“Perhaps not,” said Kirov. “Their Counterattack went all the way to Belgorod in the Material, and it is not finished. We may still have to give ground here if Popov and Malinovsky can’t stop Steiner. If the battle this summer isn’t fought at Kursk, then it will be somewhere close by, somewhere on that same map Zhukov rolled out for us here. In fact, it may be this very fight we have ordained! So we must be prepared. I’ll want your best effort at intelligence in the months ahead.”
“Don’t worry,” said Berzin. “Once things settle down here, I will find out what they are planning. Rest assured.”
Part XI
Grim Realizations
“In these kinds of sudden realizations, the tacit and creeping nature of technology has only been detected after the fact. Once one notices the change in one’s altogether altered surroundings, it already has happened: the technology has already risen to prevalence.”
Chapter 31
General Vlasov clearly perceived the peril he was in, and the realization was grim. His 2nd Shock Army was strung out on too wide a frontage, with half south of the Donets, and the rest on the north bank. He received word to consolidate everything he could near Balakleya, and that is what he did, pressed hard the entire time by Hausser’s 2nd SS. Only when he had managed to compress his army to a 12-kilometer front did he begin to think he might hold, but he was still underestimating the power of the iron that was about to fall upon him now. (See map for the battle of Volkov Yar.)
Das Reich had formed a screening line, pressing the northeast end of Vlasov’s line, which was now anchored on the Donets. Behind this front, Eicke had crossed the river and he now had the entire 3rd SS tight as a coiled spring and ready to attack at dawn on the 18th. Das Reich engaged the line and then Totenkopf swung around the right flank of that division like a halfback looking for a hole to exploit. That maneuver would force Vlasov to refuse his left slightly, but his confidence grew with the arrival of Popov’s 7th and 10th Tank Corps to his rear.
As Popov neared the front line, he could hear the sound of the fighting off to the northeast. That was Grossdeutschland Division, already engaging Malinovsky’s 2nd Motor Rifle Division. The battle lines would now stretch out in that direction, all the way to the road and rail line into Chuguyev. The hissing launch of 82mm rockets told him that his 7th Tank Corps was announcing its presence, and giving challenge. Then he heard the Super Heavy Howitzers of Malinovsky’s Group, and took heart.
The two sides would meet like armored knights, each thundering towards the other bearing long, lethal lances. It would be the largest clash of armored forces thus far in the war, four German Panzer Divisions, with two more Panzergrenadier Divisions as the 29th arrived. The Russians fielded two Tank Corps, a Mech Corps and two Motor Rifle Divisions in this initial clash, but General Kuznetsov’s 1st Guards Army was already hastening to the battle with another Mech and Tank Corps.
For the first time, Manstein and Steiner hit the enemy line with all three division in one coordinated hammer blow. A company of heavy Lions had been parceled out to each of the three other divisions in 57th Panzer Korps, but that still left over 60 Lions on the line for this assault, each with 88mm guns. The SS Divisions also had companies of Tigers organic to their Panzer regiments. The tanks lined up, fearsome shadows of steel in the early dawn, their long, dangerous gun barrels looking like evil lances. Then a harsh command was given, and one by one the Lions fired, the shots streaking like hot bolts of lava across the deadly field between the two sides.
T-34’s were blasted at long range, some having their turrets blown into the bloody dawn. Halftracks of the mechanized infantry were seared and scalded with fire, and dark, pallid smoke loomed over the scene. Then came the awful din of massed artillery, regiment after regiment pouring on the fire, thick and heavy.
It was Ironfall, burning lead from the sky, a rain of molten steel, and it fell heaviest on the dismounted motorized infantry, which had no time to prepare positions or dig in. Then the German tanks gunned their heavy engines, growling Lions at Dawn, and the big cats charged. The only thing missing were the trumpets, for this was the equivalent of the finest heavy cavalry in the world raging forward over the sodden ground to tear into the lines of their enemy.
Popov’s 7th Tank Corps had been hit only on the left side, but that was enough to savage a motor rifle battalion and send the tank destroyers defending with it into retreat. The 10th Tank Corps was on the right, seeing German armored cars and halftracks from Das Reich emerge through the heavy smoke, and the order was given to attack. The entire weight of that Corps would fall on the breach, where a battalion of Panzergrenadiers was advancing with a company of armored cars in the van. It was going to be more than enough to stop that little breakthrough, but the real problem was to the north.
It was Malinovsky’s 2nd Motor Rifle Division that took the brunt of the attack by 3rd SS and Grossdeutschland Division, with five of its nine battalions shattered and falling back towards Volkov Yar. The entire line buckled and withered away, but the Russians were desperately trying to reorganize their broken battalions further back. NKVD Colonels stood defiantly, legs wide and firing pistols into the air to stem the ebb of the infantry. Some ignored them completely, for that pistol seemed a small and harmless thing compared to the rolling thunder of the German attack.
General Ermakov of the 2nd Motor Rifle Division knew his line had been shattered and pushed back. He had reformed a thin front, the troops man-handling their 57mm AT guns into position, only to find those shells unable to penetrate the frontal armor of the heavy German tanks. On came the tide of steel and iron, falling on Ermakov’s division for a second attack.
The Germans were relentless, panzers firing as they advanced, the infantry crouching in halftracks behind that wall of Lions and Tigers. They pushed another two kilometers into the mid-afternoon, until they were driving the Russians back to the southern edge of Volkov Yar. In places the line had been pushed all the way back to the Russian artillery positions, and the crews were desperately limbering up the guns to get them north out of harm’s way. Some, unable to get the guns hitched up, simply lowered the barrels and began to fire.
Clearly beaten, Ermakov was about to order a general retreat, when up came a runner through the hovelled streets of Volkov Yar. Reinforcements had arrived from Chuguyev. It was General Kuznetsov’s 1st Guard Tank Corps, forming its brigades a kilometer north of the town. Zhukov was risking everything here in a desperate attempt to stop the German counteroffensive.
This was the heavy Armored division in Kuznetsov’s Army, and it had four tank brigades instead of three, with two of them heavy tanks, including two dozen SK-I, the “Sergei Kirov” model tank that looked very much like the one that had been named for Josef Stalin. With a 100mm BS-3 main gun main gun, it was a match for anything the Germans had, and now all four brigades surged forward in a mad tank rush. The action would include another 66 T-34’s, some with the 85mm gun, 35 heavy KV-2’s, and 36 lighter T-60 and T-70 tanks.
The word was shouted forward: “Kuznetsov! Kuznetsov is here!” and the Russian infantry began to reform their lines. They had been pushed back a full five kilometers, but there was fire and steel behind them now, and they would turn and fight. They watched at the T-34’s raced past their positions, then were up off the ground in a crouching run behind the fast moving tanks. Some leapt atop a passing KV-2 moving slow enough for them to do so, and shouting in Russian so the tank crews would know they had been mounted by friendly infantry.