Tank battles in July 1943 on the Kursk Bulge are associated by many mainly with the counterstrike of Rotmistrov's 5th Guards Tank Army on July 12 near Prokhorovka, ignoring the facts of stubborn tank battles of Katukov's 1st Tank Army, which were much more important in defensive battles 5-12 July on the southern flank of the Kursk Bulge.
State of the parties
The Germans delivered the main blow to the north from Belgorod and Tomarovka along the highway to Oboyan (70 km north of Belgorod). This was also explained by the fact that in front of Oboyan the road to the north was blocked by the swampy floodplain of the Psel River 1.5-2 km wide, which tanks could only cross along the highway and a bridge across the river.
The positions of the Red Army were well fortified, three defensive lines were equipped to a depth of 45 km, three more lines extended to a depth of 250-300 km. In my childhood, in the mid-50s, I had to see an anti-tank ditch 110 km north of Belgorod near Medvenka, which at that time had not yet been buried. Despite such powerful engineering equipment of the terrain, the Germans managed to break through them and take the third defensive line near Verkhopenya. Stubborn battles of Katukov's troops stopped them at this line.
In this direction, the Germans were opposed by the 1st Tank Army and units of the 6th Guards Army. In the period from 6 to 15 July 1943, Katukov led the actions of four tank and one mechanized corps, five rifle divisions, three separate tank brigades, three separate tank regiments and ten anti-tank regiments, in total there were about 930 tanks.
Katukov's army was opposed by a German grouping, including two infantry divisions, the 48th Panzer Corps, Panzer divisions "Death's Head", "Adolf Hitler", "Reich" and "Great Germany", reinforced by two battalions of heavy tanks "Tiger" (about 200 tanks) and two battalions of tanks "Panther" (196 tanks and 4 armored vehicles). In total, about 1200 tanks were concentrated in this direction.
Defensive phase of the battle
On the first day of the battle, July 5, the troops of Katukov's army were in the concentration area behind the second line of defensive lines and did not participate in the battles. German troops broke through the first line of defense and by the end of the day reached the second line. Front commander Vatutin gave the order to Katukov to begin on July 6 the army's counteroffensive against the enemy that had broken through in the direction of Belgorod.
Katukov believed that such a dangerous head-on counteroffensive against the enemy's advancing tank armada could lead to unjustified losses of the tank army. Stalin, having learned about the disagreements in the command, called Katukov and asked for his opinion. Katukov outlined the risks of a counteroffensive and when Stalin asked what he was proposing, he replied “to use tanks for firing from the spot, burying them in the ground or setting them in ambushes,” then “we could let the enemy's vehicles at a distance of three hundred meters and destroy them with aimed fire , And Stalin canceled the counterattack.
From the point of view of Katukov, he was right, not substituting tanks under the deadly fire, he was exhausting the enemy's forces, but Vatutin saw that two German tank corps, advancing from both sides of the Oboyan highway, planned to close the ring around the rifle regiments and eliminate them, so the German troops west of the highway moved across the offensive from west to east and fell under Katukov's flank attack, which could disrupt the plans of the Germans and inflict serious losses on them.
As a result, the counterstrike on July 6 did not take place, the enemy seized the initiative, and Katukov's bet on passive actions was only partially justified. The Germans, having introduced large tank forces, slowly but surely grind the troops of the 6th Guards Army, pushing them to the second army defensive line. Near the village of Cherkasskoye, the 67th Guards Rifle Division could not offer significant resistance to the mass of tanks, and by noon the 11th Panzer Division and "Great Germany" had reached the rear of the Soviet units between the first and second lines of defense. The divisions gave the order to retreat, but it was too late, and by the end of the day the Germans had closed the ring. In the "cauldron" there were three rifle regiments, under cover of darkness, not everyone managed to break out of the encirclement.
By the end of the day, the enemy reached the positions of the 1st Tank Army and, having met a powerful and organized rebuff at this line, had to change the direction of the main attack during the day and move it east of the Belgorod-Oboyan highway in the direction of Prokhorovka. As a result, on July 6, the enemy advanced to a depth of 11 km, but suffered heavy losses in tanks and infantry.
