During the defence, Rokossovsky and Vatutin would also employ 169 self-propelled guns (SPGs), including 36 SU-152, 71 SU-122, 29 SU-76 and 33 SU-76i. The limited number of SU-76s deployed at Kursk and the inclusion of the Su-76i built on captured German Pz III hulls indicates the problems that the Red Army had in fielding an equivalent to the German Sturmgeschütz. All four types of Soviet SPGs employed at Kursk were built on different hulls and lacked any kind of standardization. Nor did the SPGs have a realistic tactical doctrine, blending between the infantry support, anti-tank and breakthrough roles. In terms of SPGs, the Red Army was still in the experimental phase.

Although Soviet tank production was going all-out by this point in the war and combat losses were light during the lull period, it is noticeable that the Red Army was still forced to use large numbers of T-60 and T-70 light tanks in their tank brigades, even in the elite Guards units. At Kursk, Soviet tank brigades comprised at least 20–30 per cent light tanks, even though the T-60 was clearly obsolete and the T-70 was inferior to the German medium tanks. The T-34/76 was the Red Army’s main battle tank at Kursk, with 1,863 on hand at the start of Zitadelle, but it was still not available in the numbers required. On the other hand, the KV-1 heavy tank was a marginal player at Kursk, with a total of only 98 deployed in the Central and Voronezh Fronts – fewer than the American-built M3 Grant/Lee. Normally, the Lend-Lease tanks were employed only in the infantry support role, but the 2nd and 5th Guards Tank Corps each had 21 British-built Churchills, which were regarded as heavy tanks. Yet when actual deployments are taken into consideration, the Germans were going to attack with about 2,300 tanks and assault guns against roughly 2,700 Soviet tanks and self-propelled guns.

In the defensive phase at Kursk, the Red Army would enjoy a small numerical edge in armour but Vatutin and Rokossovsky were concerned about the enemy heavy tanks that had been encountered during von Manstein’s counter-offensive. While Soviet tankers were probably not aware of the Tiger’s mechanical reliability problems, they were aware that its 8.8cm gun and thick armoured protection put the T-34 at a grave disadvantage in a stand-up fight. The GABTU in Moscow, which directed Soviet armoured fighting programs, hoped that the new SU-152 could counter the Tiger’s thick armour with its 152mm gun-howitzer. However, the SU-152 had been developed to defeat enemy fortifications and had not yet been tested in the anti-tank role prior to Kursk – it was untried in combat. Furthermore, there were only a token number of SU-152s at the front, which was inadequate against the growing numbers of enemy heavy tanks. Consequently, the Red Army decided to provide each Soviet tank corps in the Central and Voronezh Fronts with a battalion of 12 towed 85mm M1939 anti-aircraft guns to be used in the anti-tank role. Tests on the Tiger captured at Leningrad indicated that the 85mm AA gun could defeat its thick frontal armour at ranges out to 1,000 metres and further against its side armour. However, the 85mm AA gun was difficult to conceal and even more difficult to move around a battlefield, marking it as a stop-gap solution until the Red Army fielded a tank with a gun larger than 76.2mm. In order to improve the survivability of the T-34s during the defensive phase, Soviet sappers dug fighting positions for tanks so that they could fire from hull-down.

Table 4: Allocation of Soviet Self-Propelled Guns (SPGs) for Kursk Defensive Operation.

In addition to armour, the Red Army attempted to employ as many combat multipliers as possible to neutralize the German combined arms team. Rather than spending the lull period resting, Rokossovsky and Vatutin drove their troops hard to create three fortified lines of defence and protect them with tens of thousands of mines. Infantry underwent special training to prepare them to withstand an attack by panzers and to fight tanks in close-quarters combat. Elite Guards rifle units were placed in the expected German attack sectors, ensuring that there were solid units holding the key terrain. There were three additional measures taken that greatly reduced the ability of the German combined arms tactics to work at Kursk. First, each front was provided with a large anti-tank reserve to augment its battalion, regiment and division-level anti-tank strongpoints. Each of the seven front-level anti-tank brigades had 40 76.2mm ZIS-3 anti-tank guns, which could quickly redeploy to a sector threatened by German armour. Second, the Stavka expected the German Panzers to breach at least the first line of defence, so a new doctrinal feature was the creation of mobile obstacle detachments (podvishnyi otriad zagrazhdenii or POZ). The POZ were truck-mounted sapper teams that could create new minefields in front of approaching enemy armour. Finally, the Stavka authorized the fronts to use artillery corps to support their defensive operations, which enabled an unprecedented level of fire support. Unlike the old Blitzkrieg days of 1941–42, everywhere the German panzers turned, they would be confronted by mines, anti-tank guns and punishing artillery barrages.

Operation Zitadelle: The Northern Front 5–10 July 1943

Generaloberst Walter Model, commander of AOK 9, was not sanguine about Zitadelle’s chances for success, since he knew from aerial reconnaissance about the extent of enemy defences being prepared by Rokossovsky’s Central Front. Indeed, Model presented this information to Hitler and tried to personally dissuade him from launching the offensive. Instead, Model argued that the Germans should remain on the defensive and create a strong mobile reserve that would allow them to smash any Soviet offensives. Yet Hitler would not be diverted from this battle and Model accepted his role, but planned his part of the operation with particular attention to preserving his own armour. At best, Model would have 800 tanks and assault guns to commit to the offensive and he knew that losses in a breakthrough attack would be heavy. Instead of von Manstein’s armour-heavy approach to Zitadelle, Model intended to rely more upon his infantry divisions, artillery and air support to crack the Soviet defences and only commit his armour when he saw an opening that could be exploited. Furthermore, Model also knew that the Soviet Bryansk and Western Fronts were planning to attack the Orel Salient as they had done in February–March, so he wanted to keep as much of his armour intact as possible to deal with this contingency. To Model, retaining Orel was more important than taking Kursk.

Opposite Model’s AOK 9, Rokossovsky had placed General-leytenant Nikolai P. Pukhov’s heavily-reinforced 13th Army in the Ponyri sector where he expected the Germans to attack. Pukhov’s army held a 22km-wide sector and had four rifle divisions holding the first line of defence, two more holding the second line and six in the third line. The Soviet defences were built around entrenched rifle battalion strongpoints, enclosed by mines and protected by anti-tank guns. Each Soviet position incorporated all-around defences and was intended to hold out if surrounded – this type of reinforced hedgehog tactic was intended to function as a ‘wave breaker’ type defence. For infantry support, Pukhov had 178 tanks and 49 self-propelled guns, although most were kept back in the second or third lines of defence. The 13th Army’s best armoured units were the 129th Tank Brigade with 49 tanks (incl. 10 KV-1 and 21 T-34) and the 27th and 30th Guards Tank Regiments (GTR) with a total of 44 KV-1s heavy tanks. In general support, Rodin’s 2TA (consisting of the 3rd and 16th Tank Corps and 11th Guards Tank Brigade) was in reserve 25km south of the forward edge of the battle area. Rodin had a total of 305 T-34s and 142 light tanks. Rokossovsky also kept the 9th and 19th Tank Corps, which had a total of 232 T-34s and 148 other tanks, under front control.

During the night of 4–5 July, Model’s army began its final preparations for the offensive by sending sapper teams forward to begin clearing lanes through the first layer of Soviet minefields. One team was ambushed and a prisoner revealed under interrogation that Zitadelle would begin at dawn. Zhukov, who was present in Rokossovsky’s command post, pressured him into unleashing an artillery bombardment to disrupt the German offensive. However, the unplanned Soviet artillery barrages had limited effect on German front-line units and the German artillery preparation began at 0425 hours and continued until 0545 hours. Model launched supporting attacks with three infantry divisions from XXIII Armeekorps on his left flank and three infantry divisions from XXXXVI Panzerkorps on his right flank; despite support from three Sturmgeschütz-Abteilungen, these efforts only advanced a few kilometres before being stopped by Soviet resistance and failed to achieve their objectives.

Model’s main effort was made in the centre, with General der Panzertruppen Josef Harpe’s XXXXI Panzerkorps and General der Panzertruppen Joachim Lemelsen’s XXXXVII Panzerkorps. Harpe attacked along the Orel-Kursk rail line near Maloarkhangel’sk station, close to the boundary between Pukhov’s 29th and 15th Rifle Corps. Oberstleutnant Baron Ernst von Jungenfeld’s schwere Panzerjäger Regiment 656 was split up, providing a battalion of Ferdinands each in direct support of an infantry regiment from the 86.Infanterie-Division, while Sturmpanzer-Abteilung 216 followed in general support. Each battalion of Ferdinands was preceded by a Panzerkompanie (Fkl) with BIV demolition vehicles to clear a path through the enemy mines.[19] The Germans had not put a great deal of effort into developing armoured mine clearing tanks, unlike the British who fielded the Matilda flail tank (Scorpion) in October 1942 or the Red Army, which first used PT-34 mine roller tanks in the summer of 1942. Instead, the Germans opted for an ad hoc solution using vehicles intended to demolish bunkers, not mines, and the results were mediocre. Nor had the AOK 9 conducted realistic breaching drills with BIVs, tanks and infantry prior to Zitadelle – a major omission. As the BIV vehicles approached the Soviet defences around 0600 hours, they were met by a deluge of artillery fire that destroyed seven BIVs. Instead of clearing three lanes through the mines, the German pioniers only managed to clear a single narrow lane. The defending Soviet 410th Rifle Regiment, which had ample artillery and anti-tank support, kept this cleared lane under very heavy fire and prevented the pioniers from expanding it. Amazingly, the Germans did not use smoke to provide concealment for the breaching teams. All the while, the Ferdinands and StuG IIIs from Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 177 provided fire support to the pioniers, but could not suppress the enemy defences.

With the main German attack on the verge of collapse, the Ferdinands were ordered to move through the cleared lane and overrun the enemy defences. The Ferdinand was designed as a long-range tank destroyer, not an assault vehicle. Its 200mm thick frontal armour was virtually impregnable to 76.2mm gunfire, but its tracks had no special immunity to mines and the 70-ton vehicle was very slow. Inside their buttoned-up Ferdinands, the German crewmen only had a vague idea where the cleared lane was through the smoke from burning steppe grass and explosions, which caused many of them to roll over mines. Some suffered track damage and were immobilized, but one Ferdinand struck five mines and kept rolling. However, the shock of mine explosions damaged the batteries in many Ferdinands, for which no replacements were available in AOK 9. On the first day of the offensive, the Ferdinands had 30 batteries destroyed by mine damage, sidelining these vehicles for many days.^{83} Eventually, a few Ferdinands and StuG IIIs made it through the lane and began to reduce the Soviet defences at point-blank range. The Soviet 15th Rifle Corps commander committed his armoured support, consisting of 34 KV-1 heavy tanks, 21 T-34s, 18 light tanks and 16 Su-122s.

Harpe also committed General-major Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben’s 18.Panzer-Division and the 292.Infanterie-Division to clear out the area west of the rail line. Von Schlieben’s division was severely understrength, with only 72 tanks, most of which were older models or the Pz III Ausf N version with the short 7.5cm infantry support howitzer. The division’s panzergrenadiers started Zitadelle with just 22 SPWs. Lacking firepower and mobility, Harpe used the 18. Panzer-Division as a mop-up force to clear bypassed Soviet strongpoints, rather than as an exploitation force. After hours of fighting, Harpe’s corps finally managed to advance about 4km by nightfall, but it had not completely eliminated the enemy first line of defence in its sector.

On Harpe’s right flank, Lemelsen’s corps attacked the 15th Rifle Division (15RD) with the 6.Infanterie-Division, supported by the Tigers of Major Bernhard Sauvant’s s. Pz.Abt. 505. Here, the BIVs also had difficulty clearing lanes and six of Sauvant’s 31 Tigers were damaged by mines in the opening minutes. Army and Division boundary lines are acknowledged as tactically vulnerable areas since, if inter-unit coordination is not properly done, an enemy can sometimes find or create an opening. Pukhov’s left flank was held by the 47th Rifle Regiment of 15RD, which had been badly disrupted by the German artillery preparation and had lost wire communications with its division command post. The German infantry from 6.Infanterie-Division were able to create a breach in this sector and after two hours, Lemelsen sent Generalmajor Mortimer von Kessel’s 20.Panzer-Division forward to exploit the opening.[20] Kessel moved a mixed Kampfgruppe through the breach, which included his only company of SPWs and some medium tanks. Once through, the Kampfgruppe moved through dead space (i.e. not visible from the enemy positions) and managed to get through a small gap in the enemy defences and outflank one of the 47th Rifle Regiment’s battalion strongpoints. A rapid Panzer assault, supported by Sauvant’s Tigers, infantry and artillery, succeeded in overrunning this one position, which soon led to an unravelling of the 15 RD’s forward line of defence and a panicked retreat by another battalion. One Soviet battalion strongpoint held out as ordered, but was bypassed and encircled by 6.Infanterie-Division. While mopping up continued, Sauvant was level-headed enough to take advantage of the disruption in the enemy defence and he pushed south with his Tigers and two small Kampfgruppen from 20.Panzer-Division. He succeeded in partially overrunning the 15 RD’s second line of defence and surprised an anti-tank position in the town of Soborovka. The Soviets committed the T-34s of 237th Tank Regiment to block any further advance. By this point, Sauvant was low on fuel and ammunition and decided to halt, but he had a good day and his advance of 8km was AOK 9’s furthest penetration on the first day of Zitadelle.

