Battle of the Dukla Pass - Pt1.
Just boredom. It's a rough start. We'll see if I'll finish it ..
A crisp morning, twenty Celsius among the rolling green
hills with trees scattered about, mountains standing high with a slight haze of
morning moisture in backdrop - it's the mid 1940s somewhere in the Carpathians.
All is calm a quiet, at least for a little while when a flock of birds are
scared out of a group of trees to the sound and vibration of a dark green camouflage
painted Soviet T-34 medium tank moving at stealth-like beneath their shadows
at 25 kilometers per hour. It was leading the way ahead of a larger group of a
half dozen Soviet vehicles destined to capture the next village a dozen or so kilometers
ahead. The separated
T-34 moves out from under the wall of trees, sunlight hitting the left side of
the armored tank as its painted turret side "Na Berlin!" rotates left, swinging
over with it, it's 76 millimeter gun in the direction of a line of suspiciously
damaged trees about a thousand meters across the open field. The T-34 slows,
metal tracks clanking and rumbling to a halt and all is quiet once more but for
the sound of a soft hum from the travel worn tank engine. A clinking sound and the latched
door at the top of the T-34 pops open, followed by the tank commander's head
popping out from the hole, ears pointed at attention. The soviet tank commander, a white furred fox dressed
in his tanking gear ware and a pair of binoculars in one hand, looks about
toward the direction of the tree line ahead. His right ear flicks in suspicion as
he lifts his binoculars eye level, looking into them at what was ahead. Knowing
full well his eyes could deceive him, he makes judgement that nothing was wrong
and they could move full steam ahead across the open field separating them to
that next tree line.
With a hum to himself, he lowers his binoculars
and dips his head back into the tank turret, leaving the top door open. His paw
would only reach up a few seconds later to grab onto the door handle to pull it
back closed, but before he could even do so, there was a deep thud sound in the
far distance. It would be less than a couple second after that, a raging flame
comes shooting out from the hole in the turret which the commander fox just
retreated into. The flame burned bright red and orange and shot up at least
eight feet up from the turret before the tank exploded with a thunderous clap
with its exterior armor, the tank crews digging tools latched to the side of
the tank and the metal engine doors all blowing off in the explosion. There was
no chance the crew could have possibly survived such a catastrophic hit.