Chapter 13 06. Battle of Kursk

After the Battle of Stalingrad, the situation on the Soviet-German battlefield seems to be turning around.The Soviet army launched a series of counterattacks, and the German army retreated steadily.Therefore, many people think that the Germans can't stand it on the Eastern Front.In fact, the German army in early 1943 still had the ability to make another move.Many Soviet commanders did not notice that the retreat of the Germans was very skillful, and they often killed a large number of Soviet troops as the price of retreat.For example, when Manstein commanded the troops to retreat, every time he made the opponent pay a higher price than himself, he withdrew from a place.The Soviet army was eager to fight back and didn't care how many people died.At the same time, the counterattack of the Soviet army was too wide, and the front was stretched too long, making it difficult to look at each other from head to tail.The Soviets seem to be making the same mistakes the Germans just made.

The disastrous defeat of the German army in Stalingrad did not make Hitler sad for long, and he still wanted to carry on the war to the end.After this war, Germany implemented a nationwide general mobilization and tried its best to expand its troops. Within a few months, the total number of German troops on the Soviet-German battlefield was supplemented to 5.2 million.Hitler and his generals hoped to regain the initiative on the battlefield and beat the Soviets hard. Under such circumstances, the Soviet army is still blindly optimistic.Stalin said in the order signed on May 1, 1943: "The German and Italian fascist camps are experiencing the most serious crisis and are facing the danger of extinction." Then you can't eat and walk around.The Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Army obviously underestimated the ability of Germany, which was hit hard in the Battle of Stalingrad, to make a comeback and recruit troops.Those generals who dared to evaluate the battle situation based on facts all ruined their future.For example, Major General Petrov, the headmaster of the Smolensk Artillery School, expressed his opinion at a meeting: "After the Stalingrad Defense War, the Germans healed their wounds and became stronger, which should be given enough attention. "As a result, he was immediately arrested and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

In fact, it is very common for the two countries to despise the enemy when they are at war.The problem is that we despise the enemy strategically, but we must pay attention to the enemy tactically.If you despise the enemy strategically and tactically, you will be in trouble.If you reject the truth so radically, will the truth escape?of course not! In 1943, the Soviets fought their old adversary again with the optimism of terror, believing that the Germans had no choice but to retreat. It was true at the beginning of the battle.After the German Sixth Army was encircled at Stalingrad, the Soviets launched a massive offensive against the rest of the German Army Group South. On January 2, 1943, the Soviet army launched the "Planet" operation, preparing to recover Kharkov, Belgorod and Kursk.Although Hitler ordered to hold on, the German army still abandoned the Ukrainian town of Kharkov on February 16.

On February 19, Manstein commanded Army Group South to launch a counterattack against the Soviet Southwest Front between the Donets River and the Dnieper River.By March 2, the Southwest Front of the Soviet Army suffered heavy losses. On March 14, the Soviet Army was forced to abandon Kharkov, which had just been captured, and retreat to the Oboyan area south of Kursk. Manstein's counterattack caused the Soviet-German front to form a salient centered on Kursk.In the north, the German Army Group Center controlled the Orel area.To the south, Manstein's Army Group South took control of the Belgorod region.Inside the salient were the Soviet Central Front and the Voronezh Front.The Soviet Union and Germany have gathered heavy troops, forming a stalemate here, and a large-scale battle is about to begin.The latest "Tiger" heavy tank developed by the Germans ran over the vast white land, and the powerful 88mm tank gun was daunting.

A fierce battle is about to start. Regarding the Battle of Kursk, the famous German general Manstein proposed two plans. One is to launch an attack immediately while the Soviet army is not stable; the other is to wait for the Soviet army to attack first. Outflank the rear of the Soviet army.Of the two plans, Manstein was more optimistic about the second, but was rejected by Hitler.Hitler thought it was too risky to allow the Soviets to attack first.However, although Hitler chose the first option, he hesitated and postponed again and again in order to concentrate enough new tanks.The fact is that with the assistance of Britain and the United States, the strength of the Soviet army has grown faster than that of the German army.

Like a fist, the Kursk salient extended from the Soviet lines, about 250 miles across its front and less than 70 miles down its base.The Soviet Army has numerous troops stationed in this salient.Manstein advocated launching a pincer attack on the north and south flanks at the same time, encircling and annihilating all Soviet troops in the salient. Manstein's plan was supported by General Zeitzler, Chief of Staff of the German Army Headquarters, and Field Marshal Kruger, Commander of the Central Army Group, but was also opposed by General Guderian, Director of Armored Forces.Guderian's objection was that in the spring of 1943, the German tanks suffered huge losses on the Eastern Front. As the main battle tanks of the German army, the No. 3 and No. 4 tanks had proved to be no match for the Soviet T-34 tanks, and the newly developed No. 5 tanks The monthly output of the "Leopard" tank and the No. 6 "Tiger" tank is very small, only 50 and 25 respectively, and they are at a disadvantage in terms of quantity.Guderian believed that launching the Battle of Kursk would cause the German army to lose a large number of tanks.

