Chapter 950: Quiet
Persistence is sometimes victory. When two brave men meet on a narrow path, the braver one will win. In any case, there are many messy slogans meant to make people rely on spiritual strength to defeat a strong enemy in times of despair—unfortunately, no one tells you that if an infantryman meets a King Tiger tank on a narrow path, just how brave does he have to be to win…
Rein’s current situation was very bad. He had to delay for as long as possible to cover the retreat of the nearly 10,000 men of the Das Reich Division, and he also had to find a way to stay alive, because he didn’t want to die. So Rein was desperately trying to find a way to survive, and on the battlefield, the best way to ensure one’s own survival was to kill as many of the enemy as possible.
“Markus! Watch your left flank! There are too many Stalin tanks on your side. They might be concentrating their forces to take you out first!” Rein said, his body swaying slightly with the bumping of the tank, while he observed the situation on the battlefield with his periscope. Some Stalin tanks were firing cheap shots from a distance. This was a problem he had observed a few minutes ago.
The accuracy of the Stalin tank’s gunsight was more than a little worse than that of the King Tiger’s. This was a technological direction that the King Tiger had focused on developing. After all, to compromise on the gyroscope and the aiming adjustment system, the King Tiger had deigned to use the Tiger’s 88mm cannon. This showed the leap forward that this aiming system had brought to the King Tiger’s design innovation.
The Germans had finally, through continuous exploration, found a way to make their sights sturdy, durable, and accurate. This was also the reason why, after Rein’s tank had been hit by a 122mm cannon, he could still drive the King Tiger and continue to fight. Every part of the King Tiger was reliable and durable, which gave it many more chances to survive on the battlefield.
Moreover, the King Tiger’s ammunition capacity was much greater than the Tiger’s, which also gave Rein a more sustained combat capability. If he were driving a Tiger at this time, he would have already run out of ammunition and would have had to retreat.
As time went on, the absolute numerical inferiority of the German tanks finally began to show. Although the vast plains were littered with the burning wrecks of Soviet tanks, of the four tanks from the 502nd Heavy Panzerjäger Battalion’s headquarters, another one had finally been destroyed by a Stalin tank.
The huge explosion and the billowing thick smoke had also helped Rein and the others a little. Because they were shrouded in the thick smoke, the Soviets had temporarily stopped their continuous firing, because they could not aim at the remaining two King Tiger tanks. Coincidentally, the King Tiger tanks could not aim at them either.
So these Soviet tanks seized the time to continue to attack forward, hoping to close the distance between themselves and the two German tanks. And at the same time, Rein’s and Markus’s tanks were reversing at full speed, finally rendezvousing with the battalion’s No. 03 tank, which was responsible for covering them.
Unfortunately, three tanks were facing absolutely more than thirty Soviet tanks. These tanks were not targets parked on the side of the road, so for Rein to want to destroy all of these Soviet tanks was an absolutely impossible mission.
On the other hand, Rein and Markus, the two crews, were after all men, not gods. As the battle continued, as their taut nerves gradually began to affect their physical movements, the German tanks finally began to have problems like missing their shots.
They could no longer aim for the Stalin tanks’ vulnerable observation ports or some of the armor joints, so sometimes even if they hit a Soviet tank, it was inevitable that a ricochet would occur due to the Stalin’s good ballistic shape.
The shells of the No. 03 Tiger tank were also almost gone. Rein’s headset was filled with the trembling voice of the No. 03’s commander. He had probably never imagined that there would be such a day, when the enemy’s tanks would be more numerous than the Germans’. Rein loudly comforted the commander of tank No. 03, telling him to use his remaining ammunition to cover his tank’s right flank.
“Don’t panic! Our reinforcements will be here soon! A conflict of this scale can’t possibly not have alerted the surrounding friendly forces! Just hold on a little longer, and we’ll be able to drive back these damn Soviets!” Rein said, comforting his comrades while wiping the sweat from his palms on his clothes.
“How many tanks have we destroyed? 20? 30?” Bruce asked loudly from the side, looking at the dwindling armor-piercing rounds in the ammunition box. He couldn’t see the situation on the battlefield outside, but since that battle in the pass in France, he had never encountered such a huge consumption of ammunition.
Even the last time they had abandoned the King Tiger, they had fired less than 40 shells in total. And now, the King Tiger, with its much larger ammunition capacity than the Tiger, was already very low on ammunition. So he really wanted to know just how terrible the battlefield outside was, and just how many terrifying enemies they were facing.
