounted machine gun at the machine gun nest that was constantly spitting fire. The MG42 opened fire with a roar, and the pitiful Soviet machine gun nest was engulfed in a cloud of white smoke.

The Soviet machine gunner’s head was shattered by the dense bullets, and the assistant gunner was also turned into a sieve. The water-cooling jacket of the Maxim heavy machine gun had several holes shot through it, and the cooling water was leaking out. Because it had just been firing fiercely, the water that was leaking out was already warm, steaming in the cold air.

Several unarmed Soviet soldiers turned and fled. They hadn’t run more than a few steps before they were shot in the back by the pursuing bullets. They pitched forward onto the ground, buried in the snow like a pile of mud. And not far from these people, more Soviet infantry were fleeing their positions, running frantically towards the other side of the woods.

The German tank commanders had been startled by the frantic attack of the Soviet tanks just now and would naturally not pass up this opportunity for revenge. They strafed the fleeing crowd with their machine guns, as if playing a game. One after another, the Soviet soldiers fell. Many knelt on the ground and raised their hands, but were still shot and mangled by the flying bullets.

While the German tanks were slaughtering the Soviet infantry, in a corner of the woods, a Soviet Stalin tank, painted in white camouflage, was slowly adjusting the angle of its turret. This tank had just escaped into a ditch under the cover of the thick smoke, had gotten stuck in the mud, and had stalled. Fearing that starting the tank would be discovered by the Germans, it had no choice but to hide there and observe the situation. The result was that while waiting, it found that the German tanks had exposed their vulnerable flank, giving it a golden opportunity.

BOOM! Rein was directing his tank to chase down the routed Soviet forces in front when suddenly, tank No. 115 on his right flank was hit and burst into flames. He looked through his periscope in the direction of the explosion of No. 115 and saw that the sky was filled with flames and he couldn’t see anything clearly.

“Rein! Rein! 115 is hit! 115 is hit!” the commander of tank No. 114 yelled in the headset. The thick smoke also obscured his vision. He couldn’t see clearly what had happened, nor did he know where the enemy’s attack had come from.

“Damn it! The smoke is too thick, I can’t see which direction the attack is coming from. Don’t panic! It might be an anti-tank mine. Pop smoke! Pop smoke! Left flank, halt your advance! Stop chasing those Soviets,” Rein ordered the entire armored company to release smoke while watching the direction of the explosion of tank No. 115. He hadn’t spotted any enemy, which made him feel very uneasy.

“Point the front of your hulls towards the current two o’clock position and slowly contract the formation!” After giving this order, Rein took off his headset, opened his hatch again, and jumped out of the tank. He hid his body behind the turret and stared in the direction of the suspicious area.

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