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The title of Martin Caidin’s 1974 historical past of the Battle of Kursk remains to be evocative, with its imagery of Nazi Germany’s vaunted Tiger tanks in flames.
Tigers burning brightly are only one legend of the epic July 1943 battle between Germany and Russia. There are a lot of extra: The Biggest Tank Battle in Historical past, the Turning Level of World Battle II, The Demise Trip of the Panzers, Russian tanks ramming German tanks in a mechanized orgy of destruction….
All very colourful, and all principally or partly unfaithful.
Kursk is the Santa Claus and Easter Bunny of World Battle II battles, whose widespread historical past was constructed from German and Soviet propaganda, and primarily based on early accounts missing very important data buried in Russian archives till after the autumn of the Soviet Union. Kursk was certainly an epic battle, that pitted 3 million German and Soviet troopers and eight,000 tanks, all crammed right into a small portion of southern Russia.
After the catastrophe at Stalingrad in February 1943, the Pink Military pushed the Germans again all the best way throughout southern Russia, till a Panzer counteroffensive in March halted the Russian advance. As spring mud and mutual exhaustion introduced operations to a detailed, the entrance traces solidified with a 120-mile-wide Russian salient bulging into German traces close to town of Kursk.
Germany had a selection: wait to be hammered by one other offensive from the Russian steamroller, or take the initiative by launching its personal offensive. In the meantime, the clock was ticking after the November 1942 Western Allied landings in North Africa signaled that Germany would quickly be compelled to separate its armies between Japanese and Western Europe.
In 1941, Germany had been robust sufficient to assault on a thousand-mile-front from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Now the Germans may solely muster sufficient troops to focus on a slim sector. An apparent goal was the Kursk salient, so apparent actually that any Russian normal with a map may guess the German goal (as well as, Moscow was tipped off by the “Lucy”). In impact, Kursk was the primary Battle of the Bulge, however on a a lot bigger scale than the People confronted in December 1944.
Prime commanders akin to Erich Von Manstein needed to assault in Could, earlier than the Soviets had time to dig in and reinforce the salient. However a nervous and indecisive Hitler determined to postpone Operation Citadel till July, to permit time to deploy his vaunted new Panther, Tiger and Elefant tanks. Whereas the large cats lumbered off the railroad vehicles close to the entrance traces, the Germans managed to amass almost 800,000 males, 3,000 tanks, 10,000 weapons and mortars, and a couple of,000 plane. It could be the final time the Germans may focus such an assault drive (by comparability, on the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans had 400,000 males and 600 tanks). But as typical, the Germans have been outnumbered. They confronted 1.9 million Soviet troopers, 5,000 tanks, 25,000 weapons and mortars and greater than 3,000 plane.
Citadel was a prophetic title for the German offensive. The Soviets used the additional time to construct an extremely dense protection system of a number of layers of fortifications, together with trenches, bunkers, tank traps and machine gun nests 25 miles deep, in addition to minefields that averaged greater than 3,000 mines per kilometer.
Kursk was not an imaginative battle. The Germans attacked an apparent goal, the Soviets fortified the plain goal, and the German offensive on July 4, 1943 was a standard pincer transfer in opposition to the north and south base of the salient to chop off the defenders inside. Regardless of assist by 89 Elefants (a Porsche model of the Tiger that the German military rejected), the northern pincer shortly slowed down after advancing just some miles. However the southern pincer, led by the II SS Panzer Corps, managed to advance 20 miles to the city of Prokhorovka, till its advance was checked by the Soviet Fifth Guards Tank Military.
On July 10, Anglo-American troops landed on the seashores of Sicily. Two days later Hitler knowledgeable his generals that he was canceling the offensive and transferring the SS Panzer divisions to Italy, to repel any Allied landings on the Italian peninsula.
The German offensive was over. However the Soviets had solely simply begun. Stavka, the Soviet excessive command, used primarily the identical trick that had labored at Stalingrad. It waited till the Germans had concentrated their forces at Kursk, and exhausted themselves in opposition to the Russian defenses. Then the Pink Military launched a counteroffensive that punctured the weakly held German traces at Orel, north of Kursk, and Belgorod to the south. Thus the Germans discovered their pincer operation squeezed on both facet by a Soviet pincers, in yet one more masterful instance of the Soviet present for timing a number of offensives to maintain the Germans off stability.
As they’d do for the subsequent 22 months, the Germans retreated. The Battle of Kursk was over. The battle over the historical past of Kursk was not.
So let’s explode a few of the hype about Kursk:
There have been a lot of flaming tanks at Kursk. They have been principally Russian. Loss estimates for Kursk are fuzzy, however historians David Glantz and Jonathan Home estimate the Germans misplaced 323 tanks destroyed, or about 10 % of the tanks dedicated to the offensive (and a fraction of the 12,000 tanks and self-propelled weapons the Third Reich inbuilt 1943). Many German tanks broken by mines or Soviet weapons, or that broke down, have been subsequently recovered.
The Soviets misplaced no less than 1,600 tanks, a 5:1 ratio in Germany’s favor. The Germans most likely misplaced 45 tanks at Prokhovoka, most of which have been subsequently recovered and repaired. The Soviets could have misplaced 300 tanks destroyed and one other 300 broken, a 15:1 ratio in Germany’s favor.
As for Tigers at Kursk, the Germans deployed 146. Solely 6 have been destroyed.
