any book recommendation specific for prokhorovka?

[NoelGallagher]

i want to learn more about this battle with great detail

i know you guys read a lot of ww2 books haha (just by observation on the forum)

so any recommendation would be appreciated 

(i found only one book that was written specifically for this battle "The battle of prokhorovka -Christopher A. Lawrence" 

if you guys have read this what's your opinon about it ? is it any good in terms of detailed explanation?)

thx 

 

a little gif for you

this is the ariel photo that captured the 1st day action of the battle 

german armour advancing towards soviet position

 

 

[Chief_Mouser]

[[KG]Destaex]

I own the Osprey Book on Kursk. It's old and very general. So I would not recommend it for a detailed study.

 

[Lofte]

On 11/16/2021 at 10:55 PM, NoelGallagher said:

so any recommendation would be appreciated 

 

I know only two authors who most digged in the subject:

- Roman Töppel (Germany)

- Valerij Zamulin (Russia)

 

  

 

 

[NoelGallagher]

much appreciation for your recommendations 

i might first buy those two books

Roman Töppel 

Valerij Zamulin

so i can hear it from both side 

 

13 hours ago, Eeafanas said:

I advise you to visit the Russian-language forum. They will definitely help you there. You can write in your native language. The Russian-speaking community is much more friendly towards foreigners than foreigners who speak Russian in the English forum. Sorry for possible mistakes, I am writing through a translator

https://forum.il2sturmovik.ru/forum/14-сражения-и-личности/

i didn't even know there's russian community in same website haha

awesome 

but i can't understand single words 

 

have a wonderful day guys ☀️

Edited November 18, 2021 by NoelGallagher

[[KG]Destaex]

22 minutes ago, NoelGallagher said:

much appreciation for your recommendations 

i might first buy those two books

Roman Töppel 

Valerij Zamulin

so i can hear it from both side 

 

i didn't even know there's russian community in same website haha

awesome 

but i can't understand single words 

 

have a wonderful day guys ☀️

I am also interested in both sides there. I wonder if a more neutral look that has already read and considered both those books as well as post war analytics from stats.

But both sides from the horses mouth is always the most entertaining and interesting read.

[moustache]

2 hours ago, Lofte said:

 

I know only two authors who most digged in the subject:

- Roman Töppel (Germany)

- Valerij Zamulin (Russia)

 

  

 

 

 

are they 2 books bringing different points of view or are they similar in their words? basically one is enough or do you have to buy both? (thanks for your proposition)

 

[Lofte]

1 hour ago, moustache said:

are they 2 books bringing different points of view or are they similar in their words?

No big difference in points of view, but Zamulin's books have more details in general and more details about why happened this or that, not just mostly pure facts like in Töppel's book.

 

Töppel:

 

Spoiler

The II SS Panzer Corps, on the other hand, continued its thrust approaching the north and northeast towards Prokhorovka. On 9 July, the Totenkopf Division succeeded in breaking through the first sector of the third Soviet army defence line, too, and pushing into the area of Kochetovka and Krasnyy Oktyabr at the Psël River. As a result of this advance, the 5th Guards Tank Army received orders to advance into the Prokhorovka area and prepare for counterattacks.

On 10 July, the Totenkopf Division attempted to establish a bridgehead across the Psël at Kozlovka (Map 6). The soldiers of the Soviet 95th Guards Rifle Division put up determined resistance, but in the afternoon they were forced to withdraw. The decisive factor was that, following a thunderstorm, the weather cleared up in the afternoon, allowing for the employment of the Luftwaffe. ‘[The] Russian runs from Stukas’, the Totenkopf Division reported at 1800.72 Soon afterwards it captured Hill 226.6; now, the third Soviet defensive belt north of the Psël River was completely overrun.

On the following day the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, too, penetrated the last Red Army defence line southwest of Prokhorovka and advanced as far as Hill 252.2. However, the division now had two open flanks and therefore discontinued the advance for the moment. The next day, on 12 July, the Totenkopf Division was to carry the attack forward on its own and close the open left flank of the Leibstandarte. As it transpired, on 12 July, the soldiers of the Leibstandarte would be involved in one of the bloodiest tank battles of Operation Citadel, although they did not yet know that in the early hours of the day, as German reconnaissance had failed to recognize that the Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army had been brought up to the front. According to SS Obersturmführer Rudolf von Ribbentrop and other witnesses, the German panzer soldiers were ‘deeply asleep’ when the 5th Guards Tank Army mounted its attack on the morning of 12 July.73 During the morning of 12 July, Ribbentrop, son of the Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs Joachim von Ribbentrop, was leading that panzer company of the Leibstandarte which the tanks of the Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army first encountered.

Five corps with a total number of 860 operational tanks and self-propelled guns were under Lieutenant-General Rotmistrov’s command that day: the 18th Tank Corps, the 29th Tank Corps, the 5th Guards Mechanized Corps, the 2nd Tank Corps and the 2nd Guards Tank Corps; the latter two had already joined the battle a few days earlier and suffered heavy losses, whereas the other three corps were fresh reserves. Four of the five corps began their assault against the two Waffen-SS Divisions Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and Das Reich with 514 tanks and self-propelled guns at their disposal. The 18th Tank Corps, which had 149 tanks, and the 29th Tank Corps, equipped with 219 tanks and self-propelled guns faced the Leibstandarte, the 2nd Tank Corps (52 tanks) and the 2nd Guards Tank Corps (94 tanks) attacked in the sector of Das Reich.

