[

The Northern Face

The real operation opened on 5 July 1943. The Red Army, now aware even of the exact time of the planned German offensive, launched a massive attack by the Soviet Air Force on the Luftwaffe airbases in the area, in an attempt to counter the classic German tactic of eliminating local air support within the first hour of operation. The next few hours turned into possibly the largest air operation ever fought.

The Red Army co-ordination of the attack had failed. Red Air Force fighters were dispatched too soon, arriving over German airbases before the arrival of the Red Air Force bomber forces, eventually retiring due to lack of fuel. The German fighters had nothing to prevent them from taking off and engaging the approaching attackers.^[11].The Red Air Force suffered the loss of 120 aircraft.^[12]

At Kursk, the Red Army constructed an elaborate defensive system. The core of each Red Army defensive position was its anti-tank defenses, organized into a network covered by the interlocking fires of multiple anti-tank guns.

The Luftwaffe directed an all out effort against Red Army positions on the northern flank during the first day of the operation, while Soviet deployment errors granted the Luftwaffe initial air-superiority. General-Leytenant Rudenko, unsure whether this was the major German attack, ordered only one-third of his fighter strength to engage the masses of German aircraft, while the rest stood down. The out-numbered Red Army units were engaged over their own rear-areas and suffered heavily. The German fighters had flown ahead of the bomber and Stuka units to prevent Red Army intervention over the battlefield. The unprotected Stuka and Kampfgruppen then began their assault on the Red Army positions unhindered. The Soviets fed their aerial strength in piecemeal and it suffered heavy losses.^[13] In the first three days of fighting over the northern flank Luftflotte 6 lost a total of 39 aircraft against Soviet losses of 386.^[14]

The 9th Army attack in the north fell far short of its objectives on July 5. The attack sector had been correctly anticipated by the Red Army Central Front. Attacking on a 45-kilometer-wide front, the Germans found themselves trapped in the huge defensive minefields, and needed engineering units to come up and clear them under artillery fire. Although a few Goliath and Borgward remote-control engineering vehicles were available to clear lanes in the minefields, they were not generally successful. Even when the vehicles cleared mines, they had no on-board marking system to show following tanks where the cleared lanes were. Red Army units covered the minefields with small arms and artillery fire, delaying and inflicting losses on German engineers clearing mines manually. Thus German losses in the Red Army minefields were high. For example, the German 653rd Heavy Panzerjäger Battalion began the attack with 49 Ferdinand self-propelled guns; 37 of them had been lost in the minefields before 17:00 on July 5. Although most of the lost vehicles were mobility kills rather than permanent losses, they were out of action until they could be repaired. While idle they added nothing to German combat power and were easier for Red Army artillery to knock out permanently. Since the Germans were advancing, any repairable vehicles could be fixed and put back into action.

There are a number of factors that explain the 9th Army’s lack of progress. The combination of Soviet defensive planning and, on the German side, the lack of concentration of force were the main factors. German armor was committed piecemeal rather than in strength and often without sufficient infantry support.^[15] Soviet defensive preparation was also a major factor. The Central Front under Marshal Rokossovskiy had correctly anticipated the likely areas of German attack and had fortified those areas very heavily, holding other areas more thinly. The 13th Army, which bore the brunt of the German attack, was far stronger in men and anti-tank guns than the other Central Front units, and indeed held the strongest defensive positions in the entire salient. A major planning error by the Soviet Supreme High Command and the General Staff was their expectation that the main weight of the German attack would come in the north on the Central Front. Thus they concentrated more strength there. Also, the Central front chose to defend the tactical zone (to a depth of 20 km) very heavily, leaving far fewer units in the depths of the defense. Model's army had fewer tanks than Manstein had in the south, and the 9th Army also committed major units piecemeal due to some disruption caused by the Soviet pre-emptive artillery barrage. Finally, the 9th Army led with reinforced infantry divisions that were already in the line facing the Red Army, rather than attacking with uncommitted units.

