Re: Blood and Iron

Somewhere in the foothills of the Pyrenees, near the old smugglers’ trails

The cold night air lay heavy across the hills, wrapping itself around twisted oaks and gnarled rocks like a damp shroud.

Far below, a winding road cut through the darkness, intermittently lit by the dim yellow beams of convoy lamps.

French tanks rumbled along in uneven columns; sleek by French standards, armored hulls sloped at newly experimental angles, turrets bristling with 47mm cannons.

These were older tanks designed to compete with the Panzer I in the years after the Great War, and were still the primary armored fighting vehicle in the French Arsenal.

Flanking them were a small number of heavy tanks with 75mm Guns. Freshly off of Paris’s production lines.

The AMC-32s were flanked by trucks loaded with crates of shells, barrels of petrol, and men packed shoulder to shoulder, rifles resting on tired knees.

Above them, nestled among sharp crags and terraces of frostbitten grass, lay the Werwolf Group.

They were scattered in disciplined fire teams, their dark silhouettes broken by local wool cloaks and rough Catalan sashes.

From a distance they might have passed for Nationalist irregulars, another local militia eager to fight the reds.

Up close, the truth revealed itself: Khakigrau webbing cinched tight over homemade jackets, magazine pouches laden with 30-round bakelite magazines whose baseplates were stamped with German codes.

Each man’s rifle was a sleek hybrid of older German wartime brilliance and new postwar refinements.

Shorter than a Mauser, deadlier than any bolt-action ever dreamed. Optics glinted under moonlight, fixed 4x sights with etched BDC reticles capable of engaging targets out to 600 meters.

At the rear, heavier figures moved, dragging long shapes covered in tarp.

Panzerfausts with these bore reinforced tubes, a tighter venturi, and finned warheads designed to punch through armor that had not yet made it to the world stage.

Fritz lay prone behind a scatter of broken limestone, scope fixed on the lead tank.

His finger rested lightly against the trigger of his carbine, breath slow and steady. A hundred meters down the rocky slope, Kurt hefted one of the launchers onto his shoulder, thumb brushing over the safety.

“Patience,” Fritz hissed over the radio, his voice a whisper through the throat mic. “Wait for them to bunch at the hairpin. Gasoline trucks are too close to the armor. All at once.”

Down below, a French officer sat half out of a turret hatch, scanning the dark hills with a tired arrogance.

His men were volunteers in theory, paid professionals in reality; Paris and its new regime were desperate to overthrow Alfonso, fearing that any monarch in this day and age was liable to side with Germany.

They trusted their new tanks. They trusted the weight of French steel. Hell, they even trusted the older model tanks. It was not like the Werwolf Group was operating heavy armor in the region.

They should not have.

Kurt exhaled. “Now?”

A nod from Fritz, slow and deliberate. “Do it.”

The first shot split the night with a brutal thump, the backblast lighting the rocks in hellish orange.

The warhead sailed in a shallow arc, struck the lead tank just beneath its angular mantlet; and burst into a blossom of molten copper and shattered rivets.

The AMC-32 rocked back, the turret flinging open like a broken jaw. Flames jetted out its vision slits, crawling greedily across the engine deck.

A heartbeat later, machine guns opened up along the ridge. MG-42s barked in a feral chorus, tracers whipping down into trucks, stitching red lines across canvas tops and men’s backs alike.

French soldiers tumbled from the beds of lorries, some trying to crawl, others silent and limp.

The convoy panicked. A second RPG round slammed into a gasoline bowser mid-column, erupting in a geyser of fire that lit half the valley.

Shadowy Werwolf shapes sprinted forward through the reflected glow, shifting positions, rifles raised.

Bursts of automatic fire cracked out, precise and methodical, cutting down any who tried to flee into the ditches.

Fritz lined up his reticle on a cluster of men who had taken cover behind a stalled staff car. His first shot snapped one man’s shoulder apart.

The second put another down as he tried to crawl. The rest broke, running right into another waiting kill team that cut them down with short, disciplined bursts.

By the time the Werwolf operators began pulling back, French cries had dwindled to wet moans and sporadic pistol shots in the dark.

A final RPG barked from the far ridge, catching a retreating armored car broadside and flipping it into a ditch.

Fritz crouched by Kurt as they began their withdrawal, reloading under the stars.

“Poor bastards thought they were coming here to test their republic’s new toys,” Kurt muttered, voice shaking only slightly with adrenaline.

Fritz allowed himself a thin grin. “They did. Test is complete. Failed.”

Then they melted back into the rocky folds of Catalonia, leaving only smoking wrecks and the quiet stench of burned fuel behind them.

—

French Forward Command Post, Southern France

The small farmhouse outside Perpignan had been commandeered by the French Republican Army three days prior.

Its wooden floors were covered in maps, field phones, and crumpled packets of Gauloises. Oil lamps guttered in the drafts, struggling to hold the dark at bay.

A junior signals officer nearly tripped over his own boots as he scrambled into the main parlor.

“Mon général! Urgent transmission from the 9th Mechanized; routed through Toulouse, heavily degraded but… you must hear this.”

General Dufort, heavyset and red-eyed from too many sleepless nights, snatched the receiver with an impatient growl.

“This is Dufort. Report.”

The line crackled, hissing with static. Then a panicked voice burst through, clipped by distance and fear:

“—repeat, contact with hostile irregulars in the foothills outside Ripoll! They had.. god, they had… Fuck I don’t know what they had. I just know it wasn’t local made. They walked right through our flank like it was… like it was straw! Columns burning, the entire convoy scattered! We tried to regroup but they… they hunted us in pairs, with machine guns; accurate fire, not some peasant rabble. Sir, permission to—”

The transmission cut into a howl of interference. Then, faintly, a last garbled shout:

“—wearing no insignia; we think… Werwolf. Not Spaniards. Not even close.”

Dufort slammed the handset down, face gone pale beneath his mustache. He turned to his staff, eyes sweeping across the cluster of nervous aides and grim colonels.

“Prepare a communiqué to General de Gaulle immediately. Inform him our columns near the Pyrenees have come under direct assault by forces too disciplined, too well equipped to be mere Catalan militias. Mention… Werwolf, if only so Paris begins to grasp the danger.”

He let out a long, slow breath.

“And God help us if they decide to cross the border outright. Because there’s not a damned thing on this side of the mountains that will stop them.”

Outside, a cold wind blew down from the Pyrenees, carrying with it the acrid scent of distant fires.

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