The Battle of Kursk, which brought together about four million Soviet and German soldiers on both sides, as well as more than six thousand tanks and self-propelled guns, became the largest battle of the Second World War. It dramatically influenced the further development of events — the course of the war changed in favor of the Red Army. During the fierce fighting in the summer of 1943, Nazi Germany was defeated and forever lost its strategic initiative on the Eastern Front. In 2024, the 81st anniversary of the battle took place. "The ribbon.<url>" recalls the course of events and talks about the results of the Battle of Kursk.
What is the Kursk Bulge?
As a result of the Soviet January-February offensive and the German February-March counterattack, by March 27, 1943, a protrusion up to 150 kilometers long and 200 kilometers wide formed in the central part of the Soviet-German front towards the Germans west of Kursk, which was called the Kursk Bulge in the Red Army and the Kursk Bulge in the Wehrmacht. The southern part of the salient (244 kilometers) was defended by troops of the Voronezh Front of Army General Nikolai Vatutin, and the northern part (306 kilometers) was defended by units of the Central Front of Army General Konstantin Rokossovsky.
Army Group South, commanded by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, operated against Vatutin, while Army Group Center, commanded by Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge, operated against Rokossovsky. The Kursk Bulge extended the German front by almost 500 kilometers, cutting off German communications and allowing the Red Army to strike both on the northern flank of Army Group South and on the southern flank of Army Group Center Plans of the German command
In early April 1943, in Berlin, it was decided to conduct a strategic offensive operation "Zitadelle" near Kursk. The operation was based on the principle of pincers, which were supposed to close east of Kursk, encircling the troops of the Central and Voronezh fronts. From the south of the arc, from the Belgorod area, Army Group South attacked with the forces of the 4th Tank Army of Colonel-General Hermann Gotha, together with the army group of General of Tank Forces Werner Kempf; from the north, from the Orel area, Army Group Center broke through to meet them with the 9th Field Army of Colonel-General Walter Model. supported by the 2nd Field Army of Infantry General Walter Weiss. The point of view of Zhukov, Vasilevsky, Rokossovsky and Vatutin
The military leadership of the USSR understood the danger of the German offensive. In a memo addressed to Stalin dated April 8, 1943, Deputy Supreme Commander Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov noted that due to the lack of large reserves for the Germans, they would not attack in the southern and southwestern directions, but would focus their efforts on the Kursk Bulge. The military commander noted that by encircling and defeating the Soviet troops there, the Wehrmacht would have freedom of maneuver to bypass Moscow in the shortest direction from the southeast.
Zhukov summarized: "I consider it impractical for our troops to launch an offensive in the coming days in order to pre-empt the enemy. It would be better if we exhaust the enemy on our defense, knock out his tanks, and then, by introducing fresh reserves, we will finally finish off the main enemy group by launching a general offensive." The chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, Marshal of the Soviet Union Alexander Vasilevsky, fully agreed with his point of view, while Vatutin and Rokossovsky spoke in favor of an offensive. Defensive measures of the Red Army
On April 12, a meeting was held at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, at which it was decided to launch a deliberate defense in order to launch a counteroffensive. Vasilevsky recalled: "Stalin was worried, and he did not hide it, whether our troops would withstand the impact of large masses of fascist tanks." Having received almost a three-month respite, the troops of the Voronezh and Central Fronts equipped six main defensive lines, as well as several intermediate and cut-off lines, with a total depth of up to 190 kilometers. The approaches to them were covered by extensive minefields, and the basis of the defense consisted of numerous anti-tank artillery units.
Behind the armies of Vatutin and Rokossovsky, the Stavka deployed the Steppe Military District of Colonel-General Ivan Konev, renamed the Steppe Front on July 9. Since it was expected that the Germans would launch the main attack from the northern face of the Kursk Bulge, which was closer to Moscow, the Central Front had 2,140 guns and mortars more than the Voronezh Front. At the same time, Vatutin had 200 more tanks than Rokossovsky. Zhukov was appointed as the Stavka's representative on the Central, Bryansk and Western Fronts, Vasilevsky was appointed on the Voronezh, Southwestern and Southern fronts. Postponement of the German offensive
Hitler postponed the start of the operation several times, waiting for the German industry to provide more heavy tanks Pz.Kpfw. VI Tiger ("Tiger") and Pz.Kpfw. V Panther ("Panther"), as well as Ferdinand heavy self-propelled artillery units. A number of German military leaders expressed doubt about the successful outcome of the offensive on the Kursk Bulge.