Review of attack frontages and depth of German penetration shows clearly that the Red Army defensive tactics were succeeding. Beginning with a 45-kilometer-wide attack frontage on July 5, on the 6th, the 9th Army attacked on a 40-kilometer front. This dropped to 15 kilometers wide by July 7, and only 2 kilometers each on July 8-9. Each day, the depth of the German advance slowed: 5 kilometers on the first day, 4 on the second, never more than 2 km each succeeding day. By the 10th, Ninth Army was stopped in its tracks.

After a week, the Wehrmacht had moved only 12 km forward, and on the 12th the Soviets launched their own offensive against the Second Panzer Army and the German Ninth Army at Orel. The situation became critical for the German forces, the 11th Guards Army could cut off both German Armies. The Luftwaffe was called upon to halt the offensive, and its actions proved decisive to saving the German armies from encirclement. The Luftwaffe organised a massive aerial offensive to blunt the threat. On 16 July the Luftwaffe flew 1,595 sorties, double that of the previous days.^[16] In daylight hours the Sturzkampfgeschwader and Schlachtgeschwader attacked Red Army armoured units while the Kampfgruppen targeted the rear-supply lines. Another 1,100 sorties were flown on 18 July. The Junkers Ju 87G units took a heavy toll of Red Army tank forces. So heavy were Soviet losses, the air attacks forced a Soviet retreat. The Soviet tanks that had managed to reach German positions had been quickly routed. The 1st Tank Corps had only 33 tanks remaining on 20 July.^[17].^[18] Model sent a message to von Greim thanking him, "the Luftwaffe's intervention was absolutely decisive to prevent a second, more disastrous Stalingrad".^[19]

The 9th Army had to withdraw, their part in the offensive over. Because the German armor was not concentrated and used with the same intensity as in the South, the German armor losses were comparatively light - 143 armored vehicles were total losses in the period July 5 -14 1943.^[20] However, this failed to keep up with the steady influx of new soldiers and matériel for the Red Army. Few Red Army guns were captured, and those Red Army units that did retreat did so on orders. The German attack failed to penetrate beyond the Red Army tactical zone.

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Southern Face

German advance in the South

In the south, the Voronezh Front fared less well against the 4th Panzer Army with its LII Corps, XLVIII Panzer Corps and II SS Panzer Corps. The II SS Panzer Corps attacked on a narrower frontage against two Red Army rifle regiments. The armored spearhead of Hoth's 4th Panzer Army forced its way forward, and by the 6th had reached some 15 km past the lines. Again, Red Army planning played a big role. In the south the Red Army had not been able to pinpoint the German attack sectors; this forced them to spread out their defenses more evenly. For example, three of the four Armies of the Voronezh Front had about 10 antitank guns per kilometer of front; this contrasts sharply with the Central Front's distribution of guns, which was twice as heavy in the active sectors. Also, the Voronezh Front made the decision to hold the tactical zone much more thinly, leaving a much higher proportion of units in deeper positions compared to the Central Front. Finally, the Voronezh Front was weaker than the Central Front, yet it faced much stronger German forces.

The German forces made steady progress against the Red Army defenses, but, as in the north, attack frontages (width) and penetration depth tended to drop as the attack proceeded. The trend was not as marked as in the north, however. Beginning with a 30-kilometer-wide attack frontage on July 5, this dropped to 20-kilometers wide by July 7 and 15 km by July 9. Likewise, the depth of the penetration dropped from 9 km on July 5 to 5 km on July 8 and 2-3 km each day thereafter until the attack was cancelled.

Red Army minefields and artillery were again successful in delaying the German attack and inflicting losses. The ability of dug-in Red Army units to delay the Germans was vital to allow their own reserves to be brought up into threatened sectors. Over 90,000 additional mines were laid during the operations by small mobile groups of engineers, generally working at night immediately in front of the expected German attack areas. There were no large-scale captures of prisoners nor any great loss of artillery, again indicating that Soviet units were giving ground in good order.

German losses can be seen in the example of the Großdeutschland Division, which began the operation with 118 tanks. On July 10, after five days of fighting, the division reported it had 3 Tigers, 6 Panthers, and 11 Pzkw-III and Pzkw-IV tanks operational. XLVIII Panzer Corps reported, overall, 38 Panthers operational with 131 awaiting repair, out of the 200 it started with on July 5.

