Mendel's 9th Army Group's First Armored Division had just received a batch of long-barreled Panzer IVs—officially designated as Panzer IV F2 models.
When Mendel's counterattack order came, the division, besides the freshly arrived 25 Panzer IV F2s, had only 45 tanks ready for combat; the others were undergoing routine maintenance.
This was because Major General Hansen had ordered a complete tank engine cleaning for the division just the day before yesterday. It was an extremely strenuous task, requiring the engines to be dismantled and thoroughly dusted—regular field maintenance would only clean the filters at the engine intakes, leaving dust and even sand to accumulate inside the engines.
Given the poor road conditions in Ante, where tanks would stir up a great deal of dust, not cleaning the engines would lead to a surge in breakdowns, so the division commander's order had been sound.
It was just bad luck that it clashed with the Ante people's counterattack.
