6th Panzer rushed to the aid of the 167th, grinding through the town of Trosnoye to engage the enemy recon battalion. Behind the front, Hermann Balck was listening to the radio traffic, his curiosity up with many reports of a “new” Russian infantry carrier that was wreaking havoc as it came through the lines. He found the nearest radio, and called his ‘Incomparable Hauser.’
“I’m hearing a lot about a new Russian AFV in the mech battalions. Find me one. I want to have a close look at it.”
What the General ordered, Hauser would deliver. He took his fast-moving recon battalion out into the thick of the night, the sounds of battle rumbling in from the north like an unseen thunder storm. He swung wide around the left flank, and out into the gap the enemy had created in the lines of the 167th. There he found stragglers from a shattered battalion, who were very glad to see their own Panzer troops at hand.
He opened the hatch of his SdKfz-233 armored car, leaning out and waving the men over to him. His radio headset framed his face under a dark wool officers cap. “I’m looking for this new Russian infantry carrier. Have you seen them?”
“Seen them? They smashed our battalion twenty minutes ago.”
“Where? What do they look like?”
The man hesitated, his eyes dark, and holding fear in them. “A very low profile,” he began, “and with an angled hull—only forward, not back. There’s a small turret forward, but beware. It packs a punch with a 76mm main gun, and by god, the damn thing is very fast—fully tracked. We thought they were new light tanks, but then they deployed infantry from a rear hatch. They’ll only stop to do that if they have to. Otherwise, they just shoot from the firing ports along either side of the chassis. This is one wicked infantry carrier, and every battalion has them. They make our own Panzer SPWs look like goat carts by comparison. Be careful!”
“Where did you last see them?”
“Out there…” The man pointed out in to the black night, toward the gap Hauser had selected as his hunting ground. “We were posted along the stream bed, but they went right through. The damn thing is amphibious too! They’ll be well south of that by now at the rate they were moving. Good hunting… and good luck if you find them.”
Hauser would not need that good luck, and he would find them. By his latest count, his recon battalion had 44 armored cars left, eight Marder-II’s, and six towed 75mm AT Guns. He also had fast moving mobile flak guns with him, and good Panzergrenadiers. He turned, going where he would go if he was the enemy, the thrill of the hunt on him now.
Chapter 21
Hauser always moved with a recovery team, several heavy SdKfz-7 and SdKfz-9 prime movers, among the best such vehicles in the war. The Germans had become masters of battlefield tank recovery, reclaiming about 75% of all tanks put out of service, and returning most of those to active duty. He did not want to get in to a chase scenario, or a running gun battle with his enemy, for the objective was to find one of these new vehicles without having to destroy it with gunfire. His instincts told him to look for a place where he might catch a straggler.
The ‘stream’ described by the infantry was actually the Lozova River, and he worked his way along that watercourse until he found exactly what he wanted. He came across a lot of track marks in the soft ground, and followed them to a crimp in the river where it flowed around a tree covered nob. The troops of the 167th had told him this vehicle was amphibious, but there he would find a lost sheep that had tried to cross in a place where it found more mud than water. It had become bogged down, half submerged, and its infantry squad was milling about trying to figure out how to get it unstuck.
Hauser pulled up a line of five armored cars, and fired three warning shots, deliberately missing the vehicle, but sending the infantry scrambling away in the dark, chased by his machinegun fire. Then he ordered his own Panzergrenadiers to dismount and sweep forward in the inky darkness, beckoning the vehicle recovery team on the radio. For the next hour, that was his sole purpose, dragging that vehicle out of the bog and eventually getting it onto a flatbed truck. All the while, he could hear sounds of fighting off to the north, knowing that Balck had the main body of the division there in an attack against the enemy flank.
When he finally found the General at field command post, he leapt down from his armored car, beaming from ear to ear.
“Well?” said Balck, knowing that the mischief in those eyes meant that Hauser had news.
“First things first,” said Hauser. “They’ve already crossed the Lozova River. I’d say at least a brigade went southwest from there.”
“The rest are making our acquaintance now,” said Balck. He had been smoking a cigar, and took a long drag.
“They went right through the 167th,” said Hauser. This is more serious than we thought. I think they will be at Grayvoron by dawn.”
“Too far west for us to get over there tonight. Better to just keep pressure on this flank, but they’ve brought up another tank corps. I had a look at this new AFV too, but only from a distance. The Tigers knocked out three before they pulled back.”
Then, almost as an afterthought, Hauser delivered his real news. “Oh, I’ve got one for you—found it bogged down near the river. It’s with my recovery team, along with two of my armored cars.”
“You’ve got one? Good for you!” Now Balck reached into his greatcoat and pulled out one more cigar. “There, you’ve earned that. Have them bring this thing here. Then get out and watch my left.”
Hauser’s catch was one small consolation in an otherwise grim picture all along the front. In spite of Balck’s counterattack in the north, there was still a 20 Kilometer gap between the place where Hauser had found his quarry and the town of Grayvoron. There, 9th Panzer had been trying to counterattack as well, but being already weakened from previous action, it could make no headway against the 3rd Mech Corps. Both the 167th and 168th Infantry Divisions were shattered and falling back in disarray, unable to offer any effective resistance with in the breakthrough zone.
The whole of 1st Tank Army was now engaged with 6th and 11th Panzer, and they would be simply too much for the German divisions to push back. It was the first time in the war when the Panzertroops found themselves unable to make headway, even though their tanks were the equal or better of those fielded by the enemy. Between the two Panzer divisions, there were only eight battalions of infantry and two Panzer regiments of six companies each.
The enemy matched that with its 5th Guard Mech Corps alone, which fielded nine mechanized infantry battalions in the new BMP, and had three heavy armored brigades with 164 tanks. Then came the new 31st Tank Corps and the 6th. Those six additional brigades, plus three others from 7th Guards Army, added another 350 Soviet tanks and six more battalions of motorized infantry.
The Germans were simply overmatched, and it was only the skill of the soldiers, their officers and commander, that allowed them to shift forces from one flank to another to parry the enemy attacks.
Further south near Kharkov, even Steiner’s Korps was having great difficulty. Dietrich’s division, in action now for six days of continuous fighting, was simply not up to the task of moving to the offensive. The Grossdeutschland Division moved through its ranks, encountering swarms of Russian infantry that would not turn and flee as it did in the past. Things had changed. The Soviets had pushed to within 5 kilometers of the city, and they could smell the victory they sought.