Niemirow AAR Sgt. Borosov & Little Sasha

[heinrich55]

A BT-7 commander gets a quick glance through a vision port and takes a shot. A kill?
The answer is captured momentarily…..

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The shell strikes...

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Flames and carnage....

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None of their comrades witnessed their demise. They die alone and unseen amidst the silent Russian trees.

The end came quickly though. Their grave marker becomes a tower of black smoke above shattered steel.

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The destruction is complete.

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Lt Turov keeps trying to urge his men onwards. The enemy artillery is now moving closer to town, seeking his troops out. They had been targeting the armor, but things are rapidly changing.

He motions to Sgt Baretski to keep up the assault. Baretski kicks at his men and they reluctantly get up and advance forward. Turov has been directing fire into a known enemy position, hoping to suppress it. He watches as that hope dies quickly, along with part of Baretski’s squad.

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“Keep going,” he yells, knowing the men are in an impossible position. Baretski is yelling and cuffing his men, trying to get them to rise and move. They are pinned in a terrible position and need to move fast. He is just as aware of the danger as Turov is and desperately tries to shake the men from their terror.

More enemy fire tears through his squad. Turov cries out in frustration and agony, almost feeling the pain of his men. It is over. MG fire and artillery fragments tear Baretski’s squad to pieces, leaving broken and torn bodies.

[heinrich55]

The attack is slowing on the left flank. Artillery and strong enemy positions are taking their toll. However, Lt. Pavski has aggressively pushed his BT-7m tanks into the woods to the right of the stone monument.

Lt. Larinov has managed to push his infantry through the woods shoulder to shoulder with the tankers. They managed to stay ahead of the enemy artillery and are now in the cover of the woods, protecting the tanks. Pavski has seen this as his good fortune.

Pavski watches as a great number of shells pound a suspected enemy AT gun position. He saw Detya’s struggle with the hidden gun and knows the enemy is near. He suspects the enemy position is neutralized, as there have been no shells from that area for a while now. However, he must know for sure.

He waves Kolchuk across the road while shells keep pounding the suspected location. Kolchuk knows the danger as he may now accidentally drive into the path of friendly shells as well as be suddenly blown apart by the enemy gun. He orders his driver to race across the road at high speed and then is thrown back against the hatch as his driver races the engine and drops into gear, lurching violently across the road.

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Kolchuk sees the carnage. It is a large and very dangerous enemy AT gun, now broken into pieces.

He gives Pavski a large grin and slowly runs his thumb across his throat to confirm his observation.

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At the outskirts of town, Ivan realizes there have been no further artillery shells rocking their tank. He orders the loader and MG gunner to remove Detya from the tank and take him back to the aid station. Perhaps there is a chance to save him.

What will you do, the loader asks him. I will load and fire he tells the loader. Hurry and get Detya back to medical aid now before the enemy shells us again he urges.


As the right flank presses towards their initial objective, the bridge on the edge of town, they encounter enemy resistance near the bridge. Sgt Morska signals viciously with his flags to Guzenko, ordering him to charge close to the enemy position. Guzenko kicks his driver in the middle of his back, the signal to go fast and straight. The driver responds quickly and Guzenko sees explosions around the tree line he is approaching.

Good, he thinks, at least that pig of a sergeant is giving me covering fire. Just short of the trees he orders a stop and looks for targets. He can just make out the green-grey uniforms of the enemy, most lying motionless in the tall grass.

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The loader has slammed a shell home for him, and Guzenko lines up his gun in the area of the enemy.

Through his sight he sees a single soldier rise up to throw something. They are too far away to be hit with grenades, and Guzenko thinks the soldier must be mad.

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Guzenko lines up his shot and hits the trigger. His tank rocks with the recoil and smoke and power fill the interior.

A shell rips from the barrel and rides a course straight and true.

Death is but moments away….

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The inevitable result is recorded. The squad falls in battle.

Guzenko realizes that the German was throwing a smoke grenade to mask their position and possibly allow them to retreat. No matter, he thinks. He has seen many of his friends burned or torn apart this day. Better them than us.

