Firestorm: Red Thunder

The night was so thick you could have cut it with a knife, and that is what we planned to do. Our intelligence forces informed us that the Warsaw forces has made it through the mountains and gained a bridgehead.

Orders from NATO, they want us to attack them utilizing the element of surprise. This will be hard. Our forces are still spread thin. Outnumbered and needing speed, I went forward with what I had on hand.

When we arrived at the Soviet held town, we found Soviet infantry forces held up in buildings. With no real way to dislodge them outside of direct fire, we advanced, three Leopards swung around the city hoping to drive out any hidden tanks, while the four Gepards moved into range of the secured apartment building.

After moving into position our tanks were immediately ambushed by enemy tanks! We were caught off guard as we planned to be the ones ambushing them. We lost a tank. We then swung back around to fire back at them. They defiantly had more tanks than we were informed of, we managed to kill only one, I counted seven flashes in the night, so I knew there were more.

Reinforcements have arrived! We may make it out of this alive. As the thought entered my mind, I saw our reinforcements burst into flames. The Soviets counter fire hit true, and as soon as our friends arrived, they were dead.

I only let the loss of my comrades occupy my mind for a moment, there was work to be done. “Return fire! Make them pay boys!” Our tanks fired two more of the enemy tanks were destroyed. Over the radio, we heard the Gepards request help as they were taking BMP fire. We moved into range to still fire on the last enemy tank while letting the other tank in my platoon fire at the BMPs.
“There is only one of them left boys, fire when ready!” Looking at the target tank I saw the round hit home. With that taken care of we moved to help our fellow tanks deal with the BMPS. We were too late, as all the BMPs were destroyed. I gave the order to move forward. We bearly moved when a shot bounced off my Leopard's front armor. The shot came from the left, I hastily looked and there was a tank, this one had a dent in the turret, right where we hit it with our last shoot. So not dead after all, “Gunner fire!” this time the tank lit up as it exploded, its turret no longer resting on the tank. "No more surprizes from that one!"

Victory was in sight, only the infantry stood in our way, we advanced towards the building when the other tank in my platoon took a hit and exploded, a new enemy tank moved from behind the factory! We opened fire and destroyed it quickly. Over the radio we heard cries from the Gepards, six enemy tanks arrived on their flank and destroyed them.

We were alone and surrounded, we pressed forward, only to be met with more tanks than we could count. Their attack was quick, and accrete. We didn’t stand a chance.