Nemesis (31 page)

“Very
well,” said Hitler. “You will be pleased to learn that two new formations will
be added to the northern fringe of your planned movement. Halder?”

“The
first is the newly formed Hermann Goering Division,” said Halder. “It was with
Rommel, but as he has little prospects for further offensive action at the
moment, we recalled that unit and began to refit it three months ago. It will
have a battalion of our new VK-55L panzers, and the Leopards as well. Better
yet, is the arrival of the 102nd
Schwerepanzer
Brigade, with another 48
Lions. This should be a good field test!”

Hitler
smiled. “ General Manstein, I authorize this operation to proceed at your
discretion.”

“I will
need the infantry currently investing Kharkov,” said Manstein, “as any move
east will create a long exposed flank to our north. That is why we need the
river as a shield. There are good defensive positions all along the south bank
of the Don, and a little infantry can go a long way.”

“If the
Russians are stubborn at Kharkov?” Halder probed to see what Manstein was
thinking.

“There
are Rumanian troops that could do the job in the short run,” said Manstein.
“Then they can be bolstered by our infantry as it becomes available.”

“Well
enough,” said Hitler. “It is time we got some work out of those Rumanian
divisions. Halder, see that the necessary diplomatic overtures are made.” The
Führer smiled. “It seems you both will get your way in this decision,” he said,
and all seemed settled for the moment.

The
otherwise insignificant encounter at Mtsensk had a much greater effect on the
German planning than it should have had, a kind of Pushpoint, as Professor
Dorland might describe it. No one present at the table realized how fateful
that decision was. Instead of using Guderian’s group as the northern pincer for
a vast operation that would be aimed at encircling Voronezh, coordinating with
Steiner’s SS in the south, the Germans were now dividing their forces and
sending them off in two separate directions. And the long flank Manstein would
create as he moved south of the Don would become the launching point for many
Soviet counteroffensives in the months and years to come.

In
effect, the Germans were trying to complete Operation Typhoon, while at the
same time teeing up objectives that were only assigned much later in the war,
during the Operation Blue offensive in 1942. Their desire to make a quick end
of the Soviets, hopefully before winter, was driving much of this thinking, and
like all divided effort, it would lead to many hard and difficult times.

Part
XI

Counterattack

“In war as in life, it is
often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best
alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your
might.”

―
Winston Churchill

The
fighting at Mtsensk had only proved to be a temporary
check on Guderian’s advance. 4th Panzer was quickly reinforced by 3rd Panzer,
and the Germans simply bulled their way into the town, opening the vital road
to Tula. Lavrinenko’s daring ambush could not stop the whole of the advancing
tide of Panzergruppe 2, and the 1st Special Rifle Corps fell back to the east,
struggling to regroup. 4th and 11th Tank Brigades had taken about 30%
casualties, but the Guards Rifle Division suffered the most, its infantry
fighting stubbornly for the town, and taking nearly 50% casualties. The second
division promised to this corps, the 5th Guards, had arrived too late to take
part in the fighting.

At
Chern, the leading elements of the 3rd Panzer Division had rejoined the main
road, and now KG Munzel, with the bulk of the division’s panzers, advanced on
the town. Rodenhauser’s battalion was in the lead, and he ran right into
Mikhail Katukov’s 4th Panzer Brigade, and Dmitri Lavrinenko. A sharp duel
ensued, with the Russians breaking formation and falling back in seeming
disarray toward the town. As Rodenhauser pursued, however, he ran right into
another well planned counterattack by Lavrinenko and Samohin. An hour later he
was forced to withdraw, having lost an astonishing 11 Panzer IIIs from his
compliment of 36 tanks.

It was
no different than the losses Katukov had inflicted on Eberbach, only this time the
Russian tankers did not have the support of the two Para Brigades, nor the stolid
6th Guards Rifle Division. Behind Munzel’s leading detachment, the whole of 3rd
Panzer Division was coming rapidly on the scene. And to make matters worse, the
4th Panzer Division was regrouping at Mtsensk and already sending Eberbach back
up the road to Chern from that direction. It was soon clear that the brief duel
at the village could only be a delaying action, for 3rd Panzer Division was not
going to be stopped there that day, as it was led by a most enterprising man
with a storied future.

His
name was Otto Walther Model, and he had already taken one Knight’s Cross in
this campaign for his dashing advance across the Dnieper, and the breakneck
drive to bypass Bryansk that had carried the division here. It was no surprise
that his division would be in the vanguard of this bold rush north, for Model
prized speed and maneuver above all else when it came to mechanized warfare. A
brilliant and dynamic leader, he improvised new tactics to suit each occasion,
creating small
Kampfgruppen
for specific tasks and always hitting hard
and fast in anything he did.

