Jankovic crossed his arms and contently scrutinized his tank. The Jagdtiger was covered in branches and shrubbery, which had been affixed to it in a hurry. Of course more would have been possible, but the Kampfgruppe had made it here just in time. The Russians were close already. There was no time for perfectionism.

He looked to the Panthers, which had also received a dress of twigs. Their camouflage was a bit more convincing, since their paint below didn't shine through as noticeably as the Jagdtiger's yellow.

Apart from that however, all four tanks were decently camouflaged. This was partly courtesy of Weidner's loader Feist. He had taken the lead and was simply very talented in imitating life-like vegetation. It was also getting dark already, which would make it even more difficult to make out the tanks between the trees.

Weidner stood next to Jankovic and observed the work of their crews as well.

"I hope it will be enough," he said.

The crews went about getting into the tanks and Weidner wanted to follow them, but Jankovic held him back.

"I don't want to see you doing something reckless," he said and gave Weidner an imploring look.

"Well, I'll let you know when to close your eyes then," Weidner smirked.

Jankovic sighed and patted his friend's shoulder.

"Take care."

Weidner saluted and made his way to his tank. Jankovic got into his own tank and had the crew assure him that they were ready.

"If only this ends well..." the driver murmured.

"If everyone does their part, and does it well, we can make it," Jankovic said.

He too had been discouraged when the scouts had reported a "huge column" and "numerous tanks" - and then even more when they had given more specific numbers - but nothing was lost yet. The Russians were many, but they didn't know what was awaiting them. That gave the Kampfgruppe an important advantage. If they didn't make any mistakes, they should be able to deal with the enemy, even without the help of a second unit.

Infantry, a platoon of T-34-85s, and three IS-2s. The latter were causing Jankovic grief. Schiefer had ordered Jankovic and Weidner to take care of the heavy Russian tanks first. In theory, this was no problem. In practice however, the IS-2s were at the very end of the convoy. Attacking them first would wreak havoc on the whole plan. The much more mobile T-34-85s were the threat that had to be taken out first.

...with a tactic that Jankovic condemned harshly. Schiefer seemed to have taken his urging to include the Panzer IV/70s in his plan seriously after all. But, much to Jankovic's dismay, not at all in the way he had intended. The three tank destroyers were simply standing in the middle of the road and waiting to be discovered by the Russians. They were the bait that should distract and lead them to Jankovic and the Panthers. They had hidden in a stretch of forest to the left of the road, divided from it by an extensive rye field.

Schiefer himself and a few trucks and soldiers, on the other hand, were residing to the right of the road - much further in the back, in a spot that he deemed safe. A fallow field and before it another rye field that was hiding the German infantry and Paks were separating him from the road. The spot was far away enough to be safe from the enemy infantry, and the StuGs would ensure that no one would get lost and end up there after all; even though Jankovic wasn't sure how they intended to stop an IS-2 in the worst case.

***

"We're not gonna survive this!" Sarah whined. "We're as good as dead...!"

"Stop it! You're making everyone go crazy!" the driver shouted. Sarah wanted to chide him for using such a tone with her, but she didn't manage. She hid her face in her hands.

"But I have a really bad feeling about this...!" she said.

"We just have to distract them, anyway!" the gunner tried to soothe her. "We're not actually fighting anyone!"

"They're coming!" the driver suddenly cried. Other than Sarah he had kept an eye on the road. Sarah immediately took her hands out of her face, but her order to open fire was drowned out by the sound of two other cannons.

'Whatever!' she thought. The shelling from her platoon mates must have been sufficient. After all, they just needed to get the attention of the Russians, and not kill them all. Said attention was directed at the three German tank destroyers right away. It was time to bolt, and quickly.

"Panzer - right march, march!" Sarah shouted. She hastily poked her head out of her hatch and made sure that the other Panzer IV/70 followed her. Before they reached the field and Sarah retreated into the inside of the fighting compartment, she caught a glimpse of the T-34-85, who had started pushing forward through the crowd. So, the plan was working.

