The HESH L31 was the first round to be fired by the Royal Scotts Dragoons. It was a thin cased shell with plastic explosives inside that splayed out on the target and were ignited milliseconds later. Useful against fortifications, the man who had first developed the idea, the British engineer Charles Dennistoun Burney, was probably working on the project even now, along with other ideas he spawned for gliding torpedoes and bombs, and recoilless rifles that came to be known as “Burney Guns.” He might be gratified to know the terrible form and shape his ideas would take in the 21st Century, and to learn his HESH round had struck the first real blow by ground forces in the battle that was now beginning. The Pak 50 was immolated, the shrapnel from the explosion also taking out the gun crew of a nearby 37mm gun.
“All tanks on the left-watch that wadi for enemy gun positions. Give it some gas!” His tank surged ahead, two others increasing speed to follow as the Dragoons charged forward. Two groups of three would sweep to the left of the hill, two more groups would break off to the right, and the last three tanks would remain in reserve to support either flank.
“Whatever that was, it didn’t bother us much,” said Bowers.
The 37 and 50mm AT guns were utterly useless, as the Germans quickly found out. Bowers’ tanks took out six gun positions without so much as a paint scratch from the initial defensive line Streich had set up. If he had been alive to see what was happening, Streich would have immediately had the sense to get his men out of harm’s way, but he was dead, struck down by that first thunderous barrage from the Desert Bravehearts that pounded his hilltop position with six heavy rounds.
It was Bowers on the left who would face the 88s. His tanks rounded the hill, their khaki paint schemes blending in perfectly to the chalky terrain around them. The ground dipped slightly, then rose, and when he hit that higher elevation his tank was immediately struck by a much more powerful round. The noise and concussion told them something much bigger had taken up the fight, the Germans’ one hope to stave off this terrible new enemy.
The resounding hit was the first bold challenge, the business end of the German defensive line, weakened by the British artillery, but still potent, with nine 88s still ready for action. The battle had begun, but this was an enemy far more powerful than any tank the Germans had ever faced, or ever would face, in this war. It was an order of magnitude beyond even the very best German tank that would emerge from the cauldron of this terrible conflict, the dreadful Konigstiger.
Throughout its combat history to that time, fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Egypt, not a single Challenger II had ever been lost in combat to enemy fire! A Challenger II tank could sit faced off by forty medium German tanks of this era and methodically destroy every one of them while the enemy fired away in utter futility. The Germans could fire round after round against that laminate Chobham armor, and do no harm whatsoever.
But German doctrine never intended to allow for such a duel. Instead they would now pit the dread 88 against this new foe, the most powerful anti-tank gun they would field in the war. It could penetrate 200mm of armor at near point blank range, less at this range of just over two kilometers when the Germans fired. That was more than enough to deal with the best British tank, the stolid Matilda with 70mm frontal armor, but this was not a Matilda.
“Damn good shooting,” said Bowers to his gunner.
“Got them on thermals, sir. Shall I return the favor?”
“Please do. No sense scratching up this beast any more than we have to.”
The Challenger II had armor composed of exotic materials, composite ceramics, carbon nanotubes, boron and silicon carbides, aluminum, titanium and syndite, a synthetic diamond composite. Protection levels were calculated against both Kinetic Energy Penetrators, and High Explosive rounds. The frontal armor of a Challenger II had protection levels against KE or HEAT rounds of at least 600mm of standard RHA armor, the type any WWII tank might use. In places, that protection level exceeded 1000mm, and on the heavy turret armor that had so awed O’Connor when he first set his hand on it, this protection rose to an astounding 1250mm against KE penetrators and 1980mm against HEAT rounds!
During operations in Iraq, incidents occurred where a Challenger II had been ambushed and hit by as many as seventy RPGs, weapons that actually had far more penetration power than the German 88s, and yet the tank survived with only minor damage and was back in operation six hours later. No one inside was killed or wounded. In fact, the only instance of a Challenger II destroyed in combat had occurred in a friendly fire incident where one tank mistakenly targeted another at near point blank range, and the shell went in through an open hatch. It was a beast that could only be killed by its own kind.
