Battle of Prokhorovka

[JtD]

Over the (post war) years this battle was mystified and blown out of proportion. Recent analysis based on records already indicated, that the battle was in fact, while still grim, way smaller and quite one sided. Most recently, German post battle recon pictures of the battle site were discovered and evaluated, which very much confirm what available records already indicated.

 

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/16161262.2019.1606545?needAccess=true

 

I found it to be a very interesting read, in particular the contrast to what I learned about this battle 20 years ago is astonishing. It also shows why, no matter what equipment you have, you still need at least basic tactics to make it work.

[Finkeren]

I read through the first half of the article, and it seems quite good, but I don't understand, where it differs wildly from the general consensus about Prokhorovka? Pretty much everything I've seen or read about that battle, excluding the worst and most sensationalistic History Channel "documentaries" has described Prokhorovka as a big mess on the Soviet side, where a couple tank armies were thrown right into the teeth of the single best German panzer division in an attempt to halt a breakthrough (some say out of desperation, some say out of i competence, some say it was a deliberate and cynical sacrifice and yet others say it happened more or less accidentally). Yet all seem to regard it as an unmittigated local disaster for the Red Army. 

 

That it was a fairly local and not at all decisive event is not really controversial either I think, but I might just have been lucky with my sources. 

Edited July 9, 2019 by Finkeren

[JtD]

Find a 30 year old book on Prokhorovka, I'm pretty sure you'll find a it paints a different picture. A foggy one at least.

 

The article not so different from what was published in the last 10 years, as more and more sources became available and were evaluated. In fact, it heavily quotes previous works. However, it uses new, previously unknown sources, which are detailed enough, to locate and identify individual losses on that day (given time). To me that's a quite remarkable progress.

[sdflyer]

I have posted some interesting new facts recently published on Russian news resource