Grand Alliance (Kirov Series) (18 page)

Almásy’s
report had come in soon after, a battalion
sized force of tanks and armored cars was on his deep right flank. How could
this have happened without him knowing about it earlier? That damn sand storm,
he muttered inwardly. It had prevented him from getting airborne in the Storch
to make certain he would not suffer a surprise like this. Thank god I had the
foresight to send that Hungarian out last night. It seemed his enemy had more
forces at his disposal than Berlin claimed. The German spy network in Cairo had
informed him of the arrival of the 2nd New Zealand Division, but not this other
formation. Angry at himself as much as anything else, he stormed out, leaving
his adjutant standing there with two staff officers. They had seen him do this
many times, and knew the General was going off to war, and might not be found
again for hours.

Yet
Rommel was still not entirely convinced this could be much of a threat. He knew
Almásy was a reliable man, a skilled observer, and one who knew these deserts
like the back of his hand, but he wanted to see for himself. “Tanks” was a
fairly broad category these days. He had Panzers labeled one thru four in his
own division, and the British had things from the light Mark VI machine gun
tankettes, to the heavy Matilda infantry support tanks. So he leapt into a
nearby Kubelwagon, collaring a driver, and sped off towards the highest ground
he could find, the hills above the ruined tomb southeast of Bir el Khamsa. From
that height he should be able to see anything moving on the desert to the
south, particularly any sizable force, which should be kicking up a lot of dust
by now.

When he
got there, his surprise was complete. Almásy was correct! This was a fast,
mechanized force, and he could clearly see armor just behind the leading fan of
armored cars, which looked to be something new as far as he could tell through
his field glasses. The mutter of small arms fire and the distant rattle of a
machine gun told him this force was still sweeping through the thin cordon of
desert patrols, small platoons of his oasis groups that had been screening this
sector.

“Damn!”
he swore aloud. “This Wavell has more guts than I realized. Turnabout is fair
play, or so it seems. This must be all the armor he could scrape together, and
he’s sent it in a wide enveloping maneuver, just as I would have done. He’s
beaten me to the punch!”

His
spies had also told him that the British 7th Armored Division, the force that
had been the undoing of the Italians a month earlier, was also refitting near Alexandria.
Could they be ready for battle so soon? Was this the 7th Armored, appearing
like a mad Jinn on his flank just as his battalions were moving into the dawn
attack he had ordered? Now he would have to call off that attack and quickly
disengage. Cursing, he rushed back down the hill to the vehicles waiting below,
and was quickly on the radio.

 “Streich!
Never mind the attack! Get your tanks south of Bir el Khamsa, and form as many
Kampfgruppen as you can. We have uninvited guests for breakfast!”

Streich
was incensed. His men had just fought a hot action to storm the 230 meter hill
overshadowing Bir Arnab, Now he was being ordered to give it back to the enemy,
disengage, and regroup 15 to 20 kilometers to the south, a maneuver he had not
factored into his careful fuel rations. He bawled this over the radio until
Rommel cursed at him and told him to be silent and do what he had ordered. Then
he acted, with skill and determination in spite of his rising anger.

This
headstrong General already had the entire Afrika Korps strung out for nearly a
hundred kilometers from Sollum to Bir el Khamsa. In places that long front was
being screened by small detachments of flak batteries, their gasoline plundered
to feed the hungry maneuver elements. Meanwhile, without their defensive AA
umbrella, the troops were being increasingly harassed by enemy aircraft. The
British seemed to sense that if they were to lose this battle, Egypt might ride
in the balance. They were throwing everything they had at Rommel now, beating
troops to quarter from every corner of their empire. They had even managed to
field this Carpathian infantry that appeared so suddenly at dusk the previous
evening.

Orders
were one thing, but disengaging from a forward action and re-directing that
effort 180 degrees to a new axis was no small matter. The Germans were
disciplined, skilled troops, and managed to extricate their valuable tank
battalions and get them headed south. Rommel had the 8th Machinegun battalion
in reserve, which would form the nucleus of one Kampfgruppe. Streich put
together another with I/5 Panzer Battalion supported by the division
reconnaissance unit. A third kampfgruppe was formed with the Division Pioneer
battalion and II/5 Panzer. There was plenty of artillery around to support all
three while still keeping suppressive fire on the British position.

