It was decided, after a ground up rebuild of my shattered Tiger II ...and some time out for the boys with the nurses far away from the front where late night parties and midday hangovers had become the norm, that they must push forward into battle again. This time no matter the circumstance they would stick with what they knew worked. Staying in cover, hull down, long range. After an initial push from their hop off point they buttoned up with a view from the edge of a forest overlooking the plain that the enemy was expected to travel across.
With a Jagdpanther and another Tiger II on their left flank we had solid overlapping cover of the whole plain before us. Another two Tiger II's were covering the right 100 metres away, all well hidden. The enemy slowly appeared, all preferring to stay hull down about 12-1400 metres away and shots were traded until one of them bolted out into the open which spurred a mini charge by the allied forces. At a mere 1000 metres it was impossible to miss.
The first shot into the turret was a Tiger to my right, second and third were mine. We had a kill up and the boys refocused with a hardened gaze, they knew what it was like to be inside a burning coffin of steel. A T44 and another M26 that had followed were also left shattered behind this lead tank. Two others had stayed hull down and watched as their attempted rush attack had failed. None of our side moved from cover, just waited, watching.
Movement about 1600 away caught the commanders eye, an SU tank destroyer appeared, moving quickly for the forest opposite. I called his position to the other crews and then we traversed and followed him with the turret, the 88 swinging across slowly, judging where he would be by time the shell had made it's flight..we fired..
You can see the flash our 88 just above the Su mantlet in the distant tree line
A couple of seconds wait as shell and Su moved to close on the same point in time, we would either alert him..or he would know nothing more...
Commander backslapped the gunner, waited and watched for another minute or two to make sure nothing else came across the killing field. The three other Tigers broke cover and headed for the enemy lines, the Jagdpanther stayed as rear cover and we decided to move back to the other flank as it seemed light on, this flank was rolled up. Our job here was done.