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US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE US Army Command and General Staff School Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) Common Core H100: History, Theory, Doctrine, Practice H112: Barbarossa to Kursk: The Limits of Blitzkrieg Reading H112RC Waiting for the Panther: Kursk, 1943 by Jonathan M. House In the spring of 1943, five German field armies were arrayed in a semicircle around a huge bulge that projected westward from the Soviet front lines, a bulge that contained two Soviet fronts (army groups). Mud and rain had forced the exhausted foes to a temporary halt at the end of March, and both sides worked frantically to prepare for renewed battle. For reasons of prestige, if for no other reason, Germany intended to launch a major offensive in 1943, and the logical site for that offensive was the bulge around the city of Kursk. Strategic surprise was therefore impossible, and by the end of April the Soviet defenders had constructed elaborate fortifications within the bulge. Each passing day brought further improvements in the Soviet defenses, yet Adolf Hitler repeatedly delayed the start of Operation CITADEL. Ultimately, an offensive scheduled to begin on 4 May 1943 did not actually start until 5 July. One of the principal reasons for these two months of inactivity was Hitler’s desire to field a family of new tanks; tanks that he hoped would give the Germans an insurmountable technological advantage over their opponents. 1 I. The Soviet–German Conflict, 1941–43 In two massive summer campaigns, Operation BARBAROSSA (1941) and Operation BLAU (1942), the German armed forces had inflicted enormous losses of men, materiel, and territory on the Soviet Union, but never succeeded in destroying the Red Army or its parent government. The German commanders quickly realized that they had underestimated the manpower reserves of the Soviet regime and the logistical demands of conquering the vast Soviet territory. With each battle the Germans won, they lost irreplaceable veterans. With each battle the Soviets lost, they learned new lessons, and gradually combined that hard-won experience with their own prewar concepts of warfare. 2 Both of these German campaigns ended in near disaster when the Soviets counterattacked in the winters of 1941–42 and 1942–43. In each case, initial Soviet success prompted excessive optimism in Moscow, an optimism that in turn led the Soviets to become overextended and vulnerable to counterattack. In the second winter, the capture of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad tore an enormous hole in the German lines, and the Red Army came much closer to victory. Field Marshal Erich von Manstein had to scrape together every possible reserve to block the gap, cut off Soviet spearheads, and counterattack into the industrialized Donetz Basin northwest of Stalingrad. Between 20 February and 14 March 1943, Manstein conducted a brilliant mobile campaign that ended with the seizure of the city of Khar’kov, thereby creating the southern flank of the developing Kursk Bulge. Manstein himself wanted to press his attack further northward, seizing the bulge before the Soviets could organize an effective defense. When Hitler visited Manstein’s Army Group Don on 10 March, the field marshal tried in vain to convince his visitor of the need for a renewed advance as soon as the thaw ended. Four days later, as Khar’kov fell to the Germans, Manstein appealed to Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge, commander of the neighboring Army Group Center, to help him launch concentric attacks on both the northern and southern flanks of the bulge. The cautious Kluge refused, however, contending that his exhausted troops could go no farther without rest and reorganization. 3 House, Jonathan M. “Waiting for the Panther: Kursk, 1943.” Unpublished, 2006, Fort Leavenworth, KS: Department of Military History, US Army Command and General Staff College. Author's permission affirmed. CGSC Copyright Registration #22- 770 E H112RC-599

The two sides had again fought to a standstill. Like Kluge, most commanders on both sides welcomed the spring thaw as an opportunity to reorganize for future battle. Most of these commanders fully expected that the Kursk Bulge would be a major bone of contention in the next struggle. II. The Battle of Production Despite its reputation, Germany was remarkably slow to reach full industrial mobilization. Like other war leaders before and after him, Adolf Hitler was reluctant to fully mobilize his people, preferring to maintain the illusion that Germany could afford both guns and butter. Instead, for most of the war Germany attempted to use conquered Europe as a source of food, raw materials, and slave labor. In March 1942 Hitler responded to the enormous losses of the first winter in Russia by declaring the entire economy subordinated to war requirements. Yet, even then, he avoided the hard choices that might have achieved greater production and military strength. 4 Moreover, the Byzantine nature of Nazi government, with its many overlapping agencies and ministries, was chronically inefficient about production priorities. When Albert Speer became minister for armaments in February 1942 he found a total lack of communication between service industries and private manufacturers. Eventually, Speer used a combination of personal relationships with other officials and traditional industrial cartels to get results. 5 Given these industrial problems, the German Army never recovered completely from the losses of its first year in the east. Except for favored units, such as the Waffen (Combat) SS and the Grossdeutschland (Greater Germany) Division, the divisions that launched the second summer offensive in 1942 were manned and equipped at only 85 percent of their authorized levels; even this level was achieved at the expense of Army Group North, which remained on the defensive with much lower strength levels. Captured and commercial trucks made up many of the shortages in the German motor transport system. 6 Coming on top of these shortfalls, the further losses of the 1942 campaign were even more difficult to remedy. In February 1943 German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels finally announced a total war at the expense of peacetime luxuries. Speer and Goebbels convinced Hermann Goering, the titular head of Germany’s planned economy, to support this mobilization, and production certainly surged in early 1943. Still, not even this powerful combination of Hitler’s henchmen could achieve true mobilization. As Speer later observed, “It remains one of the oddities of this war that Hitler demanded far less from his people than Churchill and Roosevelt did from their respective nations.” 