“Let
them think we’re reorganizing for another attack,” Streich told his
subordinates. We’ll finish off this British unit to our south first, and be
back by noon to do just that—assuming I have any gasoline to get here! Then
we’ll finish the job with this New Zealand Division.”

Confidence
was a good thing in a commanding officer, but Streich was wrong, and by noon
that day the situation would look a good deal different than anything he could
imagine.

Chapter 15

Rommel
was not the only man up on a hill top that
morning with a good pair of field glasses. Lieutenant Reeves had come forward
to look over the scene of the night engagement, surprised to see what looked to
be authentic German Kubelwagons from WWII. They even had a mud slurry finish
and light markings in typical German insignia. The German cross was very
evident. Someone could have dug one of these old warriors up in this desert, he
thought. Lord knows there’s a good many old wrecks from the war still out here.
But this was not an old, rusting hulk. It looked to be in perfect working
order, except for the holes his Scimitars had blown through it with their 30mm
cannons. Otherwise it might be described as being in mint condition, something
that would be very rare in 2021.

But it
wasn’t 2021, or so he had been told. It was supposed to be 1941, and in that
year the presence and condition of this vehicle would make perfect sense—not to
mention the five German soldiers he had stowed away in an enclosed FV432!
German
soldiers, not Libyans, not Egyptians, not Berbers… Kinlan had sent him out here
to look for the hard evidence of what this Russian Captain had been telling
them, and damn if he didn’t have the first bit in hand at this very moment.

So he
went up to the ridge he had ordered his Scimitars to wait behind, and took a
good long look to scout the position with human eyes. He did not like what he
was seeing. There was a strong defensive position forming, with one flank
anchored by what looked to be a line of hastily emplaced guns. Their profile
was quite prominent, but he could see camo netting going up and troops digging
in to create some semblance of cover for the heavy guns. What was even more
disturbing was the nagging thought that refused to silence itself now. The
barrels on those guns were leveled for close in action, not elevated as
artillery might be. Those were anti-tank guns, and for all the world they
looked like…. German 88s! They were being screened with infantry digging in to
good positions on stony ground. It was not a position he would approach without
heavy tank support or artillery preparation. The skin on his Dragons and
Scimitars was not thick enough, even with armor module additions, to reliably
stop a round from an 88.

Lord
almighty, he thought. Am I actually seeing this? Everything I’ve seen since I
picked up that Popski fellow is evidence that all points in the same direction.
I haven’t seen a single thing out here that I could reliably date to the 21st
Century. Looks like we’ve really done what this Russian Captain said, and
slipped right down the rabbit hole! And if those are 88s we’re going to need
tanks up here, and soon.

* * *

The
sun washed over the Panzer III tanks of the 1st Battalion,
5th Panzer Regiment where they waited in concealed positions beyond a low rise.
When they arrived in Libya the vehicles had been painted the deep charcoal grey
of Panzer Grau in color, but they had been quickly repainted in the light yellow
orange and tan hues of Gelbbraun, which would make them very difficult to see
in the ruddy early morning sun. They still bore the runic symbol that had
identified them when serving with the 3rd Panzer Division—new clothes, but an
old heritage in this strange new battlescape unlike any other in the war. The
armored cars of the 3rd Recon Battalion had launched into action too soon off
the docks at Tripoli, and had to settle for mud slurry to cover their darker
paint scheme so they could blend in on the sere grey and sallow tan terrain.

These
were the first available troops to arrive at the line Rommel had selected to
greet the incoming British attack. As 15th Panzer had borne the brunt of the
fighting in his attempted envelopment of Bir Arnab the previous day, it would
fall to Streich and the 5th Light to answer the call this day. The division was
designated “light” for a good reason. While it had two Panzer battalions as any
other Panzer Division might, it was light on infantry. Instead of two Panzergrenadier
regiments of three battalions each, it had only one, designated the 200th
Schutzen Regiment, with the 2nd and 8th Machinegun Battalions. It also had a
pioneer battalion in reserve, and Rommel had bolstered it by assigning a number
of his 88mm dual purpose flak batteries, adopting a defensive posture that he
would make famous in one telling of this war.

