Chapter 302: Different Battlefields
Three days passed.
The steel hearts of the Panther tanks roared to life.
After remaining stalled for nearly a week, the German North African Army Group opened its throttles and surged across the yellow sands and brown earth of Algeria.
At the Free French headquarters, De Gaulle scratched irritably at his scalp.
Germany's immense mechanized forces were becoming increasingly difficult to contain.
The enemy's armored vehicles were constantly being improved, while France's own tanks remained trapped in the past. The 2nd Armored Division had already sent two telegrams, both devoted almost entirely to reports of a new German heavy tank appearing on the battlefield.
Its armor was exceptionally thick.
It was fundamentally different from the other German tanks the French had encountered. The difference was almost like heaven and earth.
Even when French shells struck their targets, it was extremely difficult to inflict meaningful damage. Meanwhile, the new tank's powerful gun could destroy French armor from an alarming distance.
The greater problem was supply.
The arsenals could still barely maintain production, but raw materials were already running short.
Most of their tungsten had previously been smuggled through Portugal. Now that Portugal had fallen and French interests in East Asia had been lost, the supply of tungsten ore had nearly dried up.
"Send a telegram to Montgomery."
De Gaulle slammed one hand against the table.
"We need tungsten."
"Are they not on good terms with the Japanese? I do not care whether it comes from East Asia or somewhere else."
"Send me tungsten ore or armor-piercing shells."
De Gaulle's demand was destined to go unanswered.
Britain was facing shortages of its own.
More precisely, it lacked the ability to transport the materials it still possessed.
British oil, weapons, and ammunition depended heavily upon supplies from the United States. Yet North Africa lay far from the American coast, and the Strait of Gibraltar was blockaded. Merchant vessels could no longer pass directly into the Mediterranean.
They were therefore forced to take the Atlantic and Indian Ocean route.
It was a transport line of almost absurd length.
Without fuel and shells, the blood that sustained an armored force, De Gaulle's elite 2nd Armored Division ground to a halt.
More than thirty tanks were stranded.
This failure indirectly doomed the Algerian Colonial 16th Tank Brigade.
The brigade had originally been pursuing the German withdrawal. But when reinforcements failed to arrive, it was surrounded instead by the German 5th Panzer Division.
Night descended.
Inside the command post of the 16th Tank Brigade, Commander Jessica clutched the latest telegram and cursed.
"No supplies for two consecutive days."
"The fuel currently inside our tanks was stolen from the Germans."
"Does the Commander in Chief believe sand and wasteland can power an engine?"
Before she could continue, her adjutant interrupted.
"Commander, fifteen German tanks have been sighted on Hill 210 to the west."
"German Army activity has also been detected in the surrounding sectors."
"Damn it."
Jessica looked down at the map.
"They are closing the ring."
"How many tanks are still operational?"
"Twenty-five."
She made her decision immediately.
"Then we fight our way out."
"The infantry will remain behind and cover the withdrawal."
"Order the 2nd Artillery Battalion to bombard the western approach. Fire every shell they have."
"All tanks are to break through."
She raised her voice.
"Move. Move. Move!"
Under cover of darkness, fifteen surviving French tanks, many of them antiquated Char B1s, began advancing toward the western highlands.
Before they moved, the artillery opened fire to see them off.
Dense shelling blasted crater after crater into the earth.
Sand and dirt rained across the armor of a Tiger prototype positioned on the ridge.
The bombardment was no more effective than scratching an elephant.
Inside the Tiger, Commander Longlas stared through the periscope at the faint silhouettes of French tanks in the distance.
"I cannot see them clearly."
He reached for the radio.
"Tell the C1 crew to fire two flares toward the left flank, seven o'clock."
Then he turned toward his gunner.
"Stand by."
The driver spoke from below.
"They are too far away, Longlas."
"I estimate at least fifteen hundred meters."
"We will have better accuracy if we move closer."
"That is enough, Alan."
Longlas slapped the side of the turret.
"Listen to me and give me some good news."
The gunner, Alan, did not even look at him.
Using the fading glow of a tracer round, he pressed his eye against the Zeiss TFZ 9b sight and slowly adjusted the gun.
"To hell with your good news."
"Move aside, Longlas."
"If you are bored, help Kopei load the shells."
He glanced downward.
"Oren, rotate the hull thirty degrees to the left."
Alan could curse the commander so freely because, within a tank crew, the gunner was its lifeline.
If the driver was the tank's legs, then the gunner was its fist.
More importantly, Alan had ranked first in gunnery accuracy at the military academy.
Longlas, who was now pretending to look stern, had been his classmate in the same graduating class.
The Tiger moved across the sand, its tracks scattering two lizards.
Hard stones crumbled beneath its weight like soft bread.
"Flares ready," the radio operator announced.
Two flares immediately rose into the night sky.
Brilliant light spread across the battlefield.
Through the sight, Alan found the prey hiding among the desert shadows.
A Char B1.
It was one of France's largest and most heavily armored tanks.
But a large vehicle also presented a larger target.
"Tungsten-core armor-piercing shell."
Kopei loaded the 7.3 kilogram shell into the breech.
Alan drew a slow breath.
The Char B1 was already approaching the edge of the flare's light.
"Fire."
Bang!
The shell tore from the barrel.
Its tungsten core pierced the lower armor of the Char B1 and continued into the ammunition compartment.
A secondary explosion ripped through the tank.
In an instant, the French vehicle became an enormous firework.
Once the lead Tiger opened fire, the other German crews began engaging at long range.
Shells crossed one another through the darkness.
Some plunged into the sand, exploded, and scattered fragments of steel that would eventually become a new source of wealth for the local inhabitants.
Others struck the tracks of French tanks and brought them to a halt.
Only Alan succeeded in destroying his target outright from more than a thousand meters away.
"Well done, Alan!"
Longlas struck the gunner's shoulder excitedly.
"If you were a woman, I would marry you and take you home."
"The one on the right is closing in," the radio operator shouted. "A light tank."
Longlas was still grinning, but Alan's expression remained cold.
"Load a tracer high-explosive shell."
Bare-chested and drenched in sweat despite the night air, Kopei said nothing.
He pulled out the spent casing, rammed the new shell into place, and shouted, "Loaded."
Bang!
The tracer shell streaked across the battlefield like a meteor and struck the French tank near its tracks.
Boom!
The explosion crippled the vehicle.
A moment later, a Panther tank seized the opportunity.
Boom!
A second and even more violent blast completely destroyed the French tank.
The struggle between the escaping prey and the German hunters had only just begun.
Finland.
The situation there could not have been more different.
Because of the purges, the Soviet Army had not adopted large-scale concentrated armored operations.
Most Soviet armored units were still divided among infantry formations and used according to traditional infantry-tank cooperation doctrine.
This further weakened the density of their armor.
The firepower assigned to many assault detachments could not even match that of the permanent fortifications along the Mannerheim Line.
Even before reaching the main defensive belt, the Soviets had become trapped in brutal struggles over Finnish villages forming the first line of resistance.
After three days of relentless attacks, one such village had been reduced almost entirely to rubble.
Yet despite possessing five times as many soldiers, the Soviet Army still failed to capture the settlement of fewer than fifty houses.
Instead, Finnish night raids had forced the attackers to retreat twice.
It was supposed to be a war between a great power and a small nation.
But in Soviet hands, the campaign had become a complete disaster.
To an outside observer, the two nations might have appeared evenly matched.
In truth, Finland seemed to hold the advantage.
....
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