Chapter 13
Rommel stared at the map. Here I am again, he thought—another desert, another battle. Here I sit, another 550 miles from Cairo, which is the same distance I would have had to travel from my Gazala line positions southeast of Tobruk. When I began that retreat, I never thought I would ever get this close to the Nile River again. What a strange and hard circle Fate has circumscribed for me. How poignant to be here again, and with this second chance after the bitter disappointments of Tunisia and Operation Sturmflut. So now I am to strike another blow at the British with Operation Eisenfall, Ironfall, and with a force about the same size as my old Panzerarmee Afrika, only with much more infantry.
I had so little time in Germany with Lucie and my family. A month ago, I was sitting in my Mammut command vehicle, listening to the rain on the roof, with our guns being the thunder. Seeing Germany again, and my dear Lucie, was good for my soul. Yet even there, all I could think of as I tried to take my rest were the men I left behind; the looks on their faces when I boarded that plane to depart. Something tells me I will see them again one day. My old divisions have a way of finding me, following me in this war. God knows we cannot stay there in Tunisia for very much longer.
I am told Hitler sacked von Funck! That was inevitable. He laid low and minded his business, but it seems he took the reins in this new American offensive, and neither Nehring nor Hitler liked it. Now Manteuffel goes to the Ghost Division, a very capable officer. Who knows, perhaps one or two of those divisions will fight for me again…. Assuming they can be safely evacuated from Tunisia.
And now, what of my place here? Another desert, and I am told that this one is as desolate and arid as Libya. So what do I have in front of me now? The British have dug in on a line from Tartus on the coast, then south of Homs and on to the highlands near Palmyra, and their flank is hanging in the air. There is nothing off their right flank but the empty desolation of the Syrian Desert. They say the Bedu roam that wasteland, looking for any forage or scrub they can find, wandering like spirit nomads, ghosts in the night. Well, I have seen desert. There I was, getting fat and lazy in Tunisia. That place was so well watered that we never had to haul in water with the truck columns.
Rommel pulled off his gloves, sitting at the small wooden table where a map was laid out by his new Chief of Staff Major General Siegfried Westphal. He would miss Bayerlein, but knew Westphal to be a competent man. Kesselring sent him over from Italy, and Rommel passed a brief moment wondering whether Smiling Albert was simply using him to keep an eye on his own doings. He was the youngest man to make Major General in the Army, and good for him, thought Rommel. Now I will put him to work.
He looked over the map, noting the positions of the many infantry divisions presently holding the front. Most were mountain divisions under the capable leadership of General Ludwig Kübler. But there was also a line infantry division, the 31st, with the 34th still arriving on the trains. It would have been there by now, but Rommel made a special request that the 101st Panzer Brigade be sent first. He wanted to flesh out his real offensive force, III Panzer Korps under General Hermann Breith.
The 101st Brigade was a unit that had seen brief service in 1941, with two Panzer Regiments, but now it was completely reorganized, an aberration, as these brigades had not been built out until 1944 as an expedient measure to create fire brigades on the Eastern Front. The panzer battalion, KG Lauchert, had two companies of Lions with the high velocity 75mm gun, and one Schwere company of the newest VK-90 Lion Kings. That tank had been in competition with the Konigstiger for the coveted mass production factory floors. Due to the success of the VK-75, the prototype was approved in late 1942, and a small run of that tank was produced, only 36, before Hitler saw the Challenger II and ordered sweeping changes to the design.
So these tanks, the VK-90s, with an all new 90mm main gun, would be the Last of the Mohicans for that model. The redesigned Lion King would see its armor increased from 100mm to 140mm, and its main gun bumped up from the new 90mm, which was now cancelled, to an all new Pak 44/80 128mm main gun that would become the standard for both the Lion King and the Royal Tiger. That was the same gun that would eventually find its way to the dread Jagdtiger heavy tank destroyer, so its adoption was very practical, owing much to the fact that there were naval guns made of this size, and much tooling already existed, making for quick production. It was capable of penetrating 230 millimeters (9.1 in) of 30-degree sloped armor at 1000 meters, compared to 165mm penetration achieved by the 88mm gun.
At 2000 meters it could penetrate 200 millimeters (7.9 in) compared to 132mm for the 88, and at 3,000 meters it could still defeat 173 millimeters (6.8 in) where the 88 was no longer effective. So this gun marked a dramatic improvement in Panzer firepower, though the real Big Cats that would use it, Konigslowe and Konigstiger, would not take the field until later in 1943. For now, the VK-90 was at the top of the heap, its new 90mm gun equivalent to the 88, but with better striking power out beyond the 2000-meter range. The new Pak44/80 was unique in that it had its PzGr.43 HE Projectile accompanied buy up to three propellant charges. One or two charges could be used when the gun was firing as an artillery piece, but all three would be used when it was in the AT role.
Rommel smiled when he read these reports from Westphal, realizing that his long suffering in the desert against the Challenger II, and his remarkable capture of that single abandoned enemy tank, had done much to spur this development. Now we finally get a tank that has a chance against that monster deployed by the British, he thought.
The 101st Panzer Brigade was a fusion of KG 100 under Major Eberhard Zahn, a bright eyed handsome young officer that had commanded the 33 PzJag Battalion of 15th Panzer in Tunisia. When Rommel learned Hitler was granting his request for this Brigade, he specifically requested Zahn for the Panzer element, knowing he was an energetic and skillful young officer. Zahn had been born in 1910, so he was a man of 33 years, though he looked much younger, and that gift of youth would see him live to be 100 years old, into the 21st Century in the year 2010 when he finally passed away just 36 days after his centennial.
That was the steel in the new brigade, and the flesh and bone were provided by two battalions of Panzergrenadiers under Oberst von Lauchert and Major Breidenbach. Rommel intended to use that unit as a spearhead, to be followed by the powerful Wiking SS Division, but as he looked over the map, he was still not satisfied.
16th Panzer Division… It would have two Panzer battalions of three medium companies, each with 3 light Leopard recon tanks, 15 medium Lions with the 75mm gun, and three of the new VK-90’s, with an all new 90mm main gun. It was the Lion’s answer to the competing Tiger-I, and was a superior design in some respects, with better hitting power and maneuverability. That was only 126 tanks, but the division was augmented by the inclusion of 24 StuIG 33’s, nine Nashorns and a dozen more Marder III’s in the PzJag Battalion, making for a total of 171 AFVs. It then had two Panzergrenadier Regiments of three battalions each instead of the normal two, along with the recon battalion, Pioneers and artillery.
This is a fine division, he thought, but it has been positioned right behind 31st Infantry Division—probably by necessity. It is there to face down all that armor the British have been bringing up, but that will mean I may not have the services of that division when I start Eisenfall. I don’t want my Panzer divisions playing a defensive role, not even to make a well-timed counterattack. The British brought up that armor because they intend to use it to try and retake Palmyra, but I don’t want 16th Panzer there. I want Hillebrand’s division with me when I move south….