Both SS divisions in total had 218 tanks, assault guns and Marder tank destroyers at their disposal.74

At the same time as the 5th Guards Tank Army launched its attack, the 1st Tank Army, the 6th Guards Army and parts of the 5th Guards Army further west began their assault against the German XXXXVIII Panzer Corps and the SS Division Totenkopf. The Soviet command aimed at destroying the whole German Fourth Panzer Army in a converging attack. The main attack was to be carried out towards the southwest by the 18th and the particularly strong 29th Tank Corps on a front of only about 5 kilometres between the Psël River and the Prokhorovka–Belgorod railway line (Map 6). However, the Soviet command made some grave errors when preparing for the attack, beginning with the choice of where to launch the attack. In the evening of 11 July, Marshal Vasilevskiy, Chief of the Soviet General Staff, arrived at the 5th Guards Tank Army’s headquarters in order to coordinate the counterattack. Immediately he went on a tour of inspection with Lieutenant-General Rotmistrov to explore the initial positions for the assault of the 29th Tank Corps. The corps’ advance was to be launched from the third army defence line. To their consternation, however, Vasilevskiy and Rotmistrov realized that the Germans had already broken through that defensive belt and the area envisaged as the start-line was already in German hands. Vasilevskiy thus gave the order to mount the attack that very evening at 2100 Moscow time rather than at 1000 on the following day, as had initially been planned – but as the preparations for the operation could not possibly be concluded in so short a time, the time for the attack was postponed to 0300. During the night of 12 July, the 29th Tank Corps had thus to occupy the newly assigned assembly area just west and southwest of Prokhorovka. Yet when changing the plan of the attack, no commander took into consideration that as part of the third Soviet army defence line, which the 29th Tank Corps was to cross from the rear when counterattack, there was an antitank ditch, which was impassable from either direction.

Another fatal mistake was that Rotmistrov instructed the Soviet tank crews to attack the German armoured formations at full speed, in order to seek ‘close combat’ with the German tanks. Rotmistrov issued this order because the Soviet tank guns were too weak to penetrate the frontal armour of the Tiger and because he was convinced that the two SS Divisions Leibstandarte and Das Reich had 110 Tiger’s at their disposal – in reality, they only had five operational Tiger’s in the morning of 12 July.

At 0300 (Moscow time), the Soviet tankers tensely waited for the signal to attack. But none came. It was not before 0400 that the fatigued soldiers were informed the attack had been postponed until 0830. According to Soviet combat reports, Rotmistrov radioed the signal to attack at 0830, whereupon the 18th and 29th Tank Corps at once began their advance. However, this is unlikely, as German combat messages reported that the first Soviet tanks reached Hill 252.2 only at 1015 Moscow time, which, in turn, is in agreement with a report from the Soviet 31st Tank Brigade advancing behind the 32nd Tank Brigade, which states: ‘At 1030 the tanks reached the area of the Oktyabrskiy Sovkhoz.’75 It seems absurd that it took the Soviet tanks almost two hours to drive the few kilometres from their assembly area at Prokhorovka to the forward German lines at said Sovkhoz (on Hill 252.2). It is more likely that the Soviet commanders wanted to allow their soldiers some rest before the operation and then launched the attack at 1000 Moscow time, as initially scheduled.

The Soviet 29th Tank Corps, commanded by Major-General Ivan Fëdorovich Kirichenko, attacked along the Prokhorovka–Belgorod railway line. It was composed of three tank brigades, one motorized rifle brigade and one self-propelled artillery regiment. Kirichenko’s tank brigades were unusually strong; instead of an authorized strength of 53 tanks per brigade, which was still standard then, they each had an authorized strength of 65 tanks. Additionally, the 32nd Tank Brigade – unlike all other tank brigades of the 5th Guards Tank Army – was equipped exclusively with T-34 medium tanks and had no light tanks. This is why this brigade took the lead. It advanced in a front about 900 metres wide right next to the railway line (northern side) towards Hill 252.2. The 31st Tank Brigade, the second wave, followed directly behind it. The two brigades arrived on Hill 252.2 with roughly 130 tanks; at full speed they broke through the forward positions of the 2nd Panzergrenadier Regiment of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. Behind the hill – and out of sight – the Leibstandarteʼs panzer battalion was in a rest position. The German panzergrenadiers fired purple smoke signals, the designated sign for ‘tank warning’, to warn the panzer crews of the approaching Soviet tanks.76 Unaware of the strength of the Soviet attackers, SS Obersturmführer von Ribbentrop drove onto the height with seven Panzer IV to intercept the enemy tanks. In the skirmish which followed, four of the seven Panzer IV were knocked out. Yet the Soviet tank crews did not concern themselves with the remaining three tanks; instead, they continued across the height at high speed. As a result, Ribbentrop’s remaining three tanks not only managed to get back to their own lines unscathed, but Ribbentrop actually turned his tank around and drove back to the German lines undetected in the midst of the enemy tank formation, using up all his anti-tank ammunition on the tanks around him. After the battle he was credited with the destruction of 14 Soviet tanks. Even though this was but a small part of the attacking force, the noise of battle as well as Ribbentrop’s radio messages alerted the remainder of the Leibstandarte s panzer battalion: ‘I was just standing next to the cannon doing a few squats when frantic shouts of alarm abruptly chased away my sleepiness’, a tanker of battalion headquarters later wrote.77 At full speed the tanks of the Soviet 32nd and 31st Tank Brigade drove down the southwestern slope of Hill 252.2 to tear into the German formations. Now, however, their own anti-tank ditch became their undoing. A number of tanks toppled into the ditch, because the tank commanders did not recognize the obstacle ahead. Other tanks tried to ‘jump over’ the ditch at full speed – those few which succeeded were knocked out right away. Most Soviet tank commanders had their tanks turn southwards to reach the only crossing over the ditch, which was situated on the road next to the railway line. This decision turned out to be even more disastrous, however, as now the Soviet tanks became jammed at the crossing. One by one they were knocked out by the tanks of the Leibstandarte, which were well positioned behind the anti-tank ditch. Without losing another tank, the Leibstandarte completely smashed the two Soviet tank brigades.