7 German design and manufacturing also suffered from a lack of standardization and spare parts. Senior officers, as well as Hitler, frequently halted production to introduce minor improvements on existing designs. This type of interference, combined with a general attitude that despised mass production as inherently inferior, meant that many weapons were almost handcrafted. As a consequence, there were numerous different models of the same tank, truck, or gun, often mixed together in the same unit. Some of these variations, such as those in armor plating, made little difference to the end users. Other variations, however, made it more difficult to obtain the correct spare parts to repair the different models. Prior to the invasion of Russia, most major repairs on weapons required returning the entire vehicle or weapons system to the factory for repair. Such a procedure was just barely possible given the limited distances involved in the German conquest of Poland and the West. Once in the Soviet Union, however, the distances were too great and the railroad system too inadequate to make such factory repair the rule. At the same time Hitler’s fascination with statistics and his desire to have large numbers of new end items meant that spare parts were a low priority for production. 8 The multiplicity of designs, the long distances covered by the units and their supply lines, and the general shortage of spare parts meant that German trucks, tanks, guns, and aircraft were sometimes out of action for purely mechanical problems that might well have been H112RC-2

Such difficulties affect all mechanized forces; their impact on the German armed forces should not be exaggerated. As the war dragged on, the Germans established maintenance depots inside the Soviet Union and even used aircraft to fly in spare parts. Although Soviet equipment was often simpler and more rugged, it also suffered from maintenance availability problems. However, the German tendency to invest large amounts of effort into relatively small numbers of vehicles meant that the temporary absence of any German vehicle could be more significant than the equivalent nonavailability in the Red Army. By contrast, the Soviet economy was mobilized for war both earlier and more thoroughly than its German counterpart. Fighting for its very existence, the Soviet regime redoubled the ruthless methods that had achieved great industrial growth during the 1930s. During the summer and fall of 1941, the industrial planning agency GOSPLAN evacuated more than 1,500 factories, most of them concerned with armaments, from the areas about to fall under German occupation. At enormous economic and personal cost, often under German air attack, these factories and at least some of their workers were transplanted across the Ural Mountains and reestablished in temporary buildings despite bitter winter weather. Some of these plants were transported intact or combined into larger units, but other factories inevitably became scattered during the move. In the centrally planned Soviet economy, materials, laborers, housing, power, transportation, and all the other requisites for industrial production had to be ordered to the new locations, rather than responding to the rules of supply and demand. Inevitably, the Soviet managers blundered and wasted resources, and production fell catastrophically in the fall of 1941. At the same time, although the United States and Great Britain were willing to provide military assistance to the Soviets, the difficulties of shipping such assistance to remote locations meant that little if any aid actually reached the Soviet Union in 1941. The desperate Soviet defenders had to stop the Germans primarily with prewar stocks of weapons and ammunition. 9 Once the factories resumed production at their new locations, however, Soviet output of war materiel skyrocketed. In 1942 these factories produced four million rifles, 30,100 field guns, and 22,900 tanks and self-propelled guns. Without interrupting production Soviet designers made a number of changes to the T-34 tank, reducing the number of parts and simplifying production using automatic welding. Such weapons equipped a new generation of Soviet mechanized formations—the tank and mechanized corps— that, by Western standards, were equivalent to armored divisions. Many of these newly formed units were shattered in the bitter fighting of 1942, but the continued efforts of Soviet industry, together with the growing stream of American lend-lease equipment, allowed such units to be rebuilt and expanded. 10 Based on the experiences of the Stalingrad counteroffensive and other operations during the winter of 1942–43, the Soviets grouped tank and mechanized corps into five tank armies designed to conduct independent, deep thrusts into the German rear areas. A typical tank army consisted of two tank and one mechanized corps, with supporting artillery, antitank, air defense, engineer, and service units, for a total of approximately 35,000 men, 500 to 600 tanks and self-propelled guns, and a similar number of guns and mortars. These tank armies, together with separate tank and mechanized corps for more localized operations, formed the core of Soviet striking power for the remainder of the war, including counterattacks at Kursk. 11 III. Tank Technology During and after World War II, it was an article of faith among many German soldiers that their weapons were technologically superior to those of their opponents. Yet, from 1939 through 1942 Germany depended on tanks that were only technologically equal to, or even inferior to, those of their opponents. Most of the success of German panzer divisions stemmed from the fact that, with the exception of their disorganized Soviet opponents, the German divisions had been formed earlier and therefore had more experience and more coherent tactics than those of their opponents. During this period, the Germans developed command, control, and radio communications that made the best use of limited resources. The same might be said for the close air support elements of the Luftwaffe . Only when this superiority in training and organization lost its effectiveness did the Germans come to emphasize technological advantages. H112RC-4

Throughout the following discussion, the reader should remember that, as a matter of prewar doctrine, neither the Wehrmacht not the Red Army believed that tanks should be employed to kill other tanks. Instead, the primary antitank weapons were supposed to be specialized towed and self-propelled guns. However, because the armored formations were the major actors in both armies, the two adversaries inevitably found themselves involved in tank versus tank battles, and had to equip themselves accordingly. As the war progressed, tanks on both sides tended to receive heavier armor and more effective main guns. In 1939 and 1940, the majority of German tanks were the lightly armed and armored Panzerkampfwagen (tank) I and II. These tanks were little more than training vehicles, armed with machine guns (for the Panzer I) plus a small 20mm cannon (for the Panzer II). Interspersed with these light tanks were the more formidable Panzer III and IV medium tanks, but production of these more complicated weapons lagged behind German expectations. The Panzer III was originally armed with a 37mm main gun, which in a towed version was the standard German antitank weapon for much of the war. The Panzer IV had various models of a larger 75mm gun, but the low velocity of this gun made it more useful for attacking infantry and artillery than for tank to tank battles. 