Provided that the German offensive bumped into maybe probably the most in depth fortified zone in historical past, after which fought in opposition to the numerically superior Soviet tank drive, Panzer losses have been remarkably gentle. It was the German infantry, which as in most armies took probably the most casualties and acquired the least glory, that was roughly dealt with at Kursk.
2. Kursk was not a turning level of the battle:
The Germans may blame their defeats at Moscow and Stalingrad on the Russian winter, overstretched provide traces and incompetent Rumanian and Italian allies. Kursk demonstrated that the Pink Military may maintain its personal in opposition to absolutely rested and outfitted German troops combating in good climate. Extra necessary, Kursk confirmed that the momentum on the Japanese Entrance had modified. From June 1941 till July 1943, the tempo of the Russo-German battle was principally decided by German offensives and Soviet responses. After Kursk, the Germans remained on the defensive, their elite Panzer divisions continually transferring up and down the Japanese Entrance to plug Soviet breakthroughs and rescue encircled German troops.
But the momentum on the Japanese Entrance had already shifted six months earlier at Stalingrad, the place a complete German military, and a number of other hundred thousand German and satellite tv for pc troops, have been erased from the Axis order of battle. Kursk was bloody: the German offensive alone value 54,000 Germans and 178,000 Soviet casualties — but there have been no main encirclements or surrenders. Kursk was a battle of attrition quite than decisive maneuver. Each armies have been broken but each remained intact.
The Pink Military had grow to be too competent to let the German Panzers slice and cube them as in 1941. And except Germany may win the type of victories it achieved in 1941, and stuffed the POW cages with one million Soviet prisoners, it’s laborious to see how Kursk may have been decisive. If the Germans had destroyed just a few Soviet divisions and eradicated the Kursk salient, the Soviets would merely have rebuilt their energy and attacked elsewhere. By 1943, there have been merely not sufficient German troops to overcome the Soviet Union or to solidly defend a thousand-mile entrance.
3. Prokhorovka was not the Biggest Tank Battle in Historical past:
The assembly engagement between the II SS Panzer Corps and the fifth Guards Tank Military at Prokhorovka has been lauded as historical past’s best tank battle, most likely as a result of it concerned SS Panzer divisions and a handful of Tigers. The precise battle solely pitted about 300 German tanks in opposition to roughly 800 Soviet autos. The largest tank battle in historical past could also be Dubna, in June 1941, the place 750 German tanks defeated 3,500 Soviet autos.
4. The Pink Military was nonetheless not so good as the German Military:
The Pink Military in 1943 had come a good distance since its pitiful efficiency in 1941-42. However regardless of the postwar propaganda, Kursk confirmed the Soviets nonetheless had an extended solution to go. As Russian Kursk skilled Valeriy Zamulin demonstrates in “Demolishing the Fable: The Tank Battle at Prokhorovka, Kursk, July 1943,” Soviet tactical efficiency was clumsy and troop morale was brittle. Although the Pink Air Drive was in a position to present some assist, its efficiency was additionally missing: for instance, a shock strike on German airfields on July 5 shortly become a turkey shoot for the Luftwaffe fighter aces.
Army principle holds that the attacker ought to outnumber the defender three-to-one, and that combating by way of dense fortifications will render an assault ever extra expensive. The very fact was that the Germans have been outnumbered at Kursk, and fought by way of a number of trench traces and minefields, but inflict 3 times as many casualties and destroy 3 times as tanks and plane because the Germans themselves misplaced.
5. It was the Soviet counteroffensive that bled the Germans:
Accounts of Kursk are likely to give attention to the dramatic German assault and determined Soviet protection. But as was the case all through the battle, German losses have been comparatively gentle so long as they remained on the offensive, the place they may use their abilities for battlefield flexibility and improvisation to the utmost. It was when the Germans have been on the protection, the place they’d much less room to maneuver and have been susceptible to large artillery barrages, that they tended to take heavy casualties.
The Germans misplaced about 50,000 males throughout their tried breakthrough. They could have suffered one other 150,000 casualties through the twin Soviet offensives — Operations Kutuzov and Rumyantsev — in mid-July by way of August. German tank losses weren’t extreme throughout their offensive, however as soon as the lengthy retreat to the Reich started, gear incessantly needed to be deserted or blown up.
6. Soviet tanks did not ram German tanks at Kursk:
The story might be apocryphal. Even contemplating the Pink Military’s bravery and self-discipline, attempting to ram one other tank earlier than it blows you to smithereens can be an act of battlefield Darwinism.
7. Kursk was an Anglo-American victory in addition to a Soviet one:
Simply because the SS Panzers have been about to realize a decisive breakthrough — or so Von Manstein claimed — an Anglo-American amphibious drive landed on Sicily. Hitler known as off Operation Citadel and transferred the SS Panzer divisions to Italy. The timing was coincidental. The Anglo-People did not land on Sicily to assist the Soviets at Kursk, nor may they’ve mounted a big amphibious invasion on such quick discover. However the sensible impact was to attract German troops from the Japanese Entrance at a vital time.
Pointing this out takes nothing away from the bravery and talent of the Pink Military, any extra that it disparages the Western Allies to level out that the Soviets fought and destroyed the majority of the German military. However in the present day, as America and Russia confront each other, it’s price remembering there was a time when each nations cooperated to avoid wasting the world from a brand new Darkish Ages.
Supply: The Nationwide Curiosity
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