A (mis) interpretation :
Name: Maximilian Wittmann.
Nickname: The Werwolf.
Age: 30.
Rank: SS-Obersturmbannführer.
Unit: SS-Jäger-Bataillon 101 z.b.V. Kerberos.
Armour type: Spezial Panzer Anzug Typ. 34 "Wolfpeltz".
Std. armaments: MG 34 machine gun x 1; Mauser C96 semi-automatic pistol x 1.
Prologue:
22 June, 1941. Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, invading Soviet Union with four million Axis power soldiers and 600,000 vehicles along a 2,900 km front. The ambitious operation was driven by Adolf Hitler's persistent desire to conquer the Soviet territories as embodied in Generalplan Ost. Tactically, the Germans won resounding victories and occupied some of the most important economic areas of the Soviet Union, mainly in Ukraine. Despite these successes, the Germans were stalled on the outskirts of Moscow and was then pushed back by a Soviet counter offensive without having taken the city. The Soviets had forced an unprepared Germany into a war of attrition, leading to Hitler's demands for further operations into USSR, which would marked the beginning of the pivotal phase in deciding the victors of World War Two.
Part 1: Into the Heart of Darkness.
September 1942. Hauptmann Markus von Stauffenberg of the 808th Propagandakompanie left Warsaw, Poland with his men on an armoured train which marked his long journey into Soviet Union. An aristocrat by family background, his official objective is to convey latest information to both the military and civilian, as well as to report back the progress of the military campaigns from the Eastern Front. His ultimate destination would be Stalingrad of which the battle for the city was of immense propaganda value due to the name of the Soviet Union leader attached to it. On board the train were members of the newly formed SS-Jäger-Bataillon 101, a special forces unit led by the illustrious Maximilian Wittmann. Members of the unit were specially hand-picked from the Wehrmacht, Waffen-SS, Luftwaffe and the elite Brandenburgers of the Abwehr. All underwent an extensive training programme before being admitted into the unit. Also on the train was the head of the Zossen Wehrmacht Sniper training school, Major Leon Thorvald, a veteran of World War One. A fellow Bavarian aristocrat himself, Thorvald shared with Stauffenberg over the many conversations they had during the journey that he volunteered to go to Stalingrad because of a personal vendetta. His only son had been killed by an infamous Soviet sniper there. Many German soldiers had been reportedly killed by this sniper and his task was to eliminate the elusive Soviet marksman. Stauffenberg personally thought that would be a contest of skills worth reporting back to his superior back in Berlin. The armoured train had its own military unit to counter any partisan resistance operations in close proximity to the tracks. The train primary cargo were several final components to be fitted onto the super heavy tank, the Landkreuzer P.1500 Monster.
Despite being highly educated with an inclination towards literature, Stauffenberg chose a military career. He was part of the unit involved in the annexation of Sudetenland after the Anschluss, and subsequent invasion of Czechoslovakia despite a personal strong disapproval of the method it was carried out by the Nazi regime. He later took part in the attack on Poland. Stauffenberg supported the occupation of Poland because like majority of German aristocracy of those times, he held a deeply rooted belief that Eastern territories lost after World War One should be colonised as during the imperial era. After being reassigned to the OKH and participated in the Battle of France, Stauffenberg was awarded the Iron Cross First Class. He was impressed by the overwhelming military success, which was attributed to Hitler. Although Stauffenberg agreed with some of the Nazi party's nationalistic aspects, he found many of its ideologies repugnant and never became a member of the party. Moreover, Stauffenberg remained a practicing Catholic. Stauffenberg vacillated between a strong personal dislike of Hitler's policies and a respect for what he perceived to be Hitler's military acumen. On top of this, the growing systematic ill-treatment of Jews and suppression of religion had offended Stauffenberg's strong personal sense of Catholic morality and justice. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Stauffenberg joined the military intelligence organisation, the Abwehr, and given the command of the 808th Propaganda Company, with the purpose to gather intelligence on partisan resistance movements and Soviet Union civilians.
As the train crossed into Soviet territories, at each stop, Stauffenberg would take a brief walk along the station after meetings with the local administrators. He needed to get some fresh air before embarking upon the increasingly claustrophobic, windowless train. Stauffenberg noted the throngs of wounded German soldiers arriving in different trains from the Eastern Front. He realised that most would never see the Fatherland again. Throughout his journey, Stauffenberg witnessed the atrocities committed and the path of destruction left by the Germans which had occurred all over occupied territories of the Third Reich - the mass executions of Russians, Ukrainians, Jews and others - by the Germans. He heard of the Bila Tserkva Incident, seen the atrocities committed upon the Soviet POWs and Russian civilians under the Severity Order, and the destruction of Kiev. This would sow the seed of what he deemed as a severe deficiency in the Nazi regime leadership.
