Chapter 955: Two Against Two

Rein felt his hull shudder as if struck by a giant. The floor beneath him shook violently. Everyone knew they’d been hit; they just didn’t know where.

“The running gear is shot! We can’t move! Engine’s probably fine, but the track is definitely busted,” Baumann reported instantly. He didn’t need to get out and look to know their track was broken. From the way the hull was skewed, he guessed another problem—a road wheel was likely damaged too.

“No way! Damn it!” Bruce was thrown about by the impact. Dazed, he shoved a high-explosive round into the breech and grumbled, “To get hit at a time like this… we’re just too damn unlucky.”

He slapped Andre on the shoulder and reported, “Armor-piercing loaded! Go easy on it.”

BOOM! Andre fired the round immediately. The shell didn’t hit the Stalin tank but instead slammed into a toolbox mounted on its side mudguard. The force of the impact ripped the toolbox clean off the tank. A short distance behind the tank, the high-explosive round detonated.

A storm of shrapnel hammered Wolf’s tank. The sheer force of the blast rattled the crew inside, stunning them. As the explosion’s power washed over it, the Stalin’s engine suddenly cut out, and the entire tank ground to a halt.

“That was a high-explosive round, Bruce!” Andre didn’t know whether to thank Bruce for loading the wrong ammunition or to chew him out for misreporting the shell type. But it seemed, by some twist of fate, the HE round had done its job. At least the enemy tank was stopped.

“Armor-piercing!” Andre had fired countless shells of all types today. His nerves had been stretched taut. Now, nearing the end of the battle, his accuracy had dropped to a very low level.

But this was a rare opportunity. The enemy tank was stopped, and his own couldn’t move. A stationary target versus a stationary target. If he missed now, the ace gunner of King Tiger 113 might as well commit suicide to atone for the shame.

At that moment, Bruce, still dizzy from the shell’s impact, finally got his bearings. He grinned sheepishly and shoved an armor-piercing round into the breech. This time, he yelled out the shell type with absolute certainty, “Armor-piercing! Loaded!”

“Target acquired!” Andre centered the King Tiger’s superior sight on the Stalin tank with the black pentagram on its turret. He made a minute adjustment to the gun’s position, finally settling the crosshairs on the Stalin’s hull, and then pressed the firing switch.

“Goodbye, Black Star Stalin!” Andre finally allowed himself a moment of relaxation. With this shot, the day’s battle would most likely be over. But before he could press the firing switch, the entire King Tiger shuddered violently again.

BOOM! An armor-piercing round struck the thickest part of the King Tiger’s frontal armor. The shell was deflected by the heavy plate, but the immense force tore the headlights from the hull and left a massive crater, bigger than a fist, in the thick frontal armor.

The 122mm armor-piercing round was truly the Soviets’ great killer, designed to counter German armor. When it hit, its destructive power was unparalleled. Rein was thrown about in his seat. Because he had been braced for impact, he had avoided any secondary injury.

However, this violent shudder had thrown off Andre’s sure-kill shot by more than a little. The precious armor-piercing round missed its target completely, by a country mile. Andre’s head, once again close to the sight, slammed into a nearby part of the interior. In an instant, blood was streaming down his face.

“Andre’s hit! My God!” Bruce quickly pressed a hand to Andre’s wound, but blood still seeped from his forehead, between Bruce’s fingers. The dark red blood was a glaring sight, making Rein’s brow furrow involuntarily.

The shot had come from the other remaining Stalin tank. It hadn’t attacked the King Tiger that was firing on it, but had instead aimed its cannon at Rein’s immobilized crew. And so the shell had found its mark, knocking Rein’s crew’s sure-kill shot off target.

War was no longer a children’s game. No matter how strong one was in single combat, other factors now had to be considered. No matter how brave a single man was, he could no longer change the outcome of a war. The weapons in their hands had made the bloody slaughter so insane and so powerful. This was modern warfare, and future warfare would be even more unpredictable.

