Not that they hadn’t been seen; it was simply that they were to be left to the watching legionnaires from a company of Truffaux’s 3e/5e RdM, and the tirailleurs of the 7e RTA.
Truffaux had positioned his command group behind his third company, so it was he who gave the order to start slaughtering the advancing infantry.
The legionnaires and tirailleurs lashed out with their machine-guns, a mix of MG-34s, 42s, M2s, and a surprising number of BARs.
The heavier weapons concentrated their fire on the temporary crossing points and inflatables, whereas the lighter weapons, including a number of the latest ST-45s carried by the 7e RTA soldiers, flayed the men already across the river and working their way up the slope.
Legion mortars opened up, adding to the misery of the under-pressure infantry, although some were quickly silenced by the appearance of a pair of Shturmoviks, who deposited their cluster bombs in the middle of Sulisɫawice, killing and wounding many of the mortar men and destroying nearly two-thirds of the mortar ammunition.
FW-190s of the DRL’s 23rd [Lehr] Jagdstaffel swept across the battlefield in hot pursuit of the pair of Shturmoviks and chopped one from the sky over Rozki, where it plunged into a group of Polish buildings, killing many of the cowering civilians.
The other escaped as La-9s swept in to protect the last surviving ground attack aircraft.
The Focke-Wulfs turned away, their ammunition and fuel already depleted by previous encounters in an air space increasingly and unusually Soviet in ownership.
To add to their woes, the DRL staffel had turned over the airspace above a large portion of the 1st Battalion, 286th Guards AA Regiment and their ZSU-20-4 vehicles.
The relatively slow moving FWs were at a perfect height for the SPAA mounts, and three were felled in the first volley of shots.
The gunners switched to other targets, some of which were already showing the outward signs of damage. Gunners homed in on the damaged aircraft, following smoke trails, and three more DRL aircraft were hacked from the battle’s airspace, but also added in one of the pursuing Lavochkins, whose proximity overrode the gunners’ natural caution when firing into an airspace containing friend and foe.
Three of the AA guns triangulated and blew the tail off the La-9 before gun controllers realised the error.
Too late for the experienced pilot, veteran of the early days of the Patriotic War.
His thoroughbred aircraft simply span into the Polish soil below and exploded, leaving very little to be salvaged when the battle moved on.
In front of the burning Lavochkin, the remaining FWs drove hard for the safety of their own lines, knowing that they couldn’t out-climb the Soviet fighters, but intent on springing a trap of their own.
Their leader took them on a rapid turn to starboard, which the pursuers mirrored.
Behind the Soviet fighters, a group of USAAF Shooting Stars remained high above the battlefield, unaware of the low-flying Lavochkins and providing top cover for a gaggle of Tigercats on an S&D mission, one of only two squadrons that were not based in the Pacific or Persia, on their way to a ground attack mission of their own.
However, the Tigercats spotted the juicy target and, on the orders of the mission commander, the rear group jettisoned their bombs and turned to engage the unsuspecting La-9s.
The heavy twin-engine USAAF fighter-bombers carried a heavy punch, with four 20mm and four .50cal heavy machine-guns.
Three Soviet fighters fell in the first pass, and the inexperienced pilots panicked and scattered, despite their still superior numbers.
Not a single shot was fired back at the Tigercats as they chased the disorganised Soviet regiment in all directions, and the skies over the Koprzywianka River suddenly cleared of all aircraft.
Deniken consulted with Lisov and ordered part of the 171st to change its axis of movement, in order to try and break through behind Koprzywnica and at the same time bring force to bear on the south and southeast sides of the Sulisɫawice defences, defences that were far stronger than had been anticipated, making the overall plan fall a little behind schedule.
Having communicated with Rybalko, ostensibly to seek permission for the change, Deniken decided to shift his battle headquarters closer to the front, and within minutes the group was mobile towards the sound of the guns.
0628 hrs, Tuesday. 1st April 1947, Sulisɫawice, Poland.
Peters’ small group ran for their lives, leaving one lazily burning Kätzchen behind, with one of the launchers and four of their comrades.
All in all, the 4e RACE and 4e/1er RCDA’s Panthers and Felix tanks had knocked out seven of the big tanks and at least double that number of the newly arrived SPAT and tanks of the 6th Guards Tank Corps.
The X-7 gunners had not done as well as they would have hoped, more than one control wire snagging on the numerous bushes that covered the battlefield, and the huge IS-VIIs that had been their targets were seemingly impervious to direct hits, unless from the side, which was how the two that were burning had died, victims of Peters’ redeployment onto the left flank of Stelmakh’s force.
Stelmakh himself had risked all by attacking the ambush group head-on, and more than one shot hit the IS-III as it presented opportunities of a side shot to some of the tanks on the height.
It was his 122mm that had turned the Kätzchen into so much burning scrap, along with its highly trained crew and two valuable Rotkäppchen missiles.
6th GIBTR had made it into the lee of the slope and that immediately resulted in a great lessening of incoming fire.
They moved forward cautiously, their surviving SMG soldiers, always conscious of the threat of enemy anti-tank soldiers, shooting enthusiastically into all sorts of bushes and possible hiding places on the principle of ‘better safe than sorry’.
Waiting for them were the SPs of the headquarters and 3e/1er Régiment Blindé, commanded by the unflappable Jorgensen.
The reports from the northern sector were worrying in the extreme.
The size of the enemy force was rapidly approaching the point that Knocke feared his lines would be overrun, no matter how well his men fought… and they were fighting magnificently by all accounts.
A number of the bridges were now down, although the precise numbers were not clear. But enough tanks and APCs had crossed the water to make them less of a priority target.
In the Legion tanks, gunners and loaders sweated profusely as they worked their weapons hard, all in an effort to stem the mounting tide.
The ARL-44s had all gone.
The IS-IIs had gone.
Two of the Pershings had gone and another was unable to fire, even if it could find a replacement gunner and loader
The Tiger II in the headquarters had gone… along with the unit’s commander.
Lieutenant Albrecht von und zu Mecklenburg found himself in charge of the unit, with his battalion commander and company commander both dead, and the second in command on his way to the aid post, knocked unconscious and bloodied by Soviet mortars.
At first, he had resented being given command of the British tank, but quickly understood that his veteran crew found the vehicle more than up to the task of killing the enemy and, more importantly to all of them, very good at keeping them alive.
The Centurion once known as Lady Godiva had taken three hits and shrugged them off without any overt sign of damage or effect, other than to fray the nerves of those inside her steel walls.