Iron Front Liberation 1944 - Hasty Counter-mine Action

This is a short tale of shooters and targets. Today I am the latter.

The thick woods provide great opportunities for the German infantry to ambush this Russian forward detachment. The Red Army tries to tip the balance with the speed of its armor. The first ambush to break through is at a crossroads which has been mined. In the image above, a Russian T-34 has just hit one AT mine. I'm the sapper in the foreground.

The smoke has cleared and it is now evident that the first tank is a catastrophic loss. A second tank (left) is called up to provide me with fire support.  

That T-34 tank started firing to what appears to be German infantry closing in the cross roads. The destroyed T-34 tank hull can be seen in the background.

Another round from the T-34 tank right behind me. The German infantry is now toward my left ... I can hear them yelling and the crack of rifle fire. Our own infantry has started moving through the woods and is engaging them. I kept moving forward taking advantage of  every fold of terrain, occasionally having a rifle round ping around me. By the time of this image, I almost reached the crossroads where the minefield is located.

The road that forks out to the left of our route of advance had some nasty surprises. A MG42 and a Pak-40 were found after no less than 2 near misses to the tank and myself.  These two German positions are located in the far background and were engaged by the T-34 (left) with limited success. The German MG42 and its crew were to stay put until our infantry moved forward, some minutes later. 

And to our front, the pouring of German infantry is not stopping. That explosion is a round from my T-34, which never stopped to fire at the enemy. The minefield is right in front of me (note the mines on the road)

After throwing smoke grenades to provide obscuration, I get into the task of deactivating the mines so the rest of the armor can quickly move forward. The T-34 (not shown here) has now moved closer to this crossroads and keeps providing  fire support. I can hear our infantry closing in, flushing out some German remnants who cross the smoke screen from left to right. Fortunately they don't see me. I am more or less invisible to the enemy, not much because of the smoke but because the confusion of battle appears to be so high.

All mines deactivated, the first tank makes it through the crossroads ... The whole firefight and mine clearing lasted 16 minutes.

A small halt to regroup before continuing our tactical march. 

Cheers,