After Action Report-

DTG: 15/11/1943 19:00 – 22:00 Z

Area: Bereza crossroads – 125km due south-west of Kursk Oblast

Units engaged:

1 Company 8^th Otdyelnaya Shtrafnoy

1 Company 8^th Guards Rifle Corps

1 Platoon T34-76

1 Platoon mixed T34-76 and T34-85

1 Platoon IS-2

1 Tank Destruction Company 45’s and PTRD’s

1 HQ platoon

Opposing forces

Remnants of Kamfgruppe Schperber

1 StuG Battery

1 Sturmdivision PAK section

4 Tigers E’s – Led by Tiger Ace Oberst Richard Schpear

1 battery of possibly 10.5 cm LeFH 18’s

2 Combined companies of regular Wehrmacht- units unknown

Preamble:

After almost 10 days of steady retreat of the German forces from the Kursk Salient, we have now reached the line that links the German forces to the North and South. After the defeat by our glorious and heroic forces at Stalingrad the Germans retreated west and in an attempt to straighten their lines again they tried to force us out of Kursk. The rest you know- 200 000 sons of Germany will not be returning to their mothers in Hamburg and Berlin- along with almost 500 of their newest Panzers, including the first of many of their new poor imitations of our glorious T34-85’s. Although we lost 860 000 brave soldiers and some 1500 tanks it was a resounding victory and our brave soldiers are now on their way to the west and we will never turn back!

TO THE WEST!!!

We have been steadily engaging the fleeing German forces in small rear guard actions since the major skirmish at Lyov on the 11^th. We had just received word that a group of German Tiger E’s have been spotted east of the Bereza crossroads and we are moving in.

In the meantime we have received some new T34-85’s from our glorious Chelyabinsk Tractor Factory and they were freshly downloaded from the flatbed railcars this morning. Our Commander, Polkovnik Vermeilon has decided to give the command of this unit to a freshly graduated Kapitan from the Frunze Military Academy. A real bastard this one- the troops took an immediate dislike to him with his high-born mannerisms and strict authoritarian attitude. We were very worried about the outcome of this day with this new wet-behind-the-ears commander. As it turns out, we were right as usual. His name would be linked to this disastrous day for all eternity- and we talk amongst ourselves about “Kapitan Peytor’s Folly- the case of the upside-down sight prisms”

Where did it go wrong? It probably started with the haste before the battle, nerves of the new commander and just a day where everything went wrong. The new tanks were basically filled with fuel and ammunition, reversed off the railcars, got into formation and stormed straight into battle under the command of an incompetent greenhorn eager to please himself at the expense and lives of a pile of dead Russian soldier’s bodies.

After Action Report (AAR) 2

The engagement started shortly after 19:40 Zulu. Our forces were approaching the Bereza crossroads from the south. The German Tigers were spotted in a small forest to the North East of the crossroads, while a battery of German LeFH18’s was spotted to the North West. Polkovnik Vermeilon decided to take on the Tigers himself with his IS2 Platoon, while the easy job of sorting out the German infantry, soft skinned vehicles and artillery was left to the new 2IC Kapitan.

One of the first signs of things going wrong was the way that the young Kapitan aligned his armoured units in a straight parade ground line facing the enemy, giving no credence to experience and advice given to him by his Leytenants to use staggered formations and overwatch formations. He also broke away from the doctrine of changing the mixed T34-76 and 85 units to having a pure T34-76 and a pure T34-85 platoon- “because it looked neater?” In the ensuing battle a mixed unit would have been able to put down more robust fire-power when in was needed most!

The Polkovnik was going to attack straight forward towards the clump of trees while his 8^th Otdyelnaya Shtrafnoy were going to dig in around the HQ unit and to be able to guard a nearby strategic point from possible counterattack by German forces.

He decided to send the re-organized T34-76 unit straight down the road through the hamlet at the Bereza crossroads to circle behind the German Panzer units to take care of any survivors or bailed crews.

In the meantime Kapitan Peytor marched his 8^th Guards Company to positions south of the Bereza forest to surprise the German forces entrenched to the North West of Bereza.

 Parade Ground line-up of T34’s prior to the battle of Bereza

He left a Tank Destruction company around the strategic position to the south west of Bereza. Of course again not a very clever plan- we all know you should use infantry against infantry and tanks and tanks destroyers against tanks and not against infantry. We should have known at that point what were in store for the the day. Put our blindness down to the fact that we have been kicking the Germans in front of us like a soccer ball for nearly two weeks and we were confident that we would be in Berlin before the next winter. How wrong we were!

Polkovnik Vermeilon’s IS 2’s spotted the Tigers coming out of hiding at the edge of the forest and proceeded to engage them. His own T34-85 had engine trouble and while he was trying to start the engine the IS 2’s stormed forward.

The semi-concealed Tigers had a field day with the advancing IS 2’s stopping them short of the M02 district road with a high volume of fire. Although no damage was sustained at that point, the IS’2 crews were severely rattled by 88mm rounds clanging off armour and raising paint fumes and dust in the confines of the tanks.

This was closely followed by a well-aimed barrage of German artillery landing on top of the IS 2’s causing havoc. Even though no rounds penetrated any of the IS 2’s the havoc was enough to bail all of the crews from their vehicles in order to take cover in nearby trenches.

Polkovnik’s T34-85 experiencing engine trouble at the start of the Bereza engagement- note the steam rising from the engine covers due to a burst coolant pipe

This allowed the Tigers to creep back into cover before the IS’2 could recover enough to fire retaliatory shots and probably killing the whole team of German tanks.

