Battle_of_Kursk

John Zeilor American Studies II Battle Report Kursk During World War II the Germans were defeated at the battle of Stalingrad , because they lost they created from there aftermath the Kursk Salient. Which is also known by its other name, the Kursk Bulge. The battle that took place in kursk(Battle of Kursk) is the biggest tank battle in history. This battle was between the Germans and the Soviets, and this took place July 4th 1943. The reason why Kursk is the biggest tank battle in history is because it consisted to over 6000 individual tanks manned by at least 2-3 people in each tank. Also there were over 2 million infantry, and 4000 air crafts involved in this chaotic war. Not to mention that this battle also was a great battle of artillery, infantry and engineers over Armour. But both sides had their strengths and weaknesses but all in all the all out tank war was intense. Both had Intel on each others weapon intelligence so they made nearly the same type of tanks. This includes both the Tiger and Panther tanks mostly. There were many good commanding officers that took part in this battle. On the German side there were Erich von Manstein, Gunther von Kluge,Hermann Hoth, Walther Model, Hans Seidemann, and Robert Ritter von. On the Soviet Side, Georgy Zhukov, Konstantin Rokossovskiy, Nikolay Vatutin, and Ivan Konev. These were all smart and intelligent commanders but what made the difference was the soviet commanders. They planned out strategic defenses and counterattacks that changed the course of the war. Because once the Germans had tired of themselves caught up in the in-depth defenses the soviets responded with many counteroffensives which allowed them to retake Orel and Belgorod on August 5th, also Kharkov on the 23rd of August. The battle plans of the germans was to initiate with offensive forces, to achieve first dominance. So Manstein started with the offensive and he successfully pursued Kharkov, also known as Mansteins Miracle, but he thought that he would trick the Red Army into attacking in the south so he could trap the entire southern wing of the Redu Army against the Sea of Azov. But Oberkommando des Heeres did not approve of Mansteins plan so instead of that plan he proposed a new plan that would practice more on the central fronts, which they would try and trap a fifth of the red army's manpower. This would also result in a much straighter and shorter line into the city of kursk. Hitler also gave the OKH a decent amount of control over the planning of the operation which basically stripped the entire german line of practically anything remotely useful for deployment in the upcoming operation. The germans tried tactics to confuse and trick the red army by changing there squad names and painting there tanks with soviet insignia's, which was unsuccessful in the end. The Soviets plans were more on the defensive side of course. While the Germans were preparing for there offensive , the red army was making kursk into one of the most heavily defended places on the living earth. Basically since Marshal Zhukov had already correctly predicted the site of the German attack as early as the 8th of April, he also recommended his own strategy plan, which was later followed by the Red Army. But when the time needed it they shifted from defensive and offensive which ate away at the german forces liberating them from the salient which is why it made the red army successful.