Battle of Prokhorovka. The tragedy and glory of Soviet tank crews
On July 5, 1943, the Battle of Kursk began, which became a turning point in the Great Patriotic War. One of the most striking episodes of the Kursk operation was a fierce tank battle that took place on July 12 near the village of Prokhorovka. This clash between the mechanized units of the Red Army and selected SS tank troops of Hitler's Germany is considered the largest tank battle in the history of war, second only to the tank battle of Dubno in the summer of 1941.
Operation Citadel begins
By the summer of 1943, relative calm had established along the entire front line of the Great Patriotic War. Soviet and German troops were gathering strength and preparing for the decisive battle, which was to determine the further course of the war. Hitler's Germany, which suffered a heavy defeat at Stalingrad in the winter of 1943, was aimed at revenge. The Red Army, after the unsuccessful March offensive on Kharkov, had a vital need to wrest the strategic initiative from the clutches of the fascists and begin the long-awaited liberation of the occupied territories.
The Nazi command planned to defeat the Red Army, repeating the summer scenarios of 1941 and 1942, in the Kursk Bulge area. The front line in this area had a protrusion facing west, deeply wedged into the positions of German troops. The current situation was dangerous for our troops because, with two converging blows from the north and south, the Germans could cut off the ledge and take our troops in a pincer movement.
The fact that the German General Staff would choose this particular scenario was no secret to the Soviet command. However, assessing the enemy as smart and resourceful, on the eve of the Battle of Kursk, the Soviet side made unprecedented efforts to reconnaissance and disinformation of the enemy. Soviet intelligence received confirmation from numerous sources that the main direction of the German attack would be directed towards the Kursk area, using the forces of two converging wedges.
The Germans were given the right of first move to get stuck in our defense. Over the course of several months, the forces of the Active Army and the local population turned the front line on the Kursk Bulge into a deeply echeloned defensive area, covered by minefields, long-term fortifications, gouges, scarps and counter-scarps, as well as numerous ambushes of anti-tank artillery.
According to the plan of the Soviet command, the attacking Germans should have been exhausted and bled dry in defensive battles, and then, at the decisive moment, launched a counteroffensive.
Despite the defeat at Stalingrad, the German army was still very strong, and the Soviet command very correctly did not risk being the first to take active action against the summer Germans. Moreover, on the northern front of the Kursk Bulge there were troops of Field Marshal Model, experienced in defense, who had never known defeat.
As subsequent events showed, the calculation turned out to be correct. Having been the first to strike at Soviet positions on July 5, the Germans in a few days managed to wedge 20-30 km into our battle formations, and in some places break through the defense line to the full depth, but no longer having the strength to build on their success.
For a week, Soviet troops fought stubborn defensive battles, knocking out the main and most combat-ready forces of the Nazis. In the general offensive in the Kursk direction, the Germans made their main bet on the Panzerwaffe, equipped with the latest “tigers” and “panthers”. Their reinforced armor and powerful guns were a tough nut to crack for our tanks and anti-tank artillery. And largely thanks to the technical superiority of the new German armored vehicles, enemy troops managed to achieve temporary successes in the battles on the Kursk Bulge.
Battle of Prokhorovka
A particularly difficult, one might say, critical situation developed on the southern front of the Kursk Bulge. Here, in the area of the village of Prokhorovka, German troops managed to wedge into our defenses to a depth of 30-35 km. The tank battle near Prokhorovka was supposed to eliminate this dangerous German breakthrough.
Fierce fighting near Prokhorovka took place from July 10 to July 16, 1943, but on July 12 the battle reached its climax.
According to the original plans, the direction to Prokhorovka was not the main one for the Nazis. They delivered the main blow in the direction of Oboyan, and a secondary blow 60 km to the east, on the city of Korocha. Prokhorovka was located approximately in the middle between Oboyan and Korosha.
The Prokhorovsky direction on the approaches to Kursk from the south was designated on July 7, 1943, when the advanced detachments of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps reached the Psel River. Events on this section of the front developed with greater success for the Germans than on what was considered the main Oboyan direction, where the Germans tried to break through to Kursk along the Belgorod-Kursk highway. There, the offensive of the Wehrmacht's 48th Tank Corps was stopped as a result of heavy fighting - and the main role in this was played by the 1st Tank Army under the command of one of the best Soviet tank commanders, Mikhail Katukov.
By July 10, having been stuck in the Soviet defense and having suffered significant losses in selected directions, the commander of Army Group South, Manstein, decided to shift the focus of the advancing group to Prokhorovka.
This decision of the German generals was not accidental or hasty. The turn from Oboyan to the east, in the direction of Prokhorovka, was calculated in advance by the German staff officers. Taking into account the gully terrain, it was in this area that the Germans, having previously taken advantageous positions, planned to provoke a Soviet counterattack.