12 All these weapons proved inadequate in 1940, when the Germans encountered the heavily armored British Matilda and French B1b tanks. Thirty-seven millimeter shells had no effect on the 80 millimeters of frontal armor of the Matilda, and only the famous German 88mm antitank gun was able to halt the few disorganized attacks by British and French heavy armor. 13 Shocked by this experience, the German Army retired the Panzer I from active service, and limited Panzer IIs to secondary missions such as combat engineer work. Wise commanders came to depend increasingly on the 88mm gun. The German Army Weapons Office began to install a medium-velocity (L42) 50mm gun to improve the Panzer III’s defenses, but Hitler eventually insisted on a longer, higher-velocity (L60) gun. Even this left the Panzer III at a disadvantage compared to the principal Soviet tanks. In the course of 1942, however, most Panzer IV tanks were armed with an effective 75mm gun that could penetrate Soviet armor. 14 This deficiency became critical during the invasion of the Soviet Union, when the Germans encountered superior enemy tanks. The majority of Soviet tanks in 1941 were still the aging and obsolescent light tanks of the 1930s, thinly armored and mechanically unreliable. The Germans were stunned, however, when they encountered some of the 1,800 T-34 and KV-1 tanks that had been fielded before the invasion occurred. The T-34 medium tank had better armor and, at a top speed of 34 miles per hour, was almost 10 miles faster than the Panzer IV. It was also armed with a 76.2mm high velocity gun that was superior to any German tank or antitank weapon except the 88mm. The German tanks had better radio communications and turret designs, but until the higher-velocity guns were installed, they were at a distinct disadvantage when compared to the T-34. 15 Armed with the same 76.2mm gun, weighing 47 and one-half tons, and with frontal armor of 90 millimeters, the KV-1 heavy tank was even more impervious to German defenses. Fortunately for the Germans, the inexperienced Soviet commanders often squandered these technical advantages, allowing the superior German tactical organization to compensate for inferior equipment. 16 Moreover, the production costs of the KV-1 were so high that the Soviets had to rely primarily on the T-34 medium and the T-60 and T-70 light tanks. In any event, early T-34 and KV-1 tanks suffered from design problems that were not corrected until late 1941. Nevertheless, the new Soviet tanks forced the Germans to review their weapons program. Not only were panzer units caught at a disadvantage, but German infantry was often demoralized by the ineffectiveness of its standard antitank guns. Some Germans proposed that a captured T-34 be reverse engineered so that copies could be produced by German factories. Quite apart from the German prejudice against foreign vehicles, however, this proposal was impossible because German industry lacked the raw materials to reproduce the aluminum diesel engine of the T-34. 17 H112RC-5

further problems. Although 200 Panthers were supposedly operational when the offensive began on 5 July, during the next nine days enemy action plus at least 46 cases of mechanical failure reduced the availability of Panthers to only 38. Further design problems plagued the Panther all summer; one tank battalion reported 25 engine failures in only nine days of operations. Ultimately, the German designers solved these problems and made the Panther into a superb tank; unfortunately for Hitler, this result was not achieved until long after Kursk. Even if the Panther had been perfect, it was never available in sufficient numbers. In the entire war, Germany produced 5,976 Panthers, equal to only three months of Soviet tank production. 20 Germany did not limit its improvements to tanks, of course. Beginning in 1941, and continuing for the next several years, the Germans sought to increase the antitank capabilities of infantry units. The ineffective 37mm antitank gun was replaced by 50mm and limited numbers of 75mm weapons in 1942-43. Various models of self-propelled guns, based on the chassis of Panzer II or Panzer III tanks, were produced to provide the infantry with armored support weapons. The resulting assault guns ( Sturmgeschutz or Stug) carried either the German 75mm gun or a captured Soviet 76.2mm weapon that had been modified to fire the German 75mm ammunition. However, because the new tanks created such high demand for hardened steel, Guderian had to substitute lower-quality steel for the assault guns. Despite these problems, more than 1,400 assault guns were in the hands of field units by July 1943. 21 The majority of these guns were assigned to provide German infantry divisions with armored support. Meanwhile, the technological surprise inherent in the Tiger I was sacrificed six months before the Kursk offensive. In late 1942, during the desperate German efforts to relieve Stalingrad, a small number of Tigers were committed to the battle, giving the Soviets early notice of the new generation of German weapons. More significantly, on 14 January 1943, the Soviet troops at Leningrad captured a Tiger that had become immobilized. 22 The technological warning given by the premature commitment of Tigers was still insufficient for the Soviets to develop and field comparable tanks. In fact, the Soviets terminated production of the improved KV-1S tank in April 1943 in order to concentrate on T-34 production. Eventually, the T-34 was up-gunned to carry a more effective 85mm gun, but this T-34/85 did not enter series production until December 1943, and none of these newer tanks were available at Kursk. Instead, the Red Army turned to a number of simpler, quicker responses to the new threat. Surviving KV-1 tanks were gathered into heavy tank regiments, of which the 202d was assigned to the Voronezh Front, on the southern flank of the Kursk Bulge, by the end of July. However, the 76.2mm gun mounted in both the T-34 and the KV-1 series tanks could penetrate Panther and Tiger armor only at very close range. 23 Instead, the Soviets took a leaf from the German book, temporarily assigning some of their 85mm antiaircraft guns to be used as tank killers. In addition, the Soviets, like the Germans, turned to self-propelled guns which could be manufactured cheaply on obsolescent tank chassis. These weapons were labeled “SU” for Samokhodnaya Ustanovka , or mechanized mounting. During 1943 the Soviet Union produced 1,300 heavy SUs with 152mm guns, 800 medium SUs with 122mm howitzers, and 2,300 light SUs with 76mm or smaller caliber guns. None of these weapons could equal the long-range penetration capacity of the Tiger’s 88mm gun, and indeed their main function was infantry support. At shorter ranges, however, the heavy SUs could indeed penetrate Tiger armor. The 152mm self-propelled gun was designed from the ground up starting in January 1943. Spurred by the captured Tiger tank, Soviet engineers completed design work in a scant 25 days, and the SU-152 entered production immediately. Four months later, the first heavy regiments were formed with only 12 SU-152s each, and sent to the Kursk Bulge after only a few weeks of training. The SU- 152 earned the nickname of Zvierboy , or Animal Hunter, for its ability to knock out the Tigers, Panthers, and Elephants. 24 Beginning in April, the light- and medium-SU units were reorganized and expanded, often built around the cadres of shattered tank regiments. SU production and training were both incomplete by midsummer, and H112RC-7