At Kursk, the armour train took a detour and onto a railway line which was not officially present on any maps. The true mission of Stauffenberg was to secretly supervise and ensure the delivery of the newly developed gepanzerter jäger armour, the Spezial Panzer Anzug, designated Type 34 with codename "Wolfpeltz" for deployment by the 101st special purpose battalion in the Battle of Stalingrad.
Part 2: The Red Anvil.
SS-Obersturmbannführer Maximilian Wittmann recalled the moment when SS-Standartenführer Otto Skorzeny summoned and briefed him about Operation Kerberos. Wittman was a highly decorated Waffen-SS officer whom had been an exemplary panzer commander and a top-scoring tank ace. He had participated in the Polish Campaign, the Battle of France and the invasion of Soviet Union. He possesses a strategic and tactical acumen as well as bravery and a penchant to lead from the front. As such he earned the attention and trust of Skorzeny to lead the special purpose battalion, the SS- Jäger-Bataillon 101 z.b.V. Kerberos. Wittmann was astonished initially until he saw it with his own eyes the protect armour at a secretive training ground for the unit. According to Skorzeny, the Führer himself, based on volkisch beliefs, envisioned the idea of an armour cladded German soldier akin to the Teutonic knights of bygone age, to fight in the Eastern Front against the bolsheviks whom had denied him a quick victory in Operation Barbarossa the previous winter. The armour, inspired by elements of wolves and war-hounds alike, was designed to protect the wearer with optimum mobility for the purpose of a quick tactical assault and close quarter combat. The primary armament was the MG 34 machine gun with 250 rounds of ammunition belt fed from the patronenkasten, carried on a specially designed steel framed backpack together with a Feld.Fu radio communication pack. Envisioned to carry out operations in the night, a variant of Zielgerät 1229 Vampir active infrared night vision googles were incorporated onto the stahlhunde gas mask. Wittmann and his men began to train intensively under a special programme utilising the Spezial Panzer Anzug protect armour. The insignia of the battalion was a stylised three-headed hound based on the Greek mythology, Cerberus, the hound guardian of Hades, which led to the name Kerberos. It seemed to be a suitable insignia for the special purpose battalion, for their ultimate objective was to ensure victory with their deployment into Battle of Stalingrad, which would marked as the single largest and bloodiest battle in the history of warfare.
Despite the failure of Operation Barbarossa to decisively defeat the Soviet Union in a single campaign, the war had been progressing well for the Germans: Rommel had just captured Tobruk and Great Britain was about to sign a pact of non-aggression. In the east, they had stabilized their front in a line running from Leningrad in the north to Rostov in the south. There were a number of salients in the line where Soviet offensives had pushed the Germans back, notably to the northwest of Moscow and south of Kharkov but these were not particularly threatening. Hitler was confident that he could master the Red Army after the winter of 1942, because even though Army Group Centre (Heeresgruppe Mitte) had suffered heavy punishment west of Moscow the previous winter, 65% of its infantry had not been engaged and had been rested and re-equipped. Neither Army Group North nor Army Group South had been particularly hard pressed over the winter. Josef Stalin was expecting the main thrust of the German summer attacks to again be directed against Moscow. The Germans decided that their summer campaign in 1942 would be directed at the southern parts of the Soviet Union. The initial objectives in the region around Stalingrad were the destruction of the industrial capacity of the city and positioning forces to block the Volga River. The river was a key route between the Caspian Sea and northern Russia. Its capture would disrupt commercial river traffic of various commodities.
The planned summer offensive was code-named Fall Blau (Case Blue), spear-headed by Army Group South. The German operations were initially very successful. On 23 July 1942, Hitler personally rewrote the operational objectives for the 1942 campaign, greatly expanding them to include the occupation of the city of Stalingrad. Both sides began to attach propaganda value to the city based on it bearing the name of the leader of the Soviet Union. It was assumed that the fall of the city would also firmly secure the northern and western flanks of the German armies as they advanced on Baku with the aim of securing these strategic petroleum resources for Germany. However, it was based on victory fever and severe underestimation of the Soviet Union army reserves.
