The battle of Kursk:redo

I have decided to redo some of my blogs because i feel that they are too short.

In February-March of 1943 the Red(Russian)Army launched a major attack with the objective of recapturing the cities of Kharkov and Kursk.Both objectives were taken but the German Army soon counterattacked and retook Kharkov,nearly wiping out the entire Russian 6th Army in the process.


However,the Russians still held a large "bulge" centred around Kursk and for the next few months the German Army commanders made a plan to recapture Kursk and destroy the Kursk "bulge".The plan,
codenamed "Citadel",was for the German 9th army to attack from the North while at the same time the German 4th panzer (tank) army would strike from the South.


However, the few months the Germans spent planning allowed the Red army to prepare for the coming attack.They had over a million men in the "bulge"with another half a million in reserve,on top of this they had 5000 tanks and 6000 anti-tank guns,they also had huge amounts of artillery and aircraft.
Finally,to top this all off they had laid almost a million anti-tank and anti-personnel mines.


On July 5th the Germans finally launched their attack, in the north General Walther Model's 9th army advanced very slowly at the cost of very heavy casualties,by July 10th they had been stopped for good.


In the South,however,the Germans fared better,in the first few days some units they managed to advance 25km into Russian held territory.This was because the 4th panzer army had received large numbers of the newest and heaviest tanks on the battlefield: the panthers and tigers.However even these huge monsters could not prevent the slowing of their advance by the thousands of tanks of the Red army.The final showdown came on July 12th near the railway village of Prokhorovka.Although huge numbers of Russian tanks were destroyed the Germans failed to breakthrough and therefore lost the battle of Kursk.After this failure the German army would never again win a battle.



Two Tiger I heavy tanks and an assault gun crossing an open field.


The memorial on Prokhorovka standing proud over an area that was once a battlefield.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_Of_Kursk




That's all for now!


Tigertank