By now, however, more Soviet tanks were arriving on the battlefield at Hill 252.2, namely the 170th Tank Brigade and parts of the 181st Tank Brigade, both attached to the 18th Tank Corps commanded by Major-General Boris Sergeevich Bakharov. As Bakharov’s tanks advanced north of the anti-tank ditch, some of them managed to get as far as the Komsomolets Sovkhoz. However, there they were knocked out – some by artillery fire, some by infantry with close-range weapons. Two Soviet tanks, which reached the railway embankment south of the Sovkhoz, encountered two German Tiger’s just arriving from the workshop and were also knocked out.

Things were hardly better for the soldiers of the Soviet 25th Tank Brigade, which was assigned to the 29th Tank Corps and attacked south of the embankment. In its combat report the brigade stated: ‘When the tanks reached the forward edge of the enemy defences, they were ambushed from the forest northwest of Storozhevoe and east of the outskirts of Storozhevoe and taken under heavy fire from Tiger’s, self-propelled artillery and anti-tank guns. The infantry was cut off from the tanks and had to seek cover. After the in-depth breakthrough of the defence, the tanks suffered heavy losses.’78 In fact, the tanks of the 25th Tank Brigade were not facing Tiger’s but encountered parts of the tank destroyer battalion and the assault guns of the Leibstandarte. Four Marder self-propelled guns were supporting the Waffen-SS panzergrenadiers at the Stalinsk Sovkhoz northeast of Storozhevoe. Without suffering any losses, they knocked out 24 Soviet tanks and self-propelled guns. To the north of Storozhevoe, the remaining tanks of the 25th Tank Brigade come upon the assault gun battalion of the Leibstandarte, which was not expecting to see action that morning: ‘We were held in reserve (Eingreifreserve) and were only employed when our spearhead troops were retreating’, a gun commander of the battalion later recalled.79 But within just a short time, the assault guns were ready for combat. Repelling the Soviet tank attack, they mounted a counterattack to eliminate the threat to the Leibstandarteʼs flank and close the gap between their own division and its neighbouring division, Das Reich. Again, the battalion inflicted significant losses on the Soviet 25th Tank Brigade – two hours after the beginning of the attack, only 21 of 69 tanks remained of the brigade. The 1446th self-propelled Artillery Regiment, which was attacking south of the railway embankment as well, also suffered appalling losses in just a short time; 19 of its 20 SU-76s and SU-122s were destroyed, 14 of which were complete write-offs.

The Soviet attacks not only failed in the sector of the Leibstandarte; the Divisions Das Reich and Totenkopf as well as the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps managed to break all the Soviet attacks on 12 July 1943, too. So the Soviet operational counterattack, which was supposed to destroy the Fourth Panzer Army, ended with a devastating defeat for the Red Army. Rotmistrov’s 5th Guards Tank Army alone lost 3,908 soldiers in total on 12 July; 1,827 of them were either killed in battle or taken prisoner, the others were wounded. It also lost 382 tanks, including 223 completely destroyed. The war diary of the Fourth Panzer Army noted: ‘On 12 July, [the] enemy attacked the Fourth Panzer Army on its entire front with at least parts of nine armoured and mechanized corps and several rifle divisions. [The] main effort of the enemy’s attacks [was directed] against both flanks at and north of Kalinin, west of Prokhorovka and west of Verkhopen'e. To this end, the enemy committed two new tank corps to the area of Prokhorovka today…. All attempts by the enemy to penetrate the flanks of the Panzer Army were foiled in fierce defensive combat.’80

That same day, 12 July, Field-Marshal von Manstein personally convinced himself of the success of the Fourth Panzer Army: ‘In all headquarters visited [by Manstein] that day, the commanders expressed their confidence about the situation after the fierce but successful early battles, as the enemy was beginning to show clear signs of incipient weakness.’81 As a consequence, Manstein was certain that the operational breakthrough of his forces was imminent and that victory in the battle of Kursk was within grasp. In the southern sector of the Kursk salient, the Red Army had already suffered about 1,200 total losses of tanks and self-propelled guns, whereas Manstein’s attack formations had lost only about 200 tanks and self-propelled guns. On 13 July, however, Manstein was summoned to the Führerhauptquartier Wolfsschanze (Wolf’s Lair) near Rastenburg in Eastern Prussia, where Hitler informed him of his decision to abandon Operation Citadel.

