We continue with the collaborations of our friends. In this case, the post is sent to us by Antonio Correas from Lite Strabo.
The Battle of Kursk was not only the largest tank confrontation in history, but also the turning point of World War II. From this point on, Hitler's Germany ceased to have the initiative on the Eastern front to defend, something that would not change for the rest of the war.
Barbarossa
The invasion of Russia - Operation Barbarossa, begun on June 22, 1941 and intended to be a quick conquest, before winter came - had gone well for the Germans in the first months of fighting. Despite starting the operation too late - the Russian winter was coming anyway - and underestimating the power of resistance of the Soviet Union, the German army had much more preparation and better logistical support. The surprise factor, the air support and the Soviet disorganization allowed an advance of 50 km per day. In August, the Wehrmacht was already little more than 100 km from Leningrad, kyiv and Smolensk. But an unexpected change of plans altered the pace of the invasion.
Hitler had always believed himself to be a military genius, and some strategic successes during the war - mostly at great risk - convinced him to personally take command of the armies on the Eastern Front. The initial plans of the plan were, in addition to taking Leningrad, to send the South Army sector to take control of the rich oil wells of the Caucasus, and the Central one towards Smolensk and directly to Moscow, which should be occupied before winter. However Hitler made a disconcerting decision, against the opinion of the entire High Command:he stopped the advance to the capital to reinforce the South Army, which was fighting very hard in kyiv.
Hitler had gotten it into his head that the Ukrainian city should be taken, but d 
Due to strong resistance from the population, the siege ended up lasting until October, slowing down all progress towards Caucasus oil. The result was that, by winter's arrival, crucial access to the wells had not been achieved. In turn, the bulk of the Central Sector, the Wehrmacht's Fourth Army, was at the gates of Moscow, but weakened by this unexpected reinforcement, having dallied too long in Smolensk, and also short of supplies, could advance no further. . Focusing on the first objective from the start would have prevented the transfer of Soviet factories to the other side of the Urals, thus eliminating any long-term resistance.
It must be considered that the Russians were very lucky, since that year the winter came several weeks earlier and was especially harsh, which disrupted the German plans for the final phase of the operation. That, together with the fact that the occupation of the Balkans had delayed the operation for a whole month, largely decided the result.
From attackers to attacked
The Soviet army demonstrated a capacity for regeneration that drove the most painted German officer crazy, since after the loss of its armies in the Ukraine (some 600,000 between prisoners and dead in the battle of kyiv alone) it still had enough resources that same year to do against the German advance. It is partly explained by the ill-timed (from the German point of view) non-aggression treaty between Japan and the Soviet Union, which "liberated" numerous divisions hitherto deployed in Siberia. Another fundamental aspect in the defeat of the Nazi army was the logistical difficulties of supplying the German army. On Russian roads, the trucks used suffered from continual breakdowns and by winter, more than half of the German trucks were out of service. Likewise, and inexplicably, when Operation Barbarossa was planned, the groups of railway engineers received the last priority in the advance.
During World War II the Soviets proved to be the masters of "maskirovka" (deception), and the Germans the best at being deceived. Thus, on the one hand the Soviets intercepted German communications and knew full well the preparations for Operation Citadel, but cleverly deceived the Germans into believing that they were unaware of the threat while digging trenches and hiding their defensive and offensive units. The German inability to keep their communications secure and their continued refusal to admit the possibility of being deceived by "inferior races" was one of the main causes of their greatest defeats (on the entire Russian front from Stanlingrad, Normandy, Battle of the Atlantic , …).
After the Soviet reorganization, the expulsion of the Nazis from Moscow and the relative stabilization of the front that occurred in the winter, in 1942 the Germans finally tried to occupy the Caucasus. However, again Hitler's conflicts with the High Command turned Operation Blue into a clumsy advance that ended up trapping the Germans in the Battle of Stalingrad, in which they lost their greatest elite force, the Sixth Army. .
Marshal Von Manstein managed, however, to counteract the counteroffensive coming from Stalingrad, and even advance in Kharkov during the month of March 1943. He then proposed to the High Command to lay a trap that, attracting the Red Army towards the remnants of the German VI Army, would carry out an encircling maneuver that would trap the Russians in the Donetz Basin. Hitler, reluctant to encircling attacks, did not approve of the plan and focused on Kursk, an incoming area on the straight Russian front.
The objective was too obvious:the Russians anticipated the attack, which gave them even more advantage by delaying it until July - Hitler wanted the new Panther tanks to arrive at the front. Generals Rokossovsky and Vatutin had installed dozens of defensive belts, and had plans for progressive withdrawal as the Germans advanced. The Russians knew that the attack was going to come at the hands of the huge number of tanks that had accumulated there. When they began Operation Citadel on July 5, more than a million antitank mines decimated the battleship columns. The Russian artillery and aviation, which after two years of campaign were already comparable in number and preparation to the German ones, decimated the German artillery support.
Although the Panzers were still a formidable weapon supported by the Luftwaffe, they did not have adequate infantry support, and the Russian soldiers were easily able to destroy them with anti-tank guns or simple Molotov cocktails. In addition, the new models –Tiger and Panther– were very scarce and did not give the expected results. More than half were knocked out the first day by problems with their cooling system.
On July 12, the Germans believed they were at the end of the Russian defensive belts. However, upon entering Prokorovka, the SS-Panzerkorps came face to face with an entire armored division of Soviet T-34s. The largest armored combat in history (400 Germans against 900 Soviets) ended in a technical draw, but it was a huge moral defeat for the Nazis, who believed they were close to victory. On July 17, when the Wehrmacht soldiers saw how all the Panzers were withdrawn and transferred to the new Sicilian front, they knew that they were going on the defensive. Soviet counterattacks began immediately. The attackers became the attacked.