Model responded to the 20.Panzer-Division’s success by moving up the 2. and 9.Panzer-Divisionen to assist with reducing the Soviet second line of defence on the next day. The AOK 9 had suffered very heavy personnel casualties on the first day of Zitadelle: 7,223 dead and wounded, particularly in the infantry and pioniers. While Pukhov’s first line of defence had been severely reduced, no breakthrough had been achieved. Pukhov had already committed more than half his armour to contain the German advances, but with limited effect. Rokossovsky watched the partial collapse of Pukhov’s first line of defence with dismay and with Zhukov hovering over him, he decided to commit Rodin’s 2TA and the separate 19th Tank Corps to a major counter-attack on the next day to restore the previous frontline. Rokossovsky’s hasty decision was a major departure from the Soviet battle plan (although Zhukov raised no objections), since the tank armies were supposed to stay out of the battle until the mines and anti-tank defences had reduced the Panzer-Divisionen, but this was not yet the case. Instead, Rokossovsky was playing straight into the German battle plan, provoking a major tank battle while the German heavy armour was still operational.

As dawn arrived on the second day of Zitadelle, the Germans were slow to resume their offensive and 2.Panzer-Division was still in its tactical assembly area. Suddenly, a group of 25 Soviet A-20 bombers came in low and bombed the assembly area, inflicting casualties and damage. Although Luftflotte 6 was winning the battle for air superiority over the northern battlefield, the VVS was still capable of conducting painful low-level raids. Meanwhile, Rokossovsky’s armour was moving northward to engage the German armour near Pukhov’s second line of defence. Rodin’s two corps had to conduct a ‘forward passage of lines’ during the pre-dawn darkness, which is a tedious and problematic affair even for the best trained units. This passage entails tankers coordinating with the front-line infantry commanders to establish one or more lanes through their defensive positions, marking the lanes and posting guides, then moving through as quietly as possible in a long column that makes an excellent target for enemy artillery. At Kursk, particular attention had to be paid to not driving into friendly minefields in the dark. With luck, the combat elements of a large armoured unit like a tank corps might complete a forward passage of lines within a couple of hours, but this was not a strength of the Red Army’s tankers. Instead of three tank corps hitting the Germans at dawn, only part of General-major Vasily E. Grigor’ev’s 16th Tank Corps managed to complete its forward passage of lines by 1000 hours and then advanced northward to the village of Bobrik. In fact, Grigor’ev conducted his movement to contact with just his 107th and 164th Tank Brigades. This mass of about 90 Soviet tanks crawled forward without reconnaissance out in front or infantry or artillery support; it was just a wedge of steel.

Near the village of Bobrik, Major Sauvant’s Tigers had finished a leisurely breakfast and re-supply while sitting in an overwatch position and awaiting orders to resume the attack. Sauvant was one of the most experienced junior Panzer commanders in the Heer, having risen from company commander in Poland in 1939 to battalion commander in 1942 and even being one of the lucky few from the old 14.Panzer-Division to survive Stalingrad. Now Sauvant was provided with the perfect killing machine in an optimal tactical position. Sauvant’s crews spotted the approaching mass of Soviet armour and had plenty of time to ram Panzergranate rounds into their breaches and select targets. Polkovnik Nikolai M. Teliakov, a veteran tanker himself, led the lead 107th Tank Brigade. Sauvant’s Tigers began the engagement at about 1,200 meters with the 8.8cm rounds ripping into the lead Soviet tank company. Although the Soviet tankers could clearly see the Tigers, return fire was completely ineffective at this range. Teliakov had difficulty controlling his brigade, which was being shot to pieces in just a few minutes, but finally managed to extract some survivors and beat a hasty retreat. In less than fifteen minutes, Teliakov’s brigade lost 46 tanks for no loss to Sauvant’s Tigers. Podpolkovnik Nikolai V. Kopylov’s 164th Tank Brigade, trailing Teliakov, witnessed the destruction of his brigade and opted to steer away from the Tigers, but blundered straight into a Kampfgruppe from 2.Panzer-Division. This meeting action was more favourable for the Soviets; Kopylov lost 23 tanks but managed to knock out 10 German tanks before retreating. With Grigor’ev’s 16th Tank Corps bloodied and the rest of his armour still unready to attack, Rodin was able to convince Rokossovsky to cancel the counter-attack and revert to a pure defence.

Model was in no hurry to resume the offensive. He decided to commit the 9.Panzer-Division in Harpe’s sector and he ordered his two flank corps to continue limited objectives attacks. Then, he waited for Luftflotte 6 to gain air superiority over the sector, which they did. Soviet air losses over the northern battlefield on the first two days of Zitadelle were horrendous – 191 aircraft versus 36 for the Luftwaffe. With the skies cleared of enemy bombers, Model began to attack Pukhov’s second line of defence around noon. There was no real Schwerpunkt on this second day of Zitadelle, just short-range jabs by 2.Panzer-Division and Sauvant’s Tigers toward Ol’khovatka and by 9.Panzer-Division toward the Snova River valley. Harpe’s XXXXI Panzerkorps mopped up the remnants of the 81st Rifle Division north of Ponyri, with the support of the remaining Ferdinands and 18.Panzer-Division. Polkovnik Nikolai V. Petrushin’s 129th Tank Brigade (more than 40 tanks) tried to support the hard-pressed Soviet infantry but was driven off by the Ferdinand’s long 8.8cm gun. However, a few SU-152s managed to get into good firing positions and engaged the Ferdinands; at least one Ferdinand was knocked out with a flank shot from 800 metres. Nevertheless, the Germans pressed on and with the added help of Generalleutnant Walter Scheller’s 9.Panzer-Division approaching from the northwest, reached the outskirts of Ponyri by dusk. As the last of his first line of defence crumbled, Pukhov had time to move the 307th Rifle Division and the rest of Petrushin’s 129th Tank Brigade to hold Ponyri. Pukhov placed General-major Mikhail A. Enshin, an NKVD officer, in charge of the defence of Ponyri.

Lemelsen’s XXXXVII Panzerkorps pushed toward Ol’khovatka with Generalleutnant Vollrath Lübbe’s 2. Panzer-Division in the lead. Lübbe’s Panzers found the Soviet second line in this sector held by the 6th Guards Rifle Division (6 GRD), which was well supported by artillery and anti-tank guns. The German tanks blundered into a minefield and no less than 12 of Sauvant’s Tigers suffered mine damage. Heavy artillery fire pounded the Germans while they were tangled out in the obstacle belt and high velocity 76.2mm rounds ripped into immobilized vehicles. Lübbe’s Panzers managed to push through some weak spots in the 6 GRD’s line, but then ran straight into elements of the 70th and 75th Guards Rifle Divisions. Soviet POZ detachments laid new mines in front of the approaching Panzers, just as they thought they had cleared the obstacle belt. As evening approached, General-major Ivan D. Vasil’ev’s 19th Tank Corps mounted a sudden counter-attack into Lemelsen’s right flank, but the 20.Panzer-Division was screening this area and knocked out 30 T-34s. The day was a disappointment for Model, with more heavy casualties and no breakthrough achieved. At best, his Panzers had advanced another 2–4km, but it was clear that Soviet resistance was getting tougher. Although not hopeful of achieving a real breakthrough and linking up with von Manstein’s forces, Model decided to commit his remaining armour, the 4. and 12.Panzer-Divisionen on the next day.

By 7 July, Model decided to focus all his combat power in just the Ol’khovatka and Ponyri sectors, while essentially shifting to the defence on the rest of his front. At 0630 hours, Harpe’s XXXXI Panzerkorps attacked Ponyri from the north with the 292.Infanterie-Division supported by Ferdinands and assault guns, while 18.Panzer-Division attacked from the west. Enshin’s defence was rock solid and supported by over 300 artillery pieces, which repulsed four German attacks. It was not until 1100 hours that a fifth attack succeeded in gaining some ground and getting into the edge of Ponyri, but the rest of the day was consumed in Stalingrad-style urban combat that accomplished nothing. Nor did Scheller’s 9.Panzer-Division achieve anything useful; it advanced 3km southwest in an effort to outflank Ponyri before running into mines and an impenetrable blocking position held by the 43rd Tank Regiment (30 T-34s) and the 1st Anti-Tank Brigade; Scheller lost nine tanks knocked out and 30 more immobilized by mechanical defects and damage. The fact that an entire German Panzerkorps could not capture a town held by a rifle division indicated the growing poverty of German resources.

Before Lemelsen could jump off on the morning of 7 July, Soviet A-20 bombers struck again and destroyed five Pz IV tanks in 2.Panzer-Division’s tactical assembly area. Following that rude shock, Lübbe formed Kampfgruppe Burmeister (Sauvant’s Tigers, Pz.Regt. 3, I./Pz. Gr. Regt. 304 (SPW), self-propelled artillery, Panzerjägers) under his most experienced armoured leader and ordered him to seize the corps objective – Ol’khovatka – while 20.Panzer-Division screened the extended right flank of XXXXVII Panzerkorps. Oberst Arnold Burmeister was one of the most experienced Panzer-Regiment commanders on the Eastern Front and German commanders were given wide tactical discretion under the mission-orders concept. Burmeister decided that before proceeding to Ol’khovatka that he needed to secure the Soviet-held village of Samodurovka, which was sniping at his Kampfgruppe with long-range anti-tank fire. His mass of armour struck units from the 140th Rifle Division holding this village and easily forced them to withdraw, while destroying a company of supporting T-34s in the process. However, Burmeister did not have sufficient infantry to hold this village so he left it vacant and turned eastward toward Ol’khovatka. Normally, moving parallel to the front of an alerted enemy is one of the worst tactical choices that a commander can make because it exposes them to enfilade fire. The Soviets had established a defence north of Ol’khovatka with the 75 GRD, supported by Grigor’ev’s 16th Tank Corps and two batteries of 85mm anti-craft guns, with plenty of mines in front. As Burmeister presented his flank to the enemy, the Soviets unleashed volleys of 85mm armour-piercing rounds and barrages of heavy artillery on the armoured phalanx. One of Major Sauvant’s Tigers was hit by an 85mm AP round in the side, which penetrated and destroyed it. The rest of Burmeister’s Kampfgruppe was badly battered and Oberst Wilhelm von Goerne, commander of Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 304, was killed. Rather than retire from a poor tactical situation, Burmeister elected to engage dug-in Soviet tanks in a long-range gunnery duel that lasted until nightfall. In order to have a reasonable probability of striking a dug-in T-34, with only its turret showing above ground, a Tiger had to close to within 500 metres, but mines made it difficult to close up on the target.^{84} During the action between 2.Panzer-Division and 16th Tank Corps, which involved no more than 100 tanks on each side, Major Aleksei F. Sankovsky’s 1541 SUP entered the battle with his SU-152s. Although Sankovsky claimed multiple Tigers and Ferdinands (which were not deployed in this sector) destroyed, it is more likely that he was aiming at Pz IVs. Soviet tankers tended to regard the Pz IVs with Schürzen as heavy tanks but in any case, Soviet propaganda dubbed Sankovsky’s SU-152s as Zvierboy (‘Animal Hunters’). In reality, it was the mines, 85mm AA guns and heavy artillery that defeated Burmeister’s attack. At dusk, Burmeister withdrew after failing to accomplish his mission.

Model recognized that heavy losses and depleted supplies would soon force the culmination of his offensive, but he wanted to make one more try against both Ol’khovatka and Ponyri on 8 July. This time, Generalleutnant Dietrich von Saucken’s fresh 4.Panzer-Division would spearhead Lemelsen’s advance. At first light, Saucken’s division was forced to retake Samodurovka, which the Soviets had reoccupied during the night. After that was accomplished, Saucken advanced toward Teploye, hoping this sector was not as heavily defended as the Ol’khovatka sector. It was. Teploye was held by the 140th Siberian Rifle Division, backed by the 3rd Anti-Tank Brigade and Polkovnik Fedor P. Vasetskaya’s 79th Tank Brigade from 19 TC. Major Sauvant’s last three Tigers led the advance to Teploye and they managed to overrun one Soviet rifle battalion and occupy part of the town before running into a wall of fire. Vasetskaya’s T-34s were dug into hull-down firing positions, which made them difficult for the German tankers to hit. Another long-range gunnery duel developed, with at least three Pz IVs and four T-34s destroyed. Saucken called in Stukas, which pounded the Soviet hill-top positions, but could not get them to budge. The 4.Panzer-Division’s attack faltered and ended without any success. Likewise, a renewed effort by Kampfgruppe Burmeister to push toward Ol’khovatka was stopped by mines, anti-tank fire, artillery and dug-in T-34s. Model had reached his high water mark and further advance was now impossible. There would be no victory parade through Kursk for AOK 9.

Harpe continued to grapple with Enshin’s forces at Ponyri from 8–10 July and managed to capture half of the town at great cost. Four Ferdinands were destroyed in close-quarter fighting inside the town, which was the wrong place for them to be employed. Ponyri became an extended and pointless battle of attrition that exhausted Harpe’s corps and played to Rokossovsky’s objective of weakening AOK 9 as a precursor to the inevitable Soviet counter-offensive. Model recognized this as well and on 10 July he ordered his forces to suspend the offensive. He did not ask permission from the OKH or Hitler, he simply suspended his role in Zitadelle. When the OKH recommended that he shift his axis of attack, he ignored them. In six days of attacking, the northern German pincer had advanced barely 15km and captured no significant objectives and destroyed no major Soviet formations. Model’s AOK 9 had suffered 22,201 casualties, including 4,691 dead or missing, which was the highest one-week loss for any single German army since Barbarossa two years earlier. Four of Model’s infantry divisions were combat ineffective, but he did achieve his objective of conserving a viable armour reserve. The six Panzer-Divisionen fighting on the northern front lost only 29 tanks destroyed, including three of Sauvant’s Tigers. The 3./s.Pz.Abt. 505 arrived in the final days of the battle, which meant that Sauvant’s battalion still had 26 operational Tigers when Model called off the offensive. In addition, 19 Ferdinands and 17 assault guns were lost. Many vehicles suffered damage from mines and artillery fire, but could be repaired in a matter of days. Altogether, Model’s AOK 9 lost 71 AFVs destroyed and 308 AFV damaged, but Model was left with at least 500 operational AFVs to counter the coming storm.

