Prazmo suddenly shouted, pointing to the south. He shouted something in Polish, his excited tone also carrying a warning. Then he repeated the call in English. “Tanks! German tanks to the south. In Swiecie!”
Oh, Christ. Reynolds used his own binoculars. Among the buildings, he picked out low square shapes moving and firing as 120mm HE shells turned American-held houses into heaps of smoldering rubble. Machine guns chattered over the crack of tank cannon.
He fought a rising sense of panic. There was so much to do. They weren’t ready. He needed more time, but even as he wished for it, he knew he wasn’t going to get it. The Germans were too close and coming on too fast.
He let the binoculars fall back around his neck and turned to Ford. “Get everyone under cover, at least forty meters in from the edge. If they shell the woodline, we don’t want to be caught. Get going, I’ll be there in a second.”
Guided by a young crewman on foot, Prazmo’s driver was already working the T-72 deeper into the woods. Reynolds studied the area once more, then proposed, “What if I take everything east from this spot, and your tanks and APCs cover from here west, back toward Biala?”
Prazmo nodded quickly. “I agree, and have already given the orders to my men.” He pointed south. “Move quickly, my friend. We have about five minutes, then they will be on us.” He hurried off.
“So much for step-by-step deployment,” Reynolds thought, as he mentally tossed FM100-5 over his shoulder. Trotting into the forest, he tried to decide what was important, what was not. The army said it was all important, not to miss any step.
Screw that. What was going to count was getting firepower onto the enemy. The rest of it could wait. Calling “Orders group!” he quickly organized the company. He split up the Javelin launchers, two to each platoon, and told them to deploy in a line, one platoon east of the highway, two platoons to the west. The outfit he’d deployed to the east, the 1st Platoon, hopefully steadied by Sergeant Ford’s calm presence, was somewhat isolated, but the clump had to be occupied or the Germans would just stick to that side of the road and roll right around him. His CP would be with his hard-hit 2nd Platoon. With Lieutenant Riley dead, they needed all the encouragement he could give them.
As the platoon leaders ran off to deploy their men, a whistling howl announced the start of another German artillery barrage.
As expected, the first volley landed short, out in the open, and the thick trees all around them gave Reynolds a feeling of protection, like an awning in a rainstorm. He knew that was deceptive, though, and he could only hope that his men were all back from the treeline. More shells exploded, battering the edge of the woods.
Adams was busy setting up the radio and frantically digging in. Reynolds ordered, “Quit that and get me Brigade.”
The corporal nodded and reached for the equipment, but warned, “Jamming’s heavy, sir. I already tried to do a check once.” He had to shout to make himself heard over the artillery fire.
“Do it again, and do it until you get through. I need contact, bad.”
Adams nodded and picked up the handset.
Braving the shells still screaming in, Reynolds darted from tree to tree, locating each of his platoon leaders. Together, they picked spots for the antitank missile launchers. The Javelins were the only long-range weapon he had, and he wanted them well sited. All six had to cover the highway. Each squad also had AT-4 rocket launchers, shorter-range and with a lighter punch. They had to hit a tank from the rear or flank to have any chance of killing it.
“Here they come!” A Javelin gunner pointed toward the open fields separating them from smoke-shrouded Swiecie. Camouflaged vehicles were visible now, emerging from the haze and moving northeast on either side of the highway — right toward them.
The enemy movement caught Reynolds while he was conferring with Ford and Lieutenant Caruso, the 1st Platoon’s leader. He dashed back across the highway at full speed, heading for his CP. His men were still trying to sort themselves out. Half were clearing brush or other obstacles for the antitank missile crews while the rest dug “hasty positions,” scrapes in the ground that barely hid your body. Soldiers often called them “shallow graves.”
Adams looked up as he skidded through the thin screen of brush surrounding the CP and dropped prone. “I got Brigade, Captain, and I’ve told them where we and the Poles are.”
“Great! Good work.” The corporal had also scraped out holes for both of them, and Reynolds rolled into his, frantically opening his map. He studied it, marking points and noting the coordinates. “Get me Brigade again.”
A first muffled whumph told him his Javelins were firing. The first wave of Germans must be just under two thousand meters away. Adams handed him the radio.
“I have an urgent fire mission, tanks in the open, coordinates one seven nine, two five six.” He raised himself up high enough to see, scanning the area with binoculars. “Target is forty-plus tanks and APCs, more stuff in the distance.”
Even as he counted the German vehicles, a small cloud puffed over one and it exploded — ignited by a Javelin missile. More missiles flashed across the open ground, but with only six launchers, they could only kill a few of the enemy at a time.
The German Leopards and Marders kept coming — thundering across the fields at full speed. Reynolds swore. This wasn’t a careful advance by bounds, just an old-fashioned cavalry charge. And against his ill-prepared infantry and Prazmo’s too-few tanks, it just might work, too.
Smoothbore 125mm guns barked from his right. The Poles were shooting now. The deep crack of tank fire was much more rapid than his own missile fire, but the tanks were hitting the Leopard 2s head-on, where their advanced armor was thickest. Prazmo’s BMP infantry fighting vehicles carried wire-guided antitank missiles, but they were an older type that couldn’t penetrate the front armor on the German tanks.
Few of the German tanks were firing yet. They could see little among the trees, even with thermal sights, and they were at maximum range for their 120mm guns, even with a stabilized turret.
Burning Leopards dotted the wheat fields now — maybe eight or ten of them. That was good shooting. But not good enough. The first elements of the German advance had closed to within a thousand meters. Marders packed with infantry followed right behind.
Polish T-72s and BMPs began going up in flames — hit by return fire from the Leopards. Machine guns and 25mm cannon mounted on the Marders chattered, tearing limbs, bark, and leaves off the trees. Reynolds flattened himself inside his shallow foxhole. The enemy APCs were trying to suppress his missile teams.
Whammm. Whammm. Whammm.
Dirt fountained skyward among the advancing Germans. Reynolds grabbed the mike again. “On target! On target! Fire for effect!”
More shells fell, exploding about five hundred meters to his front. The barrage wouldn’t kill many tanks, but it might slow them down. Even better, the deadly hail of fragments whining outward from each blast ought to keep the panzer commanders buttoned up and half-blind. The artillery fire should also pin the German panzergrenadiers inside their Marders until they, too, were in among the trees and shadows.
While the battle raged ahead, Reynolds continued to work with the map, passing new coordinates back to brigade — walking the barrage north in time with the advancing Germans. Several more Leopards and Marders were hit and wrecked, but it was clear that the attackers would reach the woods with a sizable force. That was bad. What was worse was that it was already too late for Alpha Company to retreat.
When the first Leopards were just two hundred meters away, the enemy artillery fire slackened. Fearful of hitting their own men, the German gunners had stopped flaying the woods. At this range, the tanks were immense and he felt an urge to run building inside him, but knew that would be suicidal. More important, he would be letting his men down. Men who were counting on him to bring them safely home.