the SU-76s and SU-122s were intended for infantry support. Nevertheless, 16 of the first 37 light- and medium-SU regiments were assigned to the three fronts at Kursk, with another 12 going to the two fronts immediately to the north, which became involved in the eventual Soviet counterattack. 25 IV. Prelude to Battle The struggle for battlefield supremacy involved much more than production and design, of course. In Germany, a series of administrative actions released 800,000 more young men for service, while other men from the conquered territories were reclassified so that they could be used as soldiers or as unarmed helpers. Every German infantry division was authorized more than 1,000 volunteer helpers or hiwis , captured Russians or other nationalities who provided labor in return for better food and treatment. Beginning in January 1943, boys and girls as young as 15 were excused from school to man antiaircraft guns in Germany, thereby freeing older men for combat duty. Many of the troops made available in this process did not fill the personnel shortages of existing divisions, but instead were diverted to recreate the divisions that had perished at Stalingrad. These poorly trained and equipped units performed garrison duty in France so that divisions with greater combat capacity could be reassigned to the east. 26 The defeat at Stalingrad also forced Adolf Hitler to reconsider some of his prejudices against career officers. General Heinz Guderian, relieved of command during the retreat from Moscow in 1941, found himself recalled to active duty in February 1943. Hitler recognized Guderian’s prewar genius for organizing and training mechanized forces, and appointed him inspector general of panzer troops. Normal institutional resistance, coupled with the divided leadership of the German government, limited Guderian’s actual authority, but he worked closely with Speer and others to rebuild the shattered mechanized forces of Germany. Their efforts, reinforced by Hitler’s interest, prompted a remarkable resurgence of production. Between April and June 1943, German industry produced more than 2800 tanks and assault guns, although many of these did not reach the field before the battle began. Guderian was never able to achieve his dream of panzer divisions containing 400 or more tanks, but he did bring the tank strength of the average division up to 100 or more, primarily Panzer III and IV vehicles. At the same time, his insistence on careful training restored much of the unit cohesion and tactical capabilities of his cherished panzers. Throughout the spring of 1943 the German divisions in the Kursk area were able to conduct intensive training in preparation for the next offensive. 27 Although five German field armies were involved in that offensive, there were really three main attack forces. On the northern flank of the bulge, Ninth German Army, commanded by General Walter Model, had a total of 335,000 men, organized into 21 German and three Hungarian divisions. Model’s force included six panzer, one panzer grenadier, and 14 infantry divisions. Six hundred fifty-eight tanks, primarily Panzer III and IV vehicles, and 423 assault guns were assigned to Ninth Army. 28 XLVII Panzer Corps was designated to make the main effort with four panzer and one infantry divisions; in addition, this corps controlled the independent 21st Panzer Brigade, consisting of 45 Tiger I tanks and 36 self-propelled assault guns. XLI Panzer Corps, whose assignment was to support this main effort, controlled one panzer and two infantry divisions, plus the two Elephant heavy tank destroyer units. On the southern flank of the bulge, Manstein’s Army Group South controlled two separate attacking armies. Colonel General Hermann Hoth commanded 223,000 men in Fourth Panzer Army, including the flower of the German panzer force in three panzer divisions and four elite panzer grenadier divisions. Two of Hoth’s three corps constituted the main effort, aimed at attacking northward into the southeastern flank of the Soviet defenses. XLVIII Panzer Corps, in the center of the Fourth Panzer Army sector, included two panzer and one infantry divisions, plus the elite Panzer Grenadier Division Grossdeutschland . This division alone was authorized 569 tanks, including the majority of functioning Panthers, although not all of these vehicles were running when the battle began. To the left of XLVIII Panzer Corps was II SS Panzer Corps, commanded by SS Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser. Throughout the war, the Waffen (combat) SS units always had H112RC-8

their opponents. Numbers alone, even combined with the growing experience of the Soviet commanders, did not daunt most German commanders, who had triumphed against similar odds in the preceding two summer offensives. In 1943, however, the Red Army had an unprecedented advantage. Unlike the two previous German summer offensives, the location and strength, if not the timing, of the Kursk offensive were abundantly clear to the Soviet high command, allowing Moscow to concentrate its best forces and most experienced commanders at the precise point of greatest risk. The strength of the Soviet defenses went far beyond mere numbers. First, as in the case of Central Front’s Thirteenth Army, the Red commanders focused their best assets on extremely narrow frontages at the points of expected German attack. Second, during the three months prior to the battle these troops constructed defenses in enormous depth, ranging from three to as many as six major defensive belts, with each belt being further subdivided into two or more layers or defenses. In general, the first and second defensive belts were fully manned when the battle began, while the third and succeeding belts were either occupied by units held in reserve or left empty until the battle approached them. These defensive belts, supplemented by the additional positions constructed by Konev’s Steppe Military District, meant that the Soviet defenses were literally hundreds of kilometers deep. When examined in detail, these defenses proved even more formidable. Rather than continuous, World War I-style trenches, the fortifications were a series of strongpoints and traps for enemy armor. Entire towns in the forward area were abandoned, while more than 300,000 civilians labored to construct the defenses. In the first defensive belt alone, 37 rifle divisions created more than 350 strongpoints, each manned by a battalion of four to six hundred men with supporting antitank weapons and combat engineers. 