 

 

Zamulin:

 

Spoiler

The most intense combat actions unfolded between 0830 and 1500. In the sector of defense of the SS Panzergrenadier Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, which extended for 6.5 kilometers, the Germans had up to 305 guns and mortars of all types, or 47 tubes per kilometer of front. At the same time only 26 of the anti-aircraft guns and the 4 Pz II tanks’ main guns had a caliber of just 20mm; the rest of the artillery and the main guns of tanks had a caliber that ranged between 50mm and 150mm. The “Oktiabr’skii” State Farm was the first powerful German strong point in the path of the 18th and 29th Tank Corps. The SS troops made extensive use of our own trenches and fieldworks; over the preceding night they had dug in anti-tank artillery guns and self-propelled guns on the slopes of the State Farm and the slopes of Hill 252.2, and had mined separate sectors. In addition, they had set up ambushes with assault guns and self-propelled artillery guns in the fields of the “Stalin Branch” State Farm and on the northwestern fringes of the Storozhevoe woods. Emplaced in these areas, their guns had a field of fire that included Hill 252.2. Because of the absence of time and the bitter fighting, our scouts had been unable to reveal the enemy’s system of fire, or to determine the layout of the defenses or the combat strength of the defending units. Thus, when Rotmistrov’s tank corps went on the attack early that morning, the blow wasn’t made at exposed enemy flanks, as had been conceived by the plan, but head-on against the defense of the SS division, which had efficiently created a strong line that was saturated with anti-tank artillery means.

When introducing major mobile formations into a breakthrough, the forces in advance of them must destroy the enemy’s organized resistance, particularly the anti-tank means and artillery positioned on the forward edge. However, the reality with which the Guards tankers collided was something else. Just as the Soviet tanks had closed within direct fire range of the German positions, instantly there were flashes of flame and smoke from the guns of dozens of German tanks and self-propelled guns. The Soviet combat formation, such as it was, was thrown into disarray, the crews began maneuvering, scattering in different directions in order to get behind any fold in the ground to escape out from under the deadly fire. The tankers had to fight not only under a hail of fire, but also adapt psychologically to a positional battle, rather than the expected dash into the depth of the German defenses. A significant amount of the tanks of Colonel A.A. Linev’s leading 32nd Tank Brigade were burning in less than an hour. Before noon, the attack by Colonel N.K. Volodin’s 25th Tank Brigade (29th Tank Corps) ended just as tragically. Its losses were catastrophic. Over approximately four hours of time, 320 men (44 officers) became casualties, including 140 killed. No less than 55 tanks had been set ablaze or knocked out; in addition to those that had been destroyed by German fire, some had been disabled by mines,29 and others had broken down due to mechanical problems. All eight self-propelled guns of the two attached batteries had also been knocked out. In the afternoon, the brigade commander was forced to merge his brigade’s remnants into a single tank battalion.

After the second echelon of the 18th and 29th Tank Corps entered the battle, the number of tanks on the axis of the main attack nearly doubled; the enemy gunners and tankers physically no longer had time to fire at all of the approaching Soviet armor. This to a certain extent helped the 181st, 170th and 32nd Tank Brigades to break through to the crest of Hill 252.2 and into the “Oktiabr’skii” State Farm. Now enemy infantry directly joined battle with the Soviet armor, but unable to withstand the onslaught, the SS troops began to retreat. Exploiting a strip of woods along the railroad and the heavy battlefield smoke, 15 T-34 tanks of the 32nd Tank Brigade under the command of Major S.P. Ivanov penetrated 5 kilometers into the depth of the defenses of the SS Panzergrenadier Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler and took the “Komsomolets” State Farm.

At 1330, the enemy was finally driven from the “Oktiabr’skii” State Farm, which was situated on the boundary between Bakharov’s and Kirichenko’s tank corps, and began to fall back to the southwest. A distinct success was noted as well on the 29th Tank Corps’ left flank. It seemed that the situation was beginning to turn in our favor. However, witnessing the signs of a Soviet breakthrough, T. Wisch summoned the Luftwaffe, and the ensuing airstrikes lasted for more than an hour. By 1430 the SS Panzergrenadier Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler with Luftwaffe support had managed to stop the advance made by the main forces of Rotmistrov’s army. Despite the heroism and self-sacrifice of the Guardsmen, the attack on the direction of the main attack didn’t bring the expected result, and there were no reserves left to continue the attack. The neighbor on the right – the 5th Guards Army – was also in a precarious situation. Its troops in the bend of the Psel River had been unable to attack as had been planned. The SS Panzergrenadier Division Totenkopf had on the night of 11-12 July managed to cross a significant portion of the panzer regiment to the northern bank of the river. Thus, the Soviet infantry that rose and went on the attack that morning were met by the dense fire of artillery and tanks, and bloody fighting in the positions of the 52nd Guards and 95th Guards Rifle Divisions ensued. No substantial success was achieved on the sectors of the 5th Guards Army’s other divisions. Thus already by noon, it had become clear that the plan of the counterstroke, at least near Prokhorovka, had failed.

At 1500, making use of the confusion prompted by the retreat of our infantry and the loss of the bulk of the tanks that had attacked that morning, the SS troops switched to an active defense in the sector of the 5th Guards Army. At 1600, there was a strong airstrike against the combat positions of Zhadov’s Guardsmen beyond the Psel River, followed by an artillery barrage. The columns of dust and smoke hadn’t had time to disperse, when panzers and assault guns escorted by panzergrenadiers mounted on halftracks went on the attack, as well as up to 200 motorcycles crewed by submachine gunners. The German armor penetrated our positions, but the panzergrenadiers had been cut off and pinned down, and thus the panzers had to retreat. The struggle with the SS troops in the bend of the Psel River was complicated by the lack of tank support and the hastily-built combat positions that had no elaborate system of trenches. Minefields were also almost totally lacking. All this enabled the enemy not only to strike our infantry with fire, but also to crush them under the tracks of the tanks, simultaneously burying the Soviet defenders in their own trenches. Immediately after the conclusion of the Prokhorovka battle, on the evening of 17 July 1943 the 5th Guards Army’s headquarters reported that over eight days of fighting, the 95th Guards Rifle Division had only 579 men left that were not among the killed or wounded.30

