Sudden Carnage
Chapter XV – Operation Hammer Sickle part III
Countries played by humans: UK, France, Soviet Union, Germany, Italy, Japan
Recap: After the break-out of the two-front war, Germany have concentrated on the Soviet Union. Now, with Operation Storm losing momentum and the defense in the West buckling, Wehrmacht must renew their strategy and focus on the West.
Now, as the German forces are fighting to retake the last bit of southernmost part of the West Wall - Operation Hammer Sickle is ready to be launched in the center and north where the Allies had made substantial land gains and also been able to dig in. It will not be easy but it is time to make a go at it…
November 19th, 1939
As troops included in Operation Hammer Sickle started to move towards their target provinces, the German Sea Wolves tore the British convoys apart. They had patrols out but could not stop the U-boats to sink a large amount of tonnage. With the Italian efforts in the Med, the Brits would surely have a tough time now.
…
November 21st, 1939
::The 1st Panzer Division had been doing little the last month. Since the last battle during mid October they had only had one marsh-order, and that was to Dubno. Here they had been more or less still for more than three weeks. They dug in and waited for orders. After a while, rumors trickled down to them that no more offensives from their side were to be expected during the winter. The officers did not confirm the rumor but the soldiers, not having much better to do, started to prepare more comfortable living quarters. The company HQ was in a farmstead but Heinrich and a group of three panzers were based in small grove on a windswept plain. The tent was strengthened with wooden poles and the soft walls were clad, from the outside with brushwood and dried mosses. After about a week, their living quarters got a lean-to kitchen outside the tent, and a week after that, they built a little hut, big enough for two or three men to play cards in, so that remaining men got more space in the tent. It was just important to have the possibility to change environment once in a while.::
::Heinrich Hahn and Baltazar Voll got a day off and went into the city of Dubno. Some parts of the city was really old and they even had a castle with a modern prison which NKVD had used for important POWs when it fell in German hands. They managed to rescue a few German soldiers who had fallen in Russian captivity. A few of them came from the 1st Paratroop Division. In town they failed to get more cigarettes but managed to lay their hands on a lot of homebrewed vodka. That would warm them good during the nights which became colder and colder.::
The remnants of the old castle wall from the 15-century and the newer building next to it, build by the Poles as a prison but later used by NKVD.
::Suddenly they got a marsh order. They’d be the spearhead of an attack straight into the Soviet Union. It worried them that the order seemed to come with no premonition. Normally there were always some rumors coming first. This could only mean the whole idea was something drawn up in haste and that was never good. The first snow had come the day before. It had melted away to a film of slush on the roads but lay as a fine white powder on the grass and plowed fields. It pained them to leave their little self made settlement but there’s nothing to it. And order was an order. Michael Wittmann was his usual energetic self. Heinrich suspected that his tank commander was happy about the order. Soon, their panzers rolled out from their little glade, tracks creaking. They were on the move again – towards the actual border to Soviet Union. As the warmth from the powerful engine seeped into the crew compartment, their good mood returned. This would be a grand moment.::
The Red Army had started an offensive in the Italian sector of the east front. This caused some mild alarm in the Italian camp. Having plenty of idle troops, the Germans launched a powerful panzer-attack into the steppes of Shepetivka. The attack had no other purpose than to disturb and mislead the Soviet leadership. It did have some emotional importance as this was the first attack on Russian soil.
::The Red Army was waiting for them – three infantry divisions well dug in along the snow powdered fields. They were, however, not prepared to face the might of Erwing Rommel’s 1st Panzer side by side with Walter Models 3rd Panzer out in the open. Together, they could quickly shift flanks, blitz through or concentrate firepower in a way the Russians had significant problems to cope with.::
November 22nd, 1939
After a week of fighting, the French gave up Hinterzarten and pulled back to the Maginot fortress. The southern part of the West Wall was recaptured at last. It was great news in the German media, except they made it sound like it was all part of the big plan. Pictures, actually from the slaughter in Donaueschingen, on enormous amounts of dead French soldiers were shown.
Though the events did not have any connection to each other, the victory in Hinterzarten correlated with Operation Hammer Sickle being ready to launch. It is time to roll the dice of the fate of the Fatherland…
November 25th, 1939
An entire army corps had marched into Koblenz and now attacked across the Rhine River into Morbach according to the plan. The defenders were dug in behind the river in a network of earth-bunkers and trenches which made them quite formidable. The Wehrmacht, however, was used to this tactic and quickly made an encircling maneuver towards the British sector.
The German leadership was a little worried about the tough defense and was reluctant to initiate the airborne part of the operation. The risk of having them cut off and lost felt too great.
November 25th, 1939
Roughly 24 hours later, and the British division had retreated. They might have gotten scared by the chock of being surrounded. Their retreat left the two French divisions in a tough spot. The Germans gained ground and won the air superiority. At the same time, an assault started further north to stop the French from bringing in reinforcements to Morbach. Further east, two panzer division were inbound to be prepared to blitz into an opening.