Rokossovsky’s defence had held firmly, yielding very little ground, but had failed to inflict crippling losses on Model’s armour. Post-war Soviet historians created tales of a four-day tank battle between Ponyri and Ol’khovatka, which they claimed destroyed hundreds of German tanks, but this was mostly fabricated to conceal Soviet frustrations. Instead of a great clash of armour, most of the tank combat in the northern front had been battalion, regiment and brigade-size actions. Rokossovsky’s Central Front suffered 33,897 casualties and, like Model’s AOK 9, the front-line infantry units got the worst of it. Soviet armour losses in the north are not exactly known, but were in the range of 200 tanks destroyed and 100–200 damaged. Rodin’s 2TA lost 46 per cent of its armour, but was soon restored to combat effectiveness. The main point to be gleaned from Model’s failed offensive was that neither side was able to seriously reduce the other’s armoured reserves, which had considerable consequences for the events to follow.^{85}

Operation Zitadelle: The Southern Front, 5–16 July 1943

Von Manstein had wanted to attack the Kursk Salient as an immediate follow up to his successful Backhand Blow counter-offensive, but was stymied first by the rainy spring weather, and then by Hitler’s repeated delays of Zitadelle to await the arrival of the Panther medium tank and more Tigers. Although the point has often been made that an earlier German attack might have succeeded, this punditry disregards the weather, the logistic situation and the emaciated state of Hoth’s 4.Panzerarmee. The simple fact is that the Red Army used the April–June lull better than the Wehrmacht did, fortifying the Kursk salient and forming a large mobile reserve for follow-on operations. Soviet intelligence about the Zitadelle plan was excellent, in part due to information forward from the Allied ULTRA signals intercept programme.[21] In contrast, the Germans knew about the Soviet defensive preparations in the Kursk salient due to regular photo reconnaissance, but they were unaware of the vast numbers of RVGK reserves that were being concentrated further to the rear. Von Manstein’s hubris about slicing through the Soviet defences with his armoured battering ram was based on ignorance of the enemy’s actual strength.

In planning Zitadelle, von Manstein displayed a certain inattention to details that would plague the operation from the start. Unlike Model, he failed to appreciate the depth of Soviet minefields and asked for no special engineering resources; Hoth’s 4.Panzerarmee (PzAOK 4) received no Goliath or BIV demolition vehicles or other mine-clearing equipment. Von Manstein’s operational plan was very basic, envisioning that Hoth’s 4.Panzerarmee, consisting of General der Panzertruppe Otto von Knobelsdorff’s XXXXVIII Panzerkorps (3., 11.Panzer-Divisionen and the Großdeutschland) and Hausser’s II. SS-Panzerkorps (LSSAH, Das Reich and Totenkopf) would form the main effort, while Armee-Abteilung Kempf would conduct a supporting attack with General der Panzertruppe Hermann Breith’s III Panzerkorps (6., 7. and 19.Panzer-Divisionen) and Generaloberst Erhard Raus’ XI Armeekorps (two infantry divisions and Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 905). Von Manstein believed that this mass of armour and troops, with over 1,500 AFVs and supported by Luftflotte 4, could blast its way through any defensive lines. Up front though, von Manstein violated the principle of unity of command by putting two Panzerkorps under Hoth and one under Kempf, when doctrine recommended that all three should have been under a single army commander. Consequently, Breith’s III Panzerkorps contributed little to its primary mission of protecting the right flank of II. SS-Panzerkorps and essentially fought an isolated and operationally pointless battle. Nor did von Manstein ensure that his subordinates had conducted detailed tactical planning prior to execution, which became immediately obvious in both the III. and XXXXVIII Panzerkorps sectors. Finally, von Manstein’s broad front implementation of Zitadelle left him with no operational-level reserves, other than General der Panzertruppe Walther Nehring’s distant and under-resourced XXIV Panzerkorps. After the war, von Manstein would claim that Nehring’s corps could have made a great impact upon the outcome of Zitadelle, but this formation had a total of only 171 tanks among its three mechanized divisions. Furthermore, Nehring’s XXIV Panzerkorps was the only mobile reserve belonging to the 1. Panzerarmee and stripping this resource would seriously weaken Heeresgruppe Süd’s right flank.

Facing Hoth’s 4.Panzerarmee, Vatutin had arrayed his Voronezh Front forces in great depth. General-leytenant Ivan M. Chistiakov’s 6th Guards Army (6 GA) was deployed in a two-up/one-back style echeloned defence across a 60km-wide front, with the 22nd Guards Rifle Corps (22 GRC) opposite XXXXVIII Panzerkorps and the 23rd Guards Rifle Corps (23 GRC) opposite the II. SS-Panzerkorps. In tactical reserve, Chistiakov had the 96th Tank Brigade (46 T-34s and 5 T-70) and the 230th and 245th separate tank regiments with a total of 34 M3 Grants and 44 M3 Stuarts. More importantly, Chistiakov had the 27th and 28th Anti-tank Brigades in general support, plus 10 separate anti-tank regiments which were attached to his rifle divisions, providing 6 GA with a total of 573 anti-tank guns.^{86} However, Chistiakov’s sector only had half the density of mines that Pukhov’s 13th Army had on the northern front and, unlike Rokossovsky, Vatutin had not deployed an artillery corps to support the main defence. With fewer mines and less artillery support, Chistiakov’s front was not as dense a defence as Model had confronted in the north.

Behind Chistiakov’s 6 GA, Vatutin deployed the 69th Army in a third line of defence with five rifle divisions, the 35th Guards Rifle corps and General-leytenant Mikhail E. Katukov’s 1st Tank Army, comprised of the 6th and 31st Tank Corps and 3rd Mechanized Corps. Altogether, Katukov had 587 tanks of which 484 were T-34s – an unusually high proportion of medium tanks for the Red Army in mid-1943. Vatutin kept two more tank units, the 2nd and 5th Guards Tank Corps with a total of 410 tanks, under his control in front reserve. Vatutin’s intent was to use Katukov’s armour and the two separate tank corps to mount local counter-attacks to block any German breakthroughs, rather than as a masse de manoeuvre. General-leytenant Mikhail S. Shumilov’s 7th Guards Army (7 GA) opposed Armee-Abteilung Kempf with the 25th Guards Rifle Corps in a 2-up/1-back defensive echelon, supported by two tank regiments with 33 T-34 and 22 KV-1s.

The long-awaited Panther tanks arrived by rail near Borisovka, beginning on 1 July, and the last trainload did not arrive until 4 July, the day before Zitadelle was to begin. All the technical problems aside, Hoth had made little effort to ensure that the two Panther-Abteilungen had proper command and control or were integrated into PzAOK 4’s tactical plans. The 10.Panzer-Brigade was established in Berlin on 27 June under Oberst Karl Decker to command the Panthers, but the headquarters did not even begin moving to the Eastern Front until 3 July.[22] This mistake was another indicator that the efficiency of the German Panzertruppen was slipping by 1943. Realizing that someone had dropped the ball, Major Meinrad von Lauchert, who had been involved with training Panther crews at Grafenwöhr, formed the provisional Panzer-Regiment 39 to control the Panthers arriving at the Borisovka railhead. The Panthers were put under the operational control of Großdeutschland, which gave von Lauchert a radio command vehicle and enough resources to operate a small tactical command post. However, this ad hoc solution all occurred in the last evening before Zitadelle began, which meant that coordination and the tactical orders process were curtailed. One-third of the Panther crews had no combat experience and now they were being asked to go into battle attached to an unfamiliar unit and with vague tactical orders. Making matters significantly worse, there was no opportunity at the railhead to bore-sight the main guns (which after a long, bumpy train ride would definitely be out of alignment with the gunner’s sights) or to set radios to correct frequencies. As soon as they left the railhead, Panthers began breaking down on the 35km road march to the assembly area near Tomarovka and by the time they reached it, only 166 out of 204 Panthers were still running.^{87} Two Panthers were completely burnt-out by engine fires.[23]

While the Panthers were moving up to the front, Hoth’s PzAOK 4 was already making its initial moves in Zitadelle. At 1450 hours on 4 July, Stukas from Luftflotte 4 conducted a massive airstrike against positions in the 6 GA’s forward security zone, followed by an artillery bombardment from XXXXVIII Panzerkorps. Hard on the heels of the artillery barrage, infantrymen from both corps began an aggressive counter-reconnaissance probe to overrun Soviet units in their forward security sector. Most of the action involved battalion-size probes to eliminate Soviet artillery observation posts and to begin clearing the outer minefields. No tanks were involved in this effort, but assault guns and reconnaissance vehicles moved forward. In contrast to von Knobelsdorff’s broad daylight approach, Hausser’s II.SS-Panzerkorps did not begin its own counter-reconnaissance effort until after dusk. Hoth’s troops succeeded in capturing a few villages and hilltops, but were shocked by the difficulty of clearing paths through the minefields and the heavy casualties. Nor were all the Soviet outpost positions or mines eliminated in the security zone.^{88}

Unlike the northern front of Operation Zitadelle, the operations of von Manstein’s southern pincer have been covered in great detail in a large body of literature and I do not intend to belabour this well-known side of the Battle of Kursk with a blow-by-blow description. In particular, this task has already been well accomplished by George M. Nipe’s Blood, Steel and Myth (2011) and Valeriy Zamulin’s Demolishing the Myth, which both provide great day-to-day detail on the fighting on the southern side of the Kursk salient. Instead, I intend to focus the remainder of my discussion of Zitadelle on the main implications for armoured warfare on the Eastern Front on three particular topics: (1) how von Manstein’s armour penetrated the Soviet obstacle belts, (2) the poor performance of the Panther tank in its initial combat debut and (3) Rotmistrov’s botched counter-attack at Prokhorovka. I also intend to avoid the simplistic pitfall of earlier analyses, which tend to base their assessment of Zitadelle upon numbers of operational tanks on either side and little else.

Hoth’s main attack began at 0500 hours (local) after a 45-minute artillery preparation. On the left flank, von Knobelsdorff’s XXXXVIII Panzerkorps attacked with the 3.Panzer-Division, Großdeutschland and 11.Panzer-Division advancing on line. The Panther-Abteilungen were still in their assembly area and did not move forward until about 0900 hours. There were still plenty of uncleared mines in the former Soviet security, which greatly complicated the forward movement of the German assault groups. Generalleutnant Franz Westhoven’s 3.Panzer-Division attacked with four of its Panzergrenadier-Baitallonen, without the planned armoured support, against the Soviet 210th Guards Rifle Regiment. After clearing out the frontline positions, the German battalions were stopped for nearly five hours by a deep, muddy balka. While the German pioniers established a crossing, Soviet artillery pounded the stalled Germans, inflicting heavy casualties. When the balka was finally bridged around 1400 hours, Westhoven’s infantry poured across, along with tanks from II./Panzer-Regiment 6, and attacked the village of Korovino. The village was captured, but Oberst Gunther Pape, commander of Panzergrenadier-Regiment 394, was badly wounded. A minor counter-attack by Soviet tanks was repulsed by the German panzers. Westhoven’s division had overrun a first-line rifle regiment and advanced a total of about 5km.

In the centre of the XXXXVIII Panzerkorps offensive, Generalleutnant Walter Hörnlein’s Großdeutschland conducted a very mismanaged attack from the outset. As with 3.Panzer-Division, uncleared mines wrecked the Großdeutschland’s attack schedule. Oberst Hyazinth Graf Strachwitz’s Panzer-Regiment Großdeutschland did not arrive in time to support the division’s infantry in the attack. Oberst Erich Kahsnitz, commander of the Panzerfüsilier-Regiment Großdeutschland, was badly wounded in this unsupported attack and later died of his wounds. The III.Panzerfüsilier-Regiment suffered very heavy losses.^{89} Finally clearing the mines, von Strachwitz pushed forward to catch up with the infantry, leading with his Tigers, then his two tank battalions. His objective was the village of Cherkasskoye, which was held by the 196th Guards Rifle Regiment and two anti-tank units. Visibility was hazy due to grassfires sparked by the artillery preparation. Only 30 minutes after crossing the line of departure, von Strachwitz was shocked to encounter a large flooded area, which was the 80-metre-wide Berezovyi ravine. The Soviets had placed barbed wire and mines on the enemy side of the ravine and recent heavy rains had turned the ravine into a mud bowl that ran laterally for about 3km across the front of Großdeutschland’s axis of attack. Although some of Kahsnitz’s dismounted infantry made it across, no vehicle could cross until the pioniers had established a ford.