The day of 12 July didn’t bring either side its desired result. N.F. Vatutin managed to hold Army Group South’s formations within the fortifications of the third defensive belt. All of the Fourth Panzer Army’s attempts to break through to operational space and to encircle the 69th Army also had no success. With considerable effort, the Front command had also managed to bring the offensive by Army Detachment Kempf to a halt after it had broken through the 69th Army’s defenses on the night of 11-12 July, and to get the situation under control south of Prokhorovka (in the Sholokovo, Rzhavets, Aleksandrovka area). However, it also can’t be said that the Soviet side celebrated victory on this day. More accurately, on the contrary 12 July was a most tragic and, in essence, unsuccessful day not only in the Voronezh Front’s defensive operation, but also of the Battle of Kursk as a whole. The main assignment – to destroy the enemy grouping that had penetrated into the Front’s defenses and to retake the initiative – had failed. The plan of the counterattack that had been worked out by the Soviet command also proved to be unsuccessful, since by the time it started it no longer corresponded to the altered situation, nor were the troops’ capabilities commensurate with the stated objectives. The shock formations of both Guards Armies were decimated over several hours, and on certain sectors they were even compelled to abandon the positions they occupied. The SS panzergrenadier divisions, having launched a counterattack that afternoon, pushed ahead up to 4 kilometers, just as on the preceding days. Moreover, all of the divisions of Fourth Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf had fully retained their combat capabilities. For example, the II SS Panzer Corps before the start of the counterattack had 294 tanks and assault guns, but by the evening of 13 July through the hard work to return damaged combat machines to service, still had 251 tanks and assault guns31 (for a detailed looks at the status of the II SS Panzer Corps on 13 July 1943, see Table 5). This was aided by the fact that 13 July didn’t see any heavy fighting with the use of significant amounts of armor on both sides, as had been the case the day before.

Table 5 Availability of combat-ready tanks and assault guns in the II SS Panzer Corps on the evening of 13 July 1943

../images/image294_01.jpg

Source: NARA, T. 313, R. 366 (Panzer, Sturmgeschütz- und Paklage stand, 13 July 1943)

The main mistake made by the Soviet command when conducting the counterstroke was the decision to launch a frontal attack with two tank and two rifle corps in the area of Prokhorovka, not against the flanks, but directly into the teeth of an enemy panzergrenadier division that had adopted a hasty defensive posture. Because of this, the enemy inflicted heavy damage to them.

According to incomplete data, the Soviets lost 7,019 soldiers and officers in the two Guards Armies on 12 July. The four tank and mechanized corps, including the detachment of Rotmistrov’s army that was operating in the Sholokovo – Rzhavets area south of Prokhorovka, lost 340 tanks and 19 assault guns (194 tanks were destroyed, and 146 were knocked out of action, but could have been repaired and returned to action). For more detail, see Table 6. However, a significant amount of disabled combat machines wound up on territory controlled by the enemy, and the Germans simply blew them up. Thus, the 5th Guards Tank Army was deprived of 53% of its tanks and self-propelled guns that took part in the counterstroke, or 47.2% of those that were in formation at the beginning of this day in all five corps. According to the tables of organization and equipment of 1943, it was possible to equip two complete tank corps with this amount of armor. The main reason for such heavy losses over less than a day was the ignoring of People’s Commissar of Defense Order No. 325 from 16 October 1942, which summarized the accumulated experience in the use of armored fighting vehicles.32 Instead of sending the tank army into an already-cleared breach in the German defenses in order to exploit a success, the army faced the task of chewing through the German defenses on its own, with no prior reconnaissance and without the necessary air and artillery support.

Now let’s focus on the human losses of the 5th Guards Tank Army’s tank corps that were operating west of Prokhorovka. They proved to be just as significant. Documents found in the Russian Federation Ministry of Defense’s Central Archive testify that in the course of 12 July the four tank corps lost 3,139 men, of which 1,448 were either killed or missing-in-action. The 29th Tank Corps took the heaviest casualties, losing 1,991 men.33 Behind it was the 2nd Guards Tatsinskaia Tank Corps – 550 men, including 145 killed or missing-in-action, while the 18th Tank Corps stood in third place, losing 471 men, with 271 killed or missing-in-action respectively.

The main human losses of the tank corps took place in their motorized rifle brigades. The 29th Tank Corps’ 53rd Motorized Rifle Brigade led this woeful list; it lost 1,122 men (including 393 killed or mortally wounded), or more than 37% of the brigade’s total manpower prior to the battle and more than 60% of its combat effectives.34 This brigade’s battalions had been caught in the epicenter of the fighting. One rifle battalion was supporting the tanks that were attacking Hill 252.2, and another accompanied the tanks attacking the “Stalin’s Branch” State Farm. The 1st Battalion of the 53rd Motorized Rifle Battalion penetrated the boundary between Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler’s 1st and 2nd SS Panzergrenadier Regiments, penetrated 7 kilometers between the railroad and the Storozhevoe woods, and took the “Komsomolets” State Farm. During the attack toward the State Farm, the rifle companies advanced along a “corridor” that was 300 meters wide between the railroad embankment and the Storozhevoe woods, where SS troops were ensconced. In the battalion’s combat formation, it had no armor other than the 15 T-34 tanks of the 32nd Tank Brigade. Moreover, this cluster of tanks was moving rapidly, and the infantry couldn’t keep up with them. The enemy was conducting intense fire from artillery and mortars. High explosive shell fragments shredded the crowded lines of riflemen, and when the SS troops discovered that small Russian groups had broken through to “Komsomolets” State Farm, several times they blanketed it with artillery fire. It was impossible to organize a withdrawal of the rifle battalion under the pressure of superior enemy forces. They made their way out individually, each man as he was able.

