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Authors: Harry Turtledove
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wasn’t against his religion, even if he’d drunk wine more often before the Red Air Force pulled him out of Armenia. Wine tasted good, too. As far as he could see, vodka had only one purpose: knocking you on your ass. The stuff was damn good at it, too. He offered the bottle to the Russian who’d made him come up with the joke.
That worthy poured it down as if he never expected to see any more. He almost emptied the bottle. The guy beside him did kill it. Others were going round, though. Before long, one got to Isa Mogamedov. Polite as a cat, he passed it on. “More for the rest of us!” said the Russian he gave it to. That got almost as big a laugh as Stas’ joke.
THEO HOSSBACH WAS a curiosity in the Wehrmacht: a panzer radioman who didn’t like to talk. He doled out words as if somebody were charging him a half a Reichsmark for each and every one. The radioman in a Panzer III sat next to the driver, and also handled the bow machine gun. Theo’d liked his place in the old Panzer II better. He’d been in back of the turret, and most of the time nobody bothered him at all.
Only one problem there: the Panzer II was well on the way from obsolescent to obsolete. Its armor was useless against anything more than small-arms fire, while its 20mm main armament could pop away from now till doomsday without doing anything a KV-1 or a T-34 would notice. Panzer IIs soldiered on in the east. They still made decent reconnaissance vehicles—they could go places armored cars couldn’t—but they weren’t fighting panzers any more.
For that matter, a Panzer III’s 37mm gun was only a door-knocker against a KV-1’s or a T-34’s front armor. It did have a chance of punching through their steel sides or into the engine. But German panzers were badly outgunned these days.
In weather like this, just getting German panzers to run was an adventure. The winter before, the Panzertruppen had often kept fires going through the night under their machines’ engine compartments so they’d start up in the morning. The extra-strength antifreeze and winter lubricants were better this year. All the same, everybody who wore the black coveralls and death’s-head panzer emblem envied the T-34’s diesel motor. It seemed immune to cold and snow and ice.
Somewhere up ahead lay victory, if they could find it. Across the radio set from Theo, Adi Stoss grinned cynically. “Next stop Smolensk, right?” the driver said.
“Right,” Theo said: fifty pfennigs expended. Adi’s grin got wider, but no less cynical. The summer’s campaign had been aimed at Smolensk, the great fortress on the road to Moscow. It wasn’t summer any more. It wasn’t 1941 any more, either. Smolensk was still in Russian hands.
The Panzer III clattered across the snowy landscape. Ostketten— wide tracks made for the mud and snow in these parts—helped it keep going. Even with Ostketten , it couldn’t match a T-34’s cross-country performance.
Other panzers advanced alongside Theo’s. Landsers accompanied them on foot and in armored personnel carriers. Those were nice machines. They took infantry to where it needed to fight and kept it from getting killed on the way … unless, of course, something really nasty happened, which it always could. The personnel carriers also let infantry keep up with the panzers, always a problem. They would have done even better had the Reich had more of them.
Everything would have been better had the Reich had more of it. Sitting up here, Theo could see out. He missed his iron nest in the Panzer II. Seeing out, he was forcibly reminded how vast this country was. It made even the Wehrmacht seem undersized and overstretched. You overran villages and towns. You shelled and machine-gunned the Ivans who tried to stop you. You went on. And what lay ahead? Always more villages and towns. Always more Ivans, too.
Somewhere up ahead here—probably not very far up ahead, either—more Russians waited. Theo cherished every moment of peace
That worthy poured it down as if he never expected to see any more. He almost emptied the bottle. The guy beside him did kill it. Others were going round, though. Before long, one got to Isa Mogamedov. Polite as a cat, he passed it on. “More for the rest of us!” said the Russian he gave it to. That got almost as big a laugh as Stas’ joke.
THEO HOSSBACH WAS a curiosity in the Wehrmacht: a panzer radioman who didn’t like to talk. He doled out words as if somebody were charging him a half a Reichsmark for each and every one. The radioman in a Panzer III sat next to the driver, and also handled the bow machine gun. Theo’d liked his place in the old Panzer II better. He’d been in back of the turret, and most of the time nobody bothered him at all.
Only one problem there: the Panzer II was well on the way from obsolescent to obsolete. Its armor was useless against anything more than small-arms fire, while its 20mm main armament could pop away from now till doomsday without doing anything a KV-1 or a T-34 would notice. Panzer IIs soldiered on in the east. They still made decent reconnaissance vehicles—they could go places armored cars couldn’t—but they weren’t fighting panzers any more.
For that matter, a Panzer III’s 37mm gun was only a door-knocker against a KV-1’s or a T-34’s front armor. It did have a chance of punching through their steel sides or into the engine. But German panzers were badly outgunned these days.
In weather like this, just getting German panzers to run was an adventure. The winter before, the Panzertruppen had often kept fires going through the night under their machines’ engine compartments so they’d start up in the morning. The extra-strength antifreeze and winter lubricants were better this year. All the same, everybody who wore the black coveralls and death’s-head panzer emblem envied the T-34’s diesel motor. It seemed immune to cold and snow and ice.
Somewhere up ahead lay victory, if they could find it. Across the radio set from Theo, Adi Stoss grinned cynically. “Next stop Smolensk, right?” the driver said.
“Right,” Theo said: fifty pfennigs expended. Adi’s grin got wider, but no less cynical. The summer’s campaign had been aimed at Smolensk, the great fortress on the road to Moscow. It wasn’t summer any more. It wasn’t 1941 any more, either. Smolensk was still in Russian hands.
The Panzer III clattered across the snowy landscape. Ostketten— wide tracks made for the mud and snow in these parts—helped it keep going. Even with Ostketten , it couldn’t match a T-34’s cross-country performance.
Other panzers advanced alongside Theo’s. Landsers accompanied them on foot and in armored personnel carriers. Those were nice machines. They took infantry to where it needed to fight and kept it from getting killed on the way … unless, of course, something really nasty happened, which it always could. The personnel carriers also let infantry keep up with the panzers, always a problem. They would have done even better had the Reich had more of them.
Everything would have been better had the Reich had more of it. Sitting up here, Theo could see out. He missed his iron nest in the Panzer II. Seeing out, he was forcibly reminded how vast this country was. It made even the Wehrmacht seem undersized and overstretched. You overran villages and towns. You shelled and machine-gunned the Ivans who tried to stop you. You went on. And what lay ahead? Always more villages and towns. Always more Ivans, too.
Somewhere up ahead here—probably not very far up ahead, either—more Russians waited. Theo cherished every moment of peace
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