Even though the rye was growing tall enough to hide the short tank destroyers almost completely, the Russians only had to follow the swath they were leaving behind as they zoomed towards the forest. It only took a few moments before the first shells came flying in the direction of the Panzer IV/70s. Luckily they missed their targets, but that wasn't surprising with their high speed and zig-zagging.

Sarah covered her ears, but that didn't help much against the noise of the cannons being fired at her tank. She almost fell off her seat as the tank did another swerve. But it reminded her that she also had to do something. She risked another peek outside, but couldn't see much because of all the crops whipping the tank. However, she could see enough to make out the rapidly approaching edge of the forest. She hurriedly righted her headset.

"Panzer - right!" she said and threw a hasty look behind her, where the turrets of the T-34-85s were visible. She hit her head on the edge of the hatch as the driver immediately executed her order and the tank swerved to the right. It hurt horribly, but the pain was almost forgotten a moment later as she saw that one of the hostile tanks blew up without a warning.

***

"Bullseye!" Bachmeier shouted, having seen the kill as well. "Did you see that??"

"Stop swooning and start shooting!" Weidner snapped at him.

The gunner swallowed a retort and opened fire a few moments later. The two other Panthers shot as well, and another T-34-85 was taken out.

"The infantry starts the attack!" the radioman reported.

Weidner took his eyes off the T-34-85s for a moment to look at the road again. It was partly hidden by the field, but he could see enough to determine that the Russian soldiers were retreating along the road as they were being shot at from the field to their right.

As he looked back to the T-34-85, they had obviously figured out where the hostile fire was coming from. All turrets were turned towards the forest now and the tanks fanned out, backing up at the same time. Shells whistled past the German tanks as the T-34-85s fired at the approximate direction where they had seen the muzzle flashes. Weidner retreated into his tank. He heard a loud "KLANG" as a shell ricocheted off a tank - presumably the Jagdtiger. Said Jagdtiger took out another T-34-85, whose turret flew off high into the air.

As the Panthers fired again, Bachmeier reported that one of the Russian tanks had caught fire. The flames leapt to the crops, which were still wet from the recent rain and started smoking strongly. The wind carried the smoke towards the Russian infantry. Bachmeier reported this as well and Weidner's expression turned sour.

"Damnit," he hissed. That would cause them trouble along the way.

***

Sarah strained to stare at the T-34-85s through her binoculars. After bringing enough distance between themselves and the Russians, the Panzer IV/70 had halted. So far, so good. But now they didn't know what to do next. The gunner couldn't take aim at the enemies through the dense rye plants and Schiefer hadn't given any orders beyond the distraction.

She asked what they should do now, but Schiefer's reply was only a stressed "Not now". A short time later, however, Jankovic's radioman called.

"Can you get to the T-34s' flank?" he asked.

"No," Sarah replied. "The field-"

She couldn't finish the sentence, as Schiefer chimed in. Sarah didn't relay exactly what he said, but she subduedly informed the crew that they would support the infantry. She gave the order to turn around.

The Panzer IV/70 returned to the road, but the line of sight to the enemy infantry was completely blocked by the smoke.

"Shoot anyway!" Sarah instructed the gunner. The soldiers couldn't have disappeared, after all, even if they weren't visible anymore. The blast from the explosions of their shells hitting the road chased away the smoke just long enough that Sarah could see the Russian infantrymen were starting some sort of flanking attempt. She let her platoon continue to fire at the soldiers, trying to take out as many men as possible before they could reach the German infantry.

***

The shelling from the T-34-85 suddenly stopped. Weidner found out the reason almost immediately; the tanks were retreating, or rather, fleeing. He climbed back out of his cupola and looked after them as they hurried into the same direction that the Panzer IV/70 had escaped to previously. Bachmeier managed to land a last lucky hit, but then the Russians were out of the line of fire.

Weidner didn't think twice before ordering his platoon to follow.

***

The StuG were parked at the edge of the field, where they had been parked since the beginning of the battle. They had hidden in a column of trees and bushes and had a good view of said battle, but were ordered not to participate for now.

