Bitter cold snow fell onto my face as I laid on the Tiger’s engine deck. My Stahlhelm was cold as ice, but I kept it on anyways. I felt the warmth slowly seep through my winter coat, though the newly issued body armor, and into my back. Oh, how good it felt to be able to be embraced by  the warmth. My small indulgence was cut short as the commander’s cupola opened up and Johannes, the loader, appeared.
 
>“Anon, get in already! It’s my turn, I'm freezing my ass off in here!” 

Before I could retort back, a heavy machine gun opened up on us from our 1 o’clock. As the first few rounds hit the tank and ricocheted off, adrenaline flooded my senses. I watched in bullet time as Johannes was cut in half by American fifty caliber rounds. As the turret traversed to get the 88 on target, the tank was struck in the forward drive wheel by an anti-tank round, catapulting me into an adjacent snowdrift. As I recovered and stood the 88 fired, the muzzle blast launching piles of snow onto me, and deafening me. 

Ears ringing, I caught a glimpse of the yellow glow of a 80mm rocket as it streaked towards the Tiger. Slamming into the side of the turret, it blew a hole straight through the spaced armor, and left a sizable dent in the turret armor. At this point, the logical side of my brain told me to stop staring in shock and run to the Tiger, and grab my Sturmgewehr IIIM and return fire. Sprinting through the waist-deep snow, I reached the Tiger under machinegun fire, and grabbed my rifle off of it’s magnetic rack. 

Grabbing the pouch next to the rack, I slung it over my back, checking it after sprinting a few yards away. 8 spare magazines of 7.92x51mm and 2 fragmentation stick grenades. I immediately sought cover behind the nearest tree, and attempted to return fire. I depressed the trigger, yet no recoil or muzzle flash appeared. Berating myself for forgetting to chamber a round, I pulled back on the charging handle, and released it, along with shifting the safety lever from ‘Safe' to ‘Semi’. 

Aiming down the 3x optic, I engaged what looked vaguely like a machinegun nest. In short bursts, I laid down suppressive fire. Then, a brilliant flash dislodged a pile of snow only a few yards to the right of where I was firing. Less than a second later, a shockwave hit me, from the round that hit the Tiger. A muffled explosion blew inside the tank, smoke billowing from every opening. I knew the rest of the crew were dead. Nicknamed the ‘Predator' round, it was a 76mm HEAT round that could be fired from almost any 76mm gun, provided it was the correct dimensions. Known to kill the ‘Big Cats’, it was a high velocity two stage warhead that had a 99% first hit knockout of the older tanks. 

>‘Shit, shit shit shit shit!’ I thought.

Rising up from my supported stance, I pulled one of the grenades from the pouch, armed it, and tossed it at the machine gun nest before sprinting away. As I took one last fleeting look at the nest, I saw my grenade go off - 10 yards short. I then clearly saw the outline of the .50 cal, rotating towards my direction, and saw one final, bright flash, before I felt something heavy strike my body armor, causing me to stumble, and fall into a snowdrift. My vision blurring, I could barely make out red blotches of snow, before I succumbed to the bitter cold.