The Brits retreating into St Wendel was not only a good thing. It was one of the areas designated for a paradrop. As things started to swing the German way in Morbach, the Japan/German leadership wanted to launch the airborne operations. These hours were nervous ones…
November 27th, 1939
The British push in North Africa had slowed down, but not stopped. The Italian troops made a valiant stand in the mountains around Tarabulus. It did not look too bright.
November 27th-29th, 1939
::The Red Army just couldn’t hold them off in the open. The two panzer divisions just tore them apart. The men became battle-crazed. They felt like gods when they moved around in a tight group consisting of a few light and medium panzers together with a couple of fast armor-cars, model SdKfz 234. The first lines of Russians were evenly distributed in trench-systems, and they could do little when spearhead panzer-groups made focused attacks on one location after the other. As the first Russian infantry battalions fell back in utter disarray the next-coming defenders tried to be more mobile but they simply did not have enough heavy equipment to bring any fear to the panzer crews. In a few areas, infantry from the two sides clashed which resulted in deaths on both sides. ::
::Heinrich “The Rooster” maneuvered smoothly across the snow-powdered fields. Bobby Woll had had blasted an old barn to pieces and two armor-cars laid fire on it from their auto canons. The heavy guns tore big holes in the wooden wall and splinters and dust covered their line of sight like a grey haze. On Micheal Wittmanns order, Bobby fired the main gun at the corner of the barn and it exploded away, causing half of the barn to collapse. Two Russian soldiers ran out but ended up in the middle of auto canon fire and were virtually shot to pieces. A little bit later, German infantry arrived on trucks, jumped out and advanced on the leaning barn and the little house next to it. After a short firefight that wounded a German soldier and killed two Russians, another three Red Army soldiers surrendered.::
SdKfz 234 /1
::One day later, the panzer-group, led by Wittmann, were ambushed by Russian armor. A light panzer got hit and started to burn fiercely. The gunner and commander got out, but none of the other. A medium panzer in front of Heinrich was hit in the front but the grenade bounced off. Wittmann did not want to retreat, not wanting the Russian to report the victory. He made them fire the smoke grenades in front of them, and then Heinrich turned sharply. The armor cars made violent zigzag maneuvers and spread a fearsome crossfire over the shrubbery where the enemy tanks had been hiding. Their auto cannons were close to useless, but it was still hard to concentrate as a tank driver or gunner when heavy fire bounced of the armor, threatening to pierce through weak spots. The panzers made wide arches, left and right and fired as they closed in. On Russian armor exploded and then the others started to reverse, while firing. A big explosion just beside an armor car made it to lift from the leftside wheels. As it bounced back, three wheels were punctured and the car came do a fast halt, while the right side wheels spinned ferociously and threw dust up in the air. It was an easy target now and two men threw themselves out while the driver stayed put and tried to reverse. One more Russian tank got hit in the middle of the driver’s seat and started to burn while it slowly reversed and turned before it got hit again, just as the gunner opened the top hatch and tried to climb out to flee the black smoke. The explosion threw him waving high up in the air before he tumbled to the ground. The last tank stopped and surrendered, its crew jumping out and waving their hands. Nobody fired on them, probably as all the German tank crew were eager to have a look at an undamaged enemy tank.::
The first three infantry divisions that stood against the German Panzer attack were spent after one week of battle and retreated in utter disarray. The Soviet leadership must have realized the infantry was useless against the panzers out in the open and sent in his own medium tanks. It was the first open field tank battle in the war and it was won by the experienced German crews. The first Soviet province had fallen to the Third Reich.
November 29th, 1939
Operation Hammer Sickle unfolds. Losing battles surrounding Morbach is locking up the French there while paradrops behind the enemy line secure important strategic lands. The British division in St Wendel returned to the fray in Morbach, thus leaving St Wendel undefended. The 2nd Fallskirm jäger Division landed in St Wendel and surprised a French infantry division coming over the river from Trier in the north. The Japanese paratroopers landed in Saarbrucken and Pirmasens. They were soon attacked as well. As the Japanese elite units had good defensive positions in the city of Saarbrucken and the forest of Pirmasens, both being somewhat fortified, the French had insufficient forces to be of any distinct threat.
In Morbach, the bombs kept on falling on the defenders who lost more and more ground, albeit slowly, as the Germans had troubles crossing the Rhine. One of the divisions had a brigade of pioneers who had made a pontoon bridge to one of the secure bridge heads and the division could now pour over the bridge.
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At last. It felt amazing to finally get the Operation started and to get the paras successfully in place. The pocket-potential is quite bad but on the other hand - the paras have too good positions to be easilly dislodge which gives the Allies a really awkward defensive position. I think I will be able to breach the line at Morbach and then we'll see how the Allies react. So far so good... or what do you think?
Could this attack have been made in another way? I dwelled uppon it quite a lot but as both France and UK can flee through Belgian territory it will be hard capturing the northern forces.