The model told Hitler that the Russians had prepared a defense so deeply entrenched that it was almost impossible to break through it. The chief inspector of the German tank forces, Colonel-General Heinz Guderian, said that the Panthers had many shortcomings that could not be eliminated quickly. The balance of forces at the front Germany: By the beginning of the Battle of Kursk, the Wehrmacht had about 900,000 soldiers and officers, 2,758 tanks and assault guns, and about 10,000 guns and mortars. USSR: The troops of the Central, Voronezh and Steppe fronts numbered over 1 million 900 thousand fighters and commanders, almost five thousand tanks and self-propelled artillery installations, more than 26 thousand guns and mortars. On June 28, Moscow decided that if the enemy did not do anything within the next two weeks, the Soviet troops would be the first to launch an offensive — first the Central Front, and two or three days later the Voronezh Front. Offensive tactics of the Wehrmacht
On July 4, units of the 4th German Tank Army conducted combat reconnaissance in Vatutin's line of forces, and on July 5, the Battle of Kursk began. The German tactics of breaking through the deeply entrenched Soviet defenses consisted in the fact that artillery and aircraft struck a narrow section of the front, no more than five kilometers wide, destroying all life, and then large forces of heavy tanks and self-propelled guns went into the breakthrough. Soviet gunners against German tankers
The Red Army could only use SU-152 self-propelled artillery units from armored vehicles to counter the tigers, panthers and Ferdinands, but there were only 24 of them. The T-34 tanks were an easy target for German heavy tanks at long range. The commander of the 1st Tank Army, Lieutenant General Mikhail Katukov, noted: "Enemy Tigers can fire their 88-millimeter guns at our vehicles at a distance of up to two kilometers, being within range of the 76.2-millimeter guns of our T-34." The 85-millimeter gun appeared on the T-34 only in early 1944. The main task of destroying the Panzerwaffe in the Battle of Kursk fell on the shoulders of Soviet sappers, assault aircraft, and anti-tank and howitzer artillery crews. The composition of German groups
According to Rokossovsky, 14 German divisions were operating against the troops of the Voronezh Front, including 5 infantry, 8 tank and 1 motorized, while the strike group against the Central Front consisted of 15 divisions consisting of 8 infantry, 6 tank and 1 motorized. "The ribbon.<url>" tells how the battles went and what the battle on the Kursk Bulge led to. The offensive on the northern face of the arc
On the northern face of the Kursk Bulge, the Germans delivered the main attack in the direction of the Ponyri railway station. The model initially used Pz.Kpfw medium tanks. III and Pz.Kpfw. IV, the main force of the Panzerwaffe, considering that they should be introduced only into a breakthrough that artillery and infantry with tigers and Ferdinands will break through in the defense of the Central Front. In the battles, the Ferdinands revealed a serious design flaw: exploding in minefields, they became easy prey for the Red Army, who crawled up to them at close range and, taking advantage of the lack of machine guns from the crews, blew up self-propelled grenades or burned Molotov cocktails. In a short time, the Germans lost 33 Ferdinands.
As the Model had predicted, it was not possible to break through the Soviet defenses: his armored forces were stuck in fierce battles — a greater number of artillery played a role than Vatutin's, which became the main obstacle to the enemy. For example, Senior Sergeant Mansur Abdullin from the 167th Guards Light Artillery Regiment was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union after he personally shot down eight German tanks in battle on July 10. In the Battle of Kursk, the Red Army actively used both the breakthrough artillery corps and a large number of individual units of the God of war. By July 9, the offensive of the 9th field Army had run out of steam: the Wehrmacht managed to wedge itself into the defense of Rokossovsky by only 12 kilometers. The offensive on the southern face of the arc
Events unfolded in a slightly different scenario on the Voronezh front, where Manstein held the Pz.Kpfw. III and Pz.Kpfw. IV, acting as a battering ram for the Tigers and Panthers. This allowed him to break through the Soviet defenses to a depth of 35 kilometers. Guderian was also right: the panthers were massively out of action for technical reasons, so if at first about 35 tanks were put into battle every day, then after a few days no more than 18. Alarmed by the breakthrough of positions on the Voronezh Front, the Stavka transferred the 5th Guards Tank Army of Lieutenant General Pavel Rotmistrov and the 5th Guards Army of Lieutenant General Alexei Zhadov from the Steppe Front to Vatutin. Tank battle at Prokhorovka
On July 12, a counter tank battle between Rotmistrov's army and SS Obergruppenfuhrer Paul Hausser's 2nd SS Panzer Corps took place southwest of the Prokhorovka railway station. In a report to Stalin, Vasilevsky reported: "At the same time, hundreds of guns and all the RS we have took part in the battle. As a result, the entire battlefield was littered with burning German and our tanks within an hour." The strike of the 5th Guards Tank Army did not achieve results, but the Germans were unable to continue their offensive on Kursk. This came at a high price to the Captain's subordinates: in nine hours of combat, 500 out of 642 armored vehicles that took part in the battle were disabled. Of these, 357 tanks and self-propelled guns were burned down and destroyed. The losses of Hausser's SS men, according to Soviet data, amounted to 300 armored vehicles, according to German — 70.