It is incomprehensible that Strachwitz and other senior commanders in the Großdeutschland were ignorant of this major obstacleafter having had three months to prepare for Zitadelle. In combat, even veteran commanders can make serious mistakes due to fatigue, but that was not the case here; Strachwitz and the leadership of Großdeutschland were well-rested after the long lull. It is a common theme in German memoirs that whenever some inexplicable mistake occurs, like Operation Typhoon in 1941 or the Berezovyi ravine in 1943, or the effort to relieve the Korsun Pocket in 1944, German tankers blame the Russian mud for their failures. In other words, circumstances were beyond their control. This was nonsense. Instead of executing a carefully planned deliberate attack, Großdeutschland conducted a movement to contact as if it was a training event. Adding to this failure, Strachwitz decided to try and send several tanks across, but they sank in the water-logged ground up to their fenders. Furthermore, he allowed the rest of his stationary regiment to bunch up south of the ravine, which invited a barrage of Soviet artillery and anti-tank fire. Even worse, Soviet Il-2 Sturmoviks arrived overhead and caught the Panzer-Regiment Großdeutschland flat-footed, dropping bombs that seriously wounded Oberstleutnant Graf Saurma, commander of II./Pz.Rgt. GD.[24] At least 20 of Strachwitz’s tanks and perhaps five assault guns were knocked out by mines, stuck in the mud or damaged by enemy fire before he finally decided to pull back and try and cross the ravine 1,500 meters to the west.^{90}

^{Advance of Hoth’s Panzerarmee 4 on first day of Zitadelle, 5 July 1943.}

Compounding this mistake, Strachwitz did not bother to inform von Lauchert’s Panzer-Regiment 39 about the obstacle. Von Lauchert managed to get a few hours to prepare the Panthers for combat in their assembly area before moving forward at about 0815 hours. Four more Panthers suffered engine fires before crossing the line of departure. Von Lauchert deployed both battalions in double row formation, with Hauptmann Heinrich Meyer’s Panzer-Abteilung 51 in the lead and Major Gerhard Tebbe’s Panzer-Abteilung 52 trailing. When Meyer’s Panthers reached the ravine, a number of Großdeutschland’s immobilized tanks were still there and pioniers had attempted to create a crossing site with lumber. After a few minutes of confusion, Meyer tried to cross the ravine with his two lead companies, which resulted in a number of Panthers bogging down in the mud. Another company attempted to cross nearby and ran into a minefield, disabling the company commander’s tank. Soviet fire pounded the immobilized Panthers, damaging more tanks and creating complete confusion. A serious technical weakness in the Panther was also discovered: the Panther’s final drive was too weak to move in reverse on a slippery slope and some tanks sat immobilized or sheered the teeth off their drive sprockets in frantic efforts to escape the kill zone. By the time von Lauchert received word that Strachwitz had found a better crossing site to the west, at least 25 Panthers had been put out of action. There is little doubt that the Panther’s baptism of fire at Kursk was the worst combat debut for any major weapons system in the Second World War.

It took Großdeutschland’s pioniers hours to bridge the Berezovyi ravine and it is important to note that they suffered very heavy losses from Soviet artillery, which had the obstacle completely covered by fire. Furthermore, German pioniers were clearing the minefields by hand – as was the case with all Hoth’s divisions – which was very slow and dangerous. It was not until 1600 hours that Strachwitz was able to cross the ravine with 30 Panthers, 15 Pz IVs and the SPWs of Major Otto Remer’s I./Pz.Gr. Regt. GD and attack Cherkasskoye. Finally able to advance, the Panther’s 80mm thick, sloped frontal armour easily shrugged off Soviet 45mm and 76.2mm anti-tank fire and enabled Remer’s Panzergrenadiers to fight their way into the town and clear part of it. However, Soviet riflemen held onto part of the town and did not abandon it until nightfall. Nearby, the 1837th Anti-Tank Regiment opened fire against the Panthers with 85mm anti-aircraft guns, which posed a serious threat. Podpolkovnik Matvyey K. Akoponov’s 245th Tank Regiment also made an appearance to support the retreating Soviet infantry, with its 27 M3 Grant and 12 M3 Stuart tanks. Von Lauchert’s Panthers knocked out about six of Akoponov’s American-built tanks before they retreated, but this was the culmination of the first day’s attack for Großdeutschland. At great cost, the best equipped division in the Heer had advanced 7km at great cost but only dented the 22nd Guards Rifle Corps’ first line of defence, not broken it. Mines had inflicted significant damage on the division, including nine of 12 Tigers immobilized. Indeed, Großdeutschland’s attack resembled the kind of poorly-planned/poorly-executed armoured attacks that the Red Army had often mounted in 1941–42.

In stark contrast to Großdeutschland’s poor performance, Generalmajor Johann Mickl’s 11.Panzer-Division had done a thorough pre-battle study of the terrain and mission and requested additional pionier support. Although mines disabled at least eight of Panzer-Regiment 15’s tanks, the rest were able to effectively support their infantry and pioniers in the attack against the fortified village of Butovo. Panzer-Regiment 15 also employed a company of attached Flammpanzers to burn out Soviet infantry positions. However, the Panzer-Regiment was caught in the open by Il-2 Sturmoviks twice, which bombed and strafed the formation, inflicting serious losses. Panzer-Regiment 15 assisted Großdeutschland in the capture of Cherkasskoye and also sparred with Akoponov’s 245th Tank Regiment, claiming 10 tanks knocked out. By the end of the first day, 11.Panzer-Division had advanced 7km and had inflicted significant losses upon the 67th Guards Rifle Division’s first line of defence. There is no doubt that the two front-line rifle divisions of the 22nd Guards Rifle Division suffered crippling losses, but the survivors were falling back to the second line of defence held by the 90th Guards Rifle Division on the Pena River. Furthermore, Vatutin gave Chistiakov’s 6 GA the fresh 27th Anti-Tank Brigade and the POZ detachments spent the night of 5–6 July laying more mines in the path of von Knobelsdorff’s armour. Vatutin also alerted Katukov’s 1TA to be prepared to fight a major action on the Pena.

Hausser’s II./SS-Panzerkorps deployed LSSAH and Das Reich against the 151st and 155th Guards Rifle Regiments of the 52nd Guards Rifle Division near the village of Beresov. Hausser’s divisions opted to open their attacks against the Soviet first line of defence primarily with their pioniers and Panzergrenadier-Regiments, supported by their Tigers and assault guns. Soviet mines inflicted considerable damage and, along with anti-tank ditches, caused the German armour to halt, while the pioniers cleared them by hand. SS-Untersturmführer Michael Wittmann’s Tiger was one of two from LSSAH that was immobilized by mine damage. Podpolkovnik Ivan K. Kotenko’s 1008th Anti-Tank Regiment, deployed with 24 76.2mm ZIS-3 anti-tank guns along the road to Bykovka, caused the LSSAH considerable trouble during the breaching operations; 8 StuG IIIs from the Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung were knocked out and the battalion commander was badly wounded. Another Tiger, which bypassed one of Kotenko’s camouflaged guns, was hit in the rear and destroyed. However, the lavish firepower afforded to the Waffen-SS divisions and their gung-ho attitude finally prevailed. Kotenko’s anti-tank guns were picked off one after another until three-quarters of them were destroyed, then two of the 52 GRD’s frontline regiments were overrun.[25] Then the German assault groups overran the divisional artillery and command posts, completely disrupting the defence. Shocked by the rapid demise of the 52 GRD’s first line of defence, Polkovnik Dmitri A. Shcherbakov’s 230th Tank Regiment, equipped with a mix of M3 Grants and M3 Stuarts, was committed to try and slow the Germans and enable the remnants of the 52 GRD to retreat to the second line of defence. Committing obsolescent Grants and Lees against Tigers was suicidal and much of Shcherbakov’s regiment was shot up within 30 minutes.^{91} Hausser held most of his armour back on the first day, but the LSSAH still succeeded in advancing more than 12km through the 52 GRD’s defences and was only stopped when it bumped into the 51st Guards Rifle Division in the second line of defence. Vatutin responded by deploying the 28th Anti-Tank Brigade to block LSSAH’s further advance. The LSSAH’s remarkable advance was achieved at a cost of 636 casualties.^{92} Das Reich was less successful and advanced only 6–8km. On Hausser’s right flank, the Totenkopf chewed its way through the first line of the 375th Rifle Division, but five of its Tigers were immobilized by mines and three StuG IIIs were destroyed. After crossing a mined anti-tank ditch, Totenkopf’s assault troops encountered T-34s from Polkovnik Viktor G. Lebedev’s 96th Tank Brigade and some Su-122s and Su-76s from the 1440th SAP, resulting in several platoon and company-size skirmishes.[26] By the end of 5 July, Totenkopf had advanced 5km. Altogether, the II. SS-Panzerkorps had suffered 44 tanks or assault guns disabled by mines, including 10 of its 35 Tigers, while personnel casualties were 1,081 (including 214 killed or missing).^{93} Losses of pioniers were particularly heavy. On the other hand, the 6 GA had lost its first line of defence more quickly than expected. One of the primary reasons appears to have been the large amount of close air support provided to Hausser’s II. SS-Panzerkorps, which the Soviets noted as inflicting greater damage than German armour.

Breith’s III Panzerkorps, which was supposed to protect Hausser’s right flank, had to cross the Donets River before it could even approach the first line of defence held by the 25th Guards Rifle Corps of Shumilov’s 7 GA. Armee-Abteilung Kempf held a small bridgehead over the Donets at Michailovka, just south of Belgorod, with one bridge standing. Unlike Hoth’s PzAOK 4, Kempf could not really conduct a counter-reconnaissance because of the river, so he opted to conduct counter-battery fire on the evening before Zitadelle; unfortunately, this consumed much of his ready artillery ammunition just prior to the assault. When dawn approached, the 6., 7. and 19.Panzer-Divisionen began crossing the Donets, first with infantry. There really is no subtle way for a large armoured force to cross a river under the gaze of an alert enemy, and in some ways Breith’s III. Panzerkorps attack resembled the British VIII Corps’ attack over the Orne River during Operation Goodwood in July 1944. Shumilov’s artillery observers spotted the German crossings right away and pounded the far side with volleys of rockets and high explosive, which destroyed the Michailovka bridge and damaged some of the other assault bridges. Without the bridge, Breith’s intent to use the Michailovka bridgehead became impossible and the attack in this sector was aborted. Breith had split up his Tiger battalion, s. Pz.Abt. 503, giving one company to each of his three Panzer-Divisionen – against the recommendation of Guderian to mass this key asset. Amazingly, Breith had put little thought into how these 58-ton heavy tanks were going to cross the Donets, since his pontoon bridges were only rated up to 24 tons. Consequently, the Tigers spent much of the first day sitting out the battle awaiting the pioniers to build a 60-ton bridge. Indeed, none of the German armour was able to cross the Donets until 1030 hours, five hours after the beginning of Zitadelle.

The assault crossing of the 19.Panzer-Division was a near debacle and even once across the river, the pioniers had to clear minefields by hand in broad daylight under enemy fire. Soviet artillery pounded the hell out of the Germans attempting to breach the minefields, inflicting hundreds of casualties. When the Tigers of 2./s. Pz.Abt. 503 finally moved forward, first they ran into a friendly minefield that disabled two Tigers, then ran into uncleared enemy mines which disabled many more; by the end of the day the company had 13 out of its 14 Tigers disabled. The 7.Panzer-Division also suffered badly from enemy artillery, including losing the battalion commander of II./Pz.Rgt. 25. Eventually, the 7. and 19.Panzer-Divisionen were able to advance 3–6km, but 6.Panzer-Divisionen was unable to get its armour across until very late on the first day. Breith’s III. Panzerkorps was hopelessly behind schedule from the start and it is hard to understand how either Kempf or von Manstein failed to appreciate the influence of terrain in this sector. Indeed, much of the German planning for Zitadelle appears to have been made with little regard for terrain or the enemy.

Hoth’s PzAOK 4 and Kempf’s forces overwhelmed Vatutin’s first line of defence and pushed hard against his second line, but Soviet resistance was much tougher than expected. Hausser’s II. SS-Panzerkorps enjoyed the most success, advancing to a depth of 28km by the third day of the offensive. In order to prevent the Germans from blitzing their way through the second line of defence, Vatutin was forced to deploy his reserves quicker than expected and he directed Katukov’s 1 TA to assist in blocking XXXXVIII Panzerkorps on the Pena River with its 6th Tank Corps and 3rd Mechanized Corps. Katukov’s armour was committed to the infantry support role – unusual for an entire tank army. Katukov was not happy about this since he wanted his armour kept massed rather than parcelled out to support various rifle divisions, but did as ordered. Vatutin and his subordinates were also shocked by the appearance of the Panther tank – of which Soviet intelligence had been unaware – as well as the unusually large number of Tiger tanks being used by Hoth’s PzAOK 4.^{94}

On 6 July, von Knobelsdorff’s XXXXVIII Panzerkorps reached the 6 GA’s second line of defence along the Pena River and was surprised to find that steep banks and swampy terrain made it impossible for tanks to cross.^{95} Furthermore, Katukov’s tanks and the remaining infantry from 6 GA were on the far side of the river, ready to counter-attack any crossing attempt. In modern terms, this ignorance of terrain would be termed a failure of intelligence preparation of the battlefield. Unable to cross the Pena, the XXXXVIII Panzerkorps was forced to shift its axis of attack eastward toward Dubrova in order to get around the Pena River obstacle and to protect the flank of II.SS-Panzerkorps. Katukov responded by positioning General-major Semen M. Krivoshein’s 3rd Mechanized Corps (3 MC) in the vicinity of Dubrova, between Hoth’s two Panzerkorps, and shifting General-major Andrei L. Getman’s 6th Tank Corps to protect the eastern end of the Pena line. Krivoshein was one of the most experienced tankers in the Red Army but he had been stuck in Moscow as head of training for GABTU for the past two years. Oddly, when Katukov visited Krivoshein’s command post near Dubrova, he found that Krivoshein had his wife in the field with him.^{96} In any case, when XXXXVIII Panzerkorps lunged toward Dubrova on 7 July, it ran straight into Krivoshein’s 3 MC.