Their platoon leader, his name Thorsten Lorenz, sat on top of his tank and watched the happenings with a disgruntled expression. He was mourning for all the kills he and his crew were missing out on by sitting here instead of actively taking part in the combat.

'Schiefer should just look after himself...!' he thought.

The wind seemed to become stronger and made the crops dance. It wasn't strong enough however to dissipate the thick billows of smoke completely. Lorenz tried for a moment longer to make out anything between them. The IS-2s were still where they had been the whole time: supporting the infantry, which had reached the Germans now and was starting close-quarters combat. Nevertheless, he kept a wary eye on the tanks. Hopefully they wouldn't get near the StuGs.

For a short while, his attention was directed at the Panthers, who had driven out of the forest and started to pursue the fleeing T-34-85s.

Lorenz snorted and averted his gaze before jealousy could eat him up. As he looked at the IS-2s again, they were... suddenly gone.

'What...??' he thought with shock. "They're gone!" he then shouted at his crew, while he fell back into his tank more than he was climbing inside. It took a moment until he had collected himself, straightened his cap, and instructed the loader (who was currently playing radioman) what to relay.

"We have to go look for them..." the loader said a few moments later.

The platoon leader gaped at him.

"Excuse me?!" he spat. "What is he thinking? What are we supposed to do when we find them?"

The loader sounded intimidated and as if he was very uncomfortable saying what he was about to say.

"We have to... distract them."

"Distract them?" Lorenz asked with disbelief.

"So that the Jagdtiger can take care of them. The Stabsfeldwebel thinks that they might be looking for him."

Suddenly, it sounded much more attractive than before to play Schiefer's bodyguards.

"So we have to find them, and then somehow not die for long enough that the Jagdtiger can come and rescue us?"

"Exactly..."

"Schiefer, you son of a bitch!!" Lorenz yelled, and added a hurried "Don't pass that on!" as the loader was about to do just that. Since he had no choice, he then told the driver to start the engine and together with the two other StuGs drove towards the forest in a wide arc. The smoke swallowed them before they could even reach the road.

***

Immediately after the crew had received the order, the Jagdtiger had started moving. The cumbersome tank destroyer made its way through the fields in the same direction that the StuGs were travelling. Somewhere over there, the IS-2s had to be. If they had somehow snuck past the German tanks, someone would have noticed. An IS-2 tank didn't just disappear, and it didn't sneak up on anybody. Especially not three of them.

"The Panzer IVs are already without a task again," the radioman noted.

Jankovic contemplated how else they could make themselves useful. Shooting at the infantry was no option anymore unless they wanted to hit their own men. Joining the search for the IS-2s would make little sense if four tanks were already doing that.

'And it's too dangerous,' he thought. Other than that he could only think of one thing.

"Ask Weidner if he needs some help with the T-34s," he said eventually.

"There's only two of them left," the radioman replied.

"Hmmm."

A short silence ensued in the tank, then the radioman spoke up again.

"The StuG found the IS-2s! They opened fire."

Jankovic furrowed his brow.

"That was fast," he said. "Too fast...Where are they?"

"A ways into the forest. About...600 meters from here."

"Tell them that we'll still need a while," Jankovic grumbled.

Before the radioman could finish the transmission, he suddenly fell silent. As he turned to Jankovic a few moments later, he was tripping over his words in agitation.

"Schie... Schiefer - an IS! There's an IS with him!" he shouted.

Jankovic gasped.

"Where did that come from?" he asked.

"Suddenly appeared from the smoke!"

Jankovic had to correct his estimation that an IS-2 couldn't sneak up on someone. The StuGs must have passed it. Presumably they hadn't seen it because of the thick smoke.

"That's bad," he thought out loud and was fully aware that this was an understatement.

***

Sarah wasn't even really sure what an IS-2 looked like. She was very sure however that her tank stood no chance against one. She shook the loader desperately, who stared at her in fear.

"We can't-" she shrieked. "We can't go there!"

The gunner watched them helplessly for a while before he grabbed Sarah's shoulder to get her to stop. That worked, and now she gaped at him instead with her panicked expression.