The 3rd
Panzer Division was one of the first divisions formed in the rebirth of the
German military after WWI. They were known throughout the army as the Bears
from Berlin, and their tanks carried the distinctive insignia to that effect. A
veteran unit, they had raged through Poland and France during the blitzkrieg of
1940, and fought well in the battle and subsequent breakout at Kiev.

Yet the
long four months of fighting had taken its toll, and the division was at about
70% of its nominal strength, with some of the tanks having run over 3000
kilometers in the last 90 days. Despite that, morale was still high, and the
division had yet to suffer any real setback as a result of enemy action. But now
they were about to get another baptism by fire against Lavrinenko, who fired
what might be considered the first warning shots of the action that was soon to
follow.

Munzel’s
losses, while seemingly small in the general scheme of things, still reinforced
one salient fact in the minds of the Germans—The Russians were learning how to
fight. While the Germans had fought to clear Mtsensk and advance on Chern, another
unexpected shock was building like a bad storm to the north. The troops sent by
Vladimir Karpov, the first of Konev’s new reserves, had been leaping off the
trains flowing into Tula and assembling south of the city.

Formed
three months early due to the timely bargain struck with Karpov, the 1st
Siberian Shock Army was a large and well equipped formation, even stronger than
it had been in Fedorov’s history books. Kirov had assigned it three Soviet
Rifle and two Cavalry divisions. To these, Karpov sent men who were formerly
sailors and service personnel in the old Russian Pacific Fleet, long since
folded into infantry units, and they were enough to establish seven brigades.
Five of these had received training as special ski troops, though the snows of
winter would not fall for many more weeks. Karpov also sent three of his best
rifle divisions, the Siberian Guards in the 18th, 32nd and 93rd Rifle
Divisions. Two Artillery Regiments, a Rocket Regiment, AT Regiment and a pair
of light tank battalions with T-60s finished off this impressive formation.

With
the road open to Tula, Sergei Kirov could no longer afford to hold the 1st
Siberian Shock Army in reserve. Against the advice of General Zhukov, he sent
the hardened Siberian troops to Tula, telling them to hold that place as long
as possible. By the time they arrived, Katukov’s brief challenge at Chern had
run its course, serving to simply delay the Germans a few hours. Without
adequate infantry, and with only one small rocket artillery company left in
support, the 4th Tank Brigade wisely withdrew that afternoon.

Now in
the vanguard, Model’s 3rd Panzer pushed on up the road to Tula, clearing the
towns of Chernyavka and Skuratovo without incident. The Panzergrenadiers of KG
Wellmann were on the left, using a secondary road through those towns, and the
main advance was still with KG Munzel and his tanks on the main road. Both columns
would meet at the important road and rail hub of Gorbachevo, and it was there
that the fighting began again.

Wellmann’s
1st battalion had the halftracks, and it came up on a good sized infantry force
in the process of digging into defensive positions. He had encountered the 26th
Rifle Division, which was part of a reserve force that had been moving up from
Yevremov to help cover the empty front east of the road to Tula. Also an outfit
from the far east, the Corps had been part of the old Red Banner Army that had
been cooperating with the Siberians in 1938 to discourage further advances by
the Japanese Kwantung Army. As the storm clouds of war approached, the Soviets
moved the troops to the upper Volga until it was clear no offensive could be
mounted there. So now they had come west, an independent Corps deploying south
of Plavsk, and commanded by Kuzma Podlas. They had heard the rumors that their
old comrades from the far east were coming, the Siberians, and so the troops
were eager and confident that day.

Wellmann
threw his two battalions of grenadiers at the regiment nearest to the town,
while distracting a second force to the north with a demonstration by his
Pioneer company. He was confident as well, for right behind him was an equal
force in KG Westhoven, and he knew Munzel’s tanks would appear soon, where the
main road slipped around the town about two kilometers off to the east.

He was
not disappointed, for Oberst Gruner’s recon battalion was right at the head of
Munzel’s column, and warned of the enemy ahead. They came in fast and hard, the
troops mounted in the vehicles, and all guns blazing. He had 10 light armored
cars, supported by three SdKfz 6/2 self propelled 3.2cm guns, and three more
4.7cm PaK auf 35Rs. They swept right through an enemy motorcycle recon
battalion that had only just arrived on the scene itself, and a wild gunfight
ensued.

Behind
Gruner, Lt. Rhun’s III Panzer Battalion appeared, and joined the assault on the
hapless motorcyclists. The rest of Munzel’s panzers swung off the road to the
east, and soon ran into the third rifle regiment in the division. Model came
forward to the recently cleared town of Chernyavka to see what was going on,
arriving just as Westhoven’s
Kampfgruppe
was moving through. He flagged
the officer down wanting to know what was happening.

“Wellmann’s
got hold of a Russian division up ahead, Gruner and Munzel have both gone
forward to see about it. Probably another blocking force, sir.”

