Description

Battle of Kursk (operation "Zittadele") that took place in 1943 was final German attempt to keep strategic initiative on Eastern front. Germans regained their spirit (crushed after defeat at Stalingrad) after successful recapturing of Kharkov and hoped new powerful tanks Panthers and Tigers allow them to crush Russian defense. It took time to deploy new equipment to the battle which gave Soviets time to prepare deep defenses. On the other side Russian generals planned to slow and weaken attacking German forces and after they have no more offensive power launch Soviet counteroffensive.

German assault was formed by two pincers - one attacking from the North while the other from the South. German plan was to cut off Soviet forces (5 armies) in Kursk bulge and destroy them. North pincer was a bit weaker and faced much more condense defensive lines which took much more time to break through. Assaulting forces was successfully distracted on July 12th by Soviet offensive to the north of the Kursk salient that was aimed toward Orel - directly at the rear of the assaulting Germans.

On the south German forces was much more successful. After fierce combats they managed to break Soviet defenses and reached Obojan and Prokhorovka which was last Soviet defense before Kursk. Soviet forces was exhausted and suffered heavy losses during the battle (Soviet 5th Guards Army defending Prokhorovka was 50 tangs out of 650 that it had couple of days before). On July 12th ,although German commander - general Mainstein insisted on final push and break of Soviet defenses, Hitler - impressed by Allied invasion of Sicily and Soviet offensive towards Orel decided to abandon operation "Zittadele".

There are many myths that arose around the battle - mainly due to the fact that any real data available was kept confidential for a long time. It is fact that Germans did not break through Soviet lines but from recent historical materials it appears that Germans might have been very close to success. General Mainstein described the battle as German's lost victory - and, at least on the South, it looks like Germans were really close. Also German losses was extremely exaggerated (on July 11 - day of famous battle at Prokhorovka Germans lost around 48 tanks) while Soviet loses was tremendous. It looks like the battle could be won by Germans, but luckily other factors took the spirit of victory from Hitler just in time.