"We have to help the Major!" he shouted.

"No!!" Sarah yelled back.

The driver used the brief silence to speak up as she gasped for breath.

"Peter says he's doing it! He's going for it!"

Sarah's head whipped around and at first she only stared at him. Peter couldn't do that! He didn't stand a chance!

"I am the platoon leader! I make the decisions!" she said frantically. Her thoughts were racing, then she had an idea. "Let me talk to him!" she shouted and shoved the driver aside to return to her seat. She grabbed the microphone, clutched it tightly. "Peter! Stay here! That's madness!"

Schiefer's voice could be heard suddenly.

"Are my orders unclear?!"

It sounded like he was about to lose his nerve as well. Sarah didn't know what she should do. On top of everything, Jankovic's radioman also chimed in.

"Don't do it!" he said. "The Russians will take you apart! Stay where you are!"

"Traitors!" Schiefer screamed.

"Peter!" Sarah tried again to reach her platoon mate, but the crew of the other Panzer IV/70 wasn't answering.

"We'll go too!" Rainer said.

"No...!!"

"Are we going to leave Peter alone?" he went on.

Sarah lowered her gaze and took a deep breath, made a decision. She heard a few more word fragments from Schiefer but ignored them as she turned to her crew.

"We're going too!" she shouted hastily.

***

Jankovic gritted his teeth. The Panzer IV/70 were about to race to their death head over heels because Schiefer had ordered them to. And Jankovic couldn't do anything to stop them. Experienced crews would have been able to get a hold of the situation, but they weren't such crews. They would run right in front of the IS-2's cannon and it would end in a disaster.

"They won't make it...!" the driver said.

Jankovic turned to the radioman.

"Tell them that they mustn't approach the tank from the front and-"

Before he could finish the sentence, the Jagdtiger abruptly stopped. The engine went silent.

"Why are you halting?" Jankovic asked the driver.

"I'm not-" the driver defended himself. He tried to restart the engine, but it didn't want to come back to life.

"Oh no..." Jankovic murmured. Before anyone could ask them to do it, the loaders had already opened the rear hatches and looked outside.

"I don't see anything," one of them said.

Jankovic slid off his seat but realized that he actually couldn't do anything.

The driver continued his attempts, without any result. Jankovic went to the radioman and told him to report a delay to the StuGs.

"They're retreating," the radioman said after relaying the message.

"They can't do that," Jankovic said with an aghast tone. "If the ISs drive on and find us now, we're done for!"

The radioman only looked at him with a concerned expression and shrugged. Another radio transmission reached him a moment later.

"The Panthers took out the last T-34," he relayed.

"That's something, at least," Jankovic said. "Tell them that we'll most likely need their support."

"They're on their way," the radioman replied.

***

It was strangely silent inside the Panzer IV/70. That was partly caused by Sarah now standing in her hatch instead of terrorizing her crew any further. That didn't mean that she was less afraid than before. But she tried to pretend this was the case.

The tank destroyers had left the street behind themselves and were crossing the fallow field. The smoke column to their right was expanding, creeping closer - like the flames in the field further behind. Sarah tried to make out a turret anywhere that would give away the IS-2's position, but at the end of the field that they were about to reach, some trees and bushes blocked the view of the entirety of the field behind them. Additionally, she was being shaken by the brisk speed quite a bit, which didn't really help with making out far away details.

Schiefer must have been busy trying to save his hide, because he had stopped cursing Jankovic and urging the Panzer IV/70 to hurry. He wasn't giving any orders at all anymore.

'We won't make it in time,' Sarah thought.

They reached the column of trees and passed through it, but Sarah still couldn't see a tank. And nothing else either, because the smoke swallowed them a moment later.

"What now?" the driver asked without stopping. Sarah's gaze darted into all directions. The other two Panzer IV/70 were still following the platoon leader's tank, so now all three of them were racing through the field blindly.

"Slow down...!" she said. The driver braked until the tank only rolled forward pensively.

"We have to hurry!" the gunner urged. Something to their right moved. The smoke was briefly stirred and revealed Peter's tank that drove past them a few meters away.

