His inner voice spoke to him once more, “The geburtstag?” In an instant an inner debate was raging. “Sure it’s the geburtstag, so what? So what if it’s his birthday, he won’t care. All that matters to him is beating the Ivans.”
He gathered his thoughts and quickly came to the rational conclusion that birthdays were for peacetime. Hauptsturmführer von Schroif was sure that he only paid lip service to the idea anyway. Events had taken over. The very idea of celebrating a geburtstag was history, at least for now. Now, the only thing that mattered was to win the war, to annihilate the Popovs, and then there would be time for birthday celebrations once more. Birthday or no birthday, everything was now too important to let domesticity interfere.
He soon overcame his fears and, for the first time, von Schroif was sure that they would talk. At last, Hans had a chance to get his own points over to him in person. The Möbelpackwagen, the furniture van, it just had to live, it just had to have a future.
With the methodical approach of a trained military mind, Hans von Schroif ran through the requirements for the big day and ticked them off. Was his dress uniform clean, pressed, and shiny? Tick! Was his Iron Cross polished to the point where it would reflect the late East Prussian spring sunshine? Tick! Was the van fully fuelled and armed? Tick! He knew everything was in order, but he ran through the list mentally one more time, then turned his thoughts to his long-serving crew.
As one would expect of the driver and sometime engineer, Bobby Junge had spent the whole of the previous day going over every nook and cranny of the Möbelpackwagen. Hans knew that, if Bobby gave things the seal of approval, everything was indeed in order.
It certainly had its share of teething troubles and, if anyone was hardy enough to engage him on his new favourite subject, a morning could easily be lost as Bobby Junge expanded upon the tinkering which was now required to put things right.
Bobby Junge was by no means a bore. In fact, he had a great way of lucidly explaining mechanical concepts in layman’s terms, and Junge was all too aware how often his accumulated knowledge could be lifesaving on the battlefield. For that reason, he was always anxious to pass his precious lessons on to other crews, especially newcomers.
It was in everyone’s interest that they survived to help in the struggle ahead and SS-Panzeroberschütze Junge would therefore happily use his own precious free time to describe the essential maintenance tricks and techniques to new comrades in detail. If they happened to have the spare hour or two, his advice came free, along with some excellent technical drawings made on the spot in order to help new comrades understand the complexities of the Panzer VI which were not apparent from the stuffy manuals produced by Messrs Krupp.
Despite the obvious teething problems, the Panzer VI, better known to its crew as the furniture van, had its good points too, and over the past week or so Junge waxed increasingly lyrical about these features. Nice wide tracks almost one metre wide helped spread the weight and, amazingly, generated less ground pressure than the Panzer IV. Although the Panzer VI was more than twice as heavy as the Panzer IV, it would obviously be able to cope better with Russian mud, much better than old Magda ever could.
Despite the massive extra weight, the thing could turn on a sixpence and on-board it was smooth, unbelievably smooth. The suspension was amazing and the Maybach engine seemed just about man enough for the task. In a very short space of time, Bobby Junge had grown to adore the lumbering furniture van and his obvious love of the Panzer VI was infectious.
Gunner SS-Scharführer Michael Knispel, too, was already enthusiastic to the point of devotion. For an experienced gunner, the optics were what really mattered, and they were first class. The furniture van was equipped with the extremely accurate Leitz Turmzielfernrohr TZF 9b, but then von Schroif had expected that in a new tank. The additional thrill for Knispel was to have the mighty Acht-acht at his fingertips.
The 88 mm Flugzeugabwehr-Kanone was the flak gun which had saved the skin of the Wehrmacht in Russia and in Libya. Knispel knew only too well that it was the only weapon which could defeat the T-34 or the KV-1 at anything less than suicidally close range. It was widely known and recognised as one of the most effective weapons on the battlefield, but it was nonetheless an anti-aircraft gun. To Knispel’s delight, here it was transformed by the boffins into a tank gun, an amazing adaption by which the former anti-aircraft weapon had been turned into a Kampfwagenkanone par excellence.
The new tank gun had been issued with a new official designation, the KwK 36 L/56, but Wohl reckoned it should be known as the KWK (PE). Although smaller, it retained all the essential characteristics of the Acht-acht. Knispel noted, with obvious delight, that the new gun had a very flat trajectory and a massive high-velocity impact, which would certainly turn the scales on Ivan.
Haupsturmführer von Schroif noted to himself that, if only they could get the powers that be to approve production of the furniture van, next time there would be no race against death with Bobby Junge desperately manoeuvring to get a rear shot on the KV-1. Next time, all that Knispel had to do was to line him up on the middle triangle. SS-Panzerschütze Otto Wohl, with his lightning fast reactions, could be relied upon to ram a shell home and boom, whoosh, Ivan would be no more.
From Wohl’s point of view, the furniture van certainly had plenty of capacity. To have a hundred shells for the wonderful Acht-acht on board was heaven for Wohl, and this was despite the fact that each of the new 88 mm rounds was so much bigger and bulkier than the 75 mm carried on board the old bus.
Wohl in particular seemed to have adapted seamlessly to the less claustrophobic confines of the Möbelpackwagen. In the training runs, it was as if nothing had changed. No sooner had Knispel pressed the electric firing button than Wohl, as if by magic, had the breach cleared and a new shell in the chute, almost before the last shell had hit the target. The quick reactions of Otto Wohl had saved their skins so many times in Russia. Von Schroif respected the views of his talkative subordinate. He knew that, if the furniture van was right for Wohl, it was right for the rest of the Waffen SS and the Heer, and, on their behalf, von Schroif was ready to fight for the Möbelpackwagen all the way.
The last member of the team appeared to be fine too. Radio operator SS-Panzeroberschütze Karl Wendorff, as far as von Schroif could discern, approved of the communications set up in the Möbelpackwagen. The funkmeister declared himself happy that the receiver worked like a dream and, as the wandering philosopher of the team, Wendorff reported in his cautious and pedantic manner that, as he wasn’t on the receiving end of the transmission, he had no accurate way of knowing how well the transmitter worked. However, it certainly appeared to work fine. That was enough for von Schroif.
It crossed Wendorff’s mind at that time to mention the unusual radio signal he had picked up again yesterday. There was a familiar ring to it. He was sure it used the same code he had intercepted during the engagement outside Rostov, but two things prevented him from discussing it with von Schroif: firstly, his commander obviously had enough on his plate today, and secondly, he was still puzzled himself and needed to give it further thought. He planned to leave the subject fallow as the crew were due to meet with Henschel’s chief engineer, Kurt Arnholdt, straight after breakfast.
As the crippled KV-1 pulled into the workshop, Dimitri Korsak thanked his lucky stars. By claiming the half-track and the recovery vehicles, he’d done just enough to claim a result. After all, the Russians held the field, and the engineers would be burrowing like demented badgers and wouldn’t be disgorged from their positions without a new assault. Sure, there had been losses, but they were replaceable (by Soviet standards). What mattered was that the fascists were being ground down. One day Russia would be free of them, and perhaps one day Germany, too, would be free.