Very many soldiers were also killed in tank brigades of the 29th Tank Corps. For example, the 25th and 32nd Tank Brigades lost 320 and 230 men respectively. This noticeably exceeded the losses even of the motorized rifle brigades of the other corps (the 4th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 2nd Guards Tank Corps (272 men), the 32nd Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 18th Tank Corps (219 men), and the 58th Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 2nd Tank Corps (45 men). In the 29th Tank Corps, among the other categories of losses there was a large percentage of command staff (officers) – 903 men, including 184 officers and 719 of the junior command staff (sergeants and sergeant majors). Among them, 106 were killed or burned alive in their tanks and self-propelled guns, 19 went missing in action (some of whom were taken prisoner by the Germans), 40 were wounded with subsequent evacuation to a hospital, and 2 received heavy concussions.35Accordingly, the 29th Tank Corps’ losses in command staff of all levels were comparable to the losses of the enlisted men (903 and 1,088 respectively).

Table Composite data on the losses of the 5th Guards Tank Army for 12 July 19431

../images/image296_01.jpg

Notes:

1 It is important to understand that these are not summary data, but composite data, and each row must be read separately. The author is reporting what he found in the reports and combat diaries of each brigade and regiment kept in the Russian Ministry of Defense’s Central Archives, and separately what each corps reported to the 5th Guards Tank Army. Thus, the brigade data when summed will not match the numbers given for the corps as a whole.

a Information on the casualties of the 18th Tank Corps were taken from TsAMO RF, F. 18 tk, Op. 1, D. 5, L. 125.

b Information on the tanks in service for the 18th, 2nd and 2nd Guards Tank Corps were taken from TsAMO RF, F. 332, Op. 4948, D. 67, L. 5, and that for the 29th Tank Corps from TsAMO RF, F. 29 tk, Op. 1, D. 6, L. 29.

c The total combat losses of the 29th Tank Corps were taken from TsAMO RF, F. 332, Op. 4948, D. 80, L. 7. The cell “KIA and MIA” for the 1446th Self-propelled Artillery Regiment gives only the KIA (TsAMO RF, F. 1446 sap, Op. 584031, D. 1, LL. 6–8.

d The report on the losses of the 32nd Tank Brigade didn’t separate the destroyed tanks from the total losses; the count of 36 tanks was derived on the basis of the total number of destroyed tanks in the 29th Tank Corps.

The number of knocked-out tanks in the 25th Tank Brigades includes 7 T–34 and 4 T–70 that became immobilized on the battlefield due to mechanical problems (TsAMO RF, F. 5 gv. TA, Op. 4948, D. 70, L. 136). At midnight on 12 July 1943, just 3 tanks were counted in service; the location of the others was unknown to the command (TsAMO RF, F. 332, Op. 4948, D. 70, L. 136). In the column that gives the total personnel losses of the 58th Motorized Rifle Brigade and 12th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade, only the number of dead and wounded is given. Altogether, the tank regiment of the 11th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade lost 11 machines over the day of fighting (as of 1000 on 13 July). The allocation between destroyed and knocked out tanks in the row for this brigade is tentative. On 12 July 1943, while on the march 2 T–70 and 1 T–34 from the 5th Guards Mechanized Corps (presumably from the 11th Guards or 12th Guards Motorized Brigades) blew up in minefields in the Rzhavets area.

There was no similar loss of personnel over a single day of fighting in any single tank or mechanized formation of the Voronezh Front throughout the entire period of the Kursk defensive operation, which I’ll remind you, lasted from 5 to 23 July 1943. For example, the 1st Tank Army’s 3rd Mechanized Corps over 10 days of combat operations (5-15 July 1943) on the axis of the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps’ main attack (the Oboian’ direction) lost a total of 5,220 men (of which 2,694 were killed or missing-in-action).36 The loss of men in the 2nd Tank Corps between 8 and 25 July amounted to 2,767 (1,584 killed or missing-in-action), and the 2nd Guards Tatsinskaia Tank Corps lost 2,314 men between 8 and 20 July (816 killed or missing-in-action).37 Comparing these figures, you experience the bitterness and anguish not only because so many capable men had been killed in the bloom of their lives, but also because it is hard to call these losses justified. The capture of Hill 252.2 and the advance of the front line by 1.5 kilometers essentially didn’t achieve anything and didn’t have any significant influence on the overall course of the defensive operation on this day. If the available forces had been used on the defense instead, the results might have been significantly better.

