...
On my order, Komsomolets, Serebryakov's tank, takes in turn the lead in our formation. I can't help noticing the anxiety that tenses the rookie's face as he's going past me, with chest standing out of his cupola. All I can do is to grace him with my most comforting face, the quiet smile of the blase veteran who's just fighting another day more. During that brief stop, Chinya is huming a tune from his nowhere hills below my feet, while Seriozha checks again the regulation stowage of our little stock of ammo: eight BR-471 armor-piercing shells, twenty large OF-471 high-explosive ordnance, plus one up the breech already. Apart from three or four reloads ready at Sergei's hand, the projectiles and their huge cartridge cases are stowed separately in order to save room. Sure, it sounds damn too light to last till the end of a whole long damn day of fightings. But considering the reloading time of the D-25T, we usually can't exceed two or three shots per engagement; hence the importance of having a gunner as skilled as Sergeant Abulgazev.
My attention is suddenly drawn by the distant noise of a powerful engine, melted with the characteristic rattling from steel tracks becoming louder and closer on my right. To my ear, that does not sound as one of our heavy tanks, not a Soviet tank at all actually! I order at once the platoon to slow down, before approaching the next crossroads. And I'm about to take the lead again, when all of a sudden, a Fascist casemate armored vehicle with a black cross on its flank emerges two streets further on, only 150 meters ahead. Its very stocky outline is longer than the Hetzer's, the most commonly encountered German tank destroyer: that one is a Jagdpanzer IV – an improved model armed with a front-mounted 75mm gun, extra-long barrel, same as the Panther's: at such a short range, a threat even to the IS-2 front armor! The German commander's chest is standing out of the hatch, as if enjoying a ride in the countryside; he looks completely amazed by this unexpected encounter. Yet he quickly recovers, and starts hurling shrill-voiced orders while closing his hatch in a hurry.
At the moment, Komsomolets is still ahead, and conceals the target from my gunner. I suppose that Serebryakov's gun is loaded like mine with an OF-471 frag shell: after the rules of engagement, the heavy tanks are supposed to let the tank destroyers and their high-velocity guns deal with the Fascist armored junk. Yet right here, right now, we feel alone like two nits facing this Fritz killer on the prowl! And with 122mm large slugs, it takes about thirty long seconds to swap ordnance – twenty at best, just a little less if we get rid of the shell loaded already by firing it, in order to have just a spent casing to be ejected. The only moment when Serebryakov shall get a chance to inflict significant damage upon that Fascist with a HE ammo, is in the short time when its flank remains exposed: we know indeed that its armor on this side has been drastically lightened, while on the contrary its sloped front armor plate has been heavily thickened.
Komsomolets opens fire, but the sharp braking of the Panzer turning on its tracks has feinted Serebryakov's gunner: the shell goes past its right side, and strikes a wall 200 meters away. The German could meantime complete its maneuver, and is facing us now: no hope any more to scrap it with the HE ammo still up our breech. The tank destroyer's gun, on the other hand, is almost definitely loaded with an AP ordnance; and Komsomolets is the one taking the rap when the Fascist fires in turn, even before the echo of the previous shot has died down. The impact does rock the huge Stalin tank, with the sharp ringing of a sledgehammer striking an anvil. Yet I feel like Serebryakov is some lucky bastard: his machine seems to have been hit on its front hull, an armored surface so sloped that the 75 could probably not pierce it through direct fire.
As Komsomolets breaks right, staggering and smoking like an exhausted stove, Kolya moves our tank to the left in order to provide an opening to our gunner. The German crew is busy reloading, now that's our chance. However, the front MG by the side of the Panzer's oversized gun barrel suddenly starts spraying my tank with suppressing fire. Consequently, half of my carried infantrymen jump down with the captured Panzerschreck, and run to take cover into the houses around, while the other half crouch down and cower behind our large turret. I myself button up my hatch, it's getting hot there outside!
Chinya is shaking his turret, in an effort to permanently hold the Panzer at gunpoint during Kolya's maneuvers. So as soon as the driver jams on the brakes, he can quickly aim, fire, and... Chyort! Fantastic! Against all odds, he's just disabled the Fritz by blowing up its right track! From what I can see, its front sprocket has been so badly smashed too that it leans miserably to the outside. And I'm sure that was absolutely no lucky hit: my bloody Kirghiz is really some shaman of a gunner! It sucks for sure, but I'm afraid I'll have to commend this Pamirs hillbilly for a decoration...
The Fascist is immobilized now, but still has fangs up its bloody mouth! As Sergei starts reloading with the AP he kept at hand for such an encounter, Kolya pulls and pushes his levers, and savagely steps on the gas so as to put Tsar Pushka out of the limited horizontal traverse angle of the tank destroyer's casemate-mounted gun. Seriozha clings the best he can in the turret, trying not to let his precious shell fall. The German indeed tries a last shot, which misses and goes roaring past our tank's rear without any damage.
Now deprived of any chance of maneuvering or returning fire against the couple of juggernauts that outflank him, and that are just about to seal his coffin, the enemy crew must have understood there is but one last way out left. All of the Panzer's hatches snap open at the same time, and four Fritz in camo suits suddenly pop up like jacks-in-the-box, who scamper off as fast as they can. They're too far away for our carried troopers' small arms; and before Chingiz may have aimed at them with the coaxial MG, they have vanished already at the corner of the street they came from. So long, schmucks! We'll meet again, as there is no place any more where to hide in Berlin by now...
Sergeï has just completed the reloading with a BR-471 piercer, yet I sharply cancel the firing order: no use now wasting one of our invaluable AP shells against a deserted hulk. I prefer to dispatch a couple of our infantrymen in order to disable it once and for all. Our guys know their job: two live grenades stuck between the idling engine and fuel tanks quickly turn the Fascist armor into a merry bonfire! In the meanwhile, I have ordered Seriozha to empty the breech he had just filled, and to reload instead one of our damned explosive shells, so heavy and cumbersome. That's some exhausting effort thus required, in this confined and stuffy cubbyhole of a Stalin tank turret in the heat of battle... Yet our sturdy sergeant just complies expeditiously, without any grumbling.
Serebryakov does inform me over the radio that Komsomolets remains operational, yet that his driver has been severely wounded by metal shards. His gunner shall take over the driving levers, while the lieutenant himself shall occupy the gunner's seat, in order to stay close to the radio and to the all-around vision cupola. I don't know what the rookie is worth as a gunner, but I don't find that such news really bode well for the future.
Our both tanks are resuming their mission, bypassing the Panzer ablaze whose ordnance are blowing up. The show seems to rejoice the soldiers sat behind my turret. Enjoy, comrades: some other combats are probably waiting for us already, just a little further away...
...
