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User:Hungrydog55/sandbox/military/russianfront/1943-00 Kursk

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Map of German plan for Operation Citadel
Panzerkampfwagen V "Panther" tanks loaded on flatcars; the Panther, making its combat debut at Kursk, suffered numerous mechanical failures.

The Battle of Kursk, known as Operation Citadel, was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II between the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union near Kursk in southwestern Russia during the summer of 1943. Historians consider Kursk to be the single largest battle in the history of warfare[1][2][3] and the single deadliest armoured battle in history[4].

In mid-March 1943, German armed forces chief and head of state Adolf Hitler was determined to regain the initiative from the resurgent Red Army on the Eastern Front. He instructed army chief of staff Kurt Zeitzler to develop a plan for pinching off a 110 miles (180 km) wide, 60 miles (97 km) deep bulge in the Soviet lines centered on the city of Kursk in southwestern Russia.[5] Hitler hoped this would result in a massive surrender of the Soviet forces trapped thereby, similar to those that took place during his invasion of the USSR, known as Operation Barbarossa, two years earlier.

However, the starting day for Operation Citadel was delayed repeatedly, partly to give German industry time to produce the vast number of armored vehicles required, partly because of requests by some of the German commanders on-scene to give their exhausted troops time to prepare. In particular, Walther Model, a committed Nazi and one of the few generals with Hitler's full confidence, complained that his units were tired and understrength.[6] In addition, Heinz Guderian, inspector of German armoured forces, vigorously resisted Hitler's plan, insisting that it would only serve to degrade Germany's tank strength to no advantage just as the USSR was gearing up for massive offensive operations.[7]

As Hitler vacillated and new tanks slowly rolled off production lines, the Soviets had learned, through a combination of captured prisoners, aerial reconnaissance and their extensive intelligence network, that the Germans were planning a major operation.[8] The Red Army spent these weeks preparing massive defensive works, including hundreds of miles of anti-tank ditches, in some places extending 25 miles into the rear, laid out such that German armour would be funneled into artillery-heavy killing zones.[9]

When the German forces finally stepped off on 5 July, the extensive Soviet defensive preparations blunted German momentum and took a heavy toll in casualties. Four days after the launch of Citadel, the Allies invaded Sicily and Hitler, considering this to be a critical threat to the Axis position in Europe, diverted forces from the fighting around Kursk.[10] Operation Citadel ground to a halt and on 3 August the Red Army launched a counteroffensvie.[11]

Approximate troop strengths[12]

Northern Sector
Nazi Germany Germany USSR
Second Panzer Army 160,000 Western Front 211,460
Ninth Army 335,000 Bryansk Front 433,615
Second Army 96,000 Central Front 711,575
Total 591,000 Total 1,356,650
Southern Sector
Nazi Germany Germany USSR
Fourth Panzer Army 223,905 Voronezh Front
Army Det. Kempf Steppe Front
Total ' Total '

Northern Sector (Orel Salient)

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Northern Sector (Orel Salient)
opposing commanders
Nazi Germany Gunther von Kluge
Soviet Union V. D. Sokolovsky
Soviet Union M. M. Popov
Soviet Union K. K. Rokossovsky

Axis Forces

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Army Group Center

[edit]
Main article: Army Group Center

Feldmarschal Gunther von Kluge

Armies deployed north to south:

Soviet Forces

[edit]

Western Front

[edit]
Main article: Western Front (Soviet Union)

Colonel General Vasily Sokolovsky[18]

Bryansk Front

[edit]
Main article: Bryansk Front

Colonel General Markian Popov[19]

Central Front

[edit]
Main article: Central Front (Soviet Union)

Army General Konstantin Rokossovsky[20]

Armies deployed west to east:

Southern Sector (Belgorod Salient)

[edit]
Southern Sector (Belgorod Salient)
opposing commanders
Nazi Germany Erich von Manstein
Soviet Union N. F. Vatutin
Soviet Union I. S. Konov

Axis Forces

[edit]

Army Group South

[edit]
Main article: Army Group South

Feldmarschal Erich von Manstein

Armies deployed west to east:

Soviet forces

[edit]

Voronezh Front

[edit]
Main article: Voronezh Front

Army General Nikolai Vatutin[25]

Armies deployed north to south:

Steppe Front

[edit]
Main article: Steppe Front

Colonel General Ivan Konev

The front was formed from the Steppe Military District on 9 July,[26] to serve as a reserve if the German attack broke through and to provide fresh troops for a counterattack to begin as soon as the German attack was halted. This order of battle does not show the complete composition of the Steppe Front. In addition to the units listed below, there were also the 4th Guards, 27th, 47th and 53rd Armies.[27] The 4th Guards,[28] 27th, 47th, and the 53rd Armies were held in reserve during the battle and thus did not participate.[29] The 5th Guards Army and the 5th Guards Army were both committed to the counterattack in the Battle of Prokhorovka, where they fought as part of the Voronezh Front.[30]

