Author's notes: Now's the time for a second battle for theVolksgrenadiers. This time however, the opposition will bring out heavier weapons for a mass assault on the recently-built German forward base of operations.
The sandbags the combat engineers set up were quite well-positioned and thus the Germans put them into good use. After every gun was set towards the expected direction of the enemy advancement, the Germans awaited. Their wait ended soon when they started to hear the lightly-rumbling that will make anyone who encountered the beast before frightened. Wolfhart nor the rest of his squad had a pair of binoculars so he just relied on his eyes to take a look on the enemy from afar.
"Two Shermans and a truck, which means the rest of the Yankees will attack here. Get your weapons ready," ordered Wolfhart. Of course they weren't the only Germans covering the route; there were around 5 more German infantry as well the Panzer IV waiting nearby in reserve. Although of course the forces were more focused on the Eastern route.
Eastern defence…
The Pak 40 opened up which gave away its position, but managed to score a hit as well as de-track the leading Sherman. American infantry dismounted and took cover in the drain beside the road while the truck pulled out quickly. The hit Sherman was not down however. It only suffered crew injury and fired back at the Pak 40 with a High Explosive shell.
Thankfully for the Germans it missed and hit a house far inside the village, for the moment. The other Sherman however fired a shot on the AT gun and managed to take out the crew and damage the gun. The others rushed to man it and repair the gun. A Panzerschreck team came into the raging battle and took aim at the leading Sherman and fired.
The rocket of the Panzerschreck, having the highest value of penetration among other anti-tank rockets of the time hit the Sherman and blew up its ammo rack in a spectacular flame of sparks and burning gunpowder. Both sides got into a stalemate as the Germans did not bring any form of indirect artillery such as mortars to flush out the Americans from their cover. The second Sherman took cover behind the burning wreckage but was unable to fire its main 75mm M3 gun.
The stalemate will be broken however from another direction of the attack.
Northeastern route...
The same rumbles were heard and the Germans, as well as the Volksgrenadiers prepared. Ernst's Panzer IV loaded an AP shell while his trusted gunner looked down on the sights. The awaited Sherman appeared and the gunner fired his shot without hesitation. After the dust cleared, only a rather big scratch was formed on the Sherman's hull despite the penetrating power of the upgraded 75mm KwK 40 L/48 main gun. Regardless, the loader quickly loaded another AP round into the chamber.
The Sherman advanced and behind it was another Sherman, but with a longer barrel for its main gun. Ernst then remembered the rumors and so-called 'warnings' about upgraded Shermans capable of taking down a Tiger tank frontally or withstand one of its shots. He concluded that it must be these two tanks.
"Gunner, take aim on the Sherman behind it," Ernst ordered. The gunner did so and fired on the Sherman behind it which was unable to turn its turret fast enough towards the Panzer IV. Ernst was not able to take the whole thing down but at least the turret was disabled. To his surprise however, the Sherman cleverly turned its entire hull to make its gun aim towards the Panzer IV.
It was at the moment Ernst knew, they were fucked.
Boom!
Klang!
Ernst was still alive breathing, along with his gunner and loader. They coughed in the dust of steel and when it cleared, the loader screamed out loud in a rather manly way. Ernst and his gunner took a look at what was the loader seeing and there, he saw the driver and the bow gunner. The former had his head gone while the other lost his left arm, both dead and soaked into blood. The shell made a hole on the front armour while the shrapnel formed from the penetration broke some equipment but barely missed the ammunition rack, thankfully for them.
"They might think we're already down, let's show them otherwise," said Ernst after he got back some boost of morale. The gunner got onto his seat while the loader slowly regained his spirit and loaded another AP round into the chamber. Ernst looked through the commander's cupola sights and he could see the leading Sherman slowly moving at the German positions while American infantry took cover behind it.
Luckily for the gunner the second Sherman did not move an inch thinking their surroundings were safe and sound. The gunner thus fired another shot. It scored a hit to the hull and was deemed decommissioned. The Sherman crew bailed and retreated to safety.
Meanwhile the left menacing buffed up Sherman slowly advanced at walking pace deflecting German bullets and shells like nothing while suppressing the Germans by firing back 75mm High Explosive shells onto their defensive positions. Richard occasionally tried firing bursts onto the Sherman's cupola attempting to suppress the tank commander's vision, while Bernhard with his accurate shooting picked off heads of careless Americans peeking out of the Sherman using his trustworthy Mauser K98. Of course, it was not just the Volksgrenadiers doing the job; the other Germans in the area did quite as well if not better than the Volks.
Finally the Sherman got close enough and Hans took out one of his Panzerfaust and fired. Despite how much armour the Sherman packed up, it could not defeat the penetrating capabilities of jet streams of hot molten steel coming into the hull and burning the crew in their steel coffins. The Sherman stopped moving and so did the American infantry following for cover. The tank commander waved a white flag from the cupola and when they saw the long trail of bodies left behind, the infantry too dropped their weapons.
As the Americans on the Eastern route witnessed the surrender of the Northwest Group, they fell back with what they had and although the Sherman fully exposed its back, the Pak 40 was not been able to be fixed on time while the range was beyond the capabilities of the Panzershreck and thus the Germans only picked off American infantry emerging from cover with either accurate rifle fire or bursts from their MG42s.
The Germans achieved victory with medium losses and the town was successfully defended. The defenders earned their rest as they took in around 12 Americans in captive as well as 2 Shermans, an Easy-Eight and a Jumbo to be captured and repaired.
Author's notes: So that's a tough battle for the Volks. There's still a long way for them to go unfortunately…
