Jim ‘Pete’ Parker had seen that two of his allies had been taken out in quick succession; he moved his tank cautiously behind the burning hulk of one of the Sherman’s and tried to get a view of the hidden enemy. His tank came under machine gun fire from the trench down to his left. Paul ‘Mex’ Perez turned his gun onto the target and waited for Pete’s instruction.
“Fire.” Pete shouted.
The round flew into the trench and exploded, the machine gun fire ceased.
Parker scanned the distance with his binoculars then after a good ten seconds or so he noticed a muzzle flash from near the base of the mountain.
“Got ya.” He said as he let out a smile.
“We got tank destroyers at the base of the hill, looks like a few of them… not sure what they are, don’t think we have encountered them before.” Parker said over the radio.
“Roger that Pete, what-cha wanna do?”
“We have the greater numbers here; we need to take out the Tigers and Panthers first. My group will do that. You guys take out any Anti-tank guns you can find and support the infantry.” Parker paused, “After that we can take out the tank destroyers.”
“Roger that.”
The Sherman’s regrouped and focused on the enemies close at hand, they hoped that if they could get the infantry boys into play then they would have a better chance of ending this battle quickly.
The German armor was outnumbered four to one with only a few Tiger II’s being committed to the battle. They had a surprise up their sleeves though as positioned at the bottom of the mountain with a decent amount of distance between them and the American tanks were six Elefant Ferdinand Tank destroyers, sporting 8.8 cm Pak cannons that had an effective range of 3 kilometers.
Four experimental self-propelled anti-tank guns sat under camouflage nets next to their bigger allies. The 12.8 cm Selbstfahrlafette auf VK30.01(H) or the Sturer Emil as the Germans called it had an large open-topped fighting compartment that gave the crew an excellent field of view, but little protection. The vehicle had a large caliber gun attached to it but as it was turretless it could only fire in the direction it was facing. Two similar prototypes had been built and fought in the Russian campaign the year before with one being destroyed and the other captured at the battle of Stalingrad; it had thirty-one kill marks painted on the barrel. The two vehicles were lovingly called Max and Moritz.
The Tiger crews had needed the protection of their concrete blanket when the allies were bombing but now it was becoming their tomb, the lack of maneuverability was really costing them. The Elefant Tank destroyers were laying down fire to keep the Sherman’s from flanking but there were just too many of them.
An 8.8 cm anti-tank gun let rip firing a shot down range which struck the American tank in the welded seam along the turret, the round penetrated and disabled the tank. The crew of the anti-tank gun reloaded a high explosive shell and targeted the next tank. They fired but before their shot hit the target erupted in a ball of flames, the unfortunate tank had been set ablaze by a Tiger II. The Anti-Tank guns round hit the tank and ignited, blowing the turret clean off.
“Half a kill Wolfe.” Berndt Krause said, “Better luck on the next one.”
“Double or quits Hauptsturmführer?”
“Double or quits Wolfe, but this is the last time.”
Krause watched the battle unfolding through his binoculars, it was not going well, it was a target rich environment but it would not be long until the Sherman’s broke through the initial line and then the infantry could advance. It would only be a matter of time before he would have to use his own assault rifle.
Krause smiled, he had been waiting for this for a long time, he had become bored stuck underground and it was time to do what he had signed up for.
Commander Jim ‘Pete’ Parkers Sherman rolled forward .50 caliber Browning M2HB and the two .30 caliber Browning firing bursts as she went. They were laying fire down into the trenches. Pete took his tank left of a dug in tiger II while another Sherman flanked right. The Tiger took aim on the Sherman flanking right and fired a round at point-blank range, setting the American tank ablaze.
“Fuck it!” Pete said ‘Thank you for your sacrifice boys.’ He thought to himself as his tank stopped behind the Tiger.
“Fire.” Pete shouted.
The Sherman’s round penetrated through the thin rear armor plate and killed the entire Tiger crew; black smoke billowed from the hole in the rear of the German tank. This shot was Pete’s tenth kill of the day from their twenty-third round, he had fifty-three more shells to go.
Pete’s Sherman then lined up on a 8.8 cm anti-tank gun, he waited a second for his tank to stop then he fired. The round flew passed the gun but hit the ammunition store next to it; the entire area went up in flames and the gun crew was killed instantly.
“Make that eleven kills today boys, not that I’m counting.”
“Alright Pete it ain’t a competition, knock those machine gun nests out will you.”
It only isn’t a competition because you losing boys!” Pete shouted above the noise.
Pete turned his Sherman onto the next target which was a machine gun nest keeping the troops behind him from advancing. He lined up the shot and was about to tell his gunner to fire when a panicked shout from Ross, his driver, got his attention.
“What is it Ross?”
“Panther firing at us from ten o’clock.”
“Incoming!” shouted Rick ‘Free’ Freeman.
The round struck the Sherman at an angle and ricocheted off. The Sherman had survived the shot but the Panther advanced and closed the distance. Pete instructed the gunner to swivel the turret onto the rapidly gaining German tank.
Pete waited a second then shouted “Fire!”
The gunner opened fire but the aim was just off and the shell whizzed passed the turret of the Panther. The Panther returned fire but the angle was still too acute and the round bounced off of the tanks armor, it was more through luck than skill that Pete was still alive.
The Panther continued to advance and had not slowed down. ‘That son of a bitch is going to ram us!’ Pete thought. Pete and his crew had adjusted their aim. “Fire again.” Pete roared.
The round exited the muzzle and flew straight and true, impacting onto through the turret of the Panther. Pete smiled but the Panther kept on coming, it did not fire another round but instead plowed into the side of the Sherman. The speed of impact caused the Sherman to slide across the muddy field.
Another Sherman had witnessed the impact and fired into the weak side armor of the Panther. The commander’s cupola opened on the German tank and two crewmen clambered out like cockroaches and wildly fired with their assault rifles into Pete’s commander’s hatch. Pete fired with his pistol and shot one of the Germans between the eyes, the other German was taken down with machine gun fire from the Sherman who had knocked the tank out.
“What the fuck is wrong with these Nazi pigs, do they not care about death?” Rick ‘Free’ Freeman shouted.
“These are SS men, they are more than willing to die for the cause son, so help them out whenever you can ok?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Can we still move?” Pete asked.
“Yes Sir, our tracks are damaged but we can still move.”
“Let’s get to it then.” Pete said then took another huge sip from his hip flask until all the sweet brown alcohol had gone.
‘Let’s finish this.’ He thought to himself with a grim determination that had always served him well.
The next hour was fought with increasing intensity, the Germans lost all of their Tiger II tanks and two-thirds of their Tiger tanks but the Americans lost forty-four Sherman tanks which in normal circumstances would have been a good trade-off. Eighteen tanks lost was a heavy toll on the German defenses but they continued to keep the Americans at bay.