Nevertheless, it was obvious that the threat of a German breakthrough in the south had to be reckoned with. The Steppe Front had been formed in the months prior to the operation as a central reserve for such an eventuality. Units of the Steppe Front began movement to the south as early as July 9. This included the 5th Guards Tank Army and other combined-arms armies.

The German flank, however, stood unprotected as the Red Army 7th Guards Army stalled Kempf's divisions, aided by heavy rain, after the Germans had crossed the Donets River. The 5th Guards Tank Army, reinforced with two additional Tank Corps, moved into positions to the east of Prokhorovka and had started to prepare a counterattack of their own when II SS Panzer Corps arrived and an intense struggle ensued. The Red Army managed to halt the SS—but only just. Little now stood in the way of the 4th Panzer Army, and a German breakthrough looked like a very real possibility. The Soviets therefore decided to deploy the rest of 5th Guards Tank Army.

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Prokhorovka

Main article: Battle of Prokhorovka

Memorial on Prokhorovka Field

On the morning of July 12, II SS Panzer Corps advanced on Prokhorovka at the same time that 5th Guards Tank Army launched a series of attacks as part of multi-front counteroffensive scheduled for July 12 and in an attempt to catch the Germans off balance. The SS and Guards units collided west of Prokhorovka in open country punctuated by farms, rolling hills and gullies. What happened next is open to debate with the release of new information from archives.

The battle can best be described as a very costly tactical loss but an operational draw for the Red Army. Neither the 5th Guards Tank Army nor the II SS Panzer Corps accomplished their missions that day. Tank losses have been a contentious subject ever since. Red Army losses have been claimed as low as 200 or as high as 822 tanks, but the loss records now show that they were probably from 150 to 300 complete losses, with a similar number damaged. Likewise, German loss claims have reached as low as 80 or into the hundreds, including "dozens" of Tigers. This number is impossible to establish because of the German philosophy in counting lost tanks. The number of complete losses for the period 10 July-13 July for the LSSAH and Das Reich divisions was three. Additional to that is an unknown number of damaged tanks, many of which would have been lost in repair depots during the subsequent retreat as a consequence of the Red Army post-Kursk counteroffensive Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev. Nipe puts the number of operational tank reductions in the whole Corps at 70-80, but it is unclear how many of these would have been in short-term or long-term repair. In any event, the losses for both the II SS Panzer Corps and the 5th Guards Tank Army in the “greatest tank battle of all time,” fell short of the mythic proportions sometimes attributed to the Prokhorovka engagement.

[

The End in the South

Significantly, earlier in the operation the attacking German units had been squeezed into ever-narrowing frontages by the defenders. Elite Red Army Guards Airborne units were holding firm on the flanks of the very narrow German penetration. The Germans could not squeeze many units into this narrow front, nor did they have the combat power to widen the penetration. Thus as the attacking Corps moved forward, they continually lost strength due to the need to hold their own flanks.

While the German offensive had been stopped in the north by July 10, in the south the overall operation of Citadel still hung in the balance, even after July 12. German forces on the southern wing, exhausted and heavily depleted, nevertheless had breached the first two defensive belts and believed (wrongly) that they were about to break through the last belt. In fact at least five more defensive zones awaited them, although they were not as strong as the initial belts (and some of them did not have troops deployed). Red Army defenders had been weakened, and major parts of their reserve forces had been committed. Still, the available uncommitted Red Army reserves were far larger than the few available German reserves.

[

Hitler cancels the operation

On the night of July 9/10, the Western Allies mounted an amphibious invasion of Sicily. Three days later, Hitler summoned von Kluge and von Manstein to his Wolfsschanze headquarters in East Prussia and declared his intention to "temporarily" call off Operation Zitadelle. Von Manstein attempted to dissuade him, arguing that Zitadelle was on the brink of victory. Hitler gave von Manstein a few more days to continue the offensive, but on 17 July he cancelled the operation and ordered the entire SS Panzer Korps to be transferred to Italy.