German
doctrine differed markedly from British tactics when it came to armored
warfare. The Germans seemed to master the art of combined arms and maneuver
almost instinctively, and their command system made them a highly flexible,
adaptable force. Within hours of Rommel’s pointed orders to Streich, three
Kampfgruppen had been assembled to face the oncoming attack. Rommel knew that
the British would be tank hunting with their armor, and if they were bold
enough to launch such an attack, they most likely had Matildas with them, the
one tank the German guns had trouble penetrating with their lighter caliber
guns.

But the
Germans did not see their own tanks as the primary foil against the British
Armor. Tanks were for maneuver, exploitation, and shock against enemy infantry
and artillery positions, not for dueling it out with other enemy armor. The
primary weapon they would deploy against enemy tanks were the Panzerjagers with
their AT guns and, in this case, the division battalion was augmented by three batteries
of the formidable 88s, the very same guns Lieutenant Reeves had scouted.

The line
faced south, and the 605th PzJager Battalion had twelve PzJ-I self-propelled
47mm AT guns on the extreme left of the position. They were good enough to deal
with the light British Mark VI MG tanks, and could bother any of their existing
cruiser tanks as well. At ranges of 500 to 600 meters, the gun could penetrate
45 to 50mm of armor, good enough to beat the 30mm armor of the British Mark II
A-10 Cruisers. If the Matilda’s led the attack, with heavier 70mm armor, then
the 88s would answer the call.

Designed
as an anti-aircraft weapon against high altitude targets, the 88 had become a
superb anti-tank weapon. In fact, the expression bomber crews used to describe
the sharp burst of fire and explosive wrath of the gun, “Ack-Ack,” was a
mangling of the German “Acht-Acht” for the number eighty-eight. it was Rommel
who would seal the 88’s legacy as a ‘dual purpose’ gun. The wide open spaces of
the desert, devoid of trees or other covering terrain, made the 88 an ideal
weapon for long range AT fire. It was a big static gun, on a heavy, unwieldy
carriage weighing over 7000 pounds, and so it had to be transported to the
battle site and set up, but by now the Germans had mastered the deployment of
the weapons and honed it to a fine art. They could unlimber and deploy in under
three minutes.

The
gun’s one liability on that big flak carriage was that it presented a very high
profile, but it made up for that by being able to outrange any tank gun it
might face. Against aircraft it could hit targets flying as high as 39,000
feet, and when the long steel barrel was leveled for ground target action, its
range was an astonishing 7600 meters, though gunners seldom could see or hit a
target that far away. Tanks of that day might only reach good firing ranges at
1000 meters or less. The 88 could penetrate 84mm of armor at twice that range,
and up close, the powerful gun could smash through up to 200mm of armor, an
armor thickness that no British tank of this era would ever attain. Rommel had
proved the weapon’s virtue in France at Arras, where he used his 88 batteries
to stop the British armor. Today it would be no different, or so he believed
when he ordered the guns south to meet the oncoming attack.

Out in
front of the 88 batteries were the hardened troops of the machinegun
battalions, ready to cut down any infantry that might be moving in support,
though the British seldom used combined arms at this stage of the war. They
massed their tank formations and used them like armored cavalry, bold dragoons
in the desert, charging against the enemy line.

Streich
was out on Hill 222 with a light 37mm flak battery posted to defend a small section
of three 150mm howitzers. He slid his sand goggles up onto his forehead and
raised his field glasses, frowning when he saw the dust being kicked up by the
enemy armored vehicles, perhaps ten to twelve kilometers distant. He shook his
head. The fools, he thought. They’re late! They should have hit us just before
sunrise when all that rosy red dust would not be visible. It’s a miracle I was
able to get my Kampfgruppen re-established on this line but, now that we’re
here, the British will pay the piper!