Citations

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  1. ^ Clark 2012, pp. xv, 228: "The Battle of Kursk was the greatest land battle the world has ever seen on a fighting front that epitomized 'total war' ... It was time for the largest set-piece battle in the history of war to begin."
  2. ^ Töppel 2017, pp. 233–234: "At Kursk, however, no less than 3.5 million soldiers, 12,000 tanks and self-propelled guns and 57,000 guns and mortars were ready for battle. Thus, defined by the number of men and material involved, the Battle of Kursk was without doubt not only the biggest tank clash of the Second World War, but indeed at the same time the largest battle of the Second World War."
  3. ^ Frieser 2017, pp. 83, 200: "The battle of Kursk is considered the biggest land battle of the Second World War, indeed the biggest in all of military history. During the fighting the two sides deployed more than 4 million troops, 69,000 cannon and launchers, 13,000 tanks and self-propelled guns, and almost 12,000 aircraft. Even the battle of Stalingrad seems small-scale in comparison ... As the Red Army had massed a large part of its forces in the Kursk salient, the outcome was the greatest land battle of the Second World War, indeed the greatest in all the history of war."
  4. ^ Hanson, Victor Davis (2020). The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won (Reprint ed.). New York: Basic Books. p. 3. ISBN 978-1541674103.
  5. ^ Time-Life 1991, p. 16.
  6. ^ Time-Life 1991, p. 21.
  7. ^ Time-Life 1991, p. 23.
  8. ^ Time-Life 1991, p. 18.
  9. ^ Time-Life 1991, pp. 20-21.
  10. ^ Time-Life 1991, p. 39.
  11. ^ Time-Life 1991, p. 44.
  12. ^ Glantz and House xxxx, pp. xxx -xxx.
  13. ^ Glantz & House 2004, p. 283.
  14. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 283–285.
  15. ^ a b Glantz & House 2004, p. 285.
  16. ^ Holm, Michael. "Luftflotte 6". www.ww2.dk. Retrieved 2016-08-22.
  17. ^ Clark 2012, p. 200.
  18. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 290–295.
  19. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 295–299.
  20. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 299–306.
  21. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 285–287.
  22. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 287–289.
  23. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 289.
  24. ^ Holm, Michael. "Luftflotte 4". www.ww2.dk. Retrieved 2016-08-22.
  25. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 306–315.
  26. ^ Glantz & House 2004, p. 322.
  27. ^ Clark 2012, p. 204.
  28. ^ Glantz & House 2004, p. 244.
  29. ^ Dunn 2008, pp. 75–78.
  30. ^ Glantz & House 2004, p. 113.
  31. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 323–324.
  32. ^ Glantz & House 2004, p. 323.
  33. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 326–327.
  34. ^ Zetterling & Frankson 2000, p. 75.
  35. ^ Glantz & House 2004, p. 328.

Notes

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  1. ^ Committed suicide 21 April 1945 after dissolving his army group rather than accede to a US demand for surrender.
  2. ^ Killed in action during Operation Kutuzov 2 August 1943.
  3. ^ Committed 9 July
  4. ^ Served as commander-in-chief; Friedrich Kless served as chief of staff
  5. ^ Killed 13 July; Major General Ivan Fedyunkin from 22 July
  6. ^ Replaced by Lieutenant General Semyon Bogdanov 2 August.
  7. ^ Served as both commander-in-chief and chief of staff
  8. ^ Transferred to Voronezh Front on 8 July.
  9. ^ Directly subordinated to the front on 7 July; became part of the 1st Tank Army on 8 July
  10. ^ Transferred to Voronezh Front on 11 July.
  11. ^ Joined the army from the Reserve of the High Command on 7 July.
  12. ^ Entered combat in mid-July.

References

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  • Clark, Lloyd (2012). Kursk: The Greatest Battle: Eastern Front 1943. London: Headline Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-7553-3639-5.
  • Dunn, Walter S. (2008) [1997]. Kursk: Hitler's Gamble, 1943. Mechanicsburg, PA, USA: Stackpole. ISBN 9781461751229.
  • Editors of Time-Life Books (1991). Scorched Earth. Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life. ISBN 0-8094-7029-2. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  • Frankson, Anders; Niklas Zetterling (2002). "Styrkorna inför den tyska offensiven". Slaget om Kursk. Stockholm: Norstedts Förlag. ISBN 91-1-301078-6.
  • Forczyk, Robert (2014). Kursk 1943: The Northern Front. Oxford: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-78200-819-4.
  • Forczyk, Robert (2017). Kursk 1943: The Southern Front. Oxford: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-47281-690-0.
  • Glantz, David M.; House, Jonathan M. (2004) [1999]. The Battle of Kursk. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-1335-9.
  • Zetterling, Niklas; Frankson, Anders (2000). Kursk 1943: A Statistical Analysis. Cass Series on the Soviet (Russian) Study of War. London: Frank Cass. ISBN 0-7146-5052-8.


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