It was the winter of 1944. The bitter winter wind blew hard across the cold tundra front. A secret task forced assigned to liberate a small village of Zwickau, Saxony. It was a small village with a single German concentration camp located at its borders. Faced with such appalling weather, the team expected to find nothing but corpses of prisoners of war being worked to death. But one soul in the taskforce remained hopeful as he is the commander of this “Do Little” raid.

Fielding in only a mere 5 M4A3E2 Jumbo Sherman tanks, a single Sherman Firefly, 2 M36 Jackson tank destroyers with the 7th rifle brigade as infantry support of the tanks was to besiege the village. Commander Sean was put in charge of this little taskforce. His command:”If heavy resistance is met, pull off the operation!”

Sean grunted as the command for the mission echoed in his head. Forcing himself to keep an eye on the road as a heavy snowstorm reduced the visibility to only a couple of feet. The only thing he could see ahead were the glowing cat lights of the Jumbo Sherman taking the lead. Looking out of the tank through the open turret hatch his face was stung by the immensely cold frigid winter wind. He was riding as commander of his own M36 Jackson named “Old Hanley”. Together with his crew he was a revered tank ace that has claim dozens of enemy Panzers including 3 Tiger tanks.

The hatch beside him flipped open as the substitute thank gunner, Chris Mandrew rose from the insides of the tank. Chris first looked ahead before turning his attention towards Sean. He cleared his throat and began “So… Commander. Once this operation is over, I guess you won’t need me anymore once you rescue your gunner. Am I right to say so?”

“Well… gunner your skills will find another tank crew easily.” replied the commander rather briefly.

“That is if your gunner is still alive I’m afraid so.” Chris said with a smirk this time.

Annoyed by the comment Sean gave no reply to the comment. The events that lead to the capture of the tank’s gunner slowly replayed in his head. He could not help but feel guilty and responsible to capture of a valued crew member. The events happened shortly after the destruction of their first tank, “Hanley”.

Seeing the grim look on the commander’s face was warning enough and the young corporal gunner quickly slid back down his hatch. Once again in isolation, the young commander stared blankly ahead into the white curtain of snow that pounded the taskforce relentlessly.

As the taskforce approached the village the snowstorm finally settled down. Revealing ahead was the very village they were about to attack. Sean quickly snatched up the pair of binoculars the hung loosely around his neck and scanned the horizon. Squinting hard to spot out tanks and infantry from snow. The road almost vanished from the freshly fallen powder which the lead Jumbo Sherman was plowing though effortlessly.

Dead ahead he spotted three big piles of snow that lay idle in the middle of the road. Thinking that they where piles of snow the germens deliberately left to hinder the progress of an advancing army. He gave the order to the lead Sherman to ram right through. With a high rev from the Sherman’s engine and the hefty tank surged forward into the snow pile.

The pile of snow exploded as the Sherman slammed right into pile. Immediately it was followed by the distinctive sound of clashing metal. When the powder settled, he discovered to his shock that the Sherman has slammed right into a Tiger I sitting in the middle of the road. The snowstorm had completely covered the first Tiger in snow.

A few tense moments passed. Nothing happened. All that could be heard was the sound of idling engines of the tanks of the taskforce. His headset crackled to life. The lead Sherman’s commander asked “Sir… there appears to be…”

Cutting the Sherman’s commander abruptly “Go ahead. Fire.”

The order was quickly acknowledged and a shot from the Sherman’s 76mm main gun connected the tiger are almost point black range. It was followed by two more shots before the entire snow pile erupted in flames. Sean quickly descended down into the tank and gave two quick commands.

“Steward take us out left!” he rapped “Chris! The lower section of the snow pile!”

Stolen novel; please report.

The order was quickly heeded and the Jackson surged forward left. Stopping just before the ditch that threaten to swallow their tank. The massive turret of the Jackson swung round to face the second snow pile. A loud boom was heard as the 90mm M3 Anti Tank gun slammed a shot into the massive snow pile. The massive tank rocked under the recoil of the gun. But there was no doubt that the shot from the Jackson had connected.

Purposely aiming at the lower hull section of the tank was in order to cripple the Tiger all in all. Housing the transmission of the tank in the forward section was a major design flaw of the Tiger. Unfortunately for the Tiger, the damaged transmission set fire to the engine quite by chance. That soon ignited the fuel in the fuel tank as the tank blew up in a cloud of fire and smoke.

The final Tiger was disabled by a vigilant Firefly commander who saw the pattern in the destruction of the snow piles. Without waiting for an order, he pushed his Sherman firefly forward and rapidly punched three shots into the hull of the third Tiger concealed in the last snow pile.

Shortly after bypassing the three flaming wrecks, the task force was once again rolling again. But no sooner had they started rolling down toward the town, the eagle eyed commander spotted a small incoming troop of 16 germen soldiers. They were none other than the tankers of the three burning Tiger tanks the taskforce had just destroyed. After realizing their priceless tanks were nothing but burning wrecks, they turned around and bolted like mad men back towards the village.

They were spared souls until Sean himself identified them as the remnants of Steiner Heinrich Himmler’s “SS Panzer Division”. He gave the order to cut off their retreat and kill them off. There was objection among the tank crews as those men running for their lives were unarmed. Sean quickly reminded them how many lives of soldiers, friends, buddies were lost to the germens faking their surrender and ambush troops and tank crews when they least expected it.

Acknowledging their commanders reasoning, the reluctant tank crews opened up with their hull mounted machine guns. Bullets peppered the snow around the fleeing germens and eventually some found their mark as the germens were savagely cut down by the machine guns mercilessly. Having the grizzly work done, they were soon within a mile of the village of Zwickau.

As the germens defending the town noticed the incoming oppressors, they opened up with everything they got. The chatter of machine gun fire was accompanied by the crack of two anti tank cannons guarding the entrance to the village. The fearsome germen 88mm anti tank gun packed enough punch to slice through a regular Sherman’s hull armor with ease.

As the heavy armor piercing shells whistled pass the tanks, blowing huge piles of snow into the air as the heavy shells impacted the ground. Quickly giving out an order for one of the Jumbo Sherman’s to pull up ahead to cover the delicate M36 Jackson command tank.

Only moments later the two anti tank gun fired again. This time they didn’t miss their mark. Metal bit metal as the two anti tank gun shells tore angrily at the approaching Shermans. But the tanks just shrugged the shells off easily. All that was the evidence of the tank ever being hit is a long scratch mark that pin pointed the point of impact.

Normally a standard Sherman would have been obliterated by the incoming shell. But the Jumbo’s front had been fortified up to a dazzling 102mm slab of steel. Adding in the angle of the frontal plating, the Jumbo was almost defiant to anything the germens can throw at it. As the germens threw more shells at the approaching Jumbos, it became clear it was not going to work.

Finally with their cannons in range, the two Jumbos without need for command quickly opened fired. Both gunners knew exactly what to hit. Having been aiming at the Anti-tank guns ever since they first fired, the gunners smacked their targets by the very first shot with their 76mm guns. The destruction of the gun emplacements were confirmed as the High Explosive shells turned them into fiery wrecks upon impact.