commencing a briefing without the tall, stocky Russian colonel present. Vorishnov even shared Dixon's love of being a tanker, throwing himself into the task of learning how to function as a loader on an American tank. Though he couldn't help but comment every chance he had about how much better it was to have an automatic loader, like on Russian tanks, Vorishnov enjoyed being there with Dixon.
From the second-story window of his family's small corner apartment that overlooked the town's square, seven-year-old Hans Gielber watched in fascination as the line of three Jaguar tank destroyers moved from the rail yard toward him. Finally, he thought, the German Army had arrived. After watching American tanks and infantry fighting vehicles pass right under his own window for the last hour, someone was finally coming to stop them. Though he could only count three tank destroyers, that didn't matter. They were German tank destroyers, armed with either long-range TOW anti-tank guided missiles or the intermediate-range HOT anti-tank guided missiles. Either way, Hans knew that the big heavy American tanks would be no match for the fast, hard-hitting Jaguars that he and the other boys in his class had been learning about over the past weeks.
Like most of his classmates, he had great confidence in the abilities of the German Army and the effectiveness of its weapons. He didn't realize that the long-range anti-tank guided missiles on the Jaguars would be ineffective at very close range in street fighting due to the warhead's arming process that required the missile to fly a considerable distance before becoming fully capable. What young Hans Gielber knew in his heart was that both the soldiers and the weapons were the products of a nation with a long, proud military heritage that combined the knowledge of great engineers with the skills of master craftsmen. Nothing made in America, he told his friends in school, could ever hope to match a precision-made German machine in the hands of a brave German soldier. That he would be able to see the vindication of his arguments from his own window excited Hans no end.
While he intently watched the Jaguars move closer, Hans felt the floor of his apartment begin to vibrate as it had before when the last of the American tanks had come through. Pressing his face against the glass, Hans put his hands up on the window and looked in the opposite direction, down a side street that led to the south, to see if there were more American tanks coming. In the glow of the dim streetlights that circled the town square, Hans could just make out the image of a long heavy gun tube coming out of the shadows and into the town center. It was another American tank. Looking back to where the Jaguars were, Hans waited impatiently to see who would fire first. Not that it made a difference, he thought. The Jaguars would in short order reduce the American tank to a burning hulk. And he, out of all the boys in his class, would be there to see it.
Noting that they were about to enter the town's center crowded with shops and buildings, Dixon twisted about in his open hatch to look behind him to make sure that Cerro and the armored personnel carriers were keeping up. In his desire to make up for lost time, it was easy to forget about the slower, heavily burdened carriers. In the dim lights that lit the dingy little streets of the eastern German village, Dixon could make out the image of Cerro's personnel carrier as it wound its way through the narrow streets of Dermbach. He was about to key his intercom switch to order the driver to slow down so that the rest of the command post could catch up when Vorishnov, in a voice that was excited, yet clear and concise, cut Dixon off. 'German anti-tank guided-missile carrier to the front, fifty meters!'
Snapping his neck about, Dixon instantly focused on the squat boxlike tracked vehicle emerging from a side street directly across the town square from where his own tank was coming. While his body prepared him for battle, dumping adrenaline into his blood while his groin muscles tightened to keep from venting urine or bowel, Dixon's mind automatically flipped through a mental file of armored vehicle images and profiles. Without much conscious thought needed, a voice inside Dixon's brain shouted, Jaguar.
With that completed, Dixon's training as a tanker took over, treating the armored vehicle to his front as an enemy until such time as he could determine otherwise. With a single seamless order, Dixon shouted directions to his crew in the form of a fire command that did not come out as clear and concise as he would have liked. But that didn't seem to make a difference as the crewmen, including Vorishnov, responded to each element of the command. 'DRIVER STOP! GUNNER?BATTLE SIGHT?ANTI-TANK!'
The driver, already alerted to the presence of an enemy by Vorishnov's acquisition report, had eased up on the throttle and was prepared to continue or stop when Dixon issued his fire command. With measured practice, the driver eased down on the brake, bringing the massive tank to a smooth stop.