The losses of the 18th Tank Corps were just one-quarter of those in the 29th Tank Corps, even though both formations were operating adjacent to each other. Bakharov’s troops lost 471 men, including 271 who were killed, mortally wounded or taken prisoner. Yet the loss of commanders at all levels in this tank corps turned out to be noticeably higher than those of the enlisted men; the ratio amounted to 246 to 225. The reason for such a large difference in losses between the two tank corps that were operating on the axis of 5th Guards Tank Army’s main attack was the fact that all of brigades of Kirichenko’s 29th Tank Corps launched several frontal attacks against two of the strongpoints in SS Panzergrenadier Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler’s sector of defense: the Hill 252.2 – Oktiabr’skii State Farm area, and the “Stalin Branch” State Farm – eastern fringe of the Storozhevoe woods area. It was in these two areas that the bulk of 29th Tank Corps’ armor was knocked out and where it took the greatest casualties. If to compare the number of killed, wounded or missing-in-action in the tank brigades of the 29th and 18th Tank Corps, then it stands out that it was those of them that assaulted the SS positions on Hill 252.2 and the “Oktiabr’skii” State Farm that suffered the most. Thus, 230 men were lost in the 32nd Tank Brigade, 101 men in the 31st Tank Brigade (both of the 29th Tank Corps), 99 men in the 181st Tank Brigade, 46 men in the 170th Tank Brigade (both of the 18th Tank Corps, and 41 men in the 1446th Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment (of the 29th Tank Corps). At the same time, in the units of the 18th Tank Corps that attacked only through the villages on the left bank of the Psel River and conducted reconnaissance work in the course of the fighting, the amount of human losses proved to be substantially lower: in the 110th Tank Brigade – 28 men (of which 11 were KIAs or MIAs); in the 36th Guards Separate Heavy Tank Regiment – 25 men (of which 7 were KIA). I’ve already talked above about the tragedy of 29th Tank Corps’ 25th Tank Brigade, which was shattered in the vicinity of the “Stalin’s Branch” State Farm.

In this connection, the losses of the SS Corps provoke great interest. Unfortunately, despite the open access to Western archives and the enormous amount of literature on the given subject by Western authors, there are still no precise data on the losses of Hausser’s panzer corps. To the present day, this question has been surrounded by as many myths as the question of 5th Guards Tank Army’s manpower losses. In my book Prokhorovka – neizvestnoe srazhenie velikoi voiny [Prokhorovka – unknown battle of the great war], I touched upon this topic in considerable detail. Relying on documents out of the German Bundesarchiv, with a certain amount of confidence it is possible to state that the SS Panzer Corps lost 842 men on 12 July. Of this total, Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler lost 279 men (39 killed, 235 wounded and 5 missing-in-action), Das Reich lost 243 men (41, 190 and 12 respectively), Totenkopf lost 316 men (69, 231 and 16 respectively, and those units directly subordinate to corps headquarters lost 4 wounded.38

The situation with respect to the loss of armor looks differently. A number of scholars, who have been occupied with this problem, come to the shared opinion that Hausser’s II SS Panzer Corps lost 153 to 163 tanks and assault guns over the day of 12 July. As an example we can look at one of the latest Western publications on this topic. In an article that came out in 2003 for the 60th Anniversary of the battle for Prokhorovka, with a reference to the German scholar Karl-Heinz Frieser, Generalmajor D. Brandt asserts that in the course of the fighting on 12 July against the main forces of the 5th Guards Tank Army, the SS Panzergrenadier Divisions Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler and Das Reich lost 108 tanks and assault guns knocked out action, of which 41 required major overhauls, and 67 needed minor overhauls.39 The analysis of data from reports of the SS Panzergrenadier Division Totenkopf, published by Zetterling and Franksen, testify that this division lost 46 combat machines on 12 July, including 10 Tiger heavy tanks. Thus, if we combine the cited figures, it turns out that in the three panzergrenadier divisions of the II SS Panzer Corps, of the 294 tanks and assault guns that were operational on the morning of 12 July, 154 were knocked out or 52.4% of the total. Other scholars relaying on different authors, sources and methods of computation come to pretty much the same numbers.40

The rifle divisions of the 5th Guards Army’s 33rd Guards Rifle Corp, which was operating together with Rotmistrov’s tank army, also suffered heavy casualties. They lost a total of 1,728 men, including 1,307 in the 9th Guards Airborne Division and 421 in two regiments of the 42nd Guards Rifle Division. Accordingly, if you combine the manpower losses of the 18th and 29th Tank Corps together with those of the two divisions of the 33rd Guards Rifle Corps, which were operating in their sectors, it turns out that in the epicenter of the fighting (on the front: Vasil’evka – Andreevka – Prelestnoe – “Oktiabr’skii” State Farm – “Stalin’s Branch” State Farm) on 12 July 4,190 Soviet soldiers and officers were killed, wounded or went missing. This total does not include the losses for 12 July of the 183rd Guards Rifle Division, the 5th Guards Tank Corps’ 6th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade and the 158th Guards Rifle Regiment, which took part in the 2nd Guards Tank Corps’ counterattack.

If you imagine that even before this day hundreds of bodies and heaps of damaged equipment were already laying on the field at Prokhorovka, which has a width of approximately 4.5 kilometers and a length of approximately 3.5 kilometers, and that on 12 July there appeared an additional 237 destroyed or knocked-out Soviet tanks and self-propelled guns alone, as well as several thousand more bodies of the dead from both sides, then there is no wonder that the veterans of that combat action speak in one voice that they never saw a more terrible scene in their entire lives.

Several scholars pointedly criticize N.F. Vatutin and the headquarters of the Voronezh Front, accusing them of blunders and miscalculations in the period of the defensive operation and, in particular, on 12 July at Prokhorovka.41 This criticism isn’t groundless. Obviously, the time chosen for conducting the counterstroke on 12 July was unsuccessful. The introduction of two fresh Guards armies into battle was made without prior, appropriate reconnaissance or serious preparations in the counterattack’s sector. It also shouldn’t have been thrown together so quickly given the high pace of combat operations.