The turning point in the Battle of Kursk
July 12, 1943 was a turning point in the battle — on this day, the armies of the Western Front of Colonel-General Vasily Sokolovsky and the Bryansk Front of Colonel-General Markian Popov launched Operation Kutuzov, launching an offensive in the Oryol direction. On July 15, after the troops of the Central Front joined the Orel offensive, it became obvious to Hitler that the Wehrmacht had failed to seize the strategic initiative on the Eastern Front. After the Fuhrer's order, the German troops were forced to go on the defensive. A diversionary strike by the southern Soviet fronts
On July 17, the troops of the Southern Front of Colonel-General Fyodor Tolbukhin and the army of the Southwestern Front of Army General Rodion Malinovsky went on the offensive. Heavy fighting ensued — the German command hastily transferred a number of formations to the threatened areas, including from the Kursk Bulge, such as the 2nd SS Panzer Corps. At the same time, during the liquidation of the Soviet bridgehead on the western bank of the Mius River, Hausser's SS men lost more men and equipment than at Prokhorovka. In turn, Tolbukhin lost five rifle regiments. Despite the fact that the troops of the Southern and Southwestern fronts failed to defeat the enemy, their actions were facilitated by the Belgorod-Kharkov offensive operation, which, codenamed Rumyantsev, began on August 3. Liberation of Orel, Belgorod and Kharkov
Troops from the Voronezh and Steppe fronts took part in the operation, which struck at the junction of the 4th German Tank Army and the Kempf Army Group, bypassing Kharkov from the west. The armies of the Southwestern Front were to approach the city from the south. As a result of the Soviet offensive on August 5, the Red Army liberated Orel and Belgorod. In honor of the double victory, on the evening of the same day, on Stalin's orders, for the first time in the entire war, a salute was fired in Moscow: 12 volleys from 124 guns with an interval of 30 seconds.
In a relatively short period of time, the troops of the Steppe Front broke through the defenses of the Kharkov fortified area, consisting of two strips with a total depth of up to 18 kilometers, and reached the approaches to the city. At two o'clock in the morning on August 23, Soviet units launched an assault on Kharkov, suppressing the last pockets of enemy resistance in the city by 11 a.m. This was the end of the Belgorod-Kharkov strategic offensive operation, and with it the Battle of Kursk. Losses during the Battle of Kursk and awards The losses of Soviet troops in the Battle of Kursk amounted to more than 863,000 people, including the dead, prisoners and missing — over 254,000 soldiers and commanders. The total German losses exceeded 537,000 soldiers and officers.
As a result of the battle, more than 100,000 soldiers and commanders of the Red Army were awarded orders and medals, 231 people were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, 132 formations and units received the rank of Guards, 26 were awarded honorary titles of Oryol, Belgorod, Kharkov and Karachev. The significance of the Battle of Kursk
The allies of the Third Reich realized that the power of Nazi Germany had been undermined, and in the fall of 1943, Italy sided with the Allies. In November-December 1943, at the Tehran Conference with the participation of the heads of government of the USSR, the United States and Great Britain, Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, the final decision was made on the Allied landing in France in 1944. The Battle of Kursk showed that the Red Army learned how to win in the summer, and there were no more quiet days for the Germans in the Great Patriotic War. Germany's imminent defeat was only a matter of time.
https://lenta.ru/articles/2024/10/24/kursk1943/
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