Both Manstein and Guderian were famous generals of the German army. They disagreed, which made Hitler hesitate.In the end, Hitler decided to adopt Manstein's battle plan, which was code-named "Fortress". The "Fortress" operation was originally planned to be launched on May 4, but it was repeatedly delayed due to the onset of the rainy season and insufficient preparations by the German army. It was finally determined to launch the attack on July 5. Although July 5 was the time chosen by the Germans to attack, it was the Soviets who launched the attack first. On the night of July 4, the Soviet Sixth Guards Army in the south of the salient captured a German soldier and learned that the German army was about to start an offensive the next day. In the early hours of July 5, the Soviet Thirteenth Army in the northern salient also captured a German sergeant who also admitted that the Germans would launch an offensive in a few hours.In order to disrupt the German offensive steps, Zhukov immediately issued an order to bombard the German positions.

The Battle of Kursk begins. The shelling of the Soviet army caught the German army by surprise and caused a lot of losses. The attack time was delayed by 3 hours from the original plan.After losing 36 tanks, the German army struggled to cross the anti-tank minefield set up by the Soviet army and stormed the defense line of the Soviet 67th Guards Infantry Division.Facing the strong attack of the three German divisions, the 67th Guards Infantry Division of the Soviet Union was unable to resist and was forced to retreat.Vatudin, commander of the Soviet Voronezh Front Army, urgently mobilized the reserve team to organize the second line of defense, but the German army still broke through the second line of defense of the Soviet army on the 6th.On this day, the Luftwaffe made more than 1,000 sorties, completely suppressing the Soviet Air Force.After a full day of fierce fighting, both sides suffered heavy losses.

On the evening of the 6th, Vadudin asked Vasilevsky for reinforcements.Vasilevsky immediately transferred 353 tanks from the Second and Tenth Tank Corps of the Fifth Guards Army of the Steppe Front to Vatudin after obtaining Stalin's consent.Stalin also personally called Vadodin, asking him to stop the German attack at all costs. On the 7th, the German army, which had been fighting hard for a day, only advanced a few kilometers.The next day, the German army still stormed the Soviet defense line.Vatudin, who was gradually gaining a foothold, was also preparing for a counterattack. He asked the Supreme Command to transfer the Fifth Guards Tank Army and the Fifth Guards Army of the Steppe Front to his command.His request was quickly granted by Stalin, but it took several days for the two troops to reach the battle site.

After two days of air battles on the 7th and 8th, the Soviet Air Force gradually reversed its disadvantages, and it was only a matter of time before it seized air supremacy. On the 9th, while resisting the German attack head-on, the Soviet army under the command of Vatudin continued to launch counterattacks on the two wings. Although these counterattacks encountered setbacks, it prevented the German army from concentrating all its forces on their targets. This road was blocked and he went the other way. Seeing that it was impossible to break through the Oboyan Soviet position from the front, Manstein decided to break through from the right wing first. He ordered the 2nd SS Panzer Army to turn to Prokhorovka in the northeast.The German attack on the right flank was relatively smooth. After two days of fighting, they reached the city of Prokhorovka.The climax of the Battle of Kursk - the tank battle is about to take place.