Markus’s crew, of course, had not been idle. At almost the same time as the third-party Stalin tank had fired on Rein’s No. 113, Markus’s crew had fired an armor-piercing round, directly hitting that poor tank. A huge explosion signaled that this Soviet tank had indeed been completely destroyed.

This successful armor-piercing round was also the last shell for Markus’s crew. If that Stalin tank hadn’t stopped to fire on Rein’s No. 113, Markus might not have been so willing to fire his last round so quickly. Who knew how many Soviet tanks he had destroyed that day? Ten? Twenty? Or maybe about thirty?

But at this moment, the battle seemed to be completely over. At least the battlefield had returned to a state of quiet. The guide wheel and the first road wheel on the side of Rein’s King Tiger No. 113 had been destroyed, and the track was completely broken. But there were still two armor-piercing rounds in the tank, so this tank still had combat capability. And Markus’s crew, whose vehicle was intact, had now become a high-end armored car because they had no more shells.

One crippled, one disabled. That probably described these two unlucky King Tigers perfectly. A pair of unfortunate brothers, enjoying a moment of quiet and solitude on a wilderness of tank wrecks.

“Don’t just stand there! Bruce! Load armor-piercing! Quick!” Rein’s voice brought Bruce, who had been lost in the joy of victory and had not yet come to his senses, back to reality. “That Stalin tank in front of us hasn’t been penetrated yet! Aim for it and fire another shell. I don’t want to die a second before victory because of my own blind optimism.”

When had this trope started? Whether it was the protagonist or the great demon, they would always have endless nonsense to say at the end of a literary work. They wouldn’t shoot when they should, wouldn’t finish the job when they should, and in the end, would foolishly lose their own lives. In the real world, how could such a stupid idiot possibly exist? It was natural to make sure the other was completely dead before celebrating.

At the very least, Rein was the kind of person who was in the habit of putting another shot in the corpse. Before he had confirmed victory, he had always maintained a high state of alert. This could prevent others from taking advantage of a loophole, and could also make himself a little safer.

“Rein! Rein! That Stalin tank is moving! It’s moving!” Sure enough, that Black Star Stalin tank finally began to slowly adjust its turret. The high-explosive shell that had made it stall had not caused any penetrating damage, so the crew inside, after a moment of self-adjustment, had finally begun to operate the tank again.

“Markus! That Stalin tank is aiming at you! Move, quick! A little faster!” Rein warned Markus’s crew over the throat mic. Markus had clearly also realized that the situation was not right and quickly had his tank start up again.

In the cabin of Rein’s tank, Bruce was loading one of the last two armor-piercing rounds into the breech. Andre, disregarding the already-drying blood on his forehead, pressed his eye to the sight. The turret had just been hit squarely by a shell, and the huge impact had even left a crack on the sight. The 122mm cannon was truly worthy of its reputation. The destructive effect of being hit by it, either dead or wounded, was indeed something to be proud of.

BOOM! In Rein’s periscope and Andre’s sight, they clearly saw the muzzle of that Black Star Stalin tank spew a cloud of white smoke. An armor-piercing round flew with unstoppable force towards Markus’s King Tiger. At this moment, Markus’s tank was moving laterally, which meant that the tank’s vulnerable side was facing the direction from which the shell was coming.

This shell struck the rear of Markus’s tank No. 112 dead-on, blowing the entire engine cooling grille off the rear of Markus’s tank. The diesel engine erupted in dancing flames, and the entire tank, as if it had lost its soul, stopped moving.

“112? Tank 112! Markus! If you can hear me, please reply! Say something to me! Damn it!” Rein shouted into his throat mic, asking about Markus’s current situation. But all he heard in his headset was the crackling of static.

BOOM! Before Rein could shout another confirmation, Andre had fired the just-loaded armor-piercing round. This tungsten-core armor-piercing round drew a straight line and, like a shooting star, rushed towards the Stalin tank that was emblazoned with a black star.

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