Trapped inside the thick shell of armor, the fragile humans are smashed and burned beyond recognition in the first moments of the horror. Such was the fate of the fifteen men in the first wave of tanks to be hit.
Following the first American volley, the M1A2 Abrams tanks fired their smoke grenade launchers. The whole area in front of the town was obscured in a dense cloud of white smoke. The Americans had effectively blinded the Soviet tanks, which did not have thermal sights and could not see through the smoke. The Americans could see through the smoke, and continued to fire.
Krylov's battalion was now down to twenty-one tanks in the attacking waves, and six more back at the forms. He watched in dismay as the enemy blanketed his positions with smoke. By now, the Soviet tanks were less than 2,000 meters from the town. Retreat was unthinkable, since the Americans would probably continue to engage his tanks anyway. The only thing to do was press forward as rapidly as possible, and hope that the smoke would lift.
The American tanks continued firing volleys into the Soviet formation. Krylov was slightly behind both companies and could clearly see the frightful toll the enemy was exacting against his unit. He felt helpless as the attack churned forward. Krylov's forward-looking periscope and little side periscopes gave him a restricted view of the battlefield. He saw one tank from 2d Company in front of him get hit. It exploded almost immediately, the turret being hurled backward and skidding to the ground only a few dozen meters in front of his tank. His tanks pressed on, anxious to get close enough to begin firing. The smoke and dust were still too thick to clearly make out the enemy positions.
By the time the smoke cloud began to dissipate, Krylov's battalion was less than a thousand meters in front of the enemy positions. Since they had first come under fire from the enemy tanks, sixty long seconds had passed. The American tanks could fire at a rate of four to ten rounds per minute. The eight enemy tanks had pumped out a total of thirty rounds at the twenty-one remaining Soviet tanks. In some cases, more than one round hit the same tank. After the second and third American volleys, nine more Soviet tanks were destroyed, and two were damaged. Two more blew up when they ran over FASCAM mines. There were now only nine tanks closing on the American positions at 1,000 meters range.
Krylov's tank was to the rear of the remaining nine tanks. They were badly scattered over a width of a kilometer. The enemy tanks were still not very evident, but Krylov began to spot them as their guns fired. The muzzle flash was quite bright, lasting less than a second, but it kicked up a great deal of dust, which lingered in front of the tank and made it easier to locate. Krylov was concerned that Abdirov's company was providing no fire support.
The Soviet tanks, anxious to revenge the losses around them, had picked out their targets. The T-80s slowed down to get a better aim and fired in rapid succession. Of the first nine rounds fired, four hit American tanks. Their aim was not as good as the Americans' aim, simply because they could see only the enemy's turrets, not the whole tank. Of the four hits, two American tanks were disabled but not penetrated. One tank was hit in the rear turret ammunition bin, and began burning furiously. The other round hit the elevated commander's cupola on one tank, ripping it off and severely injuring the tank commander. The five other shots had impacted in the ground in front of the American positions, or had flown high or wide of the target. The T-80 did not have full three-axis stabilization, and firing on the move was always less accurate than from a stationary position.
At close range, the American tanks began firing at the Soviet tanks with renewed fury. The Americans had a much easier time acquiring targets, not simply because their FLIR (forward looking infrared) sights could see through the smoke and debris, but because the Soviet tanks were out in the field in clear view, silhouetted against the remnants of the white smoke cloud. In rapid succession, six Soviet tanks were smashed by two more American salvos. The American tankers fired a great deal faster than their Soviet opponents, and in a given time could engage more targets. Two of the American tanks fired more smoke grenades, which further blinded the surviving Soviet tanks. The Soviet tank attack collapsed.
Krylov's gunner took aim for a second time, but the tank was jarred by a sudden explosion on the left side. Krylov and the other two crewmen were badly shaken by the blast. The tank careened out of control for a few meters, coming to rest in an irrigation ditch with its barrel jammed into the soil. It took a second or so before Krylov realized that the tank had not been penetrated. He phoned down to the driver.
"Sasha, where were we hit?"
"Comrade Captain, we've lost a track on the left side, maybe a mine! We're stuck, Comrade Captain. I can't move the tank."
Krylov's tank had run over one of the FASCAM mines that had been dropped by artillery fire at the outset of the fighting. The T-80M was sitting only a few hundred meters in front of the American positions. Krylov could see at least one burning American tank, and saw the muzzle flash of another tank uncomfortably close. With the gun disabled and inoperative, Krylov used the intercom to tell his crew to abandon the tank. He grabbed a stubby AKS-74U carbine and flung open his hatch. The sight behind him was appalling — dozens of shattered and burning tanks. In the confusion of the battle, Krylov's crew managed to get free of the tank without being spotted by the Americans. The M1A2 Abrams tanks were preoccupied with the remnants of the Soviet tank battalion that were still in the fight.
It took several minutes for the smoke and dust to settle. The U.S. tank force was down to four tanks, with the other four either damaged or knocked out. But the Soviet battalion had been mauled far more severely. Six tanks from Abdirov's company remained to the rear near the two farm buildings on either side of the field. Of the thirty-one tanks that had charged Pressbach Hill, all but three had been knocked out. These three began to move gingerly back toward the farms. Abdirov's tanks moved forward from the farm, firing at a steady pace. They had little chance of hitting the American tanks, but hoped to distract their attention away from the retreating survivors.
Of the thirty-one tanks, about twenty-four had suffered catastrophic fires or severe battle damage. The other seven had tracks ripped off by mines or had been hit in the engine compartment. One of the retreating tanks stopped long enough to pick up Krylov and his crew. They clambered on board the hot engine deck.
The three surviving tanks were able to escape the carnage in the Pressbach pastures, because the fires and smoke made it difficult for the American tankers to spot them. The American tanks were methodically attempting to pick off tanks that had been disabled but not burned: A few of the T-80s that had been disabled by mines were still firing back at the American tanks, and Abdirov's company continued their vain attempt to hit the Americans at very long range with missiles in spite of the difficulty in seeing them. Krylov arrived back at the farm with two surviving tanks at about 0815. He ordered Abdirov to prepare his tanks for a possible counterattack by the enemy forces.
He looked out over the Pressbach pasture and could hardly comprehend what had happened.
His battalion, hours before at near full strength, now lay smashed and burning. Under a miserable gray German sky, the fields were littered with shattered tanks. A dozen oily black fires boiled up a kilometer away, punctuated by an occasional explosion as more ammunition cooked off. Survivors continued to make their way back in small groups through the morning, but Krylov was well aware that most of his men had probably been killed. The final fighting had taken place at such close range that nearly all of the tanks that had been hit had burned. Crews who were unable to escape in the first thirty seconds stood little chance of survival. If the turret was swung at the wrong angle, it could block the escape of the driver. The turret crewmen each had their own hatch, so more of the gunners and commanders escaped than drivers.