Hausser’s II.SS-Panzerkorps had another very good day on 6 July, continuing its drive toward the northeast. As Valeriy Zmulin noted, ‘the breakthrough on 6 July is especially impressive: in just eight hours of time, the SS divisions had managed to advance approximately 20km into the defences of a front that had several months in preparation.’^{97} Stalin was sufficiently alarmed by Hausser’s rapid advance that on the evening of 6 July he agreed to Vatutin’s request to release Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA from Steppe Front and move it up to support a major counter-attack against Hoth’s armour. He also released the 10th Tank Corps from Steppe Front and transferred it to Katukov’s 1 TA. In order to slow down Hausser, Vatutin tried mount a coordinated armoured counter-attack using General-leytenant Andrei G. Kravchenko’s 5th Guards Tank Corps, Polkovnik Aleksei S. Burdeiny’s 2nd Guards Tank Corps, plus the newly-arrived 2nd Tank Corps (General-major Aleksei F. Popov) and the 10th Tank Corps (General-major Vasily G. Burkov) against the eastern flank of Hausser’s penetration. However, this proved far too difficult to execute since Vatutin allowed only eight hours for planning and two of the tank corps were just arriving in this sector.^{98} Instead of a simultaneous effort, the Soviet tank attacks began early in the morning and continued until noon, in a series of piecemeal attacks. By sheer luck, Burkov’s 10 TC attacked the tip of the German salient just when most of LSSAH’s and Das Reich’s armour was advancing westward to support XXXXVIII Panzerkorps, leaving the 29km-long eastern flank vulnerable. However, around 0920 hours the lead Soviet brigade ran into two damaged Tigers that had been left to watch the road to Prokhorovka. Although barely mobile due to mine damage, SS-Unterscharführer Franz Staudegger’s Tiger could still shoot and he had a field day, picking off 22 Soviet tanks.^{99} Burkov’s attack fizzled out, even though Staudegger’s Tiger had exhausted all its ammunition and the rest of LSSAH’s armour was not in a position to block this attack.

Most of the Soviet counter-attack on 8 July was focused against Das Reich’s extended flank. The Das Reich had temporarily shifted to the defensive here, holding the line with both its Panzergrenadier-Regiments and 12 StuG-IIIs, while the division’s armour was pushing westward. Kravchenko’s 5 GTC was the only attack that was preceded by an artillery preparation and some Il-2 Sturmovik sorties and it achieved the most success; around 1130 hours Soviet T-34s were able to overrun some of SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Deutschland’s positions. However, Kravchenko received no help from the Soviet corps, which were not yet ready to attack. SS-Panzerjägers shot up a number of tanks and the German artillery separated the Soviet tanks from their supporting infantry. After two attacks were repulsed, Kravchenko fell back to regroup after losing 31 of his tanks.^{100} Officer casualties were particularly heavy in Kravchenko’s 5 GTC, with two regimental commanders killed and another wounded, plus three-quarters of the battalion commanders. Popov’s 2nd Tank Corps did not even begin to attack until after 1300 hours and then without artillery support. Popov’s tankers not only had no information on the enemy’s dispositions but they ran into Soviet minefields, causing casualties. Attacking with two tank brigades up front and the third in support, inadequate planning quickly caused Popov’s attack to fall apart and part of one brigade managed to get lost and another fired on friendly troops. Popov’s weak, uncoordinated armoured jabs were easily fended off by Das Reich. Burdeiny’s 2 GTC was the most unfortunate, since it was detected by the Luftwaffe and Schlachtgeschwader 1 (Sch. G 1), equipped with the HS-129 tank-busters, was sent en masse to attack it. The HS-129B-1 was fitted with the 3cm MK 103 cannon, firing high-velocity APCR ammunition, which could penetrate a T-34’s thin upper surface armour. Attacking at low-level, the HS-129 aircraft inflicted considerable damage upon 2 GTC, knocking out about 50 tanks against two planes shot down.^{101} This was a historical moment in armoured warfare – the first time that aircraft had single-handedly broken up an enemy tank formation. However, some of Burdeiny’s tanks did reach Totenkopf’s lines late in the day and enjoyed one singular success. SS-Sturmbannführer Eugen Kuntsmann, commander of SS-Panzer-Regiment 3, decided to conduct a personal reconnaissance in his Befehlpanzer (command tank) to determine where a group of Soviet tanks had appeared and he ran into a Soviet anti-tank ambush. His tank was hit twice and he was killed in action.^{102} Vatutin was responsible for the botched Soviet armoured counter-attack on 8 July, which missed an opportunity to knock II.SS-Panzerkorps off balance. On the other hand, Hausser’s corps survived a major Soviet armoured counterstroke against its vulnerable eastern flank, but the threat remained and it was still devoting more effort to protecting its flanks than advancing toward Kursk. Furthermore, the diversion of much of the armour of the LSSAH and Das Reich to assist the XXXXVIII Panzerkorps’ stalled advance against Katukov’s 1 TA had achieved nothing useful. Increasingly, the German Panzerkorps were forced to divert more and more of their strength away from the Schwerpunkt in order to protect their flanks. Nor did Hoth have any reinforcements to give to Hausser, so the shortage of infantry was proving more inimical to the German advance than tank losses. Consequently, only parts of each Waffen-SS division were still capable of advancing and much of Hausser’s corps had essentially shifted to a tactical defence. Hoth did provide two infantry divisions to assist in protecting Hausser’s flanks – the 167. and 168.Infanterie-Divisionen – but both failed utterly. German infantry simply could no longer advance and hold ground when opposed by large Soviet armoured formations.

Nevertheless, von Manstein’s forces continued to slowly advance, but Hausser needed to shift his axis of attack northward, instead of northeast to Prokhorovka. Soviet mines and anti-tank strength sapped Hausser’s strength with each kilometre gained; on 9 July, Das Reich had 18 tanks knocked out making a 3km advance. Although most damaged tanks could be repaired, the number of operational tanks was quickly dwindling.^{103} For their part, both Stalin and the Stavka were increasingly concerned about Vatutin’s inability to completely halt von Manstein’s advance. The Stavka had already directed Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA and other elements of the Steppe Front to begin move toward assembly areas near Prokhorovka. On the morning of 7 July, Rotmistrov’s tank army began moving westward and in three days the bulk of his forces had moved 350–400km and was reorganizing for combat. A total of 227 tanks and self-propelled guns, a total of 31.5 per cent of Rotmistrov’s armour, fell out on the march, but 101 of these were repaired within 48 hours or less.^{104} The movement of Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA on its own tracks over such a distance was an amazing demonstration of the Red Army’s growing operational mobility and the basic mechanical soundness of its armoured vehicles. In contrast, the German Panthers and Tigers had much less operational mobility and reliability and could not move so far and so fast without suffering crippling mechanical casualties.

On 10 July, Totenkopf’s Panzergrenadiers managed to establish a small bridgehead over the Psel near the hamlet of Kliuchi, at the cost of 374 casualties.^{105} The river was only 30 metres wide, but the riverbanks were very marshy, so a 60-ton pontoon bridge would be required to get Tigers across. Once Totenkopf’s armour crossed into the bridgehead, Hausser expected to use this as a springboard to push northward and outflank Soviet defences at Prokhorovka. However, Hausser’s II.SS-Panzerkorps stopped 8km short of Prokhorovka, since its right flank was exposed. The slow progress of Breith’s III. Panzerkorps acted as a brake upon the progress of the Waffen-SS and the large gap between the two corps was a constant distraction during Zitadelle. Hoth and Kempf also found that they did not have adequate infantry to hold ground that had been captured, which forced them to use their limited number of Panzergrenadiers screening flanks instead of supporting the advanced toward Kursk. By 11 July, the German advance was slowing due to casualties and Soviet resistance, but the Stavka was increasingly concerned that nothing so far had actually halted the panzers. The decision to commit Rotmistrov’s 5GTA from Steppe Front to smash Hausser’s II.SS-Panzerkorps was intended to halt any further German advances.

Meanwhile, the Panthers in XXXXVIII Panzerkorps had not enjoyed much success in the drive toward Dubrova. By the second day of Zitadelle, von Lauchert only had about 70 of his original 204 Panthers still operational and his Panzer-Regiment 39 was wandering around lost. Strachwitz’s Panzer-Regiment had pulled out of Cherkasskoye around 1000 hours, without providing any tactical instructions to the Panthers. Von Lauchert apparently missed the order to shift the axis of attack from due north to the Pena River instead due east toward Dubrova, so he advanced hoping to find Strachwitz’s Kampfgruppe. Krivoshein’s 3 MC had already emplaced the T-34s of the 14th and 16th Tank Regiments near Alekseyevka; the Soviet tanks were in hull-down positions behind an anti-tank ditch and minefield, with infantry and anti-tank guns in support. Strachwitz’s panzers moved through the flat, grassy steppe and bumped unexpectedly into the anti-tank ditch and came under heavy fire. Meanwhile, von Lauchert decided to ‘move to the sound of the guns’, but had no idea of the situation. He put Major Gerhard Tebbe’s Panzer-Abteilung 52 in the lead, with the first company in Panzerkeil (armoured wedge) formation, but the rest of the regiment in double columns. Without reconnaissance or support, the Panthers blundered straight into a minefield and came under heavy fire. Tebbe was an experienced combat veteran but he froze in the kill zone, allowing T-34s from the 14th Tank Regiment to engage the columns of Panthers with flank shots from 1,000–1,200 metres. The Panther’s side armour was only 40mm on the hull and 45mm on the turret, which was insufficient to stop the Soviet 76.2mm BR-350A APHE round at that range (it could penetrate 60mm) and several Panthers were destroyed. Tebbe lost control and Oberleutnant Erdmann Gabriel, commander of the 8.Kompanie, took charge and ordered the Panthers to engage the hull-down T-34s. When the Panther’s long 7.5cm KwK 42/L70 gun opened fire with their high-velocity Panzergranate 39/42 AP rounds, the Soviet tankers were stunned by the destruction inflicted and decided to break off the action. At least 19 Panthers were knocked out or disabled in their first real tank battle, in return for inflicting only a few casualties on their opponents. Von Lauchert finally caught up with Strachwitz’s Panzers. Major Tebbe was relieved of command and replaced by Hauptmann Georg Baumunk, another experienced tanker.[27]

On 7 July, Strachwitz resumed the offensive toward Dubrova, but ran into another hornet’s nest near Syrtsevo, where 20 T-34s from the 16th Tank Regiment and anti-tank guns were dug in behind mines. Apparently there was little reconnaissance or pionier support for this advance – another indicator that the German combined arms team was no longer fully functional – and Strachwitz ran right into mines placed in a ravine crossing site. More Panthers were immobilized, then shot up with flank shots. Oberleutnant Gabriel’s Panther was hit:

Eventually, von Lauchert and Baumunk were able to organize the remaining Panthers to lay down suppressive fired on the entrenched tanks and the T-34s were either picked off by the long 7.5cm guns or retreated. Strachwitz claimed that his Kampfgruppe had destroyed 62 enemy tanks, but this was likely exaggerated. However, 27 Panthers were knocked out and Walter Rahn from the Panzer-Abteilung 52 later noted that, ‘we felt the day was a defeat and long thereafter referred to the Panther cemetery at Dubrova.’ On 8 July, the XXXXVIII Panzerkorps made another major push past Dubrova, trying to advance along the road to Oboyan, but engaged in a fierce tank melee with Polkovnik Mikhail T. Leonov’s 112th Tank Brigade and Polkovnik Nikolai V. Morgunov’s 200th Tank Brigade, both from Getman’s 6 TC, near Verkhopen’ye. However, only 10–20 Panthers were still operational and it was Major Peter Franz’s StuG-IIIs from Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung Großdeutschland that won these tactical engagements for the Germans. Stung by the loss of about 50 tanks, Getman’s 6 TC pulled back a bit and was reinforced with a fresh rifle division and the 29th Anti-Tank Brigade (as well as tank replacements), in order to block the Oboyan River.^{107} During the period 9–11 July, the XXXXVIII Panzerkorps made only minor advances and the last operational Panthers fought a number of platoon and company-size actions against Getman’s 6 TC, but failed to break through. Another 13 Panthers were lost in action against about 50 Soviet tanks, but the remaining Panthers were crippled by mechanical defects. Oberst Strachwitz was also a casualty, when he suffered a severe injury from breach recoil on 10 July.[28]

On 12 July, von Lauchert’s Panzer-Regiment 39 was pulled out of the line to rest and refit. In one final action, the Panthers fought on the defensive near Verkhopen’ye on 14 July, against the Soviet 86th Tank Brigade; the Panthers destroyed 28 T-34s, but lost six more of their own. In ten days of combat, of the original 204 Panthers, 37 were destroyed and 148 were damaged or under repair. Unlike the Pz III and Pz IV series, it was extremely difficult for the Panzer-Werkstatt to repair damaged Panthers since spare engines, road wheels and fuel pumps for them were in extremely short supply. Later, von Lauchert claimed that the Panthers destroyed 263 enemy tanks during Zitadelle, but the actual number was likely half of that and compared to all the other models of German tanks, the Panther had under-performed. Guderian had been right – the Panther was not ready for combat. On 10 July, Guderian visited the XXXXVIII Panzerkorps to observe the Panther and his after-action report emphasized the need for training crews properly before committing them to battle.

By 10–11 July, the German southern offensive was visibly approaching the culmination point due to personnel and equipment losses, and the lack of reserve forces to sustain further advances. It was clear that XXXXVIII Panzerkorps was unlikely to make it on the direct route to Oboyan. Nor was Breith’s attack going well and his losses were very heavy. Originally intended as a supporting flank for II. SS-Panzerkorps, Breith’s floundering advance was now a distraction that served to drain Luftwaffe support away from the main Prokhorovka axis. Although Hausser’s II.SS-Panzerkorps was still capable of advancing, Hoth wanted Hausser to transfer one of his divisions to re-energize Breith’s stalled offensive – a clear violation of the dictum that one should not reinforce failure. If anything, Breith and Knobelsdorff should have been provided Kampfgruppen to Hausser to sustain the one sector that was achieving significant success. Hausser ignored this order, just as he had ignored von Manstein’s order not to abandon Kharkov five months before.

