Just plan for survival

At five kilometers their tanks stood still and all launched a triple salvo, as to punish us for our obstinate refusal to give in. It was their first mistake. German artillery immediately responded with a return salvo at the whole line of attack, each were given the correct coordinates to get the best result. Tanks exploded left and right, but while they did, they fired more salvos at the hilltop, only a few meters shy of damaging our first line of foxholes just behind the rim of the hill. The tanks moved forwards, shooting while moving, but were hindered by the small ripples the engineering corps had dug. It made their accuracy less, something overshooting, something just hitting the base of the hill. Sometimes the tanks would hit a reinforced spike, camouflaged by a pile of dirt, forcing them to maneuver around it, giving time to the artillery to pummel the ground around it, hitting them in full ****. More and more surprises were discovered by the tank crews, halting them, forcing them to seek different routes on a hill that seemed flat and low. They started to move in zigzag, slowing their progress, yet encountered more hidden traps. They would fall into deep pits, unable to maneuver back. It was like a mediaeval strategy, trapping tanks instead of horses. The motorized infantry did not fair that much better. They were faster approaching but would hit the same obstacles, all the while the artillery pummeled the field every hundred meters, the explosions coming closer and closer. Reaching a hidden canal, they got stuck and were **** to unload their troops much sooner than expected.

At three kilometers, they were heavily bombarded by overflying stealth bombers. The artillery did not stop, pounding their approach over the whole line. Stuck, hindered, needing to drive around obstacles, that weren’t trees, but steel pillars grounded deep into the earth. Flat earth patches that were actually sinkholes, rising hillsides that where actually unstable platforms, not able to keep the weight of the tank, dropping them. Mines everywhere, capable of huge destruction, as if tanks were ships ploughing through the waves of the earth. Magnetic sea mines exploding when a tank neared it, sensing the metal.

They ploughed on, they had no other choice, moving backwards would be defeat, but moving forwards was like hell.

At two kilometers they pounded our hills, sometimes they had a lucky strike, killing a sniper here moved into place too early or killing an entire AT-crew that was supposed to be there, mistakes were made on our side too. Men to eager to launch their missiles, revealing them too soon. Resulting in exploding bodies.

At a thousand meters, snipers began to target the motorized infantry, using exploding bullets, rendering their vehicles immobile. But there were so many, we could hardly make a dent into their numbers. Artillery again pounded on them. Jet fighters carpet bombed their positions, only to be shot down a few moments later.

At five hundred meters, AT-crews locked their targets, surrounded by exploding shells, and yet they launched their rockets, moving from one prepared spot to another with the risk of being shot by their snipers. Our snipers targeting their snipers, their moving men. On cleared pathways reinforced trucks would come closer, carrying and pushing pontoons into place on a dozen different places near the canal. Hindered again by stakes crisscrossed along the canal that needed to be blown up before they could get through. Men clearing mines shot by sharp shooters, or by remote detonations.

At the canal, artificial pre-built bridges carried through the battle zone, destroyed suddenly by artillery, or surviving and being dropped onto the canal, only to be sunk again. Men trying to swim or using boats swept away by hidden heavy machine gunners. Suddenly the canal was aflame as there was suddenly naphtha poured onto it, burning men. Cannisters of naphtha floating in the river suddenly exploding. The Russians kept coming, too many to hold them all. The canal was breached on several locations, pontoons successfully dropped, a lucky tank to finally get across, then one more, then another. Then destroyed by multiple AT-crews, for them to be killed by grenade launchers.

People crying for help, medics zig-zagging to get to them, to be shot as well. Reaching the bodies, but dead already, too late to help. Constant firing from the top of the hill, missile launchers, flame throwers, mortar fire, fragmentation mines, automatic fire, sniper fire, grenade fire, machine guns overheating, ammunition supplies dwindling too fast, hick-ups in artillery fire, too few bombers to be able to continue the bombing of the fields ahead. It was hell for both, seeing friends and friends seeing their lovers die, crying, panic, desertions, rage and despair, the earth getting soaked by blood and body parts. War is hell.

All through the melee, when the tide was turning against us, soldiers at the hill were evacuating in an orderly fashion, hiding in the forest, shooting at prepared backwards defenses. Running faster, retreating faster, with only gun in hand. Run, stop, turn, fire. Run again, hoping no bullet would find you. Against all common sense, stop and hide, then return fire. The tanks were stopped, meeting a hill too steep to get even a tank across. But all those men climbing that hill, intent solely on killing you.

The retreat was planned in phases, open deforested areas were set up as new killing zones, those left behind would be killed in enemy and friendly fire, no one left behind alive, to be killed by your own hand, taking with you as many as you could. The Russians were halted at each killing zone, giving us more time to reach the helicopters, already flying platoons away to safer locations, returning fast to pick up more. Creating distance between battlefields and men or women too tired to even fire a gun, too exhausted, too shellshocked. Less and less people remained on our sides, until a final fierce, continuous artillery barrage upon the hill, upon the open fields **** the Russians to pause and give the rest of the defenders just time enough to climb into the transport helicopters, finally safe. At the safe zone picked up again, to travel to the next line of defense. To regroup. To meet the absent dead. To come to your senses, if there were any left. To be shipped off to hospitals to never return. To be patched up quickly if you were lucky. Or unlucky depending on the state of your mind.