Battle of Kursk
The Germans attacked a Soviet salient at Kursk in July 1943 and lost the strategic initiative on the eastern front permanently. The salient was an obvious target — a bulge some 150 miles across left by the winter fighting — and the obviousness is the problem. Hitler postponed the offensive from May to July to accumulate new Panther and Tiger tanks, and the Soviets used the time. They knew the plan through their intelligence networks and built defences to a depth of some 190 miles: eight belts of trenches, over a million mines, anti-tank strongpoints sited to draw armour into crossfire, and 1.3 million men with a strategic reserve behind them. The Soviet artillery fired a spoiling bombardment onto the German assembly areas before the attack even started. The northern pincer got about nine miles in a week. The southern one under Manstein did better and reached Prokhorovka on 12 July, where several hundred tanks fought at close range in dust and smoke in an action long described as the largest tank battle ever and since revised down considerably in both numbers and Soviet success. The Allies landed in Sicily on 10 July, and Hitler called off the offensive. The Soviets then launched their own prepared counteroffensives north and south, took Orel and Kharkov within six weeks, and did not stop until Berlin. German losses were replaceable in men and not in tanks or trained crews. After Kursk the Wehrmacht attacked in the east only locally. The scale is worth stating plainly: some two million men, 6,000 tanks and 4,000 aircraft engaged on a front of a few hundred miles. It is the largest concentration of armour ever assembled, and neither side had anything comparable afterwards.
- Year: 1943 CE
- Category: Military