At 0500 hours on 11 July, Hausser resumed his advance toward Prokhorovka, with Kampfgruppe Peiper of LSSAH, but rainy weather deprived him of effective Luftwaffe close air support. Vatutin had rushed the 9th Guards Airborne Division to defend the final line of defence at Prokhorovka, supported by several tank and anti-tank units from 2 TC. SS-Hauptsturmführer’s Heinz Kling’s four Tigers led the attack, which quickly bumped into mines and an anti-tank ditch 5km southwest of Prokhorovka, covered by anti-tank guns and artillery. As the pioniers attempted to clear a path through the obstacles, platoon-size groups of T-34s from Popov’s 2 TC suddenly appeared from cover and launched local counter-attacks. Twelve Churchill tanks from the 15th Separate Heavy Tank Regiment also joined the attack, striking the flank of the LSSAH formation.^{108} A battery of 122mm howitzers engaged the German column with direct fire. Kling’s Tigers provided fire support but were hit repeatedly; both Kling and his deputy were badly wounded, leaving Untersturmführer Michael Wittmann in command. Although the Tigers knocked out a large number of enemy tanks and anti-tank guns, it took the pioniers more than two hours to breach the obstacle. Once through, Peiper’s Panzergrenadiers cleared the Soviet trench lines in close-quarter fighting around 1300 hours, but the rest of the day was spent repelling Soviet counter-attacks so the LSSAH vanguard stopped its advance 500 metres from the outskirts of Prokhorovka.^{109} Nor had Totenkopf’s bridgehead over the Psel panned out, because the pioniers had not been able to complete a large pontoon bridge across the river until the afternoon of 11 July. By the time that Totenkopf’s armour began crossing into the bridgehead it was already under heavy attack by Soviet artillery and tanks. Indeed, the idea of pushing a mechanized division across a couple of pontoon bridges under constant artillery fire was rather reckless. At this point in the battle, Hoth intended to complete the link-up of the III. Panzerkorps and II.SS-Panzerkorps and then seize Prokhorovka station, but he knew that considerable mopping up remained. With Model’s northern pincer already aborted, the most reasonable assessment for the southern pincer was to continue chewing up Soviet armoured reserves, rather than to extend its vulnerable flanks further. Hoth and Hausser both had indications that Vatutin had additional armoured reserves, but German intelligence failed to note the approach of Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA.[29]

Hausser’s II. SS-Panzerkorps had advanced into a narrow 4-km wide salient, with LSSAH at the tip near Prokhorovka station and Totenkopf holding the left flank on the Psel river valley. The terrain here was constrictive, due to the Psel River and numerous ravines and gulleys, which made it difficult to deploy large armoured units. With the 6 GA near collapse, Vatutin committed the infantry of the 69th Army to strengthen the front’s third and final line of defence. Although Soviet losses had been heavy, particularly in terms of infantry and anti-tank, Vatutin and Marshal Vasilevsky (who was on site) believed that the commitment of the Steppe Front reserves would dramatically swing the battle in favour of the Red Army. Vatutin, with Vasilevsky’s concurrence, had decided on 10 July to mount a major counter-attack against Hausser’s II.SS-Panzerkorps, not only with Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA, but also with Katukov’s 1 TA and elements of the fresh 5th Guards Army. Although there was supposed to be plenty of infantry support, Vatutin conceived this counter-attack as a tank-heavy operation, with more than 800 tanks employed against a single objective. However, the devil was in the details and Vatutin’s impatience to stop Hausser led to a very abbreviated planning process that undermined a combined arms approach. Very little effort was given to planning artillery fire support or close air support and Rotmistrov’s tankers would go into battle with only 1.5 basic loads of ammunition and 1.5 loads of fuel.^{110} In other words, Rotmistrov’s carefully-assembled tank army was going to be thrown into the same kind of half-baked, ill-planned effort that had ruined so many Soviet armoured attacks in 1941–42. Vatutin and Vasilevsky were professionals, among the best in the Red Army, and they knew better than to conduct operations like this, but the problem was that when it came to key decisions they often were reduced to rubber stamps. It was Nikita Khrushchev, who inserted himself into the decision loop as senior commissar for the Voronezh Front and photos show him – not Vatutin – reporting to Stalin on the status of the 5 GTA, who realized that Hausser’s continued advance threatened to break through Vatutin’s third line of defence and reach open country, which was unacceptable. Stalin had been told by Zhukov and Vasilevsky months prior that the Voronezh Front could stop the German armour and Khrushchev intended to achieve that objective at any cost. Lacking any understanding of the complexities of modern warfare, Khrushchev pushed to use the 5 GTA as soon as possible and left it to the military professionals to smooth over the details.

Late in the process, Vatutin decided to assign both the 2nd Tank Corps and the 2nd Guards Tank Corps to 5 TA, although both units were still in contact with the enemy and this only added to the staff burden of integrating two new formations.^{111} Rotmistrov was only able to issue his attack order at 1800 hours on 11 July, which gave very little time for corps and below units to develop and issue their own tactical instructions. Five hours later, Rotmistrov’s tanks began moving into their assault positions, located less than 2,000 meters behind the front line. Rotmistrov developed his tactical plan without any substantive information about the enemy’s dispositions, the terrain or mines. The RVGK provided substantial artillery to support Rotmistrov’s attack, including 203mm howitzers and two regiments of BM-13 multiple rocket launchers, but poor communications and lack of observation posts ruined the artillery’s contribution to the effort. Around 0830 hours, the Soviet artillery fired a largely ineffective 15-minute artillery preparation against LSSAH positions southwest of Prokhorovka. Soviet air support was negligible but Hausser immediately requested close air support. One of the first German air strikes struck the stationary 36th Heavy Tank Regiment (equipped with Churchills) and wounded its commander, Podpolkovnik Ivan S. Mitroshenko.^{112} As is well known, the mythical clash of two great tank armies in ‘the greatest tank battle in history’ did not occur west of Prokhorovka that morning. Nor were the numbers of tanks involved particularly unusual by East Front standards. Rotmistrov’s main effort was the simultaneous attack of the 18th and 29th Tank Corps, which committed six tank brigades with 339 tanks against LSSAH. The 2 TC and 2 GTC committed six depleted tank brigades with a total of 190 tanks against Das Reich, while the 5th Guards Mechanized Corps contributed two mechanized brigades with 66 tanks and the 1446 SAP added 20 self-propelled guns. Altogether, Rotmistrov attacked with 612 tanks and 30 SPGs.^{113}

On the German side, LSSAH had six Panzergrenadier-Bataillonen and SS-Sturmbannführer Martin Gross’s II./SS-Panzer-Regiment 1 (about 40 Pz IV and 5 Pz III) deployed just southwest of Prokhorovka, with the 13./SS-Panzer-Regiment 1 (four Tigers) deployed further behind the line. The SS-Panzerjäger-Abteilung 1 had at least one platoon of five Marder III tank destroyers deployed in direct support of the Panzergrenadiers. The LSSAH had good communications with its artillery and it had established a strong anti-tank defence to cover the open ground looking toward Prokhorovka. Around 0830 hours, the Soviet ground attack commenced as General-major Boris S. Bakharov’s 18th Tank Corps and General-major Ivan F. Kirichenko’s 29th Tanks Corps attacked, advancing side-by-side across a narrow front. The two Soviet tank corps deployed four tank brigades with 234 tanks in the first echelon (with desant infantry riding on their decks), one tank and one mechanized brigade in the second echelon and one tank brigade in the third echelon. These two formations comprised more than half of Rotmistrov’s attacking force on 12 July, advancing with 350 tanks and self-propelled guns. The Soviet tanks had to cross about 1,500 metres of open ground but due to black, grimy smoke hanging over the battlefield and the numerous gulleys, the Germans only caught glimpses of a mass of armour advancing. Obersturmführer Rudolf von Ribbentrop, commander of the 6.Kompanie, was the closest to the approaching Soviet armour and was first alerted when Panzergrenadiers began firing purple flares, indicating tank attack.^{114}

Rotmistrov’s armour came on quickly, surprising the Germans, but the Panzergrenadiers opened fire with all their anti-tank weapons and called in artillery (although it is extremely difficult to direct indirect fire onto moving vehicles). Ribbentrop’s 7 Pz IVs knocked out a number of tanks from the 170th Tank Brigade but lost four of its own tanks as the Soviets assaulted through their position. Although wildly inaccurate, Soviet T-34s were firing on the move and did score some hits at a range of 200 metres. SS-Sturmbannführer Joachim Peiper’s Panzergrenadiers were forced to fight a close-quarter battle with Hafthohlladung (magnetic hollow charge mines) as Soviet tanks and desant troops virtually landed on top of them. In just 30 minutes of fighting, the Soviet armour managed to overrun the LSSAH’s outer defences and a few tanks even managed to reach the supporting German howitzers. However, Rotmistrov’s attack suddenly came to grief when it unexpectedly encountered the anti-tank ditch lost the previous day. Apparently, Rotmistrov’s tankers were unaware of this obstacle and German accounts claim that some T-34s ran at full speed into the ditch. In any case, the lead four Soviet tank brigades came to a halt in the open, on the far side of the ditch. They had no engineer support. Gross counter-attacked the stalled Soviet armour with his 33 tanks, plus Ribbentrop’s remaining 3 Pz IV and the 4 Tigers; at a distance of about 800 metres they shot two of the lead Soviet tank brigades to pieces, claiming over 60 kills. The Soviet 170th and 181st Tank Brigades tried to skirt around the flank of Gross’ Panzers but were engaged by the four Tigers and methodically destroyed.^{115} Meanwhile, part of Kirichenko’s 29th Tanks Corps attacked SS-Obersturmführer Albert Frey’s SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 2, located in the Storozhevoye woods. Frey’s Panzergrenadiers were supported by five Marder III tank destroyers under the command of SS-Oberscharführer Kurt Sametreiter, which knocked out 24 tanks from the approaching 25th Tank Brigade. By 0900 hours, Rotmistrov’s first echelon brigades had been badly defeated, but the second echelon advanced at 0920 hours to renew the attack. The 53rd Mechanized Brigade made a particularly deep penetration, getting past the anti-tank ditch, but suffered over 1,100 casualties in the process. After a bit of a lull, the third echelon attacked after noon, but was easily repulsed.

Further south, the Das Reich was screening an extended front, 13km wide. The SS-Panzer-Regiment 2 had no operational Tigers remaining, but its single Panzer-Abteilung had 18 Pz IV, 34 Pz III and several captured T-34s. The 2 TC and 2 GTC did not attack until 1140–1200 hours, by which point Rotmistrov’s main attack had already failed. These two corps launched a number of armoured jabs but suffered moderate losses and failed to penetrate Das Reich’s lines. When heavy thunderstorms began in the late afternoon, both Soviet corps suspended their attacks. Altogether, Rotmistrov’s four tank corps had 359 tanks and self-propelled guns were knocked out (of which 152 were later repaired). Kirichenko’s 29th TC was the hardest hit, having lost 153 of 199 AFVs. Rotmistrov’s personnel losses were 3,563 (including over 1,500 dead or missing) including two brigade commanders.^{116} German losses were modest, with LSSAH suffering 374 casualties and it had about 10–12 Pz IV and 1 Tiger knocked out.^{117} Das Reich’s casualties were about 211 and it apparently suffered no tank losses.^{118}

There were two important postscripts to the Battle of Prokhorovka. First, even as Rotmistrov’s armour was attacking, the Totenkopf moved its two Panzer-Abteilungen (with 54 Pz III, 30 Pz IV and 10 Tigers) across the Psel River pontoon bridges and attacked northward against positions held by the 95th Guards Rifle Division. Concealed anti-tank guns inflicted significant losses upon SS-Sturmbannführer Georg Bochmann’s SS-Panzer-Regiment 3, but Bochmann’s panzers broke through the Soviet positions and pushed north. However, Bochmann advanced into a hornet’s nest and the 33rd Guards Rifle Corps massed the fire of over 200 multiple rocket launchers and several howitzer regiments against the German spearhead, inflicting great damage to the accompanying SPWs and wheeled vehicles. Bochmann’s panzers managed to advance 5–6km by 1730 hours – the deepest advance achieved by the Germans during Zitadelle – before he decided to halt. Nipe claims that 45 of Bochmann’s tanks were knocked out or disabled, including all 10 Tigers and that Totenkopf suffered 316 casualties. The commander of the Tiger-Kompanie was killed in action. Interestingly, Zetterling’s statistics claim that Totenkopf suffered only a single Pz III disabled on 12 July, but clearly that is out of synch with actual participants’ accounts.^{119} In addition to losses, the appearance of the fresh 24th Guards Tank Brigade and 10th Guards Mechanized Brigade from 5 GMC, with over 100 tanks, was also discouraging. At this point, Bochmann’s panzers were low on fuel and ammunition and had limited infantry and artillery support to engage another strong enemy force. Bochmann halted his advance for the night.