On 23 August the Sixth Army reached the outskirts of Stalingrad, signalling the beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad. The battle began with the heavy bombing of the city by the Luffwaffe, reducing the city into rubbles and landscape of burnt out ruins. Stalin rushed all available troops to the east bank of the Volga. Civilians were prevented from leaving the city and were put to building trenches and fortifications. Despite large organised attack by the Soviet forces, they were repulsed by the air might of the Luffwaffe. The German air force also cut off vital supply lines of the Soviets. Amid the debris of the wrecked city, the Soviets anchored their defence lines with strongpoints in houses and factories. Fighting within the ruins of the city became fierce and desperate. Stalin and the NKVD decreed that there would be no stepping back from the defence of the city or faced execution. The Soviet command moved units from the Red Army strategic reserve in the Moscow area to the lower Volga, and transferred aircraft from the entire country to the Stalingrad region. The Soviets built up a large number of artillery batteries on the east bank of the Volga. This artillery was able to bombard the German positions or at least to provide counter-battery fire. The Germans pushing forward into Stalingrad began to suffer heavy casualties. German tanks and armoured vehicles were rendered ineffective amidst ruins of rubbles up to nine feet high. Remaining tanks were used by the Soviets as strongpoints to hold their defence. Reinforcements were continuously pouring in from the east of Volga despite heavy bombardment by the Luffwaffe. Soviet snipers inflicted significant casualties. German military doctrine was based on the principle of combined-arms teams and close cooperation between tanks, infantry, engineers, artillery and ground-attack aircraft. Some Soviet commanders adopted the tactic of always keeping their front-line positions as close to the Germans as physically possible, called it "hugging" the Germans. This slowed the German advance and reduced the effectiveness of the German advantage in supporting fire. The Red Army gradually adopted a strategy to hold for as long as possible all the ground in the city. Thus, they converted multi-floored apartment blocks, factories, warehouses, street corner residences and office buildings into a series of well defended strongpoints with small 5–10 man units. Manpower in the city was constantly refreshed by bringing additional troops over the Volga. When a position was lost, an immediate attempt was usually made to re-take it with fresh forces. Bitter fighting raged for every ruin, street, factory, house, basement, and staircase. Even the sewers were the sites of firefights. The Germans, called this unseen urban warfare Rattenkrieg ("Rat War"). Facing the impending threats of food and ammunition exhaustion, the Germans were being slowly grind to bits by the Red Army. More direly, the Germans were running out of time, as based on previous year experience, they would have to seal victory prior to the onset of the deadly Russian winter.
Part 3: The Howling Victory.
The armoured train arrived at Stalingrad outskirt. Column of smokes hung over the skies of the bombed out ruins of the city. The 101st SS-Jäger Batallion's 1st, 2nd and 5th Company were ushered by personnel from the Sixth Army towards the massive GUM departmental store which had been converted into the Germans headquarter to meet up with Generalfeldmarschall Friedrich Paulus for briefing. On that night, the Kerberos Panzer Jäger companies were unleashed into the city under the cover of intense artillery fires, particularly from the 800mm Dora railway gun fitted on the Landkruezer P.1500 Monster super-heavy tank. Under the cover of darkness, the Kerberos moved towards their first target, the Mamayev Kurgan, where merciless fighting occurred, with the position changing hands many times. They were successful, wiping out the 13th Guards Rifle Division by the following morning. They then moved forward to Railway Station No.1, a scene of intense fighting and combat, to reinforce the German infantries there with equal success. Both German and Soviet infantries were astonished by the newly appeared Kerberos, with their red lighted googles, swiftness despite being fully cladded in steel armour and combating skills. They exuded an appearance of ferociousness with supernatural intensity. Later they would engaged in a three days combat at a giant grain elevator of which they methodically cut off the Soviet resistance supplies and annihilated them. After brief re-supply, Wittmann led his men to Pavlov's House, an intensely fortified building nicknamed the Fesstung by the Germans and systematically neutralised the Soviet defenders. Although inflicting maximum casualties upon the Soviets, the Kerberos unit did face serious threats from Soviet snipers, whom improvised by using the scope from the Mossin-Nagant rifle and attached it to the armour piercing 14.5mm PTRS-41 anti-tank rifle which easily punched through the gepanzerter jäger. But the Germans finally reached the river banks, capturing 90% of the ruined city and splitting the remaining Soviet forces into two narrow pockets. Yet bitter fighting continued as the Soviets refused to give up the sliver of land on the west bank of Volga. On 8th October 1942, the Kerberos unit began assaulting the Red October tractor factory which had been retooled to produce military equipment, especially the T-34 tanks. Complementing the assault was the 116th Panzer Division "Windhund", armed with the second batch of the protect armour. Finally after five months of battle, the Germans declared victory and occupied the city while the defeated Soviets retreated further into the east of Russia. It marked the most strategically decisive battle of the whole war. The Soviets never regain initiative in the war and withdrew its remaining military force to the East.
