If there was any doubt in Dixon's mind about whether or not he should engage the Jaguar across the square from him, he didn't dwell long on it. They were committed to war. First blood had been drawn, and this was neither the time nor place to determine if the crew of the Jaguar across from them was made up of good Germans or bad Germans. Only the fact that Vorishnov had forgotten to announce that he was UP, or ready for action, caused a delay. Out of habit, Dixon shouted, "LOADER! ARE YOU UP?"
Vorishnov, realizing his error, shouted, "UP," then silently cursed himself for being so stupid.
Dixon instantly shouted, "FIRE!" causing the gunner to respond with "ON THE WAY" just before he pulled the trigger.
The first engagement of the evening was over before the last of the reverberations from Dixon's tank died away in the close confines of the town's square. Like a giant dart, the depleted uranium penetrator sliced through the armor plate of the lead Jaguar 1 of Captain Albrecht Benen's company. Vorishnov's fear that such a round would have minimal effect against the Jaguar was ill founded, as the depleted uranium penetrator, pushing a chunk of the Jaguar's own armor plate in front of it, cut through stored ammunition into the Jaguar's fuel cell and out the rear through the engine compartment. The tremendous heat created by the transformation of the penetrator's kinetic energy into heat upon contact with the Jaguar set off first the propellant of the stored ammunition, then the diesel fuel.
Hans Gielber never had the opportunity to see any of this. By the time the lead Jaguar began shuddering from internal explosions, Hans was fleeing from the window, his face, chest, and upper arms shredded by glass that had been shattered by the concussion of the muzzle blast from Dixon's main gun. Though he would survive, he, like other children around the world, would pay for the decisions made by men who claimed to be their leaders and the men who were opposed to them. Like many of his countrymen caught in the middle of a conflict which few understood, Hans Gielber would carry the mental and physical scars of war with him for the rest of his life.
With the initial threat dealt with, Dixon now had to make a series of quick decisions. They were, relative to his rank and position, rather simple decisions. But that didn't make them any less critical. Knowing full well that anti-tank guns don't travel alone, Dixon knew there were more somewhere nearby, if not immediately behind the one he had just destroyed. The destruction of the lead Jaguar would serve as an effective, if somewhat bloody, warning to any German unit in the area that the Americans were there. So sneaking away into the darkness was out of the question. That didn't rule out the option of retreat. Dixon's tank was the only combat vehicle in the entire tactical command post. Though there might only be one more guided-missile anti-tank vehicle in the town, the chances of there being more were just as good, and Dixon had no way of knowing which answer was the correct one. So retreat was a prudent choice.
No one who knew Scott Dixon, however, would ever be able to accuse him of being conservative or prudent when it came to tactics. It was that reputation that had led his superiors to select his brigade for the foray into the Ukraine. It was those traits that gave them confidence that Dixon's brigade would be able to pull off the ride around the 2nd Panzer Division's flank. And in a moment of sheer panic Dixon's hard-hitting and aggressive nature overrode common sense and dictated his next series of orders. Keying the radio net, he ordered Cerro to find somewhere that the soft-skinned vehicles of the tactical command post could be protected by the officers and enlisted of the staff with the few anti-tank rockets that they had while they waited for the lead element of the next battalion to reach them.
Even before Cerro acknowledged Dixon's order, Dixon shouted for his driver to move out and told his gunner to keep his eyes open, that they were going to go around the Jaguar they had just destroyed and see if there were any more following. As the driver engaged the transmission, Dixon squatted on his seat and looked over to see how Vorishnov was doing with reloading. Dixon, just in time to see the Russian ram the next round into the gun chamber, noticed that he was sweating. Vorishnov, seeing Dixon watching, grunted and yelled over the sounds of the tank's turbine engines, "Automatic loaders are much better." Then he added after keying the intercom, "HEAT loaded."
With a quick smile and a thumbs-up, Dixon acknowledged the comment and popped back up just as his tank was about to pass the burning Jaguar. His gunner, who was not blinded by the flames of the burning German vehicle, shouted a new acquisition report. "Anti-tank, twelve o'clock!"
Dixon noticed that his gunner's voice was calmer now, even though he saw at the same instant that the new target was even closer than the one they had just engaged. Without waiting to give a full fire command, Dixon yelled, "INDEX HEAT FIRE!" in a single breath. Before the gunner fired, Dixon looked and saw another Jaguar desperately trying to back down the narrow street behind the one his gunner was engaging.
The muzzle blast of his tank's 120mm main gun momentarily blinded Dixon, who had not heeded the gunner's warning of "On the way" and closed his eyes. Not that there was much to see. The second engagement ended as the first had, with a target hit on the second Jaguar at a range of less than forty meters. But there was no time to stop to catch their breath. For while the gunner was preparing to dispatch the second Jaguar, Dixon caught a glimpse of the other Jaguar halfway through the process of turning around further down the street. Suddenly Dixon began to doubt the wisdom of charging across the square in pursuit of Germans. For the briefest moments he understood how Custer could have allowed himself to get suckered into his own massacre.
But this was no time for half measures, no time for backing up. Dixon felt he was committed and that it was better to keep going than to back off now. Taking a deep breath, Dixon looked about as his night vision began to clear and ordered the driver to keep heading down the street toward what he thought was the rail yard. Though he was pushing his luck or, more correctly, the luck of his entire crew, Dixon had no intention of stopping while he thought he had an advantage.
In the rail yard, bewilderment was replaced by a panicked frenzy of activity as Captain Albrecht Benen and his first sergeant, once they realized what was going on, ran up and down the line of flatbed rail cars shouting at their men in an effort to get them to hurry. Not everyone was as panicked as their commander. One Jaguar commander, seeing that his crew was doing the best it could and noticing that the second tank cannon report was closer, climbed on his vehicle and began to mount an anti-tank guided missile. Even if they were still on the rail car when the enemy tank came, the Jaguar commander figured he would be able to get at least one shot off.