The forest was too thick in most places for tank traffic, and most of the traffic was canalized down forest roads. As a result, it was fairly easy for the Germans to set up ambushes. The worst were the hidden missile squads. They were like lice. You just couldn't lose them.
A Soviet column would move down a forest road. Sometimes the lead vehicle would be hit by missile fire. Other times, the Germans would wait until the column had passed and would open fire with Milan missiles from the rear. The division had tried everything. Heavy artillery bombardment was futile. The forest deadened any artillery fire, and the Germans were usually dug in. The motor rifle division dismounted their infantry from their BMP-2 infantry vehicles and sent them forward along the edge of the forest, with the vehicles farther to the rear. This lead to heavy firefights with German infantry, from prepared positions in the woods. While the Germans were usually overcome, the process was long and costly. The division was far behind its schedule.
The 18th Guards Motor Rifle Division was supposed to reach the Danube River south of Regensburg by the end of the second day of fighting. An advance element of the division had in fact reached the river late the previous night. But it would take at least another day to bring up the divisional bridging equipment, which was strung out back to the Czech frontier. The 65th Guards Tank Regiment (GTR), to which Krylov's battalion was now attached, had been sent down the main road to Deggendorf in an attempt to seize bridges over the river. The divisional commander hoped that a plunge southward might save him the time and cost of a risky river crossing operation. But the divisional commander expected heavy fighting for Deggendorf. So he planned to send Krylov's battalion on a parallel course through some small roads east of Hunderdorf to try to reach the Danube in a less conspicuous location. If the main assault failed, or if the Germans blew the bridges, he would have an alternative location to launch a river crossing operation.
For the first two days of the war, Krylov's battalion had seen little fighting. The battalion was held in divisional reserve, and moved forward in march formation behind the advancing units. In a way, it was a more demoralizing experience than actually being in combat. The roads were littered with the debris of war. Most sickening of all, it was mostly Soviet equipment — burned and shattered BMPs, tanks, and trucks. Sometimes, the medical units had already cleaned up the area before his tanks rolled past. But often, Krylov's tanks rolled past the scene of fighting that had concluded less than an hour before. The sights and smells of the burned wreckage and mutilated bodies were numbing.
Krylov's battalion had first seen combat on the night of 1 October, two days before. The battalion was used to support an attack by the 65th GTR near a small town. The terrain was finally opening up a bit, although it was still forested, and rather hilly. The Germans were equipped with Leopard 1 tanks. Although it was pitch black, the Leopards had begun firing at Krylov's battalion from their positions near a small copse. Obviously, they had passive night vision sights, since there was no evidence of infrared searchlights. His T-80M tanks had passive sights as well, but it was difficult to pick out targets against the dark tree line. His tanks were crossing a field, and the contrast was enough to enable the Germans to see his unit. He instructed his unit to use their infrared searchlights in white light mode, switching to infrared. The sudden glare of the searchlights temporarily blinded the Germans' passive night sights, and the infrared searchlights made the task of locating the Germans all the easier. The searchlights also made the Soviet tanks very obvious, but they heavily outnumbered the German tanks. After about a half hour of fighting, the Germans withdrew, leaving behind four Leopard 1 tanks in flames. Krylov's unit had lost three tanks and suffered damage on one more.
The third day was tense and uneventful at first. The 65th GTR moved forward, and Krylov's 18th GITB (Guards Independent Tank Battalion) remained in reserve awaiting further instructions.
The day was spent putting the tanks in order and helping the divisional recovery teams with 65th GTR tanks disabled in the previous night's fighting. In the late afternoon, the battalion was ordered forward to assist in another night attack. Only two companies were involved, since the terrain didn't favor the commitment of all five of the battalion's companies.
The fighting that night went very badly for Krylov's unit. He had committed the 5th Tank Company, commanded by Yuriy Dmitryev, and the 1st Company of Nurken Abdirov.
Dmitryev's company stumbled into a position defended by an enemy tank platoon. The Germans had opened fire at 2,000 meters, well outside the normal visual range for passive night sights. Dmitryev had tried the same trick as the night before, illuminating his opponents with the tank's searchlights in the hopes of temporarily blinding their night sights. By the time they recovered, his company should have covered half the distance to their objective. Unfortunately, the enemy tanks were not using passive night sights, but thermal imaging sights. They were not blinded; to the contrary, the sudden use of searchlights only made Dmitryev's tanks more obvious. In short order, all ten tanks from the company had been hit. Abdirov's company attempted to respond, but began being hit by guided antitank missiles.
The T-80M is fitted with reactive armor, and the initial strikes by the missiles harmlessly exploded the reactive armor.[23]
But Abdirov's crews had never seen reactive armor go off at night. The effect was spectacular. The bricks on the turret front exploded from the impact of the missile, but the explosion deflected the missile blast, preventing the missile warhead from penetrating the tank. The blast rocked the tanks, which startled several crew members, who thought their tanks had been mortally wounded. The crews were edgy, since survivors from the 65th GTR had warned them that they had only a few seconds to abandon a tank once it was penetrated. It had become painfully obvious that Soviet tanks blew up rather easily. Actually, Abdirov's tanks had not been penetrated, but the flash, noise, and lack of experience led to panic. Three tanks that had been hit were abandoned by their crews. Two more tanks were hit and halted. The remaining tanks moved forward, but in the confusion could not find Dmitryev's wounded company. The fighting ended around 2000, with the enemy withdrawing.
Krylov's battalion was ordered to halt for the night and await orders. Krylov drove up to the clearing where Dmitryev's company had been hit. Of the ten tanks in the attack, four had received solid turret hits, which had resulted in internal explosions. All the crew had been killed almost instantly. Three tanks had suffered hull penetrations, but at least part of the crews had been able to abandon the tanks. Two tanks had received hits in the engine compartment and suffered mild fire damage. One had been hit in the track and was immobilized. There was nothing Krylov could do to recover the damaged tanks. He supervised the surviving company members as they tried to locate the wounded and the survivors. His deputy battalion commander and political officer, Sr. Lt. Nikolai Gorin, cleared up the situation with the badly shaken 1st Tank Company. The 1st Company commander, Nurken Abdirov, was the only Kazakh officer in the battalion. Gorin did not have a high regard for him, although his men found him to be a competent and tough officer.
Krylov ordered the companies to adopt a nighttime defensive position in the hilly area near the site of the earlier skirmish. The tanks were to be kept away from the woods, for fear of German troops sneaking up at night with antitank weapons. They were to position their tanks with clear lines of fire toward the woods, but all were warned to place the tanks in hull-down with only the turret above the hill contours. It was an elementary precaution that the crews should have naturally adopted. But Krylov knew his men were exhausted by the four hours of road march and the unexpected skirmish.
23
Explosive reactive armor (ERA) consists of small metal boxes filled with high explosive. When the shaped charge (chemical energy) high-explosive warhead of an antitank missile strikes the box, the box explodes and propels a metal plate at the missile warhead. This reaction blunts the penetration of the missile warhead. Reactive armor is designed mainly to stop shaped charge warheads, like those fitted to infantry antitank rockets and guided antitank missiles. It has no substantial effect on the standard types of tank ammunition used in tank combat, such as the APFSDS (kinetic energy) projectile.