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A war story - Part II
by Modus Virtuoso

Our retreat had been relatively unsuccessful. This sector was definately hot.

The Chars hadn't followed us right away, instead they seemed reluctant to leave the shelter offered by the small cluster of brick buildings that sat atop the slight rise.

We retreated for a good 2 kms before re-organizing under the coming darkness of night - The men were hard-pressed to keep their emotions in check. During the night we took stock of the day's events: we'd lost a good sixth of our Combat Strength, and 1/3 of our total Armored element.

We'd lost 5 Panzer IIs - Something that was unsettling by itself. How effective were these tanks? Their own crews grew wary. Was the frontal armor thick enough? Those tanks that had been hit were completely annihalated, reported one Grenadier... He had seen first-hand "the crumpled hulk of a chassis, the track sides bending in, and yet outward at the same time. Just the lip of the front of the tank was visible, then everything became a confused jumble of meshed metal." All that, accompanied by a plume of smoke and the heat of a blazing fire... The soldier was visibly traumatized.

They were complete write-offs, for multiple reasons:

A. The chassis' structural integrity was completely compromised.

and

B. Those two Chars still stood guard over the little hamlet, and our fallen comrades' bodies.

Yes, we had lost a great deal that day.

Stabsfeldwebel (Staffsergeant) Kemstahn, Unterfeldwebel (Junior Sergeant) Haider, Unteroffizer (Junior NCO) Beichmann, Oberja"ger (Chief Chassuer) Eider, Panzeroberschutz (Chief Tank Soldier) Hannsmach, Obergefreiter (Corporal) Fallachs... and others, all were lost.

Our friends, our green reputation, and our innocence. It was all gone, within the blink of our un-trained eye.

The next morning, after re-aligning the detachment and calming our spirits, we began our slow advance back towards the Chars and their lair.

We had received a radio communique from our HQ unit at Mouscron stating that our advance should "Get along shortly. Destroy Opposition. Report Condition, 15.uhr". They seemed to think our encounter with the two beasts was not worth dispatching more troops, evidentally.

As we advanced, I could tell our troops were visibly shaken. My attempts at calming them did nothing. In this respect, I have failed.

Within 1 km of the enclave, we slowed and chose our advances gingerly - We weren't about to let the previous day's tragedy happen again.

At this point, I will describe the lay of the land in more intimate detail:
The small enclave, which up to this point was but an un-known spec on our coordinate maps, was called Mont-Pierre; it lay 10km outside of the city limits of Lille at a slight rise. The surrounding countryside entails a mix of farmland and the occaisonal grove of trees. Being mid-spring, the ground is still relatively soft, with a mix of mud and seeded dirt. The whole area is only slightly rolling, the rise where the hamlet resides being the tallest point within 6 square kilometers. Our reconnaisance reports stated that a small, muddy ditch or stream lay to our southern flank, most likely the major run-off during the rainy season. The road we followed sat in the midst of countless fields, heading lazily west-ward until it curved slightly north and climbed the rise. On either side of the road was a small ditch - the same that the Infantry guns had used as cover the day before - deep enough for a man to kneel in and not be seen, I had a notion that I could use these to a tactical advantage, given the right circumstances. The road itself was made of crude stones reinforced with smaller rocks and pebbles, with a mixture of basic concrete to hold it all together. It reminded me of my youth when I was studying the famous "inter-connecting" Roman roads. Could this be one? I assume my cohorts were curious when I awoke that morning only to stare inquisitively at the old, worn road. To our north lay more fields, and here and there stood a single monolithic tree, defiant despite being surrounded by field upon field of freshly seeded crops. It was rather sad to have to spill blood over such decidedly simple land as this! It is not my position to say such things, but...

The town of Mont-Pierre itself was rather crude and simple, from what we could make out from our vantage point. Brick construction, the buildings now showed a hint of damage caused by our Infantry Guns the day before. From our view point, it appeared that the village was set up as follows:

As the road rises to meet the top of the hill, one comes to a single house, one story tall, constructed of bricks and some antiquated stones. It is surrounded by a single stone wall, and the said wall appears to be around one meter tall. Beside the square house lies a small shanty which apparently serves as a small storage shed. This smaller building is composed of what looks like wood. Moving on from the first house, the next building of note is a two story brick structure that appears to be a town-house of some sort. Larger windows than that of the first house, and a few of the Grenadiers report that sporadic Machine-gun fire was seen to be coming from one of the second floor windows. This makes sense, this particular building commands the approach of the road towards the center of the enclave, as well as the majority of the open ground on the north side of the road itself. This building is not surrounded by a brick wall, but by a great, green hedge. From my current vantage point, I can't forsee any breaks or entrances from the side closest to our advance, and I fear that this building will be the corner stone of the enemy's defences. The building that lies across the road from the two story town-house is partially hidden, but from what we ascertain, it appears to be of similar design to that of the small, one story farm-house. It, too, has a brick wall of approxiamately the same height. Next to the two-story Town-House is a two story building that we are referring to as "The Lion's Den" - We believe this is the garage that was storing the Chars. There is an open lot across from this building that would have allowed for the Chars' line of sight to the southern detachment of Panzers. Beside the "The Lion's Den" appears to be another small, one-level farm house, the only noticable difference is the brick color (brown tone, not red-black) and the composition of the wall surrounding it: we believe that the wall in question is approx. half a meter tall and easily passable. Shortly thereafter, the road disapears from view. There must be some sort of tactical advantage to defending this hamlet...what it is, exactly, is beyond me.

I'm wary of sending my tanks on a collision course with those two monsters, and have thus decided to wait for a few hours in the hopes of attaining a little more information concerning the hamlet from some of the locals we encountered two days before.

I'm also sending a single 10-man squad to recon the stream to our south. We might be able to use that to our tactical advantage.

We'll see, soon enough.