On the morning of July 7, the Germans launched an offensive against the 3rd mechanized corps and 31st tank corps, organizing an attack of 300 tanks with massive aviation support, broke through the mechanized corps defenses and forced them to retreat in the direction of Syrtsevo. To eliminate the breakthrough of the Germans, three tank brigades were deployed to the Verkhopenye area with the task of preventing the enemy from advancing in the northern direction.
Under pressure from the superior forces of two German tank divisions, "Death's Head" and "Adolf Hitler," by the end of the day, 31st Panzer Corps had withdrawn to the Malye Mayachki line. The enemy moved forward 4-5 km and wedged out to the third army defensive line. An attempt by the Germans to expand the wedge in the northeastern direction was unsuccessful. As a result of heavy fighting, the left flank of the 1st Panzer Army was bypassed and thrown back to the north-west, the location of the troops was flank in relation to the enemy and threatened the German wedge at its base, but the Germans continued to push for Oboyan.
Early in the morning of July 8, the Germans, having introduced up to 200 tanks into battle, continued their successful offensive on Syrtsevo and along the Oboyan highway. Suffering heavy losses, the 6th Panzer Corps withdrew across the Pena River and took up defenses there, and the 3rd Mechanized Corps also retreated along the highway, restraining enemy attacks. The enemy's attempt to force the Psel River at its mouth in the Prokhorovka area was unsuccessful, and the advance of the Germans to the east in the direction of Prokhorovka was suppressed.
By the end of the day on July 8, the Germans had advanced 8 km, at which their advance stopped, their attempts to advance in the western direction at the positions of the 1st Panzer Army also began to weaken. They failed to break through the front in this direction.
On the morning of July 9, the Germans brought into battle a fresh tank division to capture the Syrtsevo and Verkhopenye area, but the 6th Panzer Corps repulsed all enemy attempts to cross the Pena River and firmly held its positions. Having no success here, they launched an offensive against parts of the 3rd mechanized corps. The advancing enemy tanks managed to crush the combat formations of the mechanized corps and threaten the right flank of the 31st tank corps.
By the end of the day, a rather difficult situation had developed on this site. The forces of the weakened 3rd mechanized corps and 31st tank corps were not enough to contain the enemy, and he could quite easily develop an offensive to the north and break through to Oboyan. To strengthen this direction, Vatutin in the evening transfers the 5th Stalingrad Tank Corps under the command of Katukov, and it is concentrated in the area of Zorinskiye Dvory.
Given the difficult situation in connection with the breakthrough by the Germans of the third line of defense, the representative of the Headquarters on the Voronezh Front, Vasilevsky, suggested that the Headquarters transfer the 5th Guards Tank Army of Rotmistrov from the reserve Steppe Front to help the troops of the Voronezh Front. The Soviet command approved this decision on July 9, the transfer of Rotmistrov's army near Prokhorovka began, which was tasked with delivering a counterattack on the wedged enemy tank units and forcing them to retreat to their original positions.
At dawn on July 10, the enemy concentrated up to 100 tanks in the Verkhopenye area and struck in the gap between the 6th Panzer Corps and the 3rd Mechanized Corps. After a fierce battle, he occupied Hill 243, but could not advance further. Nevertheless, having regrouped their forces, by the end of the day, the Germans surrounded part of the scattered forces of the 6th Panzer Corps and went into its rear. As a result of heavy fighting, the corps suffered heavy losses: by the end of July 10, only 35 tanks remained on the move.
On the morning of July 11, dramatic events began for the 1st Panzer Army, the Germans from three sides launched an offensive on the 6th Panzer Corps and surrounded it in the bend of the Pena River. With great difficulty, separate scattered units managed to break out of the encirclement, not everyone succeeded, the Germans later announced that they had captured about five thousand people.
Counterstrike of two tank armies
At this stage, the defensive operation of the troops of the 1st Tank Army ended, Vatutin, on the night of July 10-11, set Katukov the task of striking in the general direction to the southeast, seizing Yakovlevo, Pokrovka and, together with the 5th Guards Tank Army, encircle the breakthrough a mobile grouping with further development of success to the south and southwest.
