30 June 1941 - the Minsk encirclement
The scale of the war was hard to comprehend, and Andre found himself liable to getting lost in the detail. Even without accounting for the flanking the Army Groups, the pace of operations in Army Group Centre was challenging to keep a grip upon. The race by the 3rd and 2nd Panzer groups to encircle their fist objectives was almost complete, and almost 300 thousand Russian soldiers, previously fighting at the frontier were now isolated from the rest of their army. The mobility of the Panzers, enabled by the Luftwaffe close support like Stukas, really could do amazing things in the hands of experienced commanders who knew what they were doing. And Andres Staffel, like everyone in the Gruppe, were flying at maximum rate of effort. Today would be no different.
Surely the Russians couldn't keep up this rate of loss.
The first target was a forward Command Post, likely that of the 13th Army by the signals intercepts from its radio transmissions,. Radios were uncommon in the Red Army so this was most likely a major formation HQ. The 13th Army posed a risk to the Panzer units completing the Minsk encirclement. If they could disrupt the HQ from the air, the Panzers would have an easier time breaching the next line. It was a long flight, butVoss was confident they could do it.
Voss looked around him and checking the formation again for the second time in 2 minutes and searching the sky for enemy aircraft. Scanning didn't keep the MiGs away, but not scanning ensured that any of them there would kill you. Unteroffizier Saunders in White 4 was lagging again. He was an experienced pilot with an unfortunate tendency to get lazy, especially on long trips.
The Soviet fighter ripped through the formation without any warning. The first Voss knew was the shouts of alarm on the radio and the sight of tracer zipping past his aircraft from behind. Voss didn't even get a good look at it before it was gone, diving back into the building rain cloud before any German fighter escorts could react. Saunders was loudest on the radio, clearly badly rattled.
"Calm down White 4" Voss ordered, hoping that radio protocol would help restore discipline.
"Came from behind, never even saw him! Cant see any damage but he must have got me somewhere - he must have!"
Saunders' Kette leader broke in and talked him through the instruments, the repetition helping to calm him. Voss lets the dialogue wash over him as he focused on navigating their way to the target. The rain clouds were looking rather menacing now, threatening to build into a full storm front that hadn't been expected at the meteorological brief that morning. Voss was trying to work out a way around it without exceeding their endurance or blundering into another strike zone when the rattle of machine fire
An I-16 was barrelling in from the opposite side of the formation and White 4, exposed as tail end charlie, broke off and away to evade. The Soviet pilot knew his business and was on Saunders' Stuka in seconds, hammering it with its two wing mounted machine guns.
Voss watched helplessly as the Stuka caught fire, turned over and began its death dive.
He had a glimmer of hope when he saw the canopy open and a figure leap out from the front pilot position. But only the single parachute bloomed. Voss used a grease pencil to mark the position on the map. Well behind enemy lines.
"Close up the formation - proceed to Target" he ordered. He had nothing else to say.
At the target zone, Voss quickly found the antenna farm of the Headquarters. It had been hastily erected and poorly concealed. Marking that target for his own bomb run, he directed his pilots to find their own and focused on putting his 1000kg bomb right on target.
AA fire reached up toward the attacking Stukas- a mix of 40mm and 76mm calibre. It was barrage fire, not accurate. These gunners had yet to get experience firing at manoeuvring targets. All the better, Voss thought as he kept his dive on target and released the big bomb right on target, knowing it would fly true and destroy the antenna facility.
At 12,000 feet the Stukas regrouped and Voss turned them for home- deeply conscious of the missing plane. Nobody had trouble maintaining focus on the long, silent flight home.
That night in the operations tent, the Gruppenkommandeur listened quietly as Voss delivered his verbal report. The map pins were moving east — Minsk was almost surrounded — but he saw the weary lines around Voss’s eyes. “You’re down a machine,” he said flatly. Voss nodded. “And a crew.”
"Losses are inevitable Andreas, but that doesn't make them easy. You know this. The others need you too"
Later, Voss stood quietly and looked at the new wooden cross next to the one they had planted less than a week before. This one bore the name of White 5's gunner, Gefrieter Jakob Fernanz. An hour ago, Voss had signed the signal message declaring Uffz Leohard Saunder Missing, likely captured, after being shot down behind Soviet lines.
3 men lost in a week. He didn't know about the Russians but he knew his Staffel couldnt sustain such losses.
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HQ Range 6
2 x SC-1000
W1, Kette 1, W8
1- nil, nil
2-intercept from nowhere! W4+5CS
3-rain,
4-storm, 1xI-16 W4 fire! pilot bailout (POW), gunner KIA
5- hgeadwind! no effect
6- target. Mdm AA W3+1CS, W8+1CS(flight leader used)
W1-100, W2-30, W4-40, W8-miss (Ave 42)
5 - nil
4- mech failure W1, ok. 1 x MiG3 - chased off
3-tailwind!
2-nstr
1. nstr
landing nstr
score
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