34 Each of these battalion positions consisted of blockhouses and trenches, organized around minefields. In the sectors of the three most threatened rifle armies, the defenders buried an average of 2,400 antitank and 2,700 anti-personnel mines for each mile of front. The mines were intended to slow the Germans down, making them vulnerable to attack by antitank cannon and by small teams of infantry armed with short-range antitank weapons. In addition to these battalion positions, the Soviets also constructed a smaller number of antitank strongpoints, intended specifically to deal with the heaviest German vehicles. Such a strongpoint contained a rifle company or battalion, a combat engineer platoon equipped with explosive satchel charges, an antitank artillery company with up to six guns, and in some cases two or three tanks or self-propelled guns. Recognizing that the existing 45mm antitank guns would not be able to penetrate the thick frontal armor of the Panthers, Tigers, and Elephants, the Red Army incorporated self-propelled tank destroyers as well as 85mm and larger artillery guns with their barrels cranked down to shoot directly at the approaching German vehicles. Camouflaged tank positions, from which only the turrets would protrude, were intended to conceal the defending tanks and to protect their hulls from German fire. 35 Advance knowledge of the German offensive also permitted the Soviets to improve on some of their weakest capabilities—command, control, and communications. The defenders buried hundreds of miles of telephone cable and conducted daily exercises to ensure rapid transmission of reports and orders. The staffs at every level conducted war games, attempting to predict how the battle would develop and what actions to take in response. All of these preparations gave the defenders greater confidence, but even in July the Soviet defenses were by no means perfect. The most self-assured Soviet soldier had to be concerned by the prospect of another summer offensive by the seemingly invincible Wehrmacht . V. Offensive and Counteroffensive 36 While factories and soldiers prepared on both sides, the starting date of the German offensive was delayed. Hitler’s vacillations, reinforced by the natural desire to wait while more new tanks were produced H112RC-10

and fielded, caused the original date of 1 May to change repeatedly. Ultimately, Hitler felt compelled to attack, rather than admit to his allies and opponents that the Germans were no longer capable of victory. During the two months of delay, Soviet intelligence and reconnaissance forces were in some respects too efficient, issuing several false alerts based on dates that the Germans chose and then discarded. 37 Indeed, Georgi Zhukov and the other senior leaders of the Red Army had to dissuade Stalin from launching his own, preemptive offensive, arguing that it was better to wear the Germans down with the Red defense before beginning their own attack. On the night of 4-5 July 1943, interrogation of captured German soldiers indicated that the attack was finally imminent. In an effort to derail this attack before it began, at 0115 the Soviet defenders fired a massive artillery preparation at the jumping-off positions of the German assault troops. This rain of explosives caused the Germans some casualties and confusion, but only delayed the attack by two to three hours. At the same time, the Red Air Force launched an attack on German airfields in the region, but again had little success. The tale of the German offensive on the northern side of the bulge can be summarized easily. Both sides fought with incredible bravery. General Model did not depend solely on his armor, but followed the classic pattern of using infantry, artillery, and air support to create a breakthrough. Nevertheless, Ninth German Army lost 213 tanks in the first day of fighting. 38 On several occasions the Central Front used its reserves to launch premature counterattacks that were blasted apart by the Elephants and other German guns. By 9 July, the fourth day of the offensive, Model’s Ninth Army had penetrated the first two defensive belts to a maximum depth of approximately eight miles. Yet nowhere did the Germans even come close to breaking through Soviet defenses into open territory. Despite further convulsive efforts to advance, the German offensive in the north essentially ended on 10 July. Part of the reason for this failure was a shortage of air support, which in turn was due to shortages in aviation fuel. The Luftwaffe’s Sixth Air Fleet, supporting Model, received only three-quarters of its fuel requirements, and had to refuse some air support requests solely to conserve fuel. 39 This shortage became even more pressing on 12 July, when a Soviet offensive against Orel, the eastward bulge just north of Kursk, caused Army Group Center to redeploy ground and air assets away from Model’s attack. Predictably, Hitler forbad any withdrawal around Orel, but eventually he had to bow to reality, and by the end of July German forces north of Kursk had not only halted, but were withdrawing westward. Manstein’s panzers had greater success on the southern side of the bulge. On 4 July, the day before the main offensive, leading infantry elements from XLVIII Panzer and II SS Panzer Corps of Fourth Panzer Army conducted a reconnaissance that pushed back the outposts in front of the first Soviet defensive belt. The next day, after the delay caused by the unexpected Soviet artillery bombardment, these two corps conducted their main attack. The Panther brigade attached to the Grossdeutschland Division operated as a coherent unit, but most of the Tiger tanks were distributed in company-size formations. Some division commanders chose to place these heavier tanks at the cutting edge of their formations, in order to shield the older Panzer III and IV vehicles. In this exposed position, however, the Tigers were often the first to encounter (at close range) the Soviet antitank positions. This tactic sacrificed part of the range advantage which their 75mm and 88mm guns had when engaging enemy tanks. By the end of the first day, most of the Grossdeutschland Division’s infantry, supported by Panther and Mark IV tanks, found itself mired in a Soviet minefield where antitank guns and direct-fire field guns chewed up the Germans. 40 The infantry and tanks became separated, making each arm more vulnerable to Soviet counterattack, a situation which recurred frequently during the battle. Moreover, the hard-pressed Luftwaffe , dedicated primarily to close air support, could not stop the Red Air Force from harassing the German advance. Still, XLVIII Panzer Corps succeeded in tearing a large hole in the first Soviet defensive belt, and then turned northeastward to continue its advance. Farther east, II SS Panzer Corps had even more success, advancing almost 10 kilometers and destroying most of a defending rifle division. Yet despite their new weapons, the Germans paid significantly for their H112RC-11