"Not so fast!" Sarah yelled after the vehicle, but it didn't achieve anything.

Only when there was a crash not far in front of them, Sarah realized that no tank had been shooting for a while now. She flinched and fearfully stared at the spot where the smoke had been lit up by a muzzle flash. "Over there...!" she whispered, but repeated her words louder. "Over there! 1 o'clock! Peter, stop!"

The tank destroyer before them disappeared in the smoke. Sarah made the driver speed up again, but they didn't manage to catch up to their platoon mate.

'Don't approach the tank from the front,' Sarah suddenly remembered. But where was its front?

"We have to flank it!" she shouted. Rainer's tank passed them as well. Sarah rubbed her burning eyes with shaky hands. "Come back!!"

There was another crash, this time to their left. An explosion followed.

"What was that??" Sarah asked her crew. She didn't receive a response, but went on anyway. "To the left! We drove past it!"

The tank turned and hurried to the left instead. The field suddenly ended and Sarah could see the shadows of the other two Panzer IV/70 in the front.

"I told you to stop!" she barked with despair. They did. Sarah's tank caught up with them, then she was almost thrown out of her hatch as the driver braked suddenly.

"What-"

She looked up. A third shadow had appeared. Right in front of them.

The wind whipped the smoke cloud.

For a moment, the IS-2 was visible between the swathes. It was facing them directly.

Sarah's eyes went wide. Before she could give any orders, Peter's tank blew up. Sarah screamed and fell back inside her tank, while the driver immediately made it sprint ahead and past the IS-2.

***

"We can't go through that," Weidner's driver said soberly. The Panther was driving at a safe distance along the wall of flames and smoke that the field separating it from the Jagdtiger had turned into.

"Maybe further ba-" Weidner said, but his words were drowned out by an explosion. He looked in the direction of the sound but couldn't see anything through all the smoke. He quietly hoped it hadn't been one of their tanks and returned to his Panther's fighting compartment.

"If we try to drive past the forest and the fire reaches it..." The driver left the sentence unfinished.

"Then we'll just go past on the other side," Weidner replied. He was unhappy about all the time this detour would cost them. "Is the Jagdtiger still alright?"

"No IS-tanks in sight yet," the radioman said. Another explosion could be heard. Weidner's crew shared some uneasy looks, and immediately afterwards the radioman was panicking.

"The IS found them!" he shouted.

"I thought they weren't in sight?" Weidner asked. He gave the radioman an aghast glance, who had turned around and returned that look.

"No, the Panzer IVs! Kaufmann's tank is done!"

"You gotta be kidding me!"

"They're running away..."

Weidner beat his fist against the tank's wall.

"Why?! I thought they wanted to destroy the IS?!"

The radioman shrugged.

"That's what you get for talking them into such a panic, Milan...!" Weidner murmured angrily. He turned back to the radioman. "Tell them to turn back! They just gotta-" He fell silent as the radioman raised his hand and intently listened to his radio.

"The Jagdtiger is back in action," he then said. Weidner's expression lit up a little, and then even more as he got an idea.

"We'll help the Panzer IVs," he said and instructed the driver to change their course. The Panthers turned and raced off. "But first I'd like them to tell me why they didn't even try shooting the IS!"

"They did... one of them, at least..." the radioman replied a few moments later. "It didn't work."

Weidner instinctually looked to his left, catching Bachmeier throwing him a fugitive glance. He would have bet a lot of money that his fellow soldier was thinking the same thing as he was right now.

"Whatever," he eventually said, more to himself than the others. "We'll take care of it."

He climbed back out of his cupola and noticed that the infantry had come out of the fields. The tanks drove past the soldiers that were regrouping at the moment. To Weidner's question about this, the radioman confirmed that the Russian infantry was defeated.

'Then there's only the three tanks left,' he thought grimly. The crash of a cannon not so far away made him look at the source of the noise with concern. But the radioman confirmed that the remaining Panzer IV/70 were yet unharmed.

"What's the plan?" the radioman then asked as they reached the smoke cloud.

"We find the tank and circle it," Weidner replied.