The other major postscript involves the belated advance of Breith’s III Panzerkorps to link up with II.SS-Panzerkorps at Prokhorovka. Breith’s corps had suffered heavy casualties in trying to close up on Hausser’s right flank and by 11 July, the III. SS-Panzerkorps only had about 105–110 tanks still operational, of which 31 were Pz IVs and about a dozen Tigers. In a desperation play, the 6.Panzer-Division mounted a night infiltration attack on the night of 11–12 July with Major Franz Bäke’s II./Pz.Rgt. 11 (about 20 tanks) and the SPWs of II./Pz.Gren.Rgt. 114, moving in column with two captured T-34s at the front.[30] Amazingly, Bäke’s panzers were able to approach the Soviet-held bridge over the Northern Donets at Rzhavets before being identified. After a wild mêlée in which a company of T-34s were knocked out at point-blank range, Bäke and the Panzergrenadiers captured the damaged bridge and created a bridgehead over the Northern Donets.^{120} By early morning, Breith’s remaining armour was pushing west across the river, threatening to cut off three Soviet rifle divisions and to link-up with Das Reich. However, nobody bothered to inform the Luftwaffe that Rzhavets had been captured and the Panzergruppe headquarters was bombed by several He-111s, which wounded the commander of 6.Panzer-Division and killed the commander of Panzergrenadier-Regiment 114.^{121} In addition, Oberst Hermann von Oppeln Bronikowski, commander of Panzer-Regiment 11, was wounded and four battalion commanders were also casualties.^{122} Although Bäke would lead a remarkable armoured assault northward on 13–14 July, it was essentially too late since Hitler had already decided to call off Zitadelle.

On the morning of 13 July, Hitler summoned both von Manstein and von Kluge to his Wolfsschanze headquarters in East Prussia to discuss Zitadelle. Von Kluge stated that Model’s 9. AOK could no longer attack and had its hands full dealing with the Soviet counter-offensive. Von Manstein was more upbeat, claiming that ‘victory on the southern front of the Kursk salient is within reach. The enemy has thrown in nearly his entire strategic reserves and is badly mauled. Breaking off action now would be throwing away victory!’^{123} Hitler was nervous and pensive, as he often was in moments of crisis. Ignoring von Manstein’s prediction of victory, Hitler spoke of the Allied landing in Sicily on 10 July and the danger to Italy, which he believed would require the transfer of some forces from the Eastern Front to prevent this situation from becoming worse. In essence, Hitler was unsettled by the heavy losses and the relative lack of success – as Guderian had predicted – and was unwilling to put any more resources into Zitadelle. Thus, he ordered Zitadelle halted, but granted von Manstein permission to temporarily continue local operations to finish off the fight around Prokhorovka.

On 13 July, Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA remained on the defensive and was able to repulse a limited attempt by LSSAH to advance closer to Prokhorovka; the LSSAH suffered another 326 casualties for no gain. North of the Psel, the 5 GMC and the 5th Guards Army mounted a counter-attack that convinced Bochmann’s Panzergruppe to withdraw to the bridgehead under heavy pressure. However, the main action on 13–14 July was the effort by II.SS-Panzerkorps and III.SS-Panzerkorps to encircle and eliminate the Soviet 48th Rifle Corps (48 RC). The capture of the Rzhavets bridgehead had made this Soviet formation vulnerable and Bäke led a fierce attack with III. Panzerkorps’ remaining panzers against the 81st Guards Rifle Division while Das Reich struck the other side of the mini-salient. Although the 2 TC and 2 GTC fought to delay the German armoured pincers from closing behind the 48 RC, this effort failed and Vatutin ordered 48 RC to retreat. Around 0500 hours on 15 July, the II.SS-Panzerkorps and III. Panzerkorps belatedly achieved a link-up at the village of Shakhovo, but the 48 RC had already slipped out of the salient just before the pincers closed.

The Meaning of the Battle of Kursk

Kursk is a highly controversial battle. Right after the battle, Marshal Vasilevsky wrote an after-action report that attempted to conceal the truth about 5 GTA’s losses, but Stalin soon found out and was enraged. Initially, Stalin wanted to have Rotmistrov tried and executed, but eventually Vasilevsky softened his response. Instead, Stalin put Politburo member Georgy M. Malenkov in charge of a commission to determine the reasons why the 5 GTA’s counter-attack had failed; Malenkov’s report was sealed, but it concluded that the 5 GTA’s attack was a model of an unsuccessful operation.^{124} Rotmistrov was allowed to remain in command of 5 GTA until mid-1944 but afterwards he was kicked upstairs into various high-level desk jobs.

In the 1960s, Kursk was not well known in the West. Initially, popular memoirs by Guderian and Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthin depicted Zitadelle as a decisive defeat, but this view was challenged by von Manstein’s memoirs that complained about Hitler ‘throwing away a victory’ in his decision to cancel Zitadelle. Paul Carell echoed von Manstein’s claims in his well-known books written in 1964–70 and he helped to shape the early historiography of Kursk with his contention that von Manstein had indeed been on the cusp of a great victory when Hitler pulled the rug out from under his feet.[31] Carell’s histories also helped to create a heroic mythology around the Waffen-SS troops involved in Zitadelle, which retains great credibility even today. The Soviet version of Kursk began appearing with the multi-volume History of the Great Patriotic War in 1958 and Rotmistrov’s inaccurate memoirs in the 1960s. This white-washed version of Kursk was designed to conceal the Red Army’s disproportionate losses in the battle and Nikita Khrushchev’s (by then First Secretary of the CPSU) role in the disastrous commitment of Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA. Soviet accounts created a highly mythic account of Prokhorovka as ‘the greatest tank battle in history’ and Grigoryi A. Koltunov claimed that, ‘in one day the Germans lost more than 350 tanks and over 10,000 officers and men.’[32] Soviet historians regarded Kursk as determining the outcome of the war in the East, stating that, ‘the Germans had been bled white’ and had permanently lost the initiative.^{125} This version of the battle was melded with Carell’s and influenced popular as well as academic histories written about Kursk until the mid-1990s. Even seasoned authors such as Albert Seaton, John Erickson and David Glantz accepted embellished accounts of Kursk as historical fact. In 1995, Glantz’s landmark one-volume account of the Eastern Front, When Titans Clashed, still claimed that the Germans lost 320 tanks and assault guns at Prokhorovka.^{126} At that point, two things happened which reduced most previous historiography on Kursk to pulp: the records of II.SS-Panzerkorps became available, and the Soviet-era archives were partly opened after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Books written based upon this new information by Zetterling, Nipe, Glantz and Zamulin have given a much more realistic interpretation of Kursk, but still suffer from biases. Zetterling took a materialistic approach and provided a great statistical analysis of the battle based upon better – but not perfect – numbers. He used Totalausfalle numbers of tanks to show that the German armour was not crippled at Kursk and still retained the ability to advance, particularly if Hitler had allowed Nehring’s XXIV Panzerkorps to reinforce Hoth. However, Zetterling’s numbers are somewhat disingenuous, in that he suggests that tanks that were not completely destroyed were still useful to the Germans since they could be repaired, but in fact tanks which had been repeatedly hit by anti-tank fire and mines were increasingly ‘degraded’ to the point that they had only marginal combat value. He also fails to put the heavy German personnel losses in perspective: by 13 July von Manstein’s Panzer-Divisionen had lost a large number of tactical leaders, including three Panzer-Regiment commanders and multiple battalion and company commanders; the loss of these leaders negatively impacted unit morale and motivation. The Tiger tank units were particularly hard hit; for example, the s. Pz.Abt. 503 had suffered about 40 per cent personnel casualties and the Waffen-SS separate Tiger tank companies had lost multiple commanders. Personnel losses tend to hit armoured units particularly hard, since experienced leaders, gunners and drivers cannot be easily replaced by rear-echelon personnel or partly-trained replacements. What Zetterling missed was that while the Germans were able keep their Totalausfalle numbers low in relation to Soviet losses, the repaired tanks and remaining crews did not have anything near the same efficiency as the tanks and crews at the start of the offensive.

In 1996, amateur historian Georg Nipe wrote Decision in the Ukraine, which used some of the new numbers from German records, but fell into the trap of endorsing von Manstein’s claims about Zitadelle as a ‘lost victory.’ Without reference to any Soviet records, Nipe claimed that Rotmistrov lost 600–650 tanks at Prokhorovka on 12 July and that the Germans had actually gained numerical superiority in tanks in this sector and that the commitment of Nehring’s XXIV Panzerkorps may have been decisive.^{127} In 1999, David. M. Glantz wrote the best available single-volume history of the Battle of Kursk, based upon a good mix of Soviet and German records. However, Glantz failed to offer much insight into why major Soviet armoured counter-attacks on 8 and 12 July failed so badly, or why the II.SS-Panzerkorps was able to penetrate Vatutin’s defensive lines so quickly. Nipe returned to the fray in 2011 with Blood, Steel and Myth, which focused even more narrowly on II.SS-Panzerkorps. Although he does not use Soviet records, Nipe added great detail on the operations of the Waffen-SS and concluded that the number of tanks involved in Prokhorovka was far fewer than previously stated, particularly on the German side. Indeed, it is now clear that no more than 210 German and 642 Soviet tanks participated in the fighting on 12 July 1943, which is quantitatively smaller than some of the tank battles around Smolensk in 1941 and Voronezh in 1942. Distancing himself from earlier claims, Nipe also concluded that the capture of Prokhorovka would not have made any difference and the commitment of XXIV Panzerkorps would not have been decisive. Finally, Valeriy Zamulin’s ground-breaking Demolishing the Myth (2011) has revealed a treasure-trove of Soviet records about the battle that provide a much more realistic interpretation.

While Hoth’s 4. Panzerarmee had inflicted grievous armour losses on Rotmistrov’s ill-timed 5 GTA counter-attack, the combination of mines, anti-tank guns, artillery and air attacks had in fact worn down the German combined arms team – just as the Stavka had intended. Hoth could still cobble together an armoured spearhead with his remaining tanks, but it was the loss of Panzergrenadiers and pioniers that made further advance problematic. By 15 July, von Manstein’s forces had suffered over 28,000 casualties, including 5,600 dead or missing.^{128} Altogether, the three Panzerkorps committed to Zitadelle by Heeresgruppe Süd still had 340 tanks (including 134 Pz IV and 33 Tigers) and 156 assault guns operational (about one-third of starting strength). According to Zetterling, Heeresgruppe Sud lost only 119 tanks and 10 assault guns during Zitadelle, but this means that over 800 AFVs were under repair.^{129} Although Kursk was not a ‘death ride’ for the Panzerwaffe, a number of German Panzer units, such as all three Panzer-Divisionen in Breith’s III. Panzerkorps and the Panther brigade, were rendered combat-ineffective due to losses. Indeed, half of von Manstein’s remaining armoured combat power was concentrated in Hausser’s II.SS-Panzerkorps, with the other two Panzerkorps were no longer capable of attacking. The suggestion that the II./SS-Panzerkorps could have made any significant advance northward after the action at Prokhorovka on 12 July is absurd on a number of levels, beginning with the reality that the factors that were still slowing the German armour – the mines, anti-tank guns and artillery, as well as the lack of infantry to cover the flanks – were still intact. Soviet airpower was also intact and causing frequent damage to Panzer units in the open.

Operation Zitadelle was not the ‘death ride’ of the Panzerwaffe, as Soviet historians tried to depict for years. Far from it. Yet neither was Zitadelle a ‘lost victory’ as von Manstein claimed, since the Soviets were already at the point where they could replace losses far more rapidly than the Germans. Rather, Zitadelle was the end of the road for the traditional German combined arms team, built upon the integration of mechanized manoeuvre forces and close air support. After Kursk, the Germans still had plenty of tanks and assault guns, but fewer and fewer supporting arms, air support or veteran leaders. It was the German infantry divisions that were disintegrating, which made it increasingly difficult for the panzers to hold or retake ground.

Furthermore, the Germans learned the wrong lessons about tank warfare at Kursk – that it was a tank gunnery contest and that the side that outgunned the other won. The Tigers had done very well during Zitadelle, inflicting greatly disproportionate losses on the enemy and absorbing enormous punishment. Only 11 of 117 Tigers were destroyed during Zitadelle, although their operational readiness rate was very low so it was rare for more than a few Tigers to be involved in any given action. Increasingly, the Germans placed their faith in long 7.5cm and 8.8cm guns, at the expense of manoeuvreability. The Pz III had generally been kept in the background during Zitadelle and the Pz IV was now regarded as second-rate. Despite its shabby performance, Hitler and the OKH believed that the Panther would eventually counter-balance the Soviet numerical superiority in tanks. New heavy tanks, like the 68-ton King Tiger under development, were regarded as the answer to Soviet numbers, not trying to build a better medium tank. Effectively, after Kursk the Wehrmacht abandoned its interest in building more or better 30-ton tanks and settled on the fantasy that smaller numbers of super-heavy tanks would alter the trajectory of a lost war.

Soviet losses at Kursk are more difficult to pin down, but the Voronezh and Steppe Fronts suffered approximately 148,000 casualties in stopping von Manstein’s offensive and lost between 1,600–1,900 tanks and self-propelled guns. However, the Steppe Front continued to pour fresh reserves into the battle even as Hitler called off the offensive and Vatutin’s armoured formations still had between 1,500–1,900 operational tanks and self-propelled guns. Painful losses suffered against Panther and Tiger tanks finally encouraged the GABTU to press for an upgraded main armament for the T-34 and a new heavy tank; these two initiatives would lead to the introduction of the T-34-85 and the IS-2 within six months. However, the Red Army still regarded the medium tank as its primary mobile combat system and heavy tanks were intended only to level the playing field when enemy heavy tanks appeared.

In contrast to the Wehrmacht, the Battle of Kursk helped the Red Army to recognize that armoured warfare was not just about tanks and they learned to use their anti-tank and artillery capabilities to balance the tactical shortcomings of their tanks. Failures at Kursk taught the Red Army that launching hasty, ill-planned operations was counter-productive and as a result, the Red Army tried to fight in more methodical fashion. In time, Soviet improvements in combined arms warfare proved more decisive than German skill in tank gunnery.