The gunner, lulled into a near state of sleep, had also been jerked to life by Vorishnov's warning. By the time Dixon uttered his first word, the gunner had his eye on the primary sight, and the thermal sight switched from standby to on. Like Dixon, the gunner's training overrode any panic. Instead, his hand moved across the face of the primary sight's controls and knobs, ensuring by feel that all was ready to engage the target. Though Dixon had announced battle sight, the gunner intended to range to the target using the laser range finder integrated in the primary sight. In fact, the gunner didn't even have to think twice about that as his right thumb automatically twitched and depressed the laser range finder button on the top of the gunner controls. This action caused the 120mm main gun to jump as the computer received automatically the correct range to the target, computed a proper ballistic solution for the forthcoming engagement, and applied that ballistic solution to the tank's fire-control system, all done before Dixon had finished spitting out the last word of his fire command.
Vorishnov, steeled for action before anyone else, had dropped to the turret floor and plopped himself down on the seat he had been standing on. Reaching across, Vorishnov grabbed the long, crooked arm that served to arm the tank's main gun as well as deflect the wide base plate of expended main gun rounds into a container hanging from the gun's breech. Finished with that, Vorishnov pulled his whole body over to one side to escape the recoil of the main gun and hung on to the handles as he had been shown.
As he sat there watching Dixon in the dim blue-green light of the turret, he pondered whether he should ask what round Dixon wanted to load next but decided not to. Dixon's mind, he knew, was busy going over the shoot- don't shoot decision process. Vorishnov, knowing that they were facing an anti-tank unit, would load a high explosive anti-tank, or HEAT, round next, once the armor-piercing, fin-stabilized anti-tank round already in the gun's chamber was fired. He would have to announce that to the gunner so that he could change the ammunition selection lever on the primary sight and allow the fire-control computer to provide a new ballistic solution. But that was easy and worth the effort. Though Vorishnov hadn't been told, he assumed that the Americans, like his own Army, preferred the HEAT round, a chemical round that caused a-shaped-charge explosion on contact with target when engaging lightly armored vehicles and material targets. Armor-piercing rounds used against enemy tanks were nothing more than a depleted uranium slug that used kinetic energy to punch its way through the armor plate of the target. Against the Jaguar there was the chance that the armor-piercing round would sail through both sides of the Jaguar without destroying it. Though Vorishnov doubted that would happen, a HEAT round next time would be better.
If there was any doubt in Dixon's mind about whether or not he should engage the Jaguar across the square from him, he didn't dwell long on it. They were committed to war. First blood had been drawn, and this was neither the time nor place to determine if the crew of the Jaguar across from them was made up of good Germans or bad Germans. Only the fact that Vorishnov had forgotten to announce that he was UP, or ready for action, caused a delay. Out of habit, Dixon shouted, 'LOADER! ARE YOU UP?'
Vorishnov, realizing his error, shouted, 'UP,' then silently cursed himself for being so stupid.
Dixon instantly shouted, 'FIRE!' causing the gunner to respond with 'ON THE WAY' just before he pulled the trigger.
The first engagement of the evening was over before the last of the reverberations from Dixon's tank died away in the close confines of the town's square. Like a giant dart, the depleted uranium penetrator sliced through the armor plate of the lead Jaguar 1 of Captain Albrecht Benen's company. Vorishnov's fear that such a round would have minimal effect against the Jaguar was ill founded, as the depleted uranium penetrator, pushing a chunk of the Jaguar's own armor plate in front of it, cut through stored ammunition into the Jaguar's fuel cell and out the rear through the engine compartment. The tremendous heat created by the transformation of the penetrator's kinetic energy into heat upon contact with the Jaguar set off first the propellant of the stored ammunition, then the diesel fuel.
Hans Gielber never had the opportunity to see any of this. By the time the lead Jaguar began shuddering from internal explosions, Hans was fleeing from the window, his face, chest, and upper arms shredded by glass that had been shattered by the concussion of the muzzle blast from Dixon's main gun. Though he would survive, he, like other children around the world, would pay for the decisions made by men who claimed to be their leaders and the men who were opposed to them. Like many of his countrymen caught in the middle of a conflict which few understood, Hans Gielber would carry the mental and physical scars of war with him for the rest of his life.