No one answered Bruce’s words, which made him even more anxious. Andre was concentrating on finding his next target. His firing rhythm was already a little off. Several of his shells had failed to destroy their targets, which had further disrupted his state of mind. But he was a mature soldier and would adjust his current state, so this time he still hit his target, destroying a Stalin tank that was trying to fire first.
“Armor-piercing!” Andre pulled his eye away from the sight and shouted to Bruce. But Markus had already pulled out a high-explosive shell and had slammed it into the cannon’s breech. As this high-explosive shell was rammed into the cannon’s barrel, Bruce’s voice followed, “Sorry! We’ll have to make do with high-explosive for a few shots! We’re low on armor-piercing!”
And so Andre said no more, aimed casually, and fired the shell. This shell struck the side of a Soviet tank, and the kicked-up mud made this Soviet tank tremble. Then, as if realizing it had not been penetrated, this Soviet tank continued to advance, but its speed had slowed considerably.
“High-explosive?” Wolf sneered, the ugly scar on his face twitching, his ghost-like face contorting into a bizarre expression. But this was indeed the way Wolf smiled. “Continue the attack! They’re almost out of ammunition! Since you bunch of idiots don’t have the ability to destroy him, then help me seize some chance of victory!”
“Wolf! Our losses are too great! To continue the attack is very unwise for us… You will be sent to a military tribunal for this!” In Wolf’s headset, it was clearly the commander of these tanks who was complaining loudly. But Wolf paid no attention to this voice. He just watched with great interest as the King Tiger in the distance was constantly engulfed in black smoke, but would constantly reappear and continue to fire.
“Worthy of being my enemy. It seems that apart from me, no one can really take your life! Interesting! Really very interesting!” Wolf muttered this sentence in a low voice, and then gave a new order to his own tank crew. “Follow behind tank 51, aim for that tank 113, and open fire when you have a chance… no need to ask me.”
In the distance, opposite him, Rein was also staring at the Soviet tanks that had already closed to a very close distance. The support he had hoped for had not yet arrived. The current situation was extremely unfavorable for the German army. If the distance were to be closed any further, the Soviet tanks could increase their hit rate even more, and then his and Markus’s situation would be even more dangerous—this was clearly not good news.
“I have four armor-piercing rounds left! Captain Rein!” At this moment, the voice of the commander of tank No. 03 came through his headset. “You guys get out of here! I’ll stay and cover you! Damn it, why haven’t the reinforcements arrived yet?”
Suddenly, a large-caliber howitzer shell landed on the open ground behind the Soviet tanks. The huge explosion sent a cloud of black smoke rising several stories high. Then a second shell landed on the ground, and the explosion threw the wreck of a Soviet tank into the air. The third shell landed even closer to the Soviet forces, and then the fourth, the fifth.
The few tanks at the very rear of the Soviet tank column were hit by the falling shells after a few seconds. Flying debris and rising dust were everywhere. Rein squinted his eyes. His ears were filled with Markus’s hysterical, joyous howls. “Friedrich rocket launchers! It’s the Friedrich rocket launchers! Those bastard artillerymen have finally remembered what they’re supposed to be doing! Damn it! $%@#!… “
Rein’s taut mood also relaxed a little. After this round of shelling, the remaining Soviet tanks would probably retreat. After all, a loss of this magnitude was not something a unit could bear. As long as the opposing commander was not a complete madman, he would definitely order a retreat.
BOOM! As if in answer to Rein’s thoughts, a Soviet armor-piercing round struck the Tiger tank next to the King Tiger, and the German army, who had been immersed in the joy of this round of shelling and had not yet recovered, was brought back to reality. The track and road wheels of that Tiger tank were shattered, and it was clearly paralyzed here.
“Armor-piercing, load… Captain Rein… if you survive, help me take care of my wife and son… I can’t leave. My leg is injured, and my driver and radio operator are both dead, so I don’t plan on leaving this tank either. It has been an honor to fight alongside you. Heil Akado Rudolph, my Führer!”
The Tiger No. 03 fired an armor-piercing round. Unfortunately, it did not hit any target. Subsequently, this paralyzed Tiger tank was hit by several shells fired by Soviet tanks and was engulfed in a sea of explosions and fire. Rein’s headset suddenly became a little quieter.
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