At the same time, the commander of the XLVIII German corps Knobelsdorf, having eliminated the "cauldron" with the remnants of the 6th Panzer Corps and receiving the support of the commander of the 4th Panzer Army Gotha, decided in the afternoon of July 12 to develop an offensive northward to Oboyan from both sides of the Oboyan highway, in he still had about 150 combat-ready tanks at his disposal.
As a result, on July 12, two offensives were outlined - German troops and troops of the 1st tank and 5th Guards tank armies. According to the plan of Vasilevsky and Vatutin, a front-line counterattack of two tank armies from the Verkhopenye and Prokhorovka areas in converging directions to encircle the enemy was supposed to begin in the early morning, but this did not happen.
The counterstrike of Rotmistrov's army near Prokhorovka began at 8.30 and, due to unsatisfactory preparation, did not achieve a result, moreover, it was not supported at a sufficient level by artillery and aviation. The main reason for the failure was the capture by the Germans on July 11 of the territory from which the counter-attack was to be made. Two tank corps of Rotmistrov's army had to advance elsewhere in a narrow section, sandwiched by the railway and the floodplain of the Psel River, on which even brigade battle formations could not deploy, the army was brought into battle against the well-prepared anti-tank defense of the enemy battalion-by-battalion and suffered terrible losses. Despite the courage and heroism of the Soviet tankers, it was not possible to break through the German defenses. In the second half of the day, it was all over, the counterstrike of Rotmitsrov's army drowned, the battlefield remained with the Germans. Details about the Prokhorov battle are described here.
The counterstrike of Katukov's army did not start in the morning due to the tankers' unpreparedness for the offensive, only by noon the 5th Guards Stalingrad Tank Corps and the 10th Tank Corps launched an offensive, which had a serious success. Soviet tanks deeply wedged 3-5 km in several directions at once into the German formations, preparing for an offensive, captured several villages and a German command post and pressed the Great Germany division.
Katukov's counterattack for the Germans was unexpected, they were taken by surprise, and the German command began to take measures to curtail its offensive and withdraw troops from under attack. As a result, the rather cautious actions of the commanders of Katukov's army units thwarted the German offensive in the main direction to Oboyan. A counterattack was delivered to the enemy's weak point and stopped his offensive, but it was not destined to make a breakthrough and join up with Rotmistrov's army.
After July 12, Hitler ordered the termination of Operation Citadel, on the southern flank of the Kursk Bulge were mainly positional battles, the Germans began to withdraw their troops to their original positions.
Irrecoverable losses of the 1st Tank Army and attached units from July 6 to 15 in the battles on the Kursk Bulge amounted to 513 tanks, and German losses in this direction, according to the American researcher Christopher Lorenz, amounted to 484 tanks and assault guns, including 266 Pz III and Pz IV, 131 Panther, 26 Tiger, 61 StuG and Marder.
Of interest is the use of Panther tanks against Katukov's army. They were used by the Germans only in this sector of the front; they did not participate in the battles near Prokhorovka. The Germans were in a hurry to deliver this tank to the troops by the beginning of the Battle of Kursk, and it was "raw", had many flaws and design flaws in the engine, transmission and chassis, which they did not manage to eliminate. This led to frequent mechanical breakdowns and fires in the engine and tank. At the same time, the tank had a powerful 75-mm long-barreled cannon and good frontal protection, which Soviet tanks did not penetrate.
Tanks "Panther" in the battles suffered serious damage, they suffered significant losses from the well-organized Soviet tankmen and artillerymen fire on the tanks not in the forehead, but in the sides of the tank. The design flaws of the tank, which were subsequently eliminated, also influenced the effectiveness of their use. At least the 1st Panzer Army "ground" a significant portion of these new German tanks and limited their use in subsequent German operations.
The undoubted success of Katukov was the good organization of the defense during the German offensive, the disruption of the breakthrough of the German offensive in the main direction to Oboyan, which forced the German command, instead of advancing to the north, to deviate eastward to the Prokhorovka area and spray its forces.
Comparing the hostilities of the 1st Tank Army and the 5th Guards Tank Army on the Kursk Bulge, it is clear that Katukov, when fulfilling the assigned task, avoided frontal attacks on the enemy and was looking for ways to beat him, and Rotmistrov fulfilled the will of higher commanders about a frontal offensive and carried significant losses in people and technology.