Hitler's decision to call off the operation at the height of the tactical battle has since been strongly criticized by German generals in their memoirs, and also by some historians. For example, it has been pointed out that the SS Panzer Korps would have taken three months to be transferred to Sicily, and thus could not possibly have affected the outcome there, while its contribution to the Kursk operation was vital.^[21] Other scholars, however, are of the opinion that Zitadelle had already clearly failed and that Hitler was right in canceling the operation, if not for the right reasons.^{[citation needed]}

In any event, only one German division, 1st SS Panzer Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, departed for Italy without their equipment, the others remaining behind in the USSR to try and stem the Red Army counteroffensive launched in the wake of the failed German offensive.

[

Red Army counteroffensives

Main articles: Operation Kutuzov and Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev

Operation Kutuzov, the Red Army counteroffensive at Orel, decisively changed the situation. German Ninth Army units had to be redeployed to resist this attack instead of continuing their own offensive; units from the southern pincer were given warning orders on July 15 to withdraw back to the start lines held on July 4. The purpose of the withdrawal was to shorten the front, enabling the Germans to re-form a reserve.

To the south the Red Army needed more time to re-group after the losses sustained in July, and could not launch its counteroffensive again until 3 August when Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev commenced. Aided by diversionary attacks on the Mius river further south, the Red Army took von Manstein's hard-won Belgorod. Fireworks in Moscow marked the capture of Belgorod and Orel, a celebration that henceforward became an institution with the recapture of each Soviet city. On 11 August the Red Army reached Kharkov, a city Hitler had sworn to defend at all costs. The German units had reduced manpower and shortages of equipment.

[

Counter offensives end

A cathedral on the Field of Prokhorovka. It commemorates the Red Army victory in the battle of the 5th Guards Tank Army

Field Marshal von Manstein believed the outcome of the offensive phase of Kursk to be much more grey than black and white. For although the Germans were forced to withdraw, the Germans “managed to, at least, partly destroy the mobile units of the enemy’s operational reserves.” However, despite the losses it suffered in the defensive phase of the Kursk operations, the Red Army managed to go over to a very successful offensive within two weeks, pushing the Germans back to the Dnieper and towards western Ukraine, and Manstein saw the overall campaign as a disaster for the Germans.

By 22 August, utter exhaustion had affected both sides, and the operations of the Kursk Bulge ended. It was followed by a series of successful Red Army operations that led to the crossing of the Dnieper, and the liberation of Kiev during the autumn of 1943.

The campaign was a decisive Soviet success. For the first time, a major German offensive had been stopped prior to achieving a breakthrough. The Germans, despite using more technologically advanced armor than previous years, were unable to break through the in-depth defenses of the Red Army, and were surprised by the significant operational reserves available to the Red Army in these operations. This was an outcome that few confidently predicted, and it changed the pattern of operation on the eastern front. The victory had not been cheap however. The Red Army, although preventing the Germans from achieving the goals of Citadel, lost considerably more men and matériel than the Wehrmacht.

German casualties listed in German sources during the operation-proper (as opposed to the following Red Army counter-offensives north and south of the salient) in the period 5 to 20 July 1943 were between 50,000^[22] and 57,000.^[23] German tank write-offs were between 278^[24] and 323.^[25] Yet the numbers of destroyed tanks alone does not tell the entire story. For example, Zetterling and Frankson list only 33 tanks destroyed for the three divisions of the SS Panzer Corps as of 17 July, but the number of operational tanks on 17 July as of 19:15 had dropped by 139, leading one to assume that 106 tanks were damaged and not able to take part in the battle, at least temporarily.^[26] Red Army casualties were 177,847 as listed in Krivosheev.^[27] However, Restayn and Moller point out^[28] that Krivosheev's figures for Central Front strength show a decline in strength during the period 5 to 11 July 1943 of approximately 92,700, of which only 33,897 are accounted for as dead or wounded with no explanation given for the further 58,893 losses. Restayn and Moller consider that the missing 58,893 should be accounted for as casualties, in which case total Red Army casualties in this period would be approximately 235,000 (ie 177,847 plus 58,893). Red Army armor losses, again according to Krivosheev, were 1,614 tanks and assault guns destroyed.^[29]

From this point on, a new pattern emerged. The initiative had firmly passed to the Red Army, while the Germans spent the rest of the war reacting to their moves. A new front had opened in Italy, diverting some of Germany's resources and attention. Both sides had their losses, but only the Soviets had the manpower and the industrial production to recover fully. The Germans never regained the initiative after Kursk and never again launched a major offensive in the East.

