Winter Warriors

“They are, or so we thought, but the intelligence thing makes it look different. It’s really weird. There are Swedish volunteer units fighting with the Germans. One of the SS panzergrenadier divisions is a third Swedish, yet I’m pretty certain we’re getting all this good intel out of Stockholm. Another thing that doesn’t make sense. Looks like the Swedes are playing a really deep double game and the Germans are not pleased about it.

“In terms of equipment, one of our two armored divisions have got late-model M-4 Shermans. They have HVSS suspension, wide tracks and 90mm guns. The other has M-27 Sheridans; same gun but a bit more armor. Between them, they’ll handle most things except the German heavies. There’s a few of those, mostly Royal Tigers down around Petrograd. The Russians have JS-IIIs down there and seeing those two go at it is a real treat. This isn’t really tank country though. Armor is a help but it’s a supporting weapon, not a decisive maneuver arm.

“Our infantry is outgunned. The Germans have those banana guns, StG-44s. We still use bolt action No.4s. We’ve got Capsten submachine guns though; they fire the hot greentip Tokarev 7.62s. Machine guns, its mostly our Brens vs their Spandaus but we’ve got the Vickers and those water-cooled machine guns are worth their weight in gold. They’ll fire forever in the cold and snow. One thing, make sure all your sub-commanders check their ammunition supplies. We’re shipping both our .303 and Russian 7.62 three-line ammunition through Murmansk and the two rounds are alike enough to get mixed up. Happened already, it’ll happen again. You don’t want one of our battalions to find out it’s got three-line ammunition just as it goes into action.”

CHAPTER TWO: A CHILL IN THE AIR

Curly, Battery B, US Navy 5th Artillery Battalion, Kola Peninsula.

From above, the railway tracks looked like three snakes sliding side-by-side in the snow. If the observer above looked closer he’d see that there was another kind of snake down there, three trains, side by side on the rails. A long way between them, almost half a mile, but still there. Trains that were 14 carriages long. A very astute observer might realize there was something very strange about the fourth carriage in the train.

It was the long barrel that gave the game away. The train was a railway gun and its entourage; the wagons that held the massive 2,700 pound projectiles, the bags of charges, living accommodation for the crew, cranes to lift the loads and anti-aircraft guns to protect the whole assembly. The curves on the tracks allowed the gun to be trained at any point within a wide arc. Together, the three supercharged 16-inch 50-caliber guns could put down a devastating barrage of fire on a target up to 40 miles away.

Here and now, on the Kola Peninsula as winter drew in, railway guns had suddenly regained the importance they had lost when aircraft had taken over the role of long-range artillery. Most times during a Kola peninsula winter, the weather was too bad for aircraft. Even if they could get up, it was too bad for them to strike accurately. Weather didn’t affect the big guns. If they knew the position of their target, they could strike at it. When they did, their power was devastating.

The allies had learned that in the winter of 1942-43, the first full Russian winter the American troops had experienced. They’d suffered at the hands of the German railway guns, so they’d brought their own. Four 14-inch L50 railway guns at the Washington Navy Yard had been hastily converted to Russian railway gauge and shipped to Murmansk. They’d been followed, a year later, by six 16-inch L50s; guns that had been in store ever since the battlecruisers they’d been designed for had died under the Washington Treaty axe. The 14 inchers and three of the sixteens were down at Petrograd, at the western end of the Kola Front. The other three 16s were here, at the eastern end.

Commander James Perdue’s reverie was broken by the sound of a siren going off. It was the alert that a shoot was about to take place. He’d barely had time to register the noise and start to act before the train lurched and began to move. Forward, that would mean the gun was training to the right. If the target had been to their left, they ‘d have been moving backwards. Their gun, affectionately known as Curly was too large to have a turntable mounting, instead it was moved along the curved tracks. There were marks at regular intervals along the curve, each marking the increments by which the barrel was swinging. When the fire control system gave them the deflection needed, the engine would move the forward wheel of the gun-carriage so it was level with one of those marks. All that the gun crew needed to do was elevate to the specified degree and make a fine adjustment to the bearing.

The train shuddered and stopped. Then Curly rocked gently as a fine adjustment was made. Perdue was already heading back, down the accommodation car to his gun. He knew what was happening. The crane had lifted a 2,700 pound semi-armor piercing projectile from the stack on the flatcar and loaded it onto the conveyor. Now it was being run to the gun where it would be rammed into the breech. Behind it, the magazine cars had opened and powder bags were being brought forward. The number was determined by the range to the target. Curly had originally been designed to take eight bags but had been modified to accommodate up to ten. That level of supercharge would wear out the barrel but it wasn’t a problem. When that happened, they’d get Curly rebarrelled.

“How many charges?”

“Full load Sir.” This was going to be good. Curly’s barrel was already arcing upwards as the hydraulics drove it into the fire position. A crash seemed to shake the whole frozen landscape and a brilliant ball of fire lit up the sky. Curly sent its projectile off towards whatever target it was that had caused the commotion. A split second later, far off to the right, Larry sent its shell on its way to the same target. Perdue assumed it was the same; they usually were. Over on the left, the third gun, Moe fired its shell. The last one off, Moe’s crew would get their legs pulled about that. Curly’s barrel was already dropping as the gun returned to the load position and the railway engine pushed the gun train back to the mark.

The German railway gunners could get off one round every six minutes; the American navy men fired twice that. Larry must have done slightly better because the 16-incher got its shell off a split second before Curly. Moe brought up the rear again. Four shells each later, the guns ceased fire and their locomotives pulled them back to the rest position. Perdue hoped the target, whatever it was, had been duly grateful for the effort made on its behalf.

Headquarters, 71st Infantry Division, Kola Front

“So you are the idiot who destroyed my heavy artillery battery.” Major-General Marcks spoke thoughtfully. Outside, his aide quietly crept away. When ‘Old Lenin,’ as he was known behind his back, spoke thoughtfully, being somewhere else was a very good idea.

Captain Wilhelm Lang knew how to deal with this situation. It was necessary to take action, to show initiative. This was one of those cases where bending the rules was actually a good thing. It showed a concentration on fulfilling the objective, of gaining the required results, a good thing. “Sir, yes sir. But I have been on the long-distance radio link to a friend of mine in Army Group headquarters. He’s fixed everything. We will have new heavy guns here to replace them in a week or less. Well before we are required to bounce off.”

Lang looked at his General with what came perilously near to a smirk. It faded when he saw the irascible general going white.

“You used the long-range radio? How long ago?”

“I just came off it, just before I came in here, I was using it for five minutes, perhaps ten.”

Marcks grabbed the telephone on his desk. “Emergency evacuation now! Everybody out! Clear the area, as far as possible.” Then he pushed past Lang and headed for the door. Outside sirens wailed.

The headquarters area was a madhouse. Corporal Krause was already running the engine of Marck’s kubelwagen. He started to roll as soon as the General was in the back. Lang pulled himself in as the little vehicle sped off down the road plowed through the snow. Around them vehicles were moving. Each took as many of the headquarters staff as they could scoop up. Krause threaded his kubelwagen through the throng, heading as far away from the camp area as possible.

They made it. Krause drove the kubelwagen straight at a tree sticking out of the snow, hit the brakes and spun it around. As he did, Marcks leapt out and looked down on the HQ area nestling at the foot of the ridge. Lang had waited until the vehicle had stopped and left more circumspectly. “Best driver in the division Krause is.” Marcks was still watching the base.

“I don’t understand….”