In the meantime the T34-76 platoon moved towards Bereza only to notice a platoon of German Stugs coming the other way through the Bereza forest. At this time our glorious little Kapitan was cruising into battle with the T34-85’s that were desperately needed to stop the StuGs. Of course his radio was tuned to martial music played by radio Moscow to add to the “ambience” he needed to focus on the coming engagement. Although Polkovnik Vermeilon tried to contact him to tell him about the threat to the East he was much too busy listing to his music to pay attention to the command channel.

Line of bailed-out IS 2’s south of the M02 district road

In the Bereza forest a disaster was looming as well- the thin skinned T34-76’s were going head to head with the heavily armoured StuGs, although some were angling around to try to get side shots into the thinner Shurzen armour protection. This turned into an unmitigated disaster with the StuGs killing virtually all of the T34’s in one short and sharp battle.

The T34-85’s were neat enough and lined up enough and inspired enough at this point to join the battle and this at least convinced the experienced StuG commander to retreat back from Bereza to the north instead of pushing for a breakthrough of our lines. The T34-85’s were in a very good position to outflank the German positions to the west, but now a series of events took place that would have been funny if they were not so deadly to the soldiers involved.

·         Kapitan Peytor accidentally exploded a smoke grenade in the turret of his commanding tank causing the crew to bail….. need I say more?

·         The rest of the T34-85’s discovered to their great dismay that the prisms in the gun sights were installed upside down- making aiming almost impossible…

  

A demonstration of the effect of wrong installation of gun sight prisms on the T34-85’s lost in the battle of Bereza- Peytor’s Folly. The misaligned prism caused an inverted picture which made proper sighting almost impossible. This should have been picked up in a pre-battle inspection which was not done

The more experienced crews continued driving forward and bore-sighted their cannon to engage the LefH18 battery that were now visible to the North. In the process they managed to knock out one of the the artillery pieces. Their glory was to be short-lived.

The German Artillery re-acted in direct fire mode and the StuGs that retreated from the Bereza forest leaving the burning hulks of three T34-76’s behind also engaged the T34-85’s. The results were disastrous!  All the T34-85’s were destroyed with only the single LeFH18 to add to their tally!

To the east things were not going much better. The hide and seek tactics of the German panzers were paying dividends. Every time before the IS 2’s could get a proper shot off, the Germans crept back out of sight. While the bailed crews of the IS‘s were trying to get back into their tanks the Tigers were upon them and the results were about as disastrous as what was happening West of Bereza.

The “glorious line” storming into battle South West of Bereza- note the smoke starting to creep from the turret of the commanding tank due to a misplaced smoke grenade.

The “glorious line” storming into battle and a minute later the burning hulks a most of a platoon of T34-85’s mismanaged to their destruction with only a measly LeFH18 to show for the efforts. Note the burning T34-76 hulks in the Bereza forest.

IS 2’s and Tigers engaging near the M02 east of Bereza. This did not end well- Two IS 2’s in flames and not a single Tiger taken out of action yet. The rest of the IS 2’s were also lost moments after this picture was taken.

In the meantime Polkovnik Vermeilon managed to start his T34-85 and managed to get a very well placed round off aimed at a Tiger E that were breaking through our lines. The Tiger exploded. The rest of the Tigers broke through our lines and the overwhelming odds were just too much- a single T34-85 facing 3 Tiger E’s!! Although the Polkovnik fought bravely, the T34-85 was destroyed in minutes. We heard that the wounded Polkovnik was thrown out of the tank just before the final explosion, but this has not been confirmed yet.

On the west flank things were not going well at all, but the Kapitan finally managed to remove the remnants of the smoke grenade form his turret and got his T34-85 moving again. He ordered the infantry forward to engage with German infantry that were moving forward in an attempt to break through our lines. This was probably the only mitigating move made by him on this terribly embarrassing day for our glorious army!

His T34-85 managed to hit a StuG on the far side of the burning hulks of his platoon, but in the answering fire his T34-85 received a direct and very final hit. He was killed instantly to the relief of the rest of the soldiers under his command. The fearless Veterans of both the 8^th Otdyelnaya Shtrafnoy and 8^th Guards Rifle Corps close assaulted the German break through forces and with a heavy loss of brave Russian lives stopped the Germans from breaking through totally. If it was not for the fact that we had a huge Russian force advancing towards Bereza on the M02 and P44 somewhere behind us, and if the Germans were so inclined on the day, or had enough men, fuel and ammunition, they could have broken our forces and streamed back all the way to Kursk…

What is left …?

A lonely grave where what was left of Kapitan Peytor was buried near Bereza, and his ceremonial gloves found in the hulk of his destroyed T34-85.

Page of an instruction manual found in Peytor’s tank- he was reading this when his tank was blown up! - Are these the officers that the Frunze Academy is sending us? We are glad that the outcome of the war is on the shoulders of us- the peasant sons of mother Russia and not these spoiled brats from high born and privileged industrial captains!

Areal pictures taken by our spotter planes showing the break-through of Tigers facing off with the 8^th Guards with Polkovnik Vermeilon’s T34-85 burning behind them (picture on left) .On the right- the remnants of Peytor’s folly being inspected by victorious German troops.

We live- we fight- We will not stop before the German pigs are all destroyed. Oberst Richard Schpear- you are a marked man! All Russian Forces- look out for the emblem as shown on this Tiger- this is our man- destroy him!

Mdladshiy Serzant Kronjov