Corps, reduced to 180 tanks and assault guns, continued to advance on 11-12 July, but Vatutin dispatched additional antitank units that inflicted even greater casualties on the German force. 43 In the center, near Prokhorovka itself, the Psel River and a high railroad embankment divided both II SS Panzer Corps and Fifth Tank Army. On the eastern bank, 1st and 2d SS Panzer Grenadier Divisions encountered three of Rotmistrov’s corps, each equivalent to an armored division. It is this last encounter, with 150 to 200 German and 380 to 400 Soviet armored vehicles, which is the true battle of Prokhorovka. Fought on 12 July, this confused swirl of tanks began with Rotmistrov’s tanks, including both T-34s and lightly armored T-70s, charging forward in almost suicidal fashion across the open, treeless terrain. The Soviet tankers suffered heavily in this attack, but Rotmistrov had concluded that this was the only way to overcome the range advantage of the German 88mm guns. 44 Once the Soviets and Germans closed to ranges of 500 meters or less, each side’s tank and antitank guns were effective against the opponent’s tanks, at least on the lightly armored flanks and rear. The melee continued for most of the day, with neither side gaining a clear tactical advantage. For the Germans, however, the failure to penetrate the Soviet defenses meant the failure of the entire offensive. Having thinned out the defenses of Western Europe to support CITADEL, Hitler was hypersensitive to any threat in the region. On 10 July 1943, the British and American armies invaded Sicily. Hitler had already lost confidence in the Kursk offensive, and he used Sicily as a pretext to terminate the operation. At a conference on 13 July, Manstein argued for a continuation of the Kursk offensive. Hitler insisted that the offensive was dead, and that troops must be withdrawn to reinforce Italy. The dictator refused to commit the last reserve south of the bulge, the two-division XXIV Panzer Corps. The most that Manstein could obtain was permission to continue the attack, especially by Army Detachment Kempf, to inflict more casualties on the Soviets. Four days later, Hitler ordered that II SS Panzer Corps begin preparations to redeploy to Italy. That same day, 17 July, the Red Army launched an offensive farther south in Manstein’s area of operations, threatening to recapture the industrial resources of the Donetz River basin. Fourth Panzer Army began a fighting withdrawal from its hard-won gains on the southern flank of Kursk. Hitler had already decided, reluctantly, to evacuate the entire Orel Bulge north of Kursk. 45 Guderian’s carefully nurtured panzer divisions had been seriously but not decisively weakened in terms of equipment, losing an estimated 600 tanks and 50 assault guns in two weeks of fighting. 46 More significant was the loss of trained manpower and self-confidence. Yet all this sacrifice did not even gain breathing space for the German Army. On 3 August, only three weeks after the Kursk offensive ended, the Red Army launched a massive offensive out of the southern flank of the bulge, using many of the same units that the Germans had shattered in the preceding battles. After an initial breakthrough attack by Fifth Guards, Sixth Guards, and Fifty-Third Armies, the First Tank and Fifth Guards Tank Armies plunged forward into the German rear, seeking to outflank the city of Khar’kov from the north and west. The result was a replay of the conflict between Fourth Panzer Army and the Voronezh Front, only this time the Germans were on the defensive. Between 6 and 17 August, the Grossdeutschland Division, followed by several SS divisions previously controlled by II SS Panzer Corps, clashed with the two Soviet tank armies near Bogodukov, 20 miles northwest of Khar’kov. Ultimately, the Soviets captured Khar’kov, and by the end of September Army Group South had withdrawn behind the Dnepr River. Thus the Red Army not only halted the Blitzkrieg at Kursk, but went on to launch its first successful summer offensive against the Germans. VI. Assessment Any evaluation of the Kursk offensive must begin with the German strategic purpose. After four years of victorious summer offensives, Adolf Hitler did not want to admit to his allies that the Wehrmacht had lost the ability to continue its advances. Moreover, the German commanders themselves found it difficult to believe that they could not achieve another great victory of encirclement and exploitation over the despised Slavic enemy. The Kursk Bulge seemed made to order for this purpose—by concentrating their limited reserves in a H112RC-13

relatively small area, the Germans could tear a large hole in the Soviet defenses, conserve forces by shortening their own defensive lines, and perhaps exploit this success by a pursuit to the east. Had Manstein been able to continue his advance in March, when the Soviets were overextended and off- balance, he might well have captured Kursk immediately. As a practical matter, however, the German forces were almost as weak as their opponents, and would have had to halt even if the spring thaw had not made further advance impossible. Thus Kursk had to be taken by deliberate attack rather than hasty exploitation; the only question was the timing that would give the Germans the best opportunity for success. “Might-have-been” is a dangerous concept for historians, but some observations about timing are relatively obvious. Had the Germans attacked in early May 1943, both sides would have been less prepared for battle. At that time, each side had replaced many of its previous losses, but had not yet had the opportunity to train these refurbished units to a high standard. It is worth noting that the two-month delay gained Hitler much more than simply new weapons; in addition, the panzer force had time to retrain to the high standard of tactics, which was a major reason for German success in battle. One may argue that the Red Army also profited from the delay, training units and perfecting defenses. The skillful defensive maneuvers of Red tank corps demonstrated an unexpected talent in a field that had previously been a source of German superiority. However, by early May the Soviet defenses were already so formidable that General Model had bypassed the chain of command to show the reconnaissance photographs to Hitler, expressing his strong doubts about the success of an attack. 