Ninth Company had two men who, allegedly, had accompanied Marshal von Blücher onto the field of Waterloo, so long was their war service.
“Go and grab the elderly gentlemen, Oberfeldwebel. Let’s see what they have to say, eh?”
Two minutes later, Stabsgefreiter Arturs flopped noiselessly beside his company commander.
“Herr Oberleutnant?”
Aschmann pulled the binoculars away and passed them to the wizened infantryman who, according to his records was forty-nine, but looked roughly twice that.
Pointing across the valley, Aschmann brought Arturs attention to the ‘thing’.
“To the left of that stone ruin… on the down side there… see it?”
“No, Herr Oberleutnant… I… ah, yes.”
“And?”
“Field kitchen?”
“We’ve decided not, Arturs. Not seen one before?”
“I’ve seen most that the communists have to offer. Not seen one of those before… mind you… it’s set up in a beautiful position, Herr Oberleutnant… lovely field of fire.”
Confirmation of his and Behrens’ thinking was of little use without knowing what it was.
“Thank you anyway, Arturs. Return to your platoon. Thank you.”
The old Stabsgefreiter returned the binoculars and saluted.
He passed his older friend on the way back.
“It’s a field kitchen, but play dumb, Roland. You’re good at that.”
Roland Freiser took a playful swipe at his old comrade.
“Fuck off, boy.”
He was a mere three months older than Arturs.
“Seriously. I’ve no idea what the bastard thing is. Asch is worried about it though, so it won’t take too much to get a rise out of him.”
The two parted, leaving Freiser’s ‘bullet-loading swine’ comment floating in the widening gap between them.
Freiser dropped into the earth alongside Aschmann.
“Reporting as ordered, Herr Oberleutnant?”
The binoculars changed hands again, but the sound of heavy engines and the crack of high-velocity guns distracted both men.
Snatching the binoculars back, Aschmann found the source.
“Our panzers are advancing. King Tigers and Panthers! They should make short work of the communists!”
Suddenly all smiles, he forgot the initial problem, concentrating on the nine heavy and medium tanks as they rolled forward in two lines, rolling down the road from Thüste, driving towards the enemy at Weenzen, occasionally stopping only to pick off an enemy tank here and there.
“Was there something you wanted, Herr Oberleutnant?”
Brought back to subject number one, Aschmann pointed towards the ‘thing’ and explained the problem.
Binoculars to his face, Freiser found first one, then quickly two more of the ‘things’.
“Fucking hell!”
“What? What’s that you say, man?”
“I can’t pronounce the name but I know what they are… and there’s three of them. The panzers are in trouble, Herr Oberleutnant. We’ve got to stop them before they get too close. Those bastards are deadly!”
“What are they?”
“They’re rockets… Hungarian anti-tank rockets. Saw some in use when I was with the Feldherrnhalle in Budapest. No fucking prisoners with those things. They’ll make mincemeat out of the panzer boys, no problem, Oberleutnant.”
He turned to look at his commander and saw nothing but horror on Aschmann’s face.
The officer thought fast.
“Get on to Bataillon. Tell them what we have, and that I’m going to try and stop the panzers. Oberfeldwebel Behrens!”
As he waited for the NCO to appear, Aschmann rummaged in the battalion chest.
“Herr Hauptmann?”
“Behrens… they’re rocket launchers, according to Freiser. I want them under fire immediately… tracer rounds… try and let the panzers know the enemy’s set up there.”
He paused as he lifted out the signal pistol.
“If the mortars had any ammo, I’d direct them onto it… them… there’s three apparently. I’m going to try and stop them another way.”
He found the flares.
“Tell the Leutnant that he’s in charge. Now get to it!”
Behrens was away like a flash as Aschmann slid the first flare into the pistol, and pocketed half a dozen more.
He moved back to Freiser’s side.
“Any more, Stabsgefreiter?”
“Not sure, Herr Oberleutnant. Three for certain… that’s what I can see. I remember the things used to engage up to about a kilometre or so, less to be certain. I think our panzers are still beyond that.”
He clicked his fingers as a memory surfaced.
“Buggiveters… they’re called Buggiveters…”[8]
He turned to look at his commander, but saw only a pair of heels as Aschmann was up and out of the trench. Running down the slope with his SMG in one hand and the flare pistol in the other.
He was still watching Aschmann as a burst from a DP28 chewed up the earth around the running man’s feet, before it was professionally ‘walked’ into the target.
The Oberleutnant went down hard, and stayed down.
Vesnin was fuming, and his bad temper grew with each hit on a tank of the 45th Guards.
“You say you can hit up to twelve hundred, so fire, Mayor, for the Motherland’s sake… can’t you see that the tankers are getting hammered out there?”
The AT unit commander shook his head.
“They’ll have to make their own arrangements, Comrade Alezredes Vesnin.”
He used the Hungarian rank deliberately.
“I’ll not risk my unit until I know I can hit what I aim at.”
Vesnin bit back his reply, as his briefing on the Hungarian-designed Buzogányvető rocket system had been quite specific.
‘…the Mace unit commander is a veteran who knows what he’s doing. Assist as he sees fit, allow him to do his job, and protect the rocket systems and crews at all costs…’
Major General Babadzhanian had been so invested in this unit that he had bothered to send a written message specifically to Vesnin, under whose command he had placed the Special unit.
“When?”
“Eight-hundred.”
Vesnin made the calculation and came up short by nearly one hundred metres.
“And these things’ll kill their King Tiger?”
“No problem, Comrade.”
That was a claim and a half to Vesnin, but he held himself in check, grimacing as one of the supporting ZSUs exploded violently.
An enemy barrage pounded the top of Height 329, completely missing the launchers concealed on the northwestern slope.
He could keep his mouth shut no longer.
“That has to be in your range now, Comrade Mayor!”
Not removing his eyes from the special sight, Major Sárközi sighed audibly, like a parent at an overly questioning child.
“I need all five maces in range, or we’ll lose our advantage, Comrade Alezredes.”
That made sense, and Vesnin kicked himself for not thinking of it.
‘The man knows his trade remember!’
A scream betrayed some injury to the covering infantry force, two platoons of his guardsmen had been laid out in front of the launchers to provide security.
Another scream penetrated Vesnin’s brain to the core, one originating from Sárközi, as the Hungarian gave the order to fire.
The five ‘Mace’ launchers sent their rockets downrange as one.
Accelerating to two hundred metres per second, the Mace rockets ate up the battlefield and hit home.
Spectacularly.
Each hollow-charge warhead was capable of penetrating three hundred millimetres of armour, if the rocket warhead presented perpendicular to the armour plate.
The King Tigers and Panthers all had angled armour, so some penetrative power was lost.