By July 11, the 2nd SS Panzer Corps, consisting of the elite divisions “Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler”, “Das Reich” and “Totenkopf”, reached the Prokhorovka line, having two options in plan: capturing a settlement and a station; repelling a counterattack by Soviet tanks.
The order in which these tasks were performed depended on the current situation. Two German tank divisions were advancing on the flanks of Prokhorovka. One tank division, located in the center, was preparing to repel a possible attack by Soviet tanks. If the Germans had succeeded in their plans, they would have been able to break through the third defensive line of our troops and gain operational space to cover Kursk from the east. It’s scary to think how the battle on the Kursk Bulge could have ended then.
The SS men occupied all advantageous positions in the station area and deployed artillery. Natural fortifications - ravines and gullies - reliably hid German soldiers and equipment. The Soviet units of the 5th Guards Tank Army were in a notoriously difficult position: the armored strike fist was located between the beams southwest of Prokhorovka and was deprived of the opportunity to deploy the tank group to its full width. Soviet tanks had to advance in a narrow area, limited on one side by the railway and on the other by the Psel River. So the German tank crews had much more room for maneuver.
To eliminate the fascist group in the Prokhorovka area, the Soviet command allocated two guards armies: the 5th combined arms and the 5th tank. By the end of the day, the armored vehicles of the 5th Tank Army concentrated in the Prokhorovka area to strike a concentration of enemy tanks. The start of the offensive was scheduled for 8.30 am. There were about 800 tanks on our side, and about 400 on the German side.
When studying the balance of power, the following circumstances must be taken into account: the SS men were armed with the latest Tiger and Panther tanks, capable of hitting the T-34 from a distance of up to 2 km. In addition to the “menagerie,” the Germans had T-4 medium tanks, Stug and Elephant self-propelled guns, as well as anti-tank artillery.
They were opposed by Rotmistrov's tanks, of which T-34 model 1942 and KV-1s made up a little more than 60% and a third were light T-70s and a number of Lendlease Churchill tanks, which significantly reduced the striking force of the tank fist. Unfortunately, Rotmistrov had vanishingly few of the most powerful “beast hunters” Su-152, capable of turning any German tank or self-propelled gun into a pile of scrap metal with one shot.
Soon, however, the enemy's advantage disappeared. The distance between the tanks was reduced to a minimum, and in the “dog dump” that the tank battle had turned into, the most nimble one was already winning. The battlefield was filled with smoke from explosions and raised dust. In this impenetrable darkness, tanks collided, ran over each other and overturned or moved chaotically in search of a target. The rage on both sides was such that the crews of the destroyed tanks pierced each other with machine gun fire and even entered into hand-to-hand combat.
The mortal battle lasted almost the entire day and actually ended in a draw. Soviet units failed to push back the German tank group. At the same time, the German troops, having lost a significant part of their armored vehicles and lacking reserves, were forced to abandon offensive plans and go on the defensive. The fighting in the Prokhorovka area lasted until July 16, but no longer had the same intensity. And on July 17, Soviet troops went on the offensive, seizing the strategic initiative from the enemy and putting an end to his plans to take revenge for Stalingrad.
According to various sources, on July 12, between 1110 and 1500 tanks and self-propelled guns fought in the Battle of Prokhorovka. Motorcycles, half-tracks and wheeled all-terrain vehicles are usually not counted.
The losses on both sides are still fiercely debated. The Germans claim that they lost 25 vehicles during the battle, while destroying 170-180 Soviet ones. True, then it is not clear why such infantile losses prevented them from developing an offensive.
Modern researchers believe that German losses amounted to at least a quarter of vehicles - 100-150 tanks and self-propelled guns. The losses of Soviet tank crews were 270 vehicles, of which only two were heavy KV-1s tanks. Taking into account the qualitative difference, German losses are assessed as more significant.
It should be added that in the account of the tank battle on July 12, the Germans also recorded “victories” in the second half of the day, when German tanks were withdrawn from Prokhorovka and camouflaged, although even according to their data, the Soviet armored vehicles were restrained by their anti-tank artillery.
German tanks were also not all destroyed in a tank battle. Many of them died from mines and anti-tank gun fire, and the monstrous “elephants” were stopped and blown up by infantry with grenades.
The significance of the battle of Prokhorovka
At the cost of heavy losses, being in an extremely difficult and disadvantageous position, the Soviet troops managed to stop and inflict painful damage on selected SS tank divisions. The plan of the German command to break through the third Soviet line of defense with access to operational space, as well as the efforts made, did not materialize - on the same day, July 12, the SS tank units went on the defensive, and a few days later the Soviet counter-offensive began. The Battle of Kursk ended with the liberation of Kharkov and the Kharkov industrial region. The last elite formations were knocked out of the Nazis and then they only retreated and snapped. It took another year to completely liberate our Motherland from the fascist occupiers, but the beginning of the liberation was made in the battles of the Kursk Bulge, in the battle of Prokhorovka.
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