3rd Guards Tank Corps had gone into combat with 76.2mm ZiS-3s, and most of them lay smashed or abandoned in Alsace.
The Soviet anti-tank gunners, as always masters of camouflage, waited patiently as target after target emerged from Brumath.
The order was given and, as the sky was filled with the white light of flares, the one and a half companies opened fire.
The 100mm’s gunner knew his craft and targeted a Panther tank moving behind the first wave, clearly faster than the rest, but also quite clearly being skilfully manoeuvred from cover to cover by a man who knew his business. The extra aerials the vehicle sported helped in his decision making.
The shell had taken the Legion tank in the lower hull side, immediately under the turret.
The tank lazily coasted to a halt, and flames could be seen quite clearly through the round hole that marked the penetration point of the solid shot.
Men, uniforms smoking, or worse, emerged from the stricken tank to be met by fire from infantry weapons and, although none were killed, two of the men clearly staggered away wounded.
The Soviet artillery added to the defence, engulfing the advance of Alma with Katyusha rockets, and shells from a 203mm Howitzer company.
One such huge shell descended on a Legion halftrack and left little of the vehicle and its twelve-man crew behind.
The effect upon the Legion soldiers was almost tangible, the veteran Red Army soldiers sensing immediately that a blow had been dealt, which immediately caused them to redouble their efforts.
The Legionnaires still attacked, but with less focus than before.
The artillery of both sides repositioned, removing that element from the battle temporarily, but the anti-tank guns, a pair of SU-100’s, and the repositioned Pershing continued to flay the Alma soldiers.
More Soviet tanks resisted Knocke’s flanking move, and that too came to a halt.
Knocke understood that the seesaw battle had, once again, tipped in favour of the enemy, and sought a way to snatch the initiative back.
“Berta-One, Berta-One, Anton-One, over.”
Knocke repeated the message, although he suspected he would do so in vain.
There would be no reply, for the Balyan’s BS-3 had killed Uhlmann’s tank with its first shot.
He closed his eyes in a brief plea to higher authority and spoke to the next in line.
“Caesar-Zero-On…”
The 122mm struck the Tiger’s gun mantlet, shaking everything from radio to man, but not penetrating, although the hot glow of its strike made it through the armour to the left of the gunner’s sight.
“Crew, report in.”
“Driver ok, engine fine, Sir.”
“Loader ok and ready, Herr Oberfuhrer!”
“Gunner, weapon up and ready, S-S-Sir.”
The last report betrayed the fright the man had just received.
Meier reported in again.
“Willi’s dead. He’s just dead.”
Eyes dropped to take a look and the man was clearly that, eyes open and distantly fixed, head lolling back beyond the point of comfort.
“Driver, reverse and left, gunner sweep centre to right.”
The Tiger moved immediately, the white-hot trail of another 122m shell punching the air where Knocke’s tank had been a moment before.
“Target tank, Stalin type, nine hundred metres. Halt!”
“ON!”
“FIRE!”
Nothing.
“Again.”
Still nothing.
“Driver, reverse and left again. Gunner, fix it now.”
Immediately the gunner spotted the problem and repaired the linkage issue caused by the direct hit.
He waited until the tank stopped moving again.
“Target tank, Stalin type, nine fifty metres.”
“Fire!”
The 88mm recoiled as it spat its deadly shell in the direction of the enemy vehicle.
The target was concealed by a shower of white-hot sparks as shell met armour plate.
“HIT!”
“Well done, gunner. Again.”
Knocke observed as the Tiger’s gunner put an 88mm right on the money, the IS-III again erupting in a cascade of tortured metal.
The monster shrugged off the hit, and put its own shell in the air.
Knocke smiled as the enemy shell tore high and wide.
“Again.”
Knocke watched as another shell struck the Stalin tank, the tracks disintegrating. Even at that distance, and in the weird light of a night battle, Knocke could observe two of the heavy track links scythe through a group of supporting infantry, metal tearing flesh in an unforgiving fashion.
“Again. Between the tracks.”
The IS-III, hit whilst attempting to move, had exposed its wounded side sufficiently for ‘Lohengrin’s’ gunner to make a telling hit but the light suddenly went and he baulked sending a shot into darkness.
“Lost target!”
Knocke rejected the flare pistol, knowing he would illuminate himself more than the target.
One of Alma’s mortar crews did the work, tossing illumination almost perfectly, so perfectly that the other tanks adjacent to the IS-III became immediately apparent.
“Got the schwein. ON!”
“Fire!”
Knocke ignored the break in procedure.
The 88mm took the heavy tank just above the nearside front road wheel.
Deflected upwards by the bulk of the floor plate, it entered the fighting compartment, moving through the driver’s seat and striking the turret ring. Again deflected, the armour-piercing shell passed through the commander’s body before striking the back wall of the turret and exploding.
“Well done, gunner. New target, left eight, range nine forty.”
The IS-III was clearly dead, and now provided excellent illumination of the surrounding area, revealing a cluster of four adjacent tanks to the Tiger’s gun.
Knocke went through the motions of tank commander automatically, aware that the crew around him were a special group of men, a team, welded together in adversity.
The gunner drew his critical eye and he took in the man’s decorations, including the shiny new Croix de Guerre.
Something clicked in his mind, and he spoke his thoughts.
“Ah, Lohengrin.”
Köster smiled.
“You remembered, Oberfuhrer.”
“Target tank, nine hundred.”
“Fire! Indeed. Général St.Clair spoke of little else for some time… Sergeant Köster?”
Posed as a question, the acting loader could only grin and nod as he ejected the smoking shell case and slotted another home.
“Target tank, left six, nine hundred. I’ll give you your Tiger back as soon as possible, but for now, you’re stuck with me.”
A shell dropped next to the Tiger, the clatter of metal fragments sounding like a rain shower on the vehicle’s side.
“Target tank, eight seventy.”
“Fire! Driver, relocate, forward and left.”
‘They’re moving forward!’
Burning tanks and vehicles littered the ground east of Brumath.
A line of tanks and half-tracks indicated the high-water mark of the Alma advance, to the east of them numerous fires betrayed the price the Soviet defenders had paid to stop them.
Fire illuminated the battlefield, outdoing the efforts of the moon and stars, whilst producing smoke that tried hard to smother the battlefield.
The night was sometimes clear, the next moment the men on the ground could see no more than a few feet in front of them and, often, found themselves choking in thick acrid smoke.
The artillery and mortars of both sides, now in new positions, added to the creation of a living nightmare.
Knocke was correct in assessing that the Soviet force was advancing again, but could neither assess its strength nor objective, although he could take a guess at the latter.