"Why don't we just ambush it? If it focused on pursuing the Panzer IVs-"

"Because I say so."

Weidner could imagine the frustrated expressions of the other Panther commanders, but he had a reason for this tactic. Just waiting for the "IS-2" and shooting it when it appeared wasn't going to work.

There was yet another crash, this time very close. Weidner noticed that he was getting tense.

"One of the Panzer IVs lost a-" the radioman started to say. In the same moment, the tank destroyers suddenly appeared before the Panthers. One of them was moving, the other one had stopped in an awkwardly skewed position. The Panzer IV/70 that was still able to race on did so, and Weidner's driver managed to barely evade the other one.

"Gunner," Weidner said. "APCR," he added after a moment of deliberation. Bachmeier and Feist hurried to follow his order. Weidner's gaze pierced the smoke. His tank passed the Panzer IV/70 and he made the driver swerve to the right. The other two Panthers followed within a short distance.

A crack accompanied the bright muzzle flash of a cannon. Weidner ducked out of reflex, but the shot wasn't aimed at him.

"Habich is hit!" the radioman said, but could confirm a moment later that it was "only" a broken engine.

Weidner stared at the dark shadow in the midst of the smoke, which was now a distinguished silhouette to their left.

"Designate!" he shouted. "Left!"

Two of the Panthers raced on, while Habich's Panther coasted to a stop, its engine smoking.

The shadow traversed sluggishly.

"As soon as we're at his side, fire!" Weidner told the gunner. That was easier said than done, Weidner knew this. But Bachmeier didn't protest. Roth's crew didn't seem too sure which side the IS-2 was showing to them right now either and fired already. The shell bounced off. The Russian tank returned the fire, but narrowly missed Roth's rear. The blast chased the smoke apart, for a moment offering a clear view on the hostile tank. Its front was turned almost directly towards the Panthers.

Weidner froze.

"That's no IS...!" he shouted. His suspicion was right.

"Whatever! We need to get closer!" Bachmeier urged. "He's turning too fast!"

Weidner had to agree. The driver tightened the circle his Panther was driving around the Russian tank while Roth's tank kept the larger diameter. A gust of wind shot into the smoke cloud, once again revealing the enemy tank that was only about 100 meters away - much closer than Weidner had ever wanted to get to it. As it disappeared in the smoke again, its flank was parallel to that of Weidner's Panther.

"Now!" Weidner said. "Fire!"

The shell missed or didn't cause any harm, it was hard to tell for sure in the smoke cloud, and Weidner cursed. The Russian's turret must have caught up to Roth in the meantime. It fired at her again, this time hitting the road wheels, which sent the Panther into a tailspin immediately.

Weidner's Panther, the only one still capable of driving on, did so. But Weidner kept the gunner from firing again. Exactly on the opposite side of the Russian tank, Habich had halted. If they missed, or if the shell overpenetrated, they would hit him instead. They had no choice but to rush on without shooting, and then further on as Roth's tank was in the line of fire next. The "IS-2" must have started turning in the other direction, because suddenly a shell crashed into the ground only a few meters before Weidner's tank.

As soon as they passed Habich, Weidner made Bachmeier shoot again. The shell disappeared in a rain of sparks as the frontal armor of the target made it ricochet. But another one from Habich penetrated the Russian's side armor just below the turret, hit the ammunition storage and blew up the tank.

Weidner watched the explosive spectacle, which completely chased away the smoke and darkness for a few moments.

"...cease fire. Driver stop," he then said.

***

The Jagdtiger had halted. Two Russian tanks were standing before it. Both were motionless. All hatches were open and no crews were anywhere in sight.

"They must have run away with the infantry," the driver concluded. Jankovic eased himself back inside his tank and frowned.

"I've never seen something like that before..." he said. With that he didn't mean fleeing soldiers.

"The Panthers took out the IS-...whatever-it-is," the radioman reported.

"Very good," Jankovic said. He looked to his crew, shrugged. "...So that's it, I suppose." They nodded and the loaders went about taking the already loaded shell back out of the breech.