47 Thus, an earlier attack date might have sacrificed the German tactical as well as technical advantage, without markedly reducing the strength of the Soviet resistance. By 1943 Germany’s early successes had come to an end partly because of the natural evolution of warfare, in which any new method of fighting eventually provokes countermeasures on the part of the enemy. In this respect, the great depth of Soviet defenses not only presented the attackers with an incredible series of obstacles, but also derailed the entire basis of Blitzkrieg . Over and over again from 1939 through 1942, the German Army had been able to penetrate its opponent’s prepared defenses and then unleash mechanized forces that completely disorganized the enemy’s command and control while demoralizing soldiers and civilians alike. At Kursk, however, the Germans never achieved a complete penetration and were therefore never able to stampede the Soviets into confusion and retreat. The Blitzkrieg offensive was halted at its preliminary stage. As a rule of thumb, in war the attacker needs a numerical superiority of at least three to one over the defender in order to have a reasonable probability of victory. At Kursk, the Wehrmacht was actually outnumbered by its opponent. Previously, superior training and tactics, assisted by surprise, had permitted the Germans to triumph against similar odds; by 1943 they could no longer rely on such intangible advantages to make up for numerical shortages. Under the circumstances, the Germans placed increased faith in superior technology and quality to compensate for the numerical advantages of their opponents. Although battlefield claims must be viewed with great skepticism, it appears that those Panthers, Tigers, and Elephants that made it into battle at Kursk achieved enviable tactical successes. Steven Zaloga, one of the foremost authorities on military technology, surveyed six German units equipped with these weapons, and estimated that, during July–August 1943, those units destroyed 1,355 Soviet tanks with a loss of less than 90 German vehicles. 48 Yet the best is often the enemy of the good, especially if the search for technical advantage interferes with maximum production of simple, reliable weapons. In this regard, it is important to examine not only what new weapons were produced in 1943, but also how those weapons were fielded. When developing any new weapon, there is a continuum between two equally risky extremes. If a weapon such as the Panther is fielded without adequate development and testing, its teething problems may be extreme, making it unreliable in the field. The Panther tanks available in July were only marginally better, both quantitatively and qualitatively, H112RC-14

1 Notes . Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (Washington: Zenger Publishing, 1952), 306–10; Erich von Manstein, Lost Victories . Trans. Anthony G. Powell. (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1958), 447. 2 . David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House, When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler . (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1995), 49–156. 3 . Manstein, Lost Victories , 436. Predictably, Manstein disclaimed any responsibility for the German failure. 4 . Klaus Reinhardt, Moscow—The Turning Point. The Failure of Hitler’s Strategy in the Winter of 1941–42 . Trans. Karl B. Keenan. (Oxford and Providence, RI: Berg Publishers, 1992), 136–48, 395–426. 5 . Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich . Trans. Richard and Clara Winston (NY: Macmillan, 1970), 193–220; For a fuller explanation of the complexities of German production, see Richard L. DiNardo, Germany’s Panzer Arm (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), 6–11, and Edward R. Zilbert, Albert Speer and the Nazi Ministry of Arms (London: Associated University Presses, 1981), 35–92. 6 . Reinhardt, Moscow—The Turning Point , 368–69; George E. Blau, The German Campaign in Russia: Planning and Operations (1940–1942) (Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1955), 138–39; DiNardo, Germany’s Panzer Arm , 15. 7 . Speer, Inside the Third Reich , 214, 255–61. 8 . See, for example, Hitler’s reluctance to release spare tank engines during the 1941 campaign, as described in Blau, The German Campaign in Russia , 61–62. German memoirs naturally stressed this issue of spare parts as part of the general alibi that Hitler was responsible for losing the war. 9 . Glantz and House, When Titans Clashed , 71–72; Alexander Werth, Russia At War, 1941–1945 (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1964), 213–23; Walter Dunn, The Soviet Economy and the Red Army, 1930–1945 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995), 33. 10 . Walter S. Dunn, Jr. Kursk: Hitler’s Gamble, 1943 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), 32–34. See Steven J. Zaloga and James Grandsen, Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles of World War II (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1984), 130–31, on tank design changes. 11 . Richard N. Armstrong, Red Army Tank Commanders: The Armored Guards (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Military/Aviation History, 1994), 24–25. 12 . On German tank design, see the British official history volume by I.S.O. Playfair et al, The Mediterranean and the Middle East , Vol. II: The Germans Come to the Aid of Their Allies (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1956), 13–14, 341–45. In 1939, the German Army had 1,445 Panzer I, 1,223 Panzer II, 98 Panzer III, and 211 Panzer IV tanks. Brian Perrett, A History of Blitzkrieg (New York: Stein and Day, 1983), 78. 13 . See Kenneth Macksey, The Tank Pioneers (London & New York: Jane’s Publishing Company, 1981), 160–62; B. H. Liddell Hart (ed.), The Rommel Papers (New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1953), 30–34. 14 . Steven J. Zaloga, personal communication to the author, 30 January 1998. I wish to thank Mr. Zaloga for his many corrections to this paper. 15 . For the evolution of the T-34, see Steven Zaloga and Peter Sarson, T-34/76 Medium Tank, 1941–1945 (London: Osprey, 1994). 16 . The 1,449 Panzer III and 517 Panzer IV tanks in 1941 were outnumbered as well as outclassed by the 1,475 T-34s and KV-1s assigned to first-line Soviet units. Steven Zaloga, “Technological Surprise and the Initial Period of War: The Case of the T-34 Tank.” Journal of Slavic Military Studies ( JSMS ) 6:4 (December, 1993), 634–46; Glantz and House, When Titans Clashed , 36. 17 . Bryan Perrett, Knights of the Black Cross: Hitler’s Panzerwaffe and Its Leaders (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986), 103. 18 . Perrett, Knights of the Iron Cross , 103–5; DiNardo, Germany’s Panzer Arm , 18–19. 19 . Guderian, Panzer Leader , 299, 311; Perrett, Knights of the Black Cross , 104–5. After the disaster of Kursk, some Elephants were equipped with machine guns. 20 . DiNardo, Germany’s Panzer Arm , 17–18; Dunn, Kursk: Hitler’s Gamble , 88. See also Thomas Jentz, Germany’s Panther Tank: The Quest for Combat Supremacy . (Chester, PA: Schiffer, 1995). 21 . Guderian, Panzer Leader , 279; Perrett, Knights of the Black Cross , 106; Dunn, Kursk: Hitler’s Gamble , 89. 22 . G. K. Zhukov, Reminiscences and Reflections , Vol. I. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1985), 451. 23 . Steven J. Zaloga, Jim Kinnear, and Peter Sarson, KV-1 & 2 Heavy Tanks, 1941–1945 . (London: Osprey, 1995), 44. 24 . Zaloga and Grandsen, Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles , 156–66.