Epilogue:
The Germans would continue their offensive across the Volga after the capture and destruction of Stalingrad until the establishment of the Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line in early 1943. The defeated Soviet Union established a rump government beyond the Ural Mountains. Stalin never sign any surrender, which eventually led to the Cold War immediately after the end of World War Two. Markus von Stauffenberg, whom documented the exploits of the 101st SS-Jäger Batallion in Stalingrad, made a hero out of Maximillian Wittmann. He lost his left eye, right hand and two fingers on his left hand after being strafed by one of the Soviet bomber force, the Aviatsiya Dal'nego Deystviya in Stalingrad. He eventually attained the rank of an Oberst, later joined and played a pivotal role in the German Resistance Movement, after learning that the Führer intended to continue a perpetual global war, resulting in the 20th July 1944 assassination of Hitler during a high official party function. Major Leon Thorvald died in Stalingrad after an intense three days battle against the top Soviet sniper, Vasily Zaytsev. His body was secretly retrieved and sent back to Berlin where all the records of his existence were expunged. Maximillian Wittman was further decorated with military awards and promoted. He retired from active duty after the Battle of Normandy and became one of the trainers at Panzertruppenschule III. The Spezial Panzer Anzug Typ. 34 protect armour would go on to be the primary design template for all future gepanzerter jäger armour within the Third Reich and its garrisons in occupied countries and nations.
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When Hot Toys announced and put up the Kerberos Panzer Jäger Protect Gear for order, I was surprise to say the least. To recap, Mamoru Oshii released a 1987 live-action feature film, The Red Spectacles, after the radio drama, While Waiting for the Red Spectacles, was broadcasted that same year. To round up the so-called "Watchdog of Hell" trilogy, Oshii later directed the first prequel, Stray Dog : Kerberos Panzer Cops in 1991 and wrote for the animate feature, Jin-Roh : The Wolf Brigade in 1999. The prequels were loosely based on the Kerberos Panzer Cops manga written by Oshii and illustrated by Kamui Fujiwara which were released in two parts, 1988 to 1990 and 1999 to 2000, later collected in various formats and revision. A sequel to the manga, Kerberos Saga : Rainy Dogs, was released in 2003 to 2005. The Kerberos Panzer Jäger radio drama was aired in 2006, detailing the event in Battle of Stalingrad which led to Germany victory in an alternate history of World War Two. In 2009, the Kerberos Panzer Cops: Tokyo War, a definitive mook with all the detail information, illustrations and background story was published by Gakken. I personally recommend this mook if you're a fan. If only I could "decipher" the Japanese language. The story was set in a dystopian, alternate history, post-World War Two Japan, which was briefly occupied by Germany whom won the war, revolving around the Kerberos Special Garrison, a paramilitary armed police force. While I did not watch the live movies, there are snippets of it on YouTube but left me un-impressed. Nor have I read the manga. But the Jin-Roh animated movie is great, with its heavily philosophical theme typical of Oshii. My personal main attraction to the Saga is of course the Protect Gear armour worn by the Kerberos, originally designed by Yutaka Izubuchi, with his signature "five dots/holes" on the helmet, and overall strong World War Two German era military design influence to it. Various types and designs were used throughout the saga. Kerberos Protect Gear is personally significant, in terms of nostalgia, as Dragon's Kerberos Panzer Cop : Stray Dog figure was amongst my first 1/6th figures. I went overboard when Takara released their Kerberos line, to the point of obsession. Anyhoo, this figure was first previewed by the famous customizer, KAZ, due to be released by Platz Hobby. The news then gradually disappeared and that's that. An image teaser was put up on the official Kerberos Saga website and again, it dissipated. According to whatever information available in English, it was the first Kerberos Protect Gear used by the Germans in the Battle of Stalingrad, called Spezial Panzer Anzug Typ. 34 "Wolfpeltz". Hot Toys released this figure under their Artist Series line, a second one after the Samurai Predator. According to the credits on the box, original sculptors are the famous Takayuki Takeya and Eisaku Kito, with original character design by Jun Suemi. Special thanks mentioned for KAZ and Kazuyoshi Hirose of Baroque Inc. Now, onto the figure. Honestly, for what is worth, it is kind of overpriced. The figure design is great, with a steel frame backpack, magnetized head sculpts, the un-masked one which reminds me of Ed Harris and another with lighted up feature. The armour plates are separated pieces and typical of me, I broke one of the backpack straps (darn it!). But the molded boots kinda make it hard for me to pose the figure. The nicely done figure diorama stand has magnetic points for the figure to stand on though. And it is taller than a standard figure, towering over the rest of the other Kerberos in my collection. In summary, it is nice, but somehow, somewhat, something is "lacking" in the figure when compare to the asking price. But the Kerberos Panzer Saga figures are now "complete". Separately, I now kinda hope for a Takayuki Takeya version of a certain Sith Lord in 1/6th scale...
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