Tiger Heat: German Panzers on the Eastern Front

Three T-34s were moving towards the Panthers. One T-34 got a round that disabled the main gun of the second Panther. German infantry began to fire their heavy machine guns at the approaching T-34s. The other Panther was hit several times by small anti-tank guns. After the huge noise and echo their shots bounced off the Panthers angled armour. What Tank crews feared more were the shoulder mounted ant-tank weapons. The Germans had the ‘Panzerschrek’ (‘tank-terror’), because it had a shaped charge projectile that did not need to even pierce the armour. On impact, the warhead caused a shock wave to travel through the steel plate, which blew a big scab of plate off the inside, which immediately cut through anyone or anything it struck inside the tank. The Panther had now become exposed to enemy fire and needed to get onto a better position as did the Panther just behind, three 75mm rounds had hit the frontal armour and bounced off. A round finally penetrated the side and caused the turret to jam. As the Panther tried to turn, its transmission failed as well and could no longer turn or move. Its engine was juddering and oil smoke was pouring from its vents. The Panther was pitted and scarred from multiple hits by AP rounds, its hatches partly blown off and three wheels missing on one side. Inside the crew had felt the impact and fragments of shattered steel had shot around inside the tank. The gunner had a large laceration to the head. The commander a cut to his leg with blood almost spurting out. The driver had lost a fingernail and suffered a cut to his hand.

The Panther was effectively immobilised. The uninjured loader threw open the hatch before helping to haul the commander out who was struggling due to his leg injury. The rest of the crew managed to haul themselves out and flee into the woods behind them whilst under heavy MG fire and rounds throwing up dirt and stones all around them.

The Tigers by now had decided to move up towards the lone Panther and got a couple of longer-range shots off. One blew the track and three wheels off a T-34, the final T-34 started to reverse out of range when the Panther fired off a shot that hit the drivers viewing window; purely by chance killing the driver instantly and knocking out the tanks transmission. A Tiger got a shot into the side of another T-34. The turret on the T-34 blew off like popcorn exploding. It flew several feet into the air trailing all kinds of debris behind it. Such was the force of the blast the turret spun over in mid-air before crashing to the ground several feet away on fire from the rest of the T-34. German infantry now pushed forward laying down heavy MG fire on the advancing Red Army. This ended with bloody hand to hand fighting and complete and utter carnage as both German and Red Army infantry cut each other down using any weapon they hand to hand. The Panther continued to use its MG to cut down as many Red Army soldiers as possible before running out of fuel. The canvas bags containing empty shells was no full and smoking from the heat of all the hot shell casings.