He yelled a warning at his own tank, knowing he had no time to get back onboard, a yell that was understood by the gunner.
‘Lohengrin’ rattled across the junction, moving from right to left at full speed. The IS-II gunner fired at a range of forty metres, and missed by nearly as much.
The Tiger kept going, and Blagoslavov watched it move on at least two hundred metres, before it turned left, and into the built-up area.
More noise attracted him, and he turned, immediately spotting a number of enemy tanks following the same route.
This time he could remount and fight the IS-II properly.
Climbing aboard, he ordered the driver to round the corner and cut left, using a wall to mask the hull.
The gunner had recovered from his jitters and destroyed the lead Panzer IV with his second shot.
Shells were returned, but none struck the IS-II, missing by metres in all cases.
The Panzer IV’s scattered.
Harazan shook his head, trying to overcome the blackness that had overtaken him.
One of his own men had thrown a grenade at the Tiger, not knowing his platoon officer was within the burst.
Temporarily stunned, Harazan found his hearing had also been affected; every sound was muffled.
Rising up from the gully, he nearly lost his balance scaling the side, but he persevered, and found himself less than five metres from the abandoned magnetic mine.
He slid quickly over the ground and picked it up, the growling engine of the disabled tank the only thing he could hear in all the cacophony around him.
Enemy soldiers were twenty metres away, but none had spotted him, so he pushed himself upwards and rammed the magnets onto the rear of the tank, rolling away, and dropping back into the ditch.
The mine exploded, stopping the huge Maybach engines in a second, and starting a modest fire in the engine compartment.
In the rear of the Tiger’s turret was a circular hatch, and this opened slowly as the turret turned, enabling those inside to check on the problems with their tank.
The tank commander obviously felt that enough was enough, and the hatch dropped fully open, as the turret rear rotated away from the Soviet line of fire.
Even the hull crew wormed their way through the inside of the Tiger, so all five men escaped through the same circular hatch.
As the last of the Tiger’s crew dropped to the ground, Harazan made it back to his own platoon’s positions, his wounded buttocks now howling their displeasure at every movement.
Two more Panzer IV’s had been knocked out of the fight, although only one had been destroyed, the second one abandoned when its gearbox failed.
Blagoslavov skilfully manoeuvred the IS-II, spotting an eight-wheeled armoured car moving tentatively through the gardens.
Having fired off an AP shell at a large shape the other side of the roadblock of Tiger tanks, the tank officer redirected the loader.
“Load HE for this one. That will be enough for the bastard.”
Calling the gunner in on target, Blagoslavov watched in annoyance as the HE shell clipped the angled front cowling, and ploughed into a fairytale house beyond, the explosion instantly transforming it into flying pieces.
“Take it steady, and get it right, Comrade Gunner.”
The calm words helped, but the SDKFZ 234 did not intend to remain around to be shot at a second time, and it surged forward, disappearing down an alley. The crew had succeeded in gaining an extra twenty seconds of life, as their vehicle was hunted down quickly. Its end came at the hands of vengeful infantry from Din’s 424th, improvising with petrol bombs, which proved very efficient on the open hulled armoured car.
The IS-II did not have a complete shell, rather a warhead and propellant, which had to be loaded separately, thus slowing down the reloading process.
Sensing rather than seeing, Blagoslavov ordered a reverse move, backing the Soviet heavy tank through a ruined house and into the road beyond.
A few seconds later, Legion artillery burst around the former position, testament to the skill of the artillery observers.
The IS-II found itself reversing alongside ‘Lohengrin’, the two crews only just becoming aware of each other.
“Job tvoyu mat! Germanski tank alongside, right. Driver, halt!”
The IS-II jerked immediately to a rocking halt, and Blagoslavov ordered the driver to rotate on the spot, turning the hull towards the Tiger performing a similar manoeuvre.
It was a race, and one the IS-II won.
The shell misfired, failing to send the warhead at the enemy tank.
Blagoslavov looked from the silent breech to his sights and back, conscious that he was about to die.
‘Lohengrin’s’ 88mm spouted a gout of flame, and a shell was sent on its way, striking the IS-II on the angled front plate and ricocheting upwards, hammering into the barrel from underneath.
Inside the turret, there was mayhem. The impact threw the breech downwards, driving the weapon beyond its design parameters, destroying the trunnions, and causing the misfire to ignite within the now-displaced main gun.
The loose weapon recoiled into the rear wall of the turret, passing through the area that was occupied by the loader, transforming him into indistinct pieces, stuck to the deformed metal of breech and turret.
Horrified, Blagoslavov ordered the driver to put his foot through the floor, and the IS-II sped behind a low building to safety.
The impact had obviously affected the engine, and thick smoke started to mark their movements around the village.
‘Lohengrin’ hunted them down eventually, but had to content itself with destroying the abandoned tank, as Blagoslavov had ordered them out when the engine gave up.
The IS-II burned spectacularly, setting fire to a number of buildings around it, the fire eventually filling the whole area with acrid smoke suitable for any purpose, be it escape or stealthy approach.
Whilst the 5th Legion Tank Regiment had been badly handled, it had achieved its goals, and the way was opened up.
The 110th Guards Tank Regiment had ceased to exist in all but name, not a single tank on its roster, its strength now lying with the forty men crammed aboard a single GAZ lorry heading north on Route 1422.
The Legion and 16th Armored cut the main highways, isolating the 19th Army units, cutting them into small digestible portions, each of which was overcome in turn, and for little loss.
A momentary rally by the 3rd Guards Tanks, at Obernai and Bernardswiller, enabled much of their Corps to escape, but the resistance was overcome, and ‘Tannenberg’ cut straight across the Alsatian Plain, securing Obernai, Niedernai and Meistratzheim. Further stout defence by an AA unit attached to 3rd Guards, kept the spearheads at bay long enough for a number of rag-tag units to escape up Route 1083, amongst the last of which was the lorry carrying the survivors of the 110th Guards Tank Regiment.
16th US Armored Brigade had discovered that its Pershings were still vulnerable to the massive 122mm guns of the enemy heavy tanks, and some had also been lost to the deadly 100mm anti-tank gun, a handful of which had been hastily dug in north of Selestat.
But, on the whole, the mixed force of Pershings and 76mm Shermans performed extremely well, the combination of their tank gunnery and supporting artillery, proving too much for the 109th Guards Tank Regiment and its supporting units.
Whilst still in possession of a number of vehicles, the 109th was vacating the field as fast as it could, occasionally lashing out at its pursuers.
US Infantry linked up with Legionnaires of the ‘Alma’ and the German irregulars of Kommando Alsace in Selestat, the three forces coming together at the base of the neo-medieval water tower.
St Clair’s 7th RDM, flank secured on the Rhine, had rolled northwards, supported by 4th Kompagnie of Uhlmann’s Tank Regiment, and the 128mm guns of Bäcker’s special anti-tank unit.