Moreover, the loss further convinced Hitler of the incompetence of his General Staff. He continued his interference in military matters progressively, so that by war's end he was involved in tactical decisions. The opposite applied to Stalin, however. After seeing Stavka's planning justified on the battlefield, he trusted his advisors more, and stepped back from operational planning, only rarely overruling military decisions.

Predictable results ensued for both sides: the German Army went from loss to loss as Hitler attempted personally to micromanage the day-to-day operations of what soon became a three-front war, while the Red Army gained more freedom and became more and more fluid as the war continued.

[

Notes

[

Bibliography

• The role of intelligence in Soviet military strategy in World War II, Presidio Press, Novato, ISBN 0891413804
• Bergström, Christer (2007). Kursk - The Air Battle: July 1943. Chervron/Ian Allen. ISBN 978-1-903223-88-8.. 
• Glantz, David M.; Jonathan M. House (2004). The Battle of Kursk. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 0700613358. 
• Glantz, David M.; Harold S. Orenstein (1999). The Battle for Kursk 1943: The Soviet General Staff Study. Frank Cass. ISBN 0714649333. 
• Krivosheev, Grigoriy (1997). Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the twentieth century. London: Greenhill Books. ISBN 1853672807. 
• Manstein, Erich von (2000). Verlorene Siege (in German). Monch. ISBN 3763752536. 
• Mawdsley, Evan (2007). Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941-1945. A Hodder Arnold Publication. ISBN 0340613920. 
• Mulligan, Timothy P. (1987). "Spies, Ciphers and 'Zitadelle': Intelligence and the Battle of Kursk, 1943" (pdf). Journal of Contemporary History 22 (2): 235-260. doi:10.1177/002200948702200203. 
• Newton, Stephen H. (2003). Kursk: The German View. Westview Press. ISBN 0306811502. 
• Nipe, George (1996). Decision In the Ukraine, Summer 1943, II. SS and III. Panzerkorps. J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing Inc.. ISBN 0921991355. 
• Restayn, J.; N. Moller (2002). Operation "Citadel", A Text and Photo Album, Volume 1: The South. J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing Inc.. ISBN 0921991703. 
• Restayn, J.; N. Moller (2006). Operation "Citadel", A Text and Photo Album, Volume 2: The North. J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing Inc.. ISBN 092199172X. 
• Robbins, David L. (2004). Last Citadel. Orion mass market paperback. ISBN 0752859250. 
• Zetterling, Niklas; Anders Frankson (2000). Kursk 1943: A statistical analysis. Routledge. ISBN 0714650528. 

[

External links

• Battle of Kursk in Images
• Battle of Kursk
• (Russian) Battle of Kursk, a lot of information on the official website of the Ministry of Defense of Russian Federation.
• Remson, Andrew and Anderson, Debbie. "Mine and Countermine Operations in the Battle of Kursk", 25 April 2000 (Prepared for the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command)
• A Review Essay: Books on the Battle of Kursk
• The Battle of Kursk: Myths and Reality
• Kursk battle map
• Pictures of the battle - a Soviet view
• Battle of Kursk on the Web (directory)
• "Soviet Defensive Tactics at Kursk, July 1943" by Col. David M. Glantz for the Combat Studies Institute (1986)
• Russia and the USSR in wars of the XX century by G. F. Krivosheev (in Russian)
• Kursk - Raw Data to Download Information from the US Army KOSAVE II study on the southern face battle.
• German newsreels showing the Battle of Kursk
• Kursk from a website on Zhukov

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