25 . Dunn, Kursk: Hitler’s Gamble , 91–92. 26 . Ibid., 37–48. 27 . Dunn, Kursk: Hitler’s Gamble , 86; Guderian, Panzer Leader , 284–311. 28 . The order of battle at Kursk in this essay is based on the exhaustive research of my collaborator, David Glantz. For a more complete account, see Glantz and House, The Battle of Kursk (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1999). 29 . See Silvester Stadler, Die Offensive gegen Kursk 1943: II. SS-Panzerkorps als Stosskeil im Grosskampf (Osnabruck, FRG: Munin Verlag GmbH, 1980). 30 . “Tagliche Lagenkarten vom 1.7.43-31.12.43,” Kriegstagebuch No. 2, AOK 8, Ia, AOK 8, 44701/14 in NAM T- 312, Roll 56 and other AOK 8 reports in the T-312 series. 31 . Glantz and House, The Battle of Kursk , Appendix 2: Red Army Order of Battle. 32 . M. A. Kozlov, ed., V plammeni srazhenii: boevoi put’ 13-i armii [In the flames of battle: the combat path of 13th Army], (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1973), 89–128. (All references to Russian language sources are courtesy of David Glantz.) 33 . Glantz and House, The Battle of Kursk , Appendix 2: Red Army Order of Battle. Nikita Khruschev, the future General Secretary, was the senior political officer of the Voronezh Front. 34 . This discussion of Soviet defenses is based on P. P. Vechnyi, et al. ed., Sbornik materialov po izucheniiu opyta voiny, No. 11 mart-aprel’ 1944 g [Collection of materials for the study of war experience, No. 11, March–April 1944], (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1944), 39–42 . This study prepared by the Red Army General Staff covers all aspects of the Battle of Kursk. 35 . David M. Glantz, “Soviet Defensive Tactics at Kursk, July 1943,” Combat Studies Institute Report No. 11 (Fort Leavenworth, KS, typescript, 1986); L. Kozlov, “Sovershenstvovanie protivotankovoi oborony strelkovykh soedinenii” [Perfection of the antitank defense of rifle formations], VIZh 3 (March 1971), 32. 36 . Except where otherwise indicated, this account of the battle is based on Glantz and House, The Battle of Kursk. 37 . On Hitler’s vacillations, see Janusz Piekalkiewicz, Operation “Citadel”: Kursk and Orel: The Greatest Tank Battle of the Second World War. Trans. Michaela Nierhaus (Novato, CA: Presidio, c. 1987), 34–67, and Guderian, Panzer Leader , 302–9; For the Soviet side, see David M. Glantz, The Role of Intelligence in Soviet Military Strategy in World War II (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1990), 92–104; and Glantz, “Soviet Operational Intelligence in the Kursk Operation, July 1943,” Intelligence and National Security , 5:1 (January 1990), 5–49. 38 . Piekalkiewicz, Operation “Citadel” , 140–42. 39 . Hermann Plocher, The German Air Force Versus Russia, 1943 ; USAF Historical Studies No. 155 (New York: Arno Press, 1967), 80. 40 . Helmut Spaeter, The History of the Panzercorps Grossdeutschland , Vol. 2, (Winnipeg, Canada: J. J. Fedorowicz, 1995), 116. 41 . Ia. Zimin, “Boevye deistviia 1-i tankovoi armii v oboronitel’nom srazhenii pod Kurskom [The combat actions of 1st Tank Army in the defensive battle at Kursk], Voennaia mysl [Military thought], No. 3 (March 1957), 45–46. 42 . This battle is reflected in detail in David M. Glantz, Atlas of the Battle of Kursk (Carlisle, PA: By the author, 1997). 43 . Dunn, Kursk: Hitler’s Gamble , 156–58. 44 . Pavel A. Rotmistrov, Stal’naia gvardiia [Steel guards] (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1988), 180. See also Rotmistrov, “The Role of Armoured Forces in the Battle of Kursk,” in Ivan Parotkin (ed.), The Battle of Kursk , trans. G.P. Ivanov-Mumjiev (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974), 170–72. 45 . Earl F. Ziemke, Stalingrad to Berlin: The German Defeat in the East (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1968), 137–38. 46 . Dunn, Kursk: Hitler’s Gamble , 166–67. 47 . Piekalkiewicz, Operation “Citadel,” 91–3. 48 . Steven J. Zaloga, personal communication with the author, 30 January 1998.