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He sees other tanks suddenly burst from the tree line. They are making a run for the bridge. He hadn’t seen the order, but Morska is giving others the honor of taking the bridge. His tank is the closest and should have been accorded the dubious honor.

Guzenko smiles to himself. He is not in this for honor or glory. He only wants to survive and get his crew to safety at the end of the day.

Let others bask in the glory and make Morska a hero he laughs.

[heinrich55]

Lt. Turov has watched as squad after squad is cut down from enemy strongpoints. His frustration is growing with the loss of his men and the pressure from HQ. He has been receiving a steady stream of runners communicating the urgency the Major is feeling from their dear political leader.

In a moment of agitation he orders a squad onto one of Captain Denska’s tanks. Without Denska’s permission, he orders the tank commander to drive the men fast across the meadow and take cover behind one of the houses there.

The tanker sees the look on Turov’s face and decides to comply immediately. In a moment his tank is screaming across the open meadow, depositing the foot soldiers directly into the safety of a building.

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Turov is amazed at the success of the tactic. He turns and sees the Captain, waving and applauding the action.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he immediately orders his squad onto the back deck of the hulking T-28 they are using for cover. The plan is the same.

Turov has to yell over the roar of the engine, but he communicates the urgency of a dash across the open ground to the commander. The tanker has seen the success of the first attempt and nods with approval. Turov turns to his men and alerts them to get ready.

All of a sudden he is in the dirt, cannot hear, and is being pulled beneath a different tank. He tries to resist in confusion but his sergeant, Arkady has a death grip on him. Dirt is still showering down and he suddenly realizes they have been blown off the T-28 by a near miss from an artillery round.

In a pig’s eye, this is just great, he thinks……

[heinrich55]

The next explosion is the very tank they were on moments ago. The damn artillery has found them and just ripped their ride to pieces. There are screams from inside as some of the crewmen have survived. The lucky ones crawl from the wreckage, stunned and blackened, some missing arms or legs.

Turov is bleeding from shrapnel wounds, as are most of his squad. But, they are still alive – mere seconds separated them from the first explosion that launched them off the death trap and the second which would have shredded every one of them.

Denska’s tank is the one they ended up beneath. Turov looks up at the turret and sees a look of stunned surprise on the man’s face. Denska holds up two fingers and points first to the T-28 and then across the meadow to the T-34 that was tagging along with them. An artillery round has torn the rear deck open on the T-34. Their crew is hiding in the heavy underbrush. They have lost two tanks to direct hits from artillery in less than forty seconds.

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Turov is just now getting up and Arkady is brushing him off. The second set of artillery rounds impact nearby and he hears the screams as the rest of a squad that was lagging behind is torn apart.

He and the other men are then riveted by a huge explosion across the meadow where yet another BT-7 tank is blown to pieces.

“How can they burn so much”” Turov wonders out loud in horrified amazement.

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The situation is equally desperate on the right flank of the town. Lt. Larinov had managed to get his men deep into the woods and then was pinned by fire from seemingly every building. Moments later he lay badly wounded, bleeding profusely, his squad ripped apart.

It was a giant stalemate, with the tanks blasting away at the enemy who were hiding in the buildings. Two BT-7 tanks were actually at point blank range firing on a building suspected of having enemy units in it, but to no avail.

Tretiev, a very large and very angry common soldier, formerly a peat farmer from outside Kiev until caught up in Stalin’s recruitment campaign has had enough. His friends and comrades lie bleeding and silent all around him. The lieutenant is probably dying and the sergeant is hiding.

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Leaping to his feet he roars “For the Rodina,” and charges headlong at the building suspected of harboring enemy soldiers.

Instantly two squads leap to their feet, with the dreaded Russian battle cry “Urrah, Urrah” coursing from their lips and reverberating through the trees. They rush past the two tanks and storm the building, suddenly in among the startled Germans.

A second squad tried to force their way into the bloody fray, as men clawed at one another with anything they could get their hands on but there wasn’t room inside.