The Soviet command underestimated the nature of the enemy’s actions and the possible changes in the situation in the 48-72 hours prior to launching the counterattack, from the inception of the plan for it on 9 July. The German pivot toward Prokhorovka meant that the main attack struck the attacking enemy grouping head-on, and not in the flank as intended. Cooperation among the attacking formations and units wasn’t properly implemented, which led in separate cases to fighting between our own units,42 airstrikes against our own positions,43 and unjustified losses.

The organization of supply for the counterattacking armies was in a bad way. The artillery was “on starvation rations”. For example in the 5th Guards Tank Army the reserve of ammunition amounted to just one-half of a regulation combat load per gun instead of the 2.5 to 3 combat loads that were standard for an offensive. In his memoirs, A.S. Zhadov wrote:

On 16 July Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov arrived at our command post. He was interested in how the introduction of the army for launching the counterattack on 12 July was handled. Left alone with me, he expressed his dissatisfaction with the organization of the army’s introduction into the battle, and gave me a scolding for the fact that a full-strength army that was well-prepared to carry out combat assignments was committed to the fighting without tank reinforcements or an adequate amount of artillery, while being exceptionally poorly supplied with ammunition. In conclusion Georgii Konstantinovich said: “If for any reasons the Front headquarters has not managed to supply the army with everything necessary in good time, then you must request this of the Front Commander-in-Chief, or at the very least make an appeal to the Stavka. The army commander and the commanders of the corps and divisions are first of all responsible for the army’s troops and the fulfillment of the task assigned by them.” … To appeal to the Stavka for any sort of clarifications and assistance – such thoughts never entered my mind back then.44

Aleksei Semenovich Zhadov spoke more openly in a conversation with the writer K.M. Simonov on 13 August 1961 about how the Voronezh Front command and the Chief of the General Staff personally reacted to his requests before the counterattack. Noted the former commander of the 5th Guards Army:

The army had been considerably staffed with cadres. The contingent of men was superlative, such that I deliberately didn’t bring the divisions up to 9,000 men, as I might have done, but had 7,000 to 7,500 in each of them. I left approximately 9,000 men in the army’s reserve, in order to offset excessive losses in the very first days. The order was given to commit the army – a Guards Army, with select soldiers and officers, but no sort of reinforcement, not a single tank, not a single gun more than the authorized mix. I posed this question first to Vatutin, then to Aleksandr Mikhailovich Vasilevsky, who was there as the Stavka representative. Ordinarily he was a very calm man, and I’d never before seen him in a state of extreme agitation:

“What, you’re intending to give me an ultimatum?!” – He shouted. “An order has been given to commit the army – so commit it and don’t give ultimatums. The situation demands that you introduce it as it is.”

So I committed the army. But my perception and feeling was such that with means of reinforcement, this army, according to its personnel, might have been a formidable force, but without means of reinforcement I entered the battle with a feeling of extreme bitterness on behalf of my men.45

The Marshal’s sharp tone and irritability can be understood. This conversation took place on the afternoon of 11 July, when it had become clear that the situation had turned sharply for the worse both in the area of Prokhorovka and along Voronezh Front’s entire front. Thus, the counterattack could hardly reach its objective; in its best case, it might lead only to the disruption of the enemy’s offensive on this day.

According to the account by the headquarters of the 5th Guards Tank Army, between 12 and 16 July it irrecoverably lost 323 tanks and 11 self-propelled guns. Accurate losses in men still hadn’t been determined. At I.V. Stalin’s decision, a commission was formed to investigate the reasons for the heavy losses of the 5th Guards Tank Army suffered at Prokhorovka, headed by a State Defense Committee member and a Secretary of the Communist Party’s Central Committee G.M. Malenkov. The result of its activities was an account, presented to I.V. Stalin at the end of July 1943. The conclusions were discomforting. The combat actions on 12 July were called a model for an unsuccessfully conducted operation.

Today, the transcript of the conversation that the Voronezh Front command and the Chief of the General Staff had with I.V. Stalin on the evening of 12 July is still inaccessible for study. However, judging by the decisions taken, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army expected greater results from the counterstroke and was extremely unhappy with the situation as it stood on southern face of the Kursk salient. In the course of the defensive operation, the Stavka had assigned its main reserves specifically to N.F. Vatutin. By the start of the battle his Voronezh Front had six armies, including one tank army; on 8 July he’d been given control of two more tank corps, and then of another two Guards armies. Thus, in order to look into the situation, already on 12 July I.V. Stalin contacted Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov, who was located at the headquarters of the Briansk Front, and directed him to the Voronezh Front as a Stavka representative. Simultaneously, A.M. Vasilevsky, who had been the Stavka representative with the Voronezh Front, was ordered to go to the Southern Front.

On the morning of 13 July G.K. Zhukov arrived at N.F. Vatutin’s headquarters, where an operational meeting was held in order to examine the situation and the results of the counterattack. Recalls G.K. Zhukov: “It was decided to continue the counterattack that had been started more energetically in order to achieve better conditions for the fronts’ counteroffensive, in order to seize the lines they had previously occupied in the Belgorod area on the heels of the retreating enemy.”46 However, there was still a long way to go to accomplish this.

 

[Frinik22]

There's Dennis Showalter , a respected American historian , if you prefer a more detached point of view, who wrote the excellent : Armor and Blood: The Battle of Kursk: The Turning Point of World War II. a 2013 book on that battle.