“Any
tanks with them this time?”asked Model.

“No
sir. I’ve been on the radio with Wellmann for the last ten minutes, and he says
it’s just infantry.”

“Excellent.
Clear them out quickly. Langermann’s 4th Panzer has two KGs on the main road,
and he’s jealous that we’re out on point now. I don’t want to get hung up in a
fight like he had at Mtsensk.”

“Don’t
worry sir,” said Westhoven, a dark haired, trim officer, who would one day rise
to command this very same division after Model advanced.

It was
Eberbach coming up that road, intent on redeeming his honor after the setback
at Mtsensk. Seeing that 3rd Panzer was now hotly engaged at Gorbachevo, he
swung east off the road into open ground, thinking to bypass and take the lead
again, just as Model had done earlier while he was engaged. Yet as the
afternoon sun began to cast an eerie orange glow on the smoke of the battle, he
ran into more Russian infantry than he expected, all of the 22nd and 21st Rifle
Divisions, who had heard the fighting and hastily rushed to the scene. Kuzma
Podlas was eager that day as well, and he soon launched a full counterattack
with all three of his divisions.

But he
was a little too eager…

He sent
his rifle battalions forward in a mad rush, the harsh cry of their charge now
familiar to the Germans. On they came, right into the teeth of the withering
MG-34 fire from the hardened German Panzergrenadiers, and right into the massed
advance of all of Eberbach’s remaining tanks. The panzers swept right through
the infantry, overrunning one company after another, breaking the regiments up
and sending them reeling back.

Model’s
troops were methodically clearing Gorbachevo, but it was Eberbach, his blood up
and back in the fight, that really broke through on the right. By nightfall he
had pushed all the way to Hill 896, where the Russians had posted a battalion
of artillery, about six kilometers east of the town. As darkness fell, Kuzma Podlas
was frantically trying to find out what had happened to his three divisions.
His corps had run right into two full panzer divisions massed on a very narrow
front as they deployed from road column of march. Their concentrated power had
shattered his corps in just four hours… and nary a T-34 was ever seen.

Scattered
reports of the action had finally reached Konev at his headquarters in Tula,
not more than sixty kilometers to the northeast. “So,” he said to his chief of
staff, a man named Kozlov. “Podlas deployed too far forward!”

“It
appears so, sir. He’ll be lucky to get even half of his men back if these
reports are accurate. The Germans have two panzer divisions up now, side by
side.”

“Yes?
Well they are about to run into the cream of Karpov’s Siberians. Is the Guard
Corps deployed as ordered?”

“They
reached Plavsk this afternoon, right astride the main road to Tula. Shall I
send orders to advance?”

“No…
Leave them right where they are. We will let the Germans teach Podlas a little
lesson, and they will come to our guardsmen soon enough. Where is the idiot?”

“Podlas?
He’s established his headquarters at Ulyanovka.”

“Tell
him to get anything he can salvage well east of the main road. I will send him
8th and 9th independent Rifle Brigades from the Army reserve. He can hold along
the river and watch us fight tomorrow, and hopefully things will be a little
different. Fritz will be tired, if nothing else, after chasing Podlas out of Gorbachevo
today. His forward units will be low on ammunition, and his men will be mopping
up all night down there.”

“Let’s
hope they’re good and tired, sir.”

“Yes…
What is 5th Army doing on our right?”

“They’ve
just come down from Kaluga to try and stop the envelopment of Bryansk. The
German 10th Motorized Division is operating on their front.”

“A
single division?”

“That
is the only unit identified thus far. It pushed as far as Belev, where they
appear to be organizing a forward supply depot. After that they’ve just been
chasing NKVD battalions.”

“Does
Lelyushenko plan to attack?”

“He’s
still moving up, but his orders are to push as far south as he can.”

“Then
he will be a welcome arrival on our right if he has any guts. In the meantime.
Get the rest of the Army moving tonight. Nobody sits on his thumbs or starts
digging in to defensive positions. This army will attack!”

“Very
good sir,” said Koslov, watching the light gleam off Konev’s balding head.

“Now we
see how these Siberians fight,” Konev said coolly.

“Their
24th Army stopped the Germans in front of Kirov,” said Koslov. “Now we will
stop them here.”

“I
certainly hope so,” said Konev, “because all we have behind us is a single tank
corps, and it is still forming up at the rail stations near Kashira. After
that, we have nothing between this place and Moscow but the militias digging on
the river at Serpukhov. Sergei Kirov is counting on us, and we must not let him
down. Notify the NKVD security detachment. We move forward to Fominka tonight,
and we attack tomorrow.”

The
following day it was again a detachment of KG Wellmann of the 3rd Panzer
Division that found itself on point along the road to Tula. They had pushed
right through the Russian lines the previous night, nearly overrunning an
artillery position that fled when they saw the soldiers approaching were
Germans.