A fly crawled across his right cheek but he paid it no attention. Hans Schmidt was peering over his commanders cupola scouring the surrounding landscape. To his side a Panzer IV and Marder III were keeping his flanks covered so he concentrated ahead trying to make out anything that could be the shape of an enemy tank destroyer. HQ reported several Sherman’s along with a tank destroyer detachment in the area. The Sherman’s weren’t worrying him though. With his sloped 80mm thick frontal armour he knew that it would be a lucky shot from a Sherman to give him any trouble. The M18 was another story though. It was for them that he was anxiously viewing the hedge rows ahead.

He called down to his driver, Alphonso, to get the mighty Jagdpanther into gear and to start a cautious advance. Gears creaked and the engine roared, the Jagdpanther ploughed ahead straight through the hedgerow, narrowly missing a cow that bolted away from the tank as soon as it appeared. Now it was time to rinse and repeat, there were several hedges ahead. This was going to take a while.

Suddenly a piercing crash deafened Hans, followed by the smell of burning engine oil. a large calibre shell had just pierced a weak point in the lower frontal armour damaging the drive shaft. Hans called through the intercom to Alphonso to find out what the damage was, hoping he was still alive down there. All the while he was furiously scanning the surrounding hedgerows and the cluster of idyllic French cottages in front of him. He had let his guard down momentarily and couldn’t see where the shot had come from. He breathed a sigh of relief as Alphonso’s voice came back over the intercom letting him know that the tank was still operational, however he was having trouble getting the tank in and out of gear.

Finally, his keen-eyed watching paid off. A dark shape poked around the corner of a nearby cottage. Hans recognised it immediately. He wasn’t happy though. The shell that had damaged his drive shaft couldn’t have come from the Sherman’s piddly low velocity 75mm gun. He yelled down to the gunner to take aim however, as the Sherman was the only enemy in view for the moment. A loud boom and a shudder as the suspension took the brunt of the recoil followed, but disappointingly the shell missed the Sherman by a large margin. Instead it went crashing into the nearby house with a cloud of smoke from the falling debris.

The supporting Panzer IV commanded by the illustrious Johan at this moment had driven past him at a blistering pace and let off a couple of shots in quick succession. Several fireballs appeared suddenly only 100 yards in front of Hans. He exhaled quickly, what a relief. He hadn’t even seen one of the targets now engulfed in flames in front of him. The relief was short lived however. Only moments later the Panzer IV had its turn. Black smoke belched from the engine compartment and he saw several of the crew bail out and make a run for it. He hoped Johan was one of them. He had been a fine officer to fight with.

Out of nowhere an M18 suddenly appeared. It was driving at a crazy speed considering the terrain it was crossing. It was driving in a slowly closing spiral with Hans’ Jagdpanther at the centre of it. Frantically he called down to Alphonso to start turning as fast as he could. At this stage he couldn’t even concern himself with exposing his flank to other unseen targets. The M18 was closing rapidly and engrossed his full attention. He called down to Hewitt, his gunner, to fire a shot off. Moments later Hewitt fired, but in his haste he missed the M18 from almost point blank range. Sheizer! Adolf, the loader, hurriedly loaded a fresh shell into the breach, giving Hewitt a chance to fire off another shell at the last moment. Hans held his breath, the timing of this shot was everything. A miss would let the M18 flank them with an inevitable result. It was as if time stood still. The frantic yells from the crew, the roaring of the engine as the tank pivoted on the spot. Finally, the gun roared, and the shells aim was true. It smashed into the engine compartment of the tank destroyer immediately causing it to erupt in a fireball. Hans felt his heart beating in his chest. That was the closest call he’d ever had.