On the morning of July 12, the Soviet Union and Germany began to attack almost at the same time, and the Prokhorovka tank battle started. In the battle, the German "Tiger" tanks showed their prowess. The 88mm tank gun of the "Tiger" tank can destroy the Soviet T-34 tank beyond the combat distance, while the 76mm gun of the T-34 tank cannot pose a threat to the "Tiger" tank at the same range, so T The -34 tank is not an opponent of the "Tiger" tank at all.The Soviets themselves realized this. The combat report of the Fifth Tank Army of the Soviet Guards stated that the tank army had lost its ability to attack and the remaining tanks had been incorporated into the infantry. The Soviets used to exaggerate their achievements, saying that the Germans lost more than 300 tanks in the Prokhorovka tank battle.In fact, the German Tank Corps, which fought against the Soviet Fifth Guards Tank Army, was only destroyed 5 tanks, and another 38 tanks and 12 assault guns were damaged.The Soviet Fifth Guards Tank Army lost no less than 300 tanks and self-propelled artillery.The number of Soviet tanks participating in the battle was almost 4 times that of their opponents, compared with the number of German tanks was 1000:273. The reason why German tanks can win so beautifully is mainly determined by technology.The German "Tiger" and "Leopard" tanks surpassed the Soviet T-34 tanks in various important combat technical indicators.In addition, the training level of tank drivers in the Soviet Union was very low at that time. The average practice time was only 5 to 10 hours, and it took at least 25 hours to be proficient in driving a tank. In this tank battle, although the German army destroyed Soviet tanks several times its own with relatively small losses, it failed to achieve the battle goal of capturing Prokhorovka.In addition, the Soviet army still has more than 1,000 tanks and has the strength to launch a large-scale counterattack. The initiative on the battlefield is tilting towards the Soviet army. On the northern front, the German offensive on July 5 was also delayed by more than two hours due to Soviet shelling.After dozens of minutes of artillery strikes and aerial bombardments, the German Ninth Army began to attack. Model, the commander of the German Ninth Army, slammed east and west, and first carried out a feint attack with three infantry divisions on the left wing, but was blocked by the Soviet army.In the main attack direction, the German army invested 4 armored divisions and 3 infantry divisions. After fierce fighting, the German army broke through the first line of defense of the Soviet army with difficulty.By the end of the battle on the 5th, the German army lost at least 70 tanks, but only advanced less than 10 kilometers. While the Soviet and German armies were fighting fiercely, the air forces of both sides were also fighting fiercely in the air.On July 5 alone, the German Air Force dispatched more than 1,000 sorties, and the Soviet Army also dispatched more than 600 sorties. On July 6, Rokossovsky, commander of the Soviet Central Front, launched a counterattack.Model also threw reserves into the field.Thus, another tank battle began.As a result, the two tank brigades of the Soviet Army were severely damaged, losing about 70 tanks.The German army took advantage of the victory and advanced to the second line of defense of the Soviet army. In the early morning of July 7, the German army launched an offensive again, intending to seize the transportation hub Ponelli.The battle in Ponelli was extremely fierce. The German army invaded the city several times, but they were all driven out by the tenacious Soviet army. The battle lasted until July 8. Although the German army caused a lot of casualties to the Soviet army, the Soviet army still held its ground.After paying a heavy price, the German army occupied most of the city of Ponelli, but the Soviet army still controlled some important strongholds in the city, preventing the German army from continuing to advance. On July 9, Model launched his last attack on the Soviet positions with 300 tanks, but found nothing.The offensive energy of the German Ninth Army was exhausted and it was forced to turn to the defensive. At this time, after paying a heavy price, the Soviet Air Force had seized the air supremacy in the northern part of Kursk, which caused a great deterrent to the German ground forces. From July 5th to 10th, the Luftwaffe destroyed 1,269 Soviet aircraft and lost only 62 of them.Germany's super ace pilots who destroyed hundreds of enemy planes basically achieved their achievements on the Soviet-German battlefield.Even until the last year and a half of the war, German rookie pilots first went to the Soviet-German battlefield to practice, where they learned to fly at ultra-low altitudes, and then went to the western front to fight against British and American pilots, which shows the poor combat capabilities of Soviet pilots.In addition, the performance of German combat aircraft was superior, and the Luftwaffe used its tactical advantages to concentrate aircraft in some important theaters and launch a fierce counterattack against the Soviet army.The Soviet Air Force relied entirely on its numerical superiority to compete with the Germans. At this time, the situation in Italy changed suddenly.On July 10, 1943, the British and American coalition forces landed in Sicily, Italy. The German forces in Italy could not resist the British and American allied forces' attack.At the same time, Hitler believed that not only was there no hope of victory in the Battle of Kursk, but that the German Ninth Army was in danger of being cut off by the Soviet army and encircled and wiped out.Therefore, Hitler decided to terminate the "fortress" plan and transfer troops from the Soviet-German battlefield to the Italian battlefield. Manstein strongly opposed it. He believed that it was wrong to terminate the "fortress" plan at this time when the battle had just entered the decisive stage. The German army still had enough strength to use superior tanks to consume the Soviet armored force. It prevented the Soviet army from launching a powerful counterattack immediately when the German