March 6, 1940. Early Morning.
For Lieutenant Kovalev of the Guards Assault Company, 70th Rifle Division of the Soviet Army, the war seemed to be nearing its end.
"Keep advancing! Maintain formation!"
Kovalev strode behind a KV-1 tank, barking orders at his men. Despite the suffocating dust permeating the air, his mood was unexpectedly light. After a night of relentless shelling, the Vyborg Industrial Zone had been reduced to a skeletal landscape of jagged ruins.
Thus far, they had encountered almost no meaningful resistance. The machine-gun nests that had once been the bane of the Soviet advance were now nothing more than twisted scrap metal buried under rubble. Occasionally, a few blood-soaked Finnish soldiers would spring from the debris, but before they could even prime a grenade, they were torn to shreds by the DT twin machine guns mounted on the T-26 tanks.
The composition of this unit was nothing short of formidable. Leading the vanguard were two KV-1 heavy tanks; their 75mm armor plates were scarred with bullet marks, yet not a single round had achieved penetration. Four T-26s followed closely, tasked with clearing flanking maneuvers and high-altitude nests. Moving within the gaps between the tanks were infantrymen, interspersed with two flamethrower specialists carrying ROKS-2 units and several combat engineers lugging explosive charges. At the very rear, an F-22 76mm field gun was being towed forward, ready to be deployed against any fortified bunker.
It was a perfect killing machine. Any creature of flesh and blood standing in its path was destined only to be crushed.
"The Vyborg Steel Mill is just ahead!" a scout returned to report.
Kovalev looked up.
Before him lay the ruins of the main workshop. Though the roof had collapsed, the rows of massive concrete pillars and warped steel girders still stood like the ribcage of a giant beast. The surroundings were unnervingly quiet, with only the low growl of tank engines echoing through the hollow wasteland.
"There might be Finns," Kovalev muttered. A flicker of instinctive unease touched him, but he glanced at the tanks beside him, and the feeling was quickly stifled by confidence.
"You lot, cover the flamethrowers as they move up." Kovalev waved a hand toward a partially collapsed, heavy brick wall at the workshop entrance. "Burn every corner. I don't care if you see anyone or not."
The two flamethrower operators, burdened by heavy fuel tanks, nodded. Under the cover of several riflemen, they crouched low and began their approach toward the wall. The turret of the KV-1 rotated slowly, its massive barrel leveling at the shadows deep within the workshop. Everything was proceeding according to textbook infantry-tank coordination.
However, just as the two specialists came within twenty meters of the wall, the world turned sideways.
There was no sound of gunfire, or rather, the report was drowned out by a duller, more chilling sound of shattering metal.
In Kovalev's line of sight, the only thing distinguishing these two specialists from the other Red Army soldiers was their slightly bulkier backpacks. This was the ingenuity of the Soviet Union's latest ROKS-2 flamethrower. To prevent operators from becoming conspicuous "walking targets" as they had been with previous models, the design bureau had disguised the fuel tanks to look like standard rectangular infantry rucksacks. Even the lethal nozzle was meticulously crafted to resemble a Mosin-Nagant rifle. To the naked eye, it was nearly impossible to tell the difference between a regular rifleman and a flamethrower specialist.
But beneath Walter's Eye of Death, this visual deception was meaningless. He could clearly see the eerie temperature differential emanating from the packs on the two soldiers' backs.
Walter knew the anatomy of this weapon intimately. The ROKS-2 possessed two tanks: a large one for fuel, and a smaller one for high-pressure gas. If a bullet merely punctured the large tank filled with viscous fuel, the liquid would simply leak out like water; it wouldn't explode. To turn them into a bomb, one had to strike the small high-pressure cylinder, a vessel no larger than a water cup, yet pressurized to 150 atmospheres.
"Found you, little bottle."
Walter held his breath, locking onto the small, frigidly-toned cylinder behind the wall.
Phut!
The first bullet punched through twenty centimeters of red brick. Though its kinetic energy was diminished, the projectile remained hard.
Kovalev watched in horror as a cloud of white mist suddenly erupted from the bottom of the backpack carried by the soldier on the left. A split second later, the massive pressure instantly tore open the adjacent fuel tank. Metal shards acted like shrapnel, severing the soldier's spine while atomizing the fuel into the air.
BOOM—!!!
With a dull, heavy blast, the operator didn't even have time to scream. He detonated from the inside out like an over-inflated balloon, transforming instantly into an orange-red fireball.
