The snow had arrived.
It was only a few days after the battle. We had the time to rearm the trap correctly, gathering just the right amount of trunks needed, recplacing the missing and broken ones with ones freshly cut in the forest. The Sun's Gate is a nice place to be, quiet, with a pleasing landscape, some forest are growing there, but our base was just too high up for the trees to grow. The ground here is mostly rocks and some lifeless dirt. It is the border between the eternal snow and the vegetation. Too cold for plants to grow, too hot for snow to stay in summer.
At this time, the winter had landed his white coat. A thick layer of snow, about two meters in average, was covering the area. Tanks fear snow. It gets into your tracks, and the more you try to get rid of it, the harder it becomes, until it is compressed enough to become blocks of ice. The cold hurts the engine and we cough all the time. If this wasn't enough, add our landscape. In winter it looks as beautiful as it is dangerous. Snow is an unstable ground. It slips, you could fall to your death anytime you drive on a slope; it also covers cracks, transforming them into brutally efficient traps, and worst of all, there's the avalanches.
An avalanche is when the snow has accumulated on a slippery surface – for example an old layer of snow that became ice – or when the slope is too big. The huge amount of snow suddenly breaks from whatever was keeping it in place and starts rushing down the mountain. There's mutliple kinds of avalanches, sometime it's just like a block of snow coming down much like the trunks of our trap, but sliding instead of rolling. But the most fearsome are formed by fresh snow. As it didn't has the time to stick together, the snow starts flying as it takes speed, creating monstruous clouds of snow that are rushing faster than any light tank.
Being trapped in an avalanche is a real nightmare and I was glad I never experienced this. Avalanches could be triggered by shocks or just randomly by nature. Shoot once: avalanche. Drive on an instable plate: avalanche. Just shout out: avalanche. You can simply drive on the snow and suddenly everything below your tracks starts sliding away. As your tracks are no longer supported by anything anymore, you go with the snow and even worse, you sink into the snow.
As everything around you moves, your weight pulls you down into the heavy snow. Still without anything under your tracks, you lose track of space and soon won't know if you're upside down or not. Once the snow stops, you are trapped by tons and tons of snow all around you and won't be able to move anymore. If you see any sunlight you may have a chance, but most of the time you are in the cold dark. You could be under meters of snow, you'll have no idea where, and slowly the cold will freeze your compenents. The only thing you can guess is if you're indeed upside down, as your engine will stall and drown in its own fuel.
If you think that was bad already, the cloudy avalanche is even worse.
Inside it looks like a fog, but with a wind so strong it pushes you and the snow around. Inside the cloud, snow being blowed creates snowball like projectiles, from one to twenty centimeters of diameter, and you can guess it will hit you. If you're heavy enough to not be blown away, snow will gradually stick on you. You'll be covered by meters of snow, and you'll be trapped as described before. And as it is not sliding on the ground but flying and jumping, it is not slowed down by anything; those things can reach speed up to 100km/h.
Yet the only known thing to stop an avalanche is a forest. Trees will block the snow and create a nice wall of snow, trunks and tree branches. It is not hundred percent safe insid the forest either, but if there's a forest between you and the avalanche, you are much safer than if there was nothing. Also, the forest will block one avalanche, but the trees are destroyed, so it only works once.
Death by cold is long, but, hopefully, you will not be concious when the worst things would happen. First the engine will lack oxygen, if it is still running. Your battery will progressively lose temperature, as the engine isn't running anymore and nothing warms up the tank. Your vision will fade out and soon you'll be knocked out. Then, ventilation and cooling systems will freeze. Fans would be stuck, cooling liquids might freeze and break their pipes. Even your fuel could freeze, but that's most likely to happend to tanks from hotter places, like south Italy or Africa. Finally, as your battery will continue to grow colder, the internal chemicals will be irreversibly changed by the cold, and your chances of waking up are near zero at this state. You are dead.But we Hetzers were too light to stick to the ground in case of those avalanches. So any type could kill us, and this was why they were so frightening to us.
Fortunately, we Swiss had developed gear against the dangers of snow. We had special beacons that guide the rescue team if someone was caught in an avalanche. We also had warmers and improved cold protection that helped our engines and batteries not to freeze when going outside, and also helped us survive longer if we were trapped after an avalanche; but if there is no rescue team, there is no hope.
For that rescue, we had something too. I don't know if I could call this a tank, but there was that guy called Ratrak. He had huge special tracks but no armor, nor any weapon. Instead he had this large bulldozer blade, large projectors and lights, and some engineering tools. This guy was pretty sure to survive anything winter could throw at him, but he was not made for war; he could only fight snow. And therefore he was just perfect to search for missing tanks in the snow!
It has been at least 10 years we were based here though, and we were not rookies at handling the snow either. We knew when there was a risk; and we took decisions wisely. Sadly, most of the time things went like we expected, and some of us were taken by avalanches. Thanks to Ratrak, a lot of lives were spared, but sometimes, either it was too late or we never found our friend again. Those were dark time of course, and add to this the fact that the rescue is never either safe from avalanches. I heard stories where three rescue vehicles were taken by surprise by a second avalanche. One didn't survive it. Life with the snow is not an easy life. Dangers are everywhere, but I liked it. I felt safer in a trapped snowy mountain than in a flat, hot, and sandy desert.