army retreated. However, Hitler refused to listen to Manstein's advice, and finally ordered the termination of the "fortress" project. The Soviet counterattack that Manstein was worried about began.Stalin decided to launch a counter-offensive on July 12, and used the name of the Russian Marshal Kutuzov who defeated Napoleon as the campaign code name. In the early morning of the 12th, the Soviet army shelled the German positions in Orel for more than two hours, and then launched a counterattack.The German army resisted tenaciously, causing heavy casualties to the Soviet army. On July 16, Model, who felt powerless to resist, asked Hitler to abandon Orel, but was rejected by Hitler. On July 25, Mussolini stepped down, and everyone could see that Italy was about to withdraw from the war.Hitler had to urgently dispatch troops from the Eastern Front to go to Italy, and the German army in the Orel salient faced the danger of being encircled by the Soviet army.Model again asked to retreat, and Hitler finally agreed to abandon Orel. On August 5, the Soviet army occupied Orel and took the opportunity to pursue the retreating German army.By the 16th, the Soviet counteroffensive was basically over. In the Battle of Orel, the Soviet army wiped out 200,000 enemies and advanced 150 kilometers westward.For this reason, the Soviet army paid a heavy price, with 430,000 casualties, twice as many as the German casualties. On the southern front, the date for the Soviet counteroffensive was finally fixed on August 3. At 5 o'clock in the morning on August 3, the Soviet army fired a salvo of artillery. The shelling lasted for more than two hours. A large number of shells poured on the German positions like a torrential rain. Finally, a salvo of "Katyusha" rockets ended. Then the Soviet army Tanks and infantry attack.The Soviet army quickly broke through the first line of defense of the German army. After a day of fighting, the Soviet army advanced 10-15 kilometers in depth. On August 5, the Soviet army regained Belgorod. On the 7th, it occupied Bogodukhov, a logistics supply base behind the German army, and seized a large amount of German military supplies. In the next two days, the Soviet tank troops advanced too fast, while the infantry was busy clearing the surrounded German army, which caused the Soviet tank troops and infantry to lose their pace of attack.The keen Manstein saw this opportunity and hoped to seize the loopholes of the Soviet army to launch a counterattack. On August 11, the German army preparing to counterattack had been assembled, and Manstein began to counterattack.At this time, the tank units of the Soviet army were still in a state of pursuit, scattered widely, and there was a lack of communication and cooperation between the various units.The most deadly thing is that the Soviet army did not perceive the German offensive intentions. On the evening of the 11th, the 49th Tank Brigade and the 17th Tank Regiment of the Soviet First Tank Army were surrounded and wiped out by the Germans. If the Soviet Fifth Guards Tank Army hadn’t arrived in time to support them, the First Tank Army would have been wiped out. . On the 12th, the Soviet army was forced to retreat. On the 14th, the Sixth Tank Army of the Soviet Sixth Guards Army suffered a disastrous defeat. The fighting continued until August 17, and both the Soviets and the Germans suffered huge losses.Although the German counterattack severely damaged the Soviet army, Manstein had no power to further expand the results.The numerical advantage of the Soviet army once again played a decisive role. They quickly gained a firm foothold and launched a counterattack.The Soviet army forcibly crossed the Ude River west of Kharkov on the 20th, and established a bridgehead on the south bank, and then launched an attack on Kharkov. The siege battle was extremely fierce. On the evening of the 22nd, the 53rd Soviet Army took the lead in attacking the city, and recovered Kharkov the next day. At this point, the Battle of Kursk was over. Although the Soviet army won the battle of Kursk, it paid a staggering price, with a total of about 1.67 million people killed, wounded and captured.During the Battle of Kursk, Soviet casualties reached the highest peak in the entire Second World War.Regarding the casualties of the German army, the Soviets said it was 500,000, but the actual German casualties were 360,000.It can be said that the victory of the Soviet army was won by the blood of countless soldiers, which is not a bit watery. The victory of the Battle of Kursk allowed the Soviet army to gain the initiative on the Soviet-German battlefield.Since then, the German army has never launched a threatening offensive on the Eastern Front.As a result, the Soviets attributed all the honor of victory to Stalin, saying that he was the chief architect of the Battle of Kursk.Commenting on the results of the Battle of Kursk, Stalin said it proved that the Red Army was capable of attacking not only in winter but also in summer.After this battle, the Soviet army launched continuous offensives against the German army, regaining a large amount of lost ground, and regained Kyiv in November.At the same time, commanders at all levels of the Soviet army also grew rapidly in the flames of war, and their command levels improved.But even so, the quality of the German army is still far higher than that of the Soviet army. Even if the Soviet officers have absorbed actual combat experience, the blind command of the generals will still cause the Soviet army to suffer huge losses in order to win victory.In the Soviet-German War, the Soviet Union lost more tanks, fighter planes, and personnel than the German army, and the loss of tanks was 20 times that of the German army.However, with the support of the powerful military industry of the allies, the losses of the Soviet Union can be made up in a short period of time, but Germany cannot.This mass destruction of the Soviet army turned out to be a defeat for Germany. After the Battle of Kursk, General Chuikov of the Soviet Union said: "The German army did not make mistakes in tactics. However, they made a strategic mistake when they took Hitler as commander in chief."