Lying on the sand he saw Fox-Two Five brewing up. The ammunition went first, then the diesel fuel, a multi-colored fountain of smoke pouring out of every crack. As if in a dream he saw a blackened hand come out of the gap he’d opened with the driver’s hatch, flex two or three times then collapse. His gunner was dragging him clear of the inferno, as Dixon was pulled through the sand he saw Fox-Two-Four was also burning. That’s when he knew what had happened. It hadn’t been three tanks on the dune line, it had been one, moving up and down to simulate three and luring him in. The other tanks, there probably were two, Dixon thought, had moved around and taken him from the flank.
They’d taken Two-Five and Two-Four out with their first shots, even as he watched Fox-Two-Three take two hits and start to burn. The long gun started to pivot down, but the driver had his hatch open and was rolling down the frontal armor before the gun completed its arc.
Suddenly, Dixon’s eardrums met in the middle, Fox-Two-Two had fired and the decoy tank on the ridge flew apart. Fox-Two-One had spun around so it faced the flanking positions. As his vision dimmed, Dixon saw two hits bounce off its frontal armor, then its own 120 crashed. The shot must have only gone a few feet overhead because Dixon felt the wind of its passing. He looked around, there was boiling black smoke on the ridge behind them, and orange fire. Another Caff tank dead. That made it two for three. The day, or in this case the night, was not going well.
On the Goal-Track, Sinai Coast, south of Gaza.
“Well, they walked into that like a bunch of schoolgirls didn’t they?”
Jaeger was speaking to his command group but he knew the word would spread to what was left of his unit faster than the conventional laws of physics would admit was possible. It was true as well, the American tankers had driven into an elementary ambush that wouldn’t have fooled a German or Russian tanker for a moment. It confirmed his impression of the Americans, they were superbly equipped, had excellent training, and were woefully inexperienced. They had all the tactical skills, they just hadn’t learned how to apply them when the other side were playing for keeps. Now to gild the lily a little.
“See boys, the Americans aren’t so tough once we take away their bombers and hellburners. Fight them in the field like men and we have their measure and some to spare. So let’s show them how real men fight. Remember what happened in New Schwabia!” General Model had circulated secret reports he had obtained from the Red Cross. Every German who had been left behind when Model had lead the breakout to the south had been killed. Every man, woman and child, they had been taken out into the lonely Russian forests and killed.
“Remember what these people did to Germany!” Model had circulated another secret Red Cross report about that. Germany was a blasted, radioactive wasteland where nothing could live for a thousand years. Some of the soldiers who had done a bit more than high school physics frowned at that, but if the Red Cross said so, and who knew what the Ami devils had come up with?
“Remember what happened to our comrades who were in the occupied territories.!” Everybody knew the answer to that one, they had been gathered into slave labor camps and worked to death. The same awaited any of them who were captured now.
Model’s secret Red Cross report on that had been harrowing to read.
“So, boys, follow the example of our gallant Panzertruppen and show them how real men fight, how Germans fight.”
Jaeger hoped nobody would notice that at least two thirds of the panzertruppen had died in less than a minute. By the cheers that went up when the word spread. His infantry line had been noisy anyway, men shouting and yelling at each other, encouragement, insults, filthy jokes that were as funny as they were old. Anything to remind the men their comrades were around them. A man on his own could fail in his duty and rationalize it to himself but no man would show himself to be less than his comrades.
Yet that was the weird thing. The Americans were silent up there in the rocks. It was as if they regarded themselves as having a job to do, they had to finish it and they were going to finish it and that was all they had to say about the matter. Even the sound of their firing was different. The Germans infantry were putting down a steady roar of fire from their machineguns and automatic rifles, in reply the American fire was a crackle, a stutter. It wasn’t even a spray of fire, it was a stream of individually aimed shots.
And that was the real worry. Jaeger knew his unit was running out of steam. He’d started with two platoons of panzergrenadiers, now he had the equivalent of one. The machineguns on his personnel carriers had already fallen silent, their barrels burned out, the ammunition sacks empty. The infantry were relying on their squad guns now, far fewer and with a lower ammunition allowance. To make up the difference he had stopped his 120s dropping harassment and interdiction fire on the beach, they probably hadn’t achieved much anyway. Now they were supporting the infantry, or would be as long as their ammunition lasted.
That was another problem, after a few minutes, the American mortars had started hitting back. They were much smaller that the German 120s, Jaeger guessed 60s, the fire patterns suggested three of them and a pair of slightly larger ones, probably 81s. What their shells lacked in hitting power, they made up in numbers and five explosions suppressed better than two. In the end though, it was the infantry who were slugging it out. For all the brave talk about volume of fire, it was the precision aimed fire of the Americans that was doing the damage. Jaeger sighed quietly to himself, for all his bold words, he knew the truth. The Americans were wiping the floor with him.
In the Rockpile, Sinai Coast, south of Gaza.
The tanks had been a disaster, three of them were burning where they’d been hit, the other two had pulled back into cover, one, its gun drooping helplessly. There was something wrong with the M60, something seriously wrong. His men, what was left of them, had been stunned by the casual ease with which the Germans had killed the tank platoon. Now they were waiting for the German tanks to come and help the enemy infantry forward.
It was hard to believe, almost twenty years after The Big One, Charlie-Two-Three was fighting a German unit. They’d heard what was left of Model’s army had become a sort of King’s Guard for the Caliphate’s leadership and they must have brushed into it. The key had been the machineguns. That vicious, high-speed snarl could only be MG42s. Combined with skilled infantry and tankers who might have been born inside their panzers meant Germans. Nobody could come to any other reasonable conclusion.
They were good, better than Lieutenant Admire had ever seen and they were destroying his unit. Admire thought that if he ever got out of this, he was going to go to the Pentagon and pound on desks until people listened to him. He started with three squads and a supporting detachment spread along these rocks, 47 men of his own and 14 detached from the company heavy weapons platoon. On paper, he had two squads left but that included the walking wounded. He was commanding one, Gunny Tomas was commanding the other. They were split, one each side of the goat track. And they were both getting hammered.
It was volume of fire that was crucifying him. Aimed individual lire be damned, for every round his men squeezed off, they got a hundred fired back at them. That’s how most of his men had died, they’d taken aim, fired their shots and been riddled by the barrage that came back. Their M14s were semi-automatic, the Germans were full-automatic. The M14s shot, the Germans hosed back.