Two 30mm shells hit the side of the tank, inches apart.
Whilst not a killing hit, the blast wave took hold of Stelmakh’s exposed head and dashed it against the cupola. The unconscious officer dropped like a stone to the turret floor, his face a bloody mess, and his mouth smashed; blood and broken teeth created an awful looking injury.
In the driver’s position, Stepanov had a similar experience, the back of his head thrown back against the unyielding metal, splitting his skin and knocking him unconscious with his foot on the accelerator.
‘Krasniy Suka’ started to lose speed as the tree trunks resisted her, eventually stalling as a stout beech proved too much of an obstacle.
Kalinov, ignoring the dislocated finger that had resulted from trying to steady himself, acted swiftly, grabbed a smoke grenade and dropped it onto the engine grille.
“What you doing, Leo?”
Ferensky spoke like a drunk, clearly not totally with it.
“Only chance is if they think we’re already fucked. Help me with the Kapitan.”
They pulled Stelmakh into an upright position, and Kalinov started to clear away the detritus of his teeth and gums.
As he worked he called to Stepanov.
“Oi! You lazy bastard! Bloody driver!”
He counted eleven smashed teeth in the commander’s mouth.
“How’s he doing, Leo?”
“Well, it’s going to fucking ache a bit, that’s for sure, and soup’ll be his favourite food for a while.”
The darkness of a huge bruise was already spreading around Stelmakh’s face.
Ferensky had shaken himself out of the stupor induced by the enemy shells, and stuck his head out of his hatch.
What greeted him was a scene of horror.
Another of the IS-IIIs had been knocked out, this time very dramatically so, and its turret lay some yards away from the spectacularly burning hull.
The remaining two tanks were still resisting but their positions were now exposed, meaning that the enemy tanks were making hits, although the heavy armour of the IS tanks resisted well.
Ferensky’s mind registered a sound from another time, a growing screaming wall of sound that he had not heard for many a month.
Automatically he looked to the sky and there it was.
A Stuka.
And another following it.
And another following that.
The screaming intensified as the six dive bombers hurtled down.
The leading aircraft released its bomb, the crutch shepherding it away from the propeller, and the Junkers-87-D started to pull out of its dive.
The 250kg bomb missed its target, but it was close enough to lift the tank up on one side.
Ferensky watched with a fascinated detachment as the offside track of the heavy tank lifted a couple of feet, hung there for the briefest of moments, and then crashed back down to earth again.
He mused what that had done to the boys inside, but the question became immaterial within a few seconds, as the second bomb struck the engine compartment, transforming many thousands of roubles worth of state property into worthless scrap in a millisecond.
The other IS-III crew knew they had no chance, but it didn’t stop them from trying.
In actual fact, they evaded the falling bombs successfully, moving skilfully away, whilst keeping their armour towards the Jaguars.
However, two enemy gunners anticipated a turn, and both fired a telling shot.
On Height 299, the Pak 43 gunner sent his shell towards the manoeuvring IS-III, as did von Hardegen’s gunner, whose 75mm shell arrived a split second before the heavier AT round.
Both penetrated, and both would have been enough in their own right, but together, they dramatically destroyed the tank and her crew.
The DRH tanks pressed forward, seeing the way open.
Between the two tank forces, men of the Red Army’s 5th Motorcycle Regiment, long since parted from their vehicles and employed as infantry, rose from their concealed positions, not to fight, but to surrender.
Europa’s tank men had little cause or inclination to take prisoners, and many hull machine guns chattered, knocking the surrendering men back into the holes from which they had emerged.
The motorcycle soldiers dropped back into cover and, without exception, decided to hide rather than fight.
Fürth ordered a company of the sturm-grenadiers to move forward and ferret them out.
They were also similarly disinclined to take prisoners and the eventual survivors of the motorcycle unit were few in number.
Von Hardegen ordered Fürth to resume the attack on Trendelburg, leaving a platoon of Third Company to screen the flank, and to take the detached platoon from First Company under his direct command on the west side of the Diemel.
More aircraft were arriving, and some engaged the tanks that were killing his men south of Height 233.
Despite the fact that his command had taken a whipping from the unsuspected enemy heavy tanks, von Hardegen understood that he could still proceed with his attack successfully, although Third Company had taken a severe beating.
With the help of the DRL, the Soviet tanks were overcome, and a sharp assault on height 233 was successful, with few men lost.
At Trendelburg, the double attack enveloped the town, although First Company, now light a platoon, had to move more carefully than was planned.
A short but bitter fight ensued, as the defenders, artillerymen from the 30th Guards Gun Brigade without their guns, fought tooth and nail for every building.
The men of the panzer-grenadier battalion soon learned to bring up one of the Jaguars, using the 88mm gun to more than level the playing field.
Many points of resistance were simply wiped out by high-explosive, until the message got through, and many of the artillerymen started to surrender.
The sturm grenadiers only met brief resistance on the Stammen heights, but it was enough to seriously wound their long time regimental commander, Oberstleutnant Ernst Kaether.
The commander and staff of 1st Mechanised Corps surrendered far too willingly for the tastes of some of the survivors of the artillerymen who had tried to defend Trendelburg.
Time revealed that the commander and his immediate staff had deliberately contrived the circumstances that led to their capture, using the dismounted artillery crews as sacrificial lambs, although, in their haste to escape the dreadful conditions prevalent in the Red Army, they had not realised that the 6th GIBTR was at hand.
Days later, a guard at the temporary prisoner camp, set up just outside nearby Arolsen, casually informed a German-speaking artillery sergeant of the circumstances surrounding the fight and surrender at Trendelburg.
By prior arrangement, the camp guards simply watched on as vengeful motorcycle and artillery troops beat many of their mechanised corps’ comrades to death.
None of whom were even remotely responsible for the betrayal.
Von Hardegen completed his discussion with the infantry commander; a relaxed affair over coffee.
The main topic of discussion was air power, and how having on their side for once made life a lot easier, much easier than it had been in the difficult last months of the previous war.
Kuno von Hardegen was happy to leave the mopping up to Fürth whilst his crew worked on getting his command tank moving.
Occasionally, his eyes would be drawn to the sound of an explosion, as something in one of the burning vehicles succumbed to the attentions of internal fire.
A Feldwebel ran up and reported to the Panzerjager Captain, having first deferred to Europa’s commander.
“We have a visitor, Herr Oberst.”
A brand new command halftrack, led and flanked by four American jeeps, bounded up the slope and pulled up short of the position occupied by the two officers.