VR WARS Volume II - Coalition Army

ASSAULTING HILL 253.5

In the history of warfare, any attack on a well-fortified and elevated position usually resulted in double or triple the number of casualties on the attackers' side. To make sure they succeeded, Simão, José, and all the other officers in their units worked their hardest to minimize the damage they sustained while making sure they inflicted twice the amount they received or higher. All of that was in preparation for the attack that ‘needed to succeed at all costs’ in Pedro's words.

“Simão, I’ve got my tanks waiting here; what’s the holdup?” The voice of José came through one of the field radios on the back of a Mirabilis student.

“A third of my unit is still engaged on the left flank, and the majority of the Terras infantry is mopping up pockets of resistance on the right. We should wait until our forces converge and attack with everybody.”

“That would be wasting the momentum we’ve built….”

Simão knew that José had a point; if they allowed room for the enemy to breathe, they could strengthen their positions ahead of them or even formulate a new strategy to deal with their forces. He was well aware of how easy it had been for them to punch a hole in the front line and destroy the IF’s forward units, meaning that they had been fighting a skeleton crew and that the enemy's core force was still to be seen. In that regard, José’s pleas for securing the high ground that was Hill 253.5 while the enemy still recovered from their sudden thrust were rational and probably the right call to make. Yet, Simão also knew that enough IF units had slit through their grasp to pose a considerable threat, and if, by some miracle, they all had converged on the hill in front of them, then securing that high ground would be a significant challenge. One that they shouldn't take lightly and commit to an attack without making arrangements first.

“I just got word; Central command is pressuring us to take that hill ASAP, Simão,” the radio came to life with new information before Simão could convey his thoughts. “Apparently, the UAT started their advance sooner than expected and already broke through multiple layers of IF’s defenses. It looks like they are almost out of artillery range. If they go any deeper, they could end up surrounded; we need to stabilize this front before attacking the city.”

“I hear you; lay down a smokescreen to cover our approach and have some of your tanks advance with my infantry. Let’s take this hill.”

“Victory or death!”

The Mirabilis students responded with the same cry as they loaded fresh clips onto their rifles and machine guns. A roaring mist soon began to cover the hill as every canon in every tank discharged smoke shells, making it look like the clouds that sat in the heavens had come down to settle below.

Prompted by his Azorean comrades' adverse situation, Simão found himself with no other choice but to commit to a full-on frontal assault. Time was of the essence; they had to take care of their objective before IF reinforcements arrived and counter-attacked to dislodge them of their gains so far. The minute that happened, prospects for taking Hill 253.5 would turn into a dream. Although he knew not the reason that led Angelo to begin his assault ahead of time, Simão was sure that his reasons for doing so were not unfounded. Waiting an entire hour for that artillery to pass would’ve destroyed the IF troops in his sector, but it would also provide them with enough time to get reinforcements in that area…Perhaps it was for the best. He smiled before grabbing his weapon and joining his troops on foot as they raced towards the firing crucible that would become the most gruesome fighting and contested location of the entire battle.

They trailed the sun-burnt grass, hundreds of students as they soared through the fields like birds seeing only white in front of them.

When the tanks and mortars of the Terras Unit ceased their fire, the members of the Mirabilis moving along the open ground were then confronted with an excruciating eerie silence that tested their nerves. What little cover they had to take shelter from incoming enemy fire laid by José’s tanks, and even these could only absorb the bullets coming from the front, not shrapnel from mortars or artillery. Contrary to their cautious advance, however, not a single shot came flying at them.

As the smoke cover dissipated, some students began to move more carefully, while others stopped their climb altogether, fearing death coming to them at any second.

Baren soil and grass with a few boulders were the sights in their eyes. Not even the hilltop seemed to offer much protection, as there was no sign of trees to take cover from the scorching sun stalking them.

“Come on, people, don’t just sit there! We gotta move!”

“Keep your distance; don’t bunch up!”

More aware of the danger they were in was Simão as he raised his senses to a whole other level, attempting to spare his students from falling into any traps or hidden ambushes, but as they reached the halfway mark, nothing came to be. Yet that did not ease him one bit nor lower his guard; having participated in three battles already, he knew better.

Then came the rain, a rain of steel.

Suddenly, the attacking Mirabilis found themselves being showered by shells that came from mortars on the hilltop, and the leading Panzer IVs exploded into fireballs as they became easy prey for the hidden anti-tank emplacements spread out all along the slopes. As if that weren’t enough, machine guns and small arms opened up on the exposed Portuguese students. Simão, being at the forefront of the assault, witnessed the decimation of his first wave, an entire company’s worth of students, in mere minutes.

