The Panzers of Prokhorovka: The Myth of Hitler’s Greatest Armoured Defeat

Product Information

Zamulin, Valeriy (2006). Прохоровка — неизвестное сражение великой войны[ Prokhorovka – The Unknown Battle of the Great War] (in Russian). Moscow: Khranitel. ISBN 5-17-039548-5. – Comprehensive description of Soviet and German troop movements based on Soviet and German archives Even when the Cold War began, there was little desire on the part of Western historians to question any chapter in the history of the Red Army’s hallowed role in the Second World War. In any case, the Russian archives were closed or well-censored until after the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1989. Implications Dunn, Walter (1997). Kursk: Hitler's Gamble, 1943. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-275-95733-9.

The Panzers of Prokhorovka by Ben Wheatley | Waterstones

The 23rd Guards Rifle Corps bore the brunt of the German offensive from the very first day. Its subordinate units present at the Battle of Prokhorovka were already depleted ( Glantz & House 2004, pp.94, 167). There have been various estimates of the geographical extent of the battle as a whole, but the tank battle was not only at the heart of Prokhorovka, but the very reason for the fame and mythology attached to it, and there seems no reason not to accept Frieser’s revisionism, supported by Wheatley’s close analysis of the Luftwaffe photographs. This raises the question of why generations of Western historians have repeated Soviet claims as to the number of German tanks destroyed. Zamulin, Valeriy (2017). Прохоровка. Неизвестное сражение Великой войны[ Prokhorovka: The Unknown Battle of the Great War] (in Russian). Moscow: Yauza. ISBN 978-5-906716-63-7. This particular engagement was a tactical defeat for the Soviets, but the charge inflicted enough damage to help stall — and eventually halt — the German army’s Citadel offensive. Glantz, David (2013). Soviet Military Intelligence in War. Hoboken, NJ: Taylor & Francis (Routledge). ISBN 978-1-136-28934-7.Even Zamulin, who still sees the battle as a Russian victory, has commented: ‘It is incomprehensible why our brigade and battalion commanders did not know of this barrier or the crossing,’ and, he continues, The Battle of Prokhorovka on 12 July 1943 has been described as ‘the greatest tank battle in history’. The Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army and the 2nd SS Panzer Corps met in a great clash of armoured vehicles redolent of medieval clashes of opposing armoured cavalry.

The Panzers of Prokhorovka, by Ben Wheatley The Panzers of Prokhorovka, by Ben Wheatley

Today in Russia there are three official sacred Kulikovo, where the Mongols were defeated in 1380; Borodino, where Russian troops slowed Napoleon's Grande Armée before Moscow in 1812; the third is Prokhorovka. This is widely described as the most critical tank battle of the Second World War, which saw the annihilation of Hitler's elite Panzer force in the largest armoured clash in history and left Hitler with no alternative but to halt Germany's offensive against the Kursk salient. Victory, on 12 July 1943, at Prokhorovka over Hitler's vaunted SS troops has traditionally been described as a turning point in the Second World War. The 33rd Guards Rifle Corps was part of the 5th Guards Army, which was transferred from the control of the Steppe Front to the Voronezh Front on 8 July ( Glantz & House 2004, p.323). Of the army's two corps, only this one was present on the battlefield of Prokhorovka ( Glantz & House 2004, p.167). The other corps – the 32nd Guards Rifle Corps – was deployed further west, in the battlefield near Oboyan ( Clark 2012, p.230). A defining characteristic of most battles is confusion, with even commanders uncertain of the progress of their forces. This was particularly true of Prokhorovka, where a clash between two great tank armies took place in a confined space close to a rail junction and the River Psel – one which few tank commanders would have chosen – and with the fighting enveloped in clouds of dust. Prokhorovka was certainly an important clash and one of the largest tank battles ever, but it might be time to retire its description as the biggest — a claim which has been seriously questioned in recent years by historians with access to Soviet archives opened since the end of the Cold War. The German offensive plan envisioned an assault at the base of the Kursk salient from both the north and south, with the intent of enveloping and destroying the Soviet forces in the salient. [12] [13] The two spearheads were to meet near the city of Kursk. From the south, the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps and General Paul Hausser's II SS-Panzer Corps, forming the left and right wings of the 4th Panzer Army commanded by Colonel General Hermann Hoth, would drive northward. The III Panzer Corps of Army Detachment Kempf was to protect Hoth's right flank. The 4th Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf were under Army Group South, commanded by von Manstein. Air support over the southern portion of the offensive was provided by Colonel General Otto Deßloch's Luftflotte 4 and its major air formation, the 8th Air Corps. [14] [15] The German offensive, originally slated to commence in the beginning of May, was postponed several times as the German leadership reconsidered and vacillated over its prospects, as well as to bring forward more units and equipment. [16] [17]

About the contributors

Brand, Dieter (2003). "Vor 60 Jahren: Prochorowka (Teil II)"[60 years ago: Prokhorovka (Part II)]. Österreichische Militärische Zeitschrift (in German). Bundesministerium für Landesverteidigung und Sport (6). Archived from the original on 1 November 2014. As we have seen, the aims of the operation were modest and essentially defensive. Frieser argues that its failure was ‘pre-programmed’, as Hitler had decided from the outset to terminate if the Allies landed in Sicily. In any case, it would have failed due to what he calls ‘the law of numbers’, for the Germans were hopelessly outmatched in manpower and productivity. It has been accorded great significance in Soviet and post-Soviet Russian history. Although considered a stalemate in which both Russian and German forces suffered enormous losses, the German tank loss was supposedly so great that Prokhorovka is thought to have played a major part in the outcome of the wider Battle of Kursk.