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The Battle of Kursk 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].

The Red Army had carried out several successful counter-offenives against the forces of Nazi Germany early in 1943. German armed forces chief and head of state Adolf Hitler, determined to regain the initiative on the Eastern Front, instructed army chief of staff Kurt Zeitzler to develop a plan for pinching off a xx-mile-wide, xx-mile-deep bulge in the Soviet lines centered on the Russian city of Kursk. Hitler hoped this would result in a massive surrender of the Soviet forces trapped thereby, similar to those that took place early in his invasion of the USSR, known as Operation Barbarossa, two years earlier.

However, the starting day for Operation Citadel was delayed and delayed, partly to give the German industrial ...... 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 troops time to ......

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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‡ Units involved in the initial German assault 5 July

Army Group Center

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Main article: Army Group Center

Feldmarschal Gunther von Kluge

Armies deployed north to south:

Soviet Forces

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‡ Units involved in the initial German assault 5 July

Western Front

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Main article: Western Front (Soviet Union)

Colonel General Vasily Sokolovsky[10]

Bryansk Front

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Main article: Bryansk Front

Colonel General Markian Popov[11]

Central Front

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Main article: Central Front (Soviet Union)

Army General Konstantin Rokossovsky[12]

Armies deployed west to east:

Southern Sector (Belgorod Salient)

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

Axis Forces

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‡ Units involved in the initial German assault 5 July

Army Group South

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Main article: Army Group South

Feldmarschal Erich von Manstein

Armies deployed west to east:

Soviet forces

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‡ Units involved in the initial German assault 5 July

Voronezh Front

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Main article: Voronezh Front

Army General Nikolai Vatutin[17]

Armies deployed north to south:

Steppe Front

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Main article: Steppe Front

Colonel General Ivan Konev

The front was formed from the Steppe Military District on 9 July,[18] 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.[19] The 4th Guards,[20] 27th, 47th, and the 53rd Armies were held in reserve during the battle and thus did not participate.[21] 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.[22]

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. ^ Glantz & House 2004, p. 283.
  6. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 283–285.
  7. ^ a b Glantz & House 2004, p. 285.
  8. ^ Holm, Michael. "Luftflotte 6". www.ww2.dk. Retrieved 2016-08-22.
  9. ^ Clark 2012, p. 200.
  10. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 290–295.
  11. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 295–299.
  12. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 299–306.
  13. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 285–287.
  14. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 287–289.
  15. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 289.
  16. ^ Holm, Michael. "Luftflotte 4". www.ww2.dk. Retrieved 2016-08-22.
  17. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 306–315.
  18. ^ Glantz & House 2004, p. 322.
  19. ^ Clark 2012, p. 204.
  20. ^ Glantz & House 2004, p. 244.
  21. ^ Dunn 2008, pp. 75–78.
  22. ^ Glantz & House 2004, p. 113.
  23. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 323–324.
  24. ^ Glantz & House 2004, p. 323.
  25. ^ Glantz & House 2004, pp. 326–327.
  26. ^ Zetterling & Frankson 2000, p. 75.
  27. ^ 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.
  • 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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