In the heat of the moment, while scrambling for cover, people stumbled over each other. Not the dead, wounded, or even living were spared from being trampled by their fellow countrymen. Through in many ways, it was by doing so that some happened to be spared from the deadly crossfire. Such was the case for the Mirabilis Commander, when a dark-skinned woman in her early twenties, during the mayhem, accidentally overstepped into Simão’s path and absorbed the bullets that were meant for him. Her fallen body provided the only advocating cover for Simão to take shelter from the enemy fire.

“s**t! Where’s that fire coming from?” Ducking behind the body of a woman who had been hit in the neck and bled out in seconds, Simão slowly lifted his head to get a grasp of things. Immediately, he spotted a machine gun emplacement on his right due to bullet tracers, but he couldn’t do anything to stop it. He only had a couple of grenades and his submachine gun; that alone would be more than enough to knock that gun out, but charging in alone would most likely get him killed, so what could he do?

“I’m with you, sir,” a voice reached his ears as he was about to make the decision. Unknowingly, one of his subordinates stood less than a meter from him, hiding amidst the tall grass. “Just say the word if you want to take out that MG.”

“Okay,” he smirked and took the safety of his grenades. “Ready?”

The man nodded, then reached for his own grenade and crawled forward until he reached Simão’s side. In quick succession, not one or two but four grenades were sent through the air, exploding near the IF machine gun position. While these missed the crew altogether, they did stun them long enough for both men to get out of their precarious spot and finish off the Iberians before they could recover.

Soon, others took their leader’s example to heart and entered the fray. Heavy fighting spread all around, their opponents firing from their concealed positions, and trenches naturally held the advantage. Still, the perseverance and prowess of the Mirabilis students slowly but surely were taking their toll on the IF troops, who panicked on seeing the fight getting too close. Ashamed of their poor performance during the training sessions against the UAT, who they outnumbered, Simão’s students took a page from the Azoreans' book and doubled their effort in close-quarters fighting, surpassing most of the units in the coalition except for those under the Angel of Death's control. Their growth exceeded all expectations, and their improvement made the Commander-in-Chief, Rui, himself, proclaim them to be his ‘crème de la crème.’

Fighting tooth and nail through a network of trenches, machine-gun nests, and anti-tank emplacements, the Prodigy-based Mirabilis kept up the pressure, capturing one meter at a time.

On the steppes, below hill 253.5, seeing the advancing party caught in a crossfire where the IF had the entire surroundings zeroed in, the heavier Tiger and Panther tanks of Terras Unit that were kept to the rear had a better eye on the situation than anyone else in that sector.

Heavier tanks like the Panthers and Tigers were kept to the rear to provide cover with their massive guns and also to spare their engines to the steep climb. The general agreement shared by many historians was that those machines were ahead of their time. Their engine, however, was not; it couldn't withstand the weight and often broke down. The Bermuda System recreated this by adding a handicap, a time limit gauge of four hours, but that depended on how their crews strained the machines. If pushed too hard, they would catch fire and render the tank useless before the established time. Although a bit more reliable, the Panthers suffered from the same setbacks and would be grounded after five hours of action. However, a crucial factor was exposed during training; if they allowed sufficient time for the engines to rest and use suitable terrain, their machines could potentially outlast past the established limited time by nearly two hours.

The all-powerful PXF control module, Bermuda System Server, Von Kluge’s revolutionary work of genius, always faithful to its coding for historical accuracy, pushed all boundaries to the limit. Its intention always prioritized a set of rules, the most important of which being “the creation of necessary paths for the competitors to deal with the real circumstances of the period in question, whether they were advantaged to the students or not.” Considering the surprise appearance on the battlefield of these deadly tanks resulted in not much information being available to the Communists side in 1943. The same was true for the IF, who knew the Tigers and Panthers engines were faulty but were unaware of their time limit usage. A fact that made the Portuguese chain of command agree on a deciding factor, the only principle they all needed to abide by—the fall of Kursk within six hours.

Past that, they would lose their biggest advantage, which could sway the tides, and taking the city would become an impossible prospect.

Assessing the situation with a clear mind, the Portuguese tank crews observed multiple flashes from the hilltop through their binoculars, an indication of the presence of an entire battery of heavy caliber weapons, possibly artillery and anti-tank guns. In control of these behemoths, the Terras Unit members, sensing the situation deteriorating with each passing minute, attempted to provide cover for their comrades in distress. Unleashing a roar with their massive guns, death suddenly crept up closer to the IF. The Tigers and Panthers shook the earth around them as shell after shell packed with high explosives were thrown at the IF units stationed at the very top; payback for what they had done to the Mirabilis infantry.

As the enemy fire died down on them to focus on the tanks below, whatever stranded teams separated from the rest of the force or that had been too depleted to continue the assault attempted to provide whatever suppressing fire they could for their classmates to advance from other directions. It was in small groups, probing and infiltrating the IF lines, that the real assault began to take shape.