"What happened? Did a grenade cook off?"
The Soviet soldiers were stunned. To their eyes, the man had simply been walking when he spontaneously exploded. No one even realized they were under attack.
"Equipment failure! Damned defective parts!" someone screamed.
"No! Get down! Everyone get down!"
Kovalev yanked his head back as the shockwave hit, his pupils trembling violently. He was the only one who had seen it clearly. In the heartbeat before the fireball erupted, a puff of red dust had kicked off that "safe" brick wall.
It wasn't a malfunction. It was a hit.
"Enemy fire! He's shooting through the walls! He's behind that wall!" Kovalev shrieked.
Without waiting for a formal command, the turrets of the two KV-1s swung around frantically. The F-22 field gun at the rear was detached from its tractor and deployed with lethal speed, its dark maw pointing directly at the source of the shot.
"Fire! Level that wall!"
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
76mm high-explosive shells and direct tank fire converged into a storm of steel, instantly obliterating the solitary ruin. Red bricks crumbled like biscuits, rebar was snapped in two, and dust blotted out the sun.
For a full minute, the area was saturated with fire. When the smoke finally cleared, the wall was gone, replaced by a field of pulverized debris.
"Go! See if he's dead!" Kovalev barked.
Several soldiers, clutching PPD-38 submachine guns, crept forward cautiously. However, behind the pile of shattered masonry, there was nothing but a single, smoking spent shell casing.
"Sir! No one! We saw a shadow running toward the inner workshop!" a scout shouted, pointing toward a fleeting grey silhouette in the distance.
Kovalev bit his lip. "Don't chase yet! It's a lure! Everyone, find cover!"
The advance ground to a halt. The relaxed atmosphere of a "demolition job" had evaporated. Kovalev stared fixedly at the site of the explosion, shouting to those around him:
"It wasn't a malfunction! It's a Finn! He hit the gas tank! Protect the remaining flamethrower!"
The words struck the surviving flamethrower specialist like a bolt of lightning, shattering his psychological defenses. He had believed his infantry disguise would fool the Finns, but his comrade's gruesome death proved the enemy had seen right through it.
I'm next.
The thought made the high-pressure cylinder on his back feel scalding hot. I have to hide. Especially this damned bomb on my back!
Using the massive bulk of a KV-1 as a shield, the specialist bolted toward the corner of what looked like a ruined tool room. It was another red brick wall used to partition the workshop. Though made of brick, it was thick, two layers deep, enough to stop stray bullets and block any line of sight.
He slid down against the wall, panting heavily, his hands trembling as he gripped his disguised nozzle.
"Don't panic... don't panic... the other guy was just unlucky..." he whispered to himself, trying to settle his racing heart.
The bullets, however, did not grant him reprieve.
Thud!
A dull impact erupted right next to his ear. The soldier jerked, instinctively clutching his head. He looked up to see a small hole punched into the brick wall just above him, brick dust trickling down into his collar.
"Is someone shooting? A stray?" He swallowed hard.
Barely two seconds passed.
Thud!
A second impact. This time, the bullet didn't penetrate; it wedged itself into the mortar.
The soldier's pupils contracted. This wasn't stray fire. There was a demon in the shadows, reaching through the wall, searching for that cursed high-pressure cylinder on his back. In the eyes of his assailant, this brick wall might as well have been made of glass.
"He's aiming for my tank! He's aiming for the tank!"
The sheer terror forced a distorted scream from his throat. He scrambled to his feet, desperate to shed the ticking time bomb strapped to his spine.
But he was too slow. Just as he straightened his back…
BANG!
The third shot arrived.
This time, the 7.62mm round bored through the brickwork. The glowing projectile, trailing red dust, punched through the metal canister without resistance.
KABOOM!!!
The specialist was instantly turned into a massive, jetting fireball. Worse yet, because he had sought safety by huddling near a squad of infantry, the erupting inferno instantly engulfed five or six nearby soldiers.
"AAAAAAAHH!"
Grisly screams echoed through the hollowed-out workshop, a sound to make the skin crawl. The soldiers splashed with the viscous fuel rolled frantically on the ground, but the fire was a clinging parasite that refused to be extinguished.
Kovalev watched the flames roiling against the brick wall, a cold chill surging from his heels to the top of his skull.
This was no accident. The Finn who was firing possessed eyes that could see through walls. In this sea of ruins, no cover was safe.
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