Another aspect of the Battle of Kursk which is rarely considered is its indecisiveness. Neither side achieved what it hoped to accomplish in this inordinate expenditure of resources. On the Soviet side, the Red Army wanted the German armour to literally ‘impale’ itself on mines and anti-tank gun barriers, but was risk-averse to allowing the Germans to achieve any kind of breakthrough. Every time German armour threatened to break through a Soviet defensive line, the Soviet commander committed most of his available armour to counter-attack it, resulting in head-in engagements with German assault groups. However, in order for the Red Army to achieve any kind of decisive success at Kursk, Soviet tactical commanders needed to allow German spearheads to advance into the depth of the defence, creating vulnerable flanks. Given the forces available for Zitadelle, there was no way that the German pincers could have reached Kursk and held a viable front with the limited number of divisions available. Von Manstein would have required a dozen extra divisions to hold the flanks of a penetration stretching to Kursk. Yet lacking these divisions, deeper German penetrations meant longer, weaker flanks. If Stalin had granted Rokossovsky and Vatutin the flexibility to allow some loss of ground, Soviet armoured counter-attacks against the extended German salient would have increased the possibility of surrounding and destroying some of the attacking Panzer-Divisionen.

On the German side, lack of operational flexibility robbed Zitadelle of any chance of achieving decisive results even before it started. The Germans knew very well that the Soviets had identified their likely attack sectors and were deploying strong forces to block them. Without surprise or a favourable correlation of forces, Zitadelle was limited to being a frontal assault. However, the Germans could have used the obvious tactic of a double pincer attack as a deception to fix large Soviet forces in place, while shifting the actual axis of attack to the face of the Kursk salient. If both Model and von Manstein had shifted part of their armour against the relatively weak 38th and 60th Armies, while mounting strong feints against the expected attack sectors, they likely would have achieved operational surprise and an overwhelming local superiority. Soviet operational reserves were poorly deployed to respond quickly to a threat to the face of the salient, which would have delayed any response. Furthermore, the face of the Kursk salient was defended by far fewer mines and anti-tank guns, which would have increased the chance of a rapid breakthrough. By smashing in the face of the Kursk salient – which likely would have been far less costly than trying to reach Kursk through three lines of defence, von Manstein might have reduced the size of the Kursk salient and thereby shortened his front line. By ‘hitting them where they weren’t’ – a tactic favored by the Panzerwaffe in 1941–42 – the Germans might have achieved one or more nice tactical victories in the summer of 1943, as they had in the past. However, inflexibility was the downfall of Zitadelle, since rather than using manoeuvre, the German commanders opted for brute force.

Operation Kutusov, 12 July–18 August 1943

As soon as Rokossovsky noted that Model had suspended his offensive, he notified the Stavka, which ordered the Central, Bryansk and Western Fronts to prepare to begin Operation Kutusov, the pre-planned counter-offensive, as soon as possible. This operation had been planned in detail since the spring and it intended to crush the German forces in the Orel salient by means of a multi-front attack from three directions.^{130} During the lull, the Stavka had deployed great resources in the Western and Bryansk fronts to support Kutusov. Both Rybalko’s 3rd Guards Tank Army (3 GTA) and Badanov’s 4th Guards Tank Army (4 GTA) were scheduled to reinforce the offensive once it got going. However, two vital prerequisites for Kutusov’s success had not been met: Model’s armoured reserves were supposed to have been ground to pulp in Pukhov’s killing fields, but they were not, and the VVS was supposed to have gained air superiority over the Orel salient, but it had not. Furthermore, all three Soviet fronts were supposed to attack simultaneously, but Rokossovsky’s battered Central Front needed several days to recover. Consequently, Operation Kutusov was conducted in an uncoordinated style that allowed Model to shift his resources around to deal with one threat, then another.

Only one day after Model suspended his offensive, reconnaissance units from both the Western and Bryansk Front began probing aggressively against 2.Panzerarmee’s (PzAOK 2) front on the northern and eastern sectors of the Orel salient. The PzAOK 2 was holding a 250km-long front with 12 infantry divisions in the XXXV, LIII and LV Armeekorps. The only mobile forces available to PzAOK 2 was the 5.Panzer-Division and the 25.Panzergrenadier-Division, both under-strength. Although PzAOK 2’s troops had held most of their positions for over a year and were well-protected by mines and entrenchments, the army had received few replacements since priority had gone to AOK 9 to build it up for Zitadelle and thus, the German front on the northern side of the Orel salient was quite brittle.

At the last moment, just before Kutusov was set to begin, the Germans saw what was coming and Model began transferring anti-tank assets to PzAOK 2, including some of the remaining Ferdinands and the new Hornisse tank destroyers. General der Infanterie Lothar Rendulic, commander of the XXXV Armeekorps, created a particularly strong anti-tank defence on the eastern side of the salient. Despite his lacklustre performance during Operation Gallop, General-polkovnik Markian M. Popov had been given command of the Bryansk Front and was designated as the main effort of Operation Kutusov. However, the level of effort he put into planning and organizing his forces for battle was characteristically deficient. At 0330 hours on 12 July, both the Bryansk and Western Fronts commenced their offensives with a massive 150-minute artillery barrage, conducted by eight artillery divisions.^{131} The German front-line positions were pounded like they had never been pounded before – this was the first of a new type of Soviet offensive that dwarfed everything previously attempted by the Red Army.

As the artillery fire shifted, the Soviet assault troops advanced. Popov committed seven rifle divisions from the 3rd and 63rd Armies against two of Rendulic’s infantry divisions and succeeded in pushing 5km into the German defences before his attack ran out of steam. Soviet air cover from 15th Air Army (15 VA) over Popov’s troops evaporated when Luftflotte 6 arrived over the battlefield and shot down 50 VVS aircraft. This was repeated on the second day of Popov’s offensive, when Luftwaffe Fw-190 fighters destroyed nearly 50 Il-2 Sturmoviks from 15VA, depriving Popov of his close air support.^{132} Nonplussed by this loss, Popov decided to commit his armour to create a breakthrough, sending in over 300 tanks, including three regiments of KV-1 heavy tanks. Back in 1939–40, the KV-1 had been designed as a breakthrough tank and this was the type of deliberate attack that it had been intended to shine in, but now in 1943 the KV-1 was just a large, slow target. Rendulic had created an effective killing zone near the village of Arkhangel’skoye, with nine Hornisse 8.8cm self-propelled guns from Panzerjäger-Kompanie 521 and some of the new towed 7.5cm Pak 41, which fired PzGr 41 Hartkern (hard-core) rounds with tungsten penetrators.[33] Advancing in broad daylight across open fields, the KV-1s from Podpolkovnik Yakov F. Dligach’s 114th Tank Regiment were shot to pieces long before most got near the German lines and the attack collapsed. The Battle of Kursk was the swan song for the KV-1 heavy tank and afterwards it was phased out in favour of a new heavy tank. Nevertheless, Popov committed General-major Mikhail F. Panov’s 1GTC, which was intended to be his exploitation force, to reinforce the 3rd Army’s attack and it was able to gain some ground, at great cost.

Rendulic committed his corps reserve, the 36.Infanterie-Division (mot.) to delay Panov’s 1GTC and Model agreed to transfer the 2. and 8.Panzer-Division to this sector. However, this was not Model’s only crisis. General Vasily D. Sokolovsky’s Western Front had attacked the LIII Armeekorps near Ulyanovo with the heavily-reinforced 11th Guards Army (11 GA) under General-polkovnik Ivan Bagramyan. In this sector, everything went right for the Red Army. Bagramyan massed six of his rifle divisions and several guards tank brigades, supported by the 8th Artillery Corps, against a single German division – the 293.Infanterie-Division. This unit was hard-hit by the concentrated Soviet artillery preparation, then bombed by the 1st Air Army (1VA). Since Luftflotte 6 had committed all its resources to stop Popov’s Bryansk Front, it had nothing left to prevent 1VA from achieving air superiority over this sector. When Bagramyan’s infantry attacked with tank support, the 293.Infanterie-Division collapsed and the Soviets surged forward. The Germans had one chance to stop or delay Bagramyan’s breakthrough, since Generalmajor Ernst Fäckenstedt’s 5.Panzer-Division (with 100 tanks) was deployed only 30km away in a reserve assembly area. The LIII Armeekorps immediately requested Fäckenstedt to reinforce the endangered Ulyanovo sector, but instead he took his time assembling his division and then elected to move toward the right shoulder of the Soviet breakthrough, rather than meet it head-on. Fäckenstedt’s feckless action was the result of his lack of command experience, since he was a career staff officer who was pressed into command of a Panzer-Division due to the lack of other qualified candidates. Germany’s panzers in 1943 were no longer led by the likes of Rommel or Guderian, but oftentimes by mediocrities such as Fäckenstedt. Since Fäckenstedt did not immediately counter-attack Bamgramyan’s breakthrough, the 11 GA was able to advance more than 10km on the first day of Kutusov. Adding to the crisis atmosphere, the 61st Army from the Bryansk Front staged a separate attack north of Bolkhov, which managed to cross the Oka River and create another small breach in PzAOK 2’s front. Shortly thereafter, the Soviets inserted the 20th Tank Corps into this bridgehead.

Model began to redistribute his armour from the Zitadelle battlefields to stop the offensives of the Bryansk and Western Fronts, but it was not until 14 July that Hitler gave him authority over all German forces in the Orel salient. Assuming that Fäckenstedt’s 5.Panzer-Division would delay 11 GA, Model decided to focus first on defeating Popov’s Bryansk Front. He transferred 26 of the remaining Ferdinands to Rendulic’s XXXV Armeekorps and requested all Luftwaffe air support to concentrate in this sector. He also sent the 12.Panzer-Division to contain the 61st Army’s attack. The Ferdinands from Panzerjäger-Abteilung 653 were deployed in excellent defensive positions and when Popov’s armour attacked again on 14 July, their long 8.8cm guns picked off 22 enemy tanks at long range.^{133} Popov’s advance was slowed to a crawl.

However, Fäckenstedt failed in his mission to contain 11 GA’s breakthrough and Bagramyan’s assault troops tore a wide gap in the LIII Armeekorps front near Ulyanovo on 13 July. Satisfied that he had achieved a tactical breakthrough (e.g. the enemy’s front line was torn asunder, but no penetration in depth yet), Bagramyan committed his exploitation force into the gap: General-major Vasily V. Butkov’s 1st Tank Corps (1TC) and General-major Mikhail G. Sakhno’s 5th Tank Corps (5 TC). This mass of Soviet armour advanced southward, past the ineffectual 5.Panzer-Division, slaughtering rear-area units in their path. The only thing that saved the Germans from complete disaster was that the breakthrough occurred in a remote area that was heavily wooded and the only roads were forest trails. The terrain slowed Bagramyan’s breakthrough just enough for Model to pivot his attention and dispatch the 12., 18. and 20.Panzer-Division toward Ulyanovo. Schlieben’s 20.Panzer-Division was the first to encounter Bagramyan’s advancing armour on 14 July, but opted to conduct a mobile delay against Sakhno’s 5TC, rather than launch a hasty counter-attack. Like Fäckenstedt, Schlieben was no Rommel. Nor was the Luftwaffe able to help much initially, since Luftflotte 6 was now engaged against three Soviet air armies and was unable to maintain air superiority over multiple sectors. Fuel shortages also began to impact Luftwaffe operations at this critical moment. When Luftflotte 6 tried to slow Bagramyan’s advance, Soviet fighters from 1VA shot down five Bf-110 fighter-bombers and 15 bombers – this was definitely not the kind of warfare that the Wehrmacht was accustomed to in Russia.^{134}

As if Model did not already have his hands full fending off both the Western and Bryansk Front attacks, Rokossovsky’s Central Front joined Operation Kutusov on the morning of 15 July by attacking AOK 9’s salient near Teploye. Major Sauvant’s Tigers occupied excellent overwatch positions on high ground and they proved a formidable obstacle to the Soviet 16th and 19th Tank Corps. Over the course of 15–17 July, Sauvant’s 16–20 Tigers knocked out 54 Soviet tanks at the cost of only two Tigers destroyed.^{135} Nevertheless, Model could not hold off three Soviet fronts indefinitely, even by shuffling his Panzer-Divisionen around the perimeter of the shrinking Orel salient. Instead, Model opted on 16 July to pull AOK 9 back to its original start line for Zitadelle and leave just 4.Panzer-Division and Sauvant’s Tigers to hold off Rokossovsky, while he shifted the rest of his armour to deal with Popov and Bagramyan. Model sent Harpe to lead the effort to contain Bagramyan’s breakthrough. Luftflotte 6 also received significant reinforcements, including Hans-Ulrich Rudel’s anti-tank Stukas from III./StG 2 and Hauptmann Erich Hartmann’s III./JG 52.^{136} Harpe used the 18. and 20.Panzer-Division to block Sakhno’s 5 TC while Luftflotte 6 tried to gain air superiority from 1 VA, but failed. Luftwaffe aircraft losses over the Orel salient mounted rapidly and Luftflotte 6 was unable to give Model the amount of air support needed to mount successful counter-attacks on the ground. Rudel was shot down (but survived) and even Erich Hartmann’s elite Jagdgruppe had its hands full with 1 VA’s more numerous fighters.^{137} Bagramyan continued to advance, but Zhukov denied him further reinforcements for the moment and demanded that he push east toward Bolkhov rather than south to cut off the Orel salient. Zhukov was apparently worried about pushing too much armour off into a void when he knew that Model still had powerful mobile reserves and he decided to reign Bagramyan in and conduct Kutusov in an orthodox, set-piece style rather than as a bold battle of manoeuvre. Zhukov had been defeated by Model in the Rzhev salient only seven months prior and now decided to play it safe – which saved Model’s two armies from encirclement.

In the past, the Soviets had been unable to get three Fronts to work simultaneously against a single German army, but now the operational-level efficiency of the Red Army had increased to the point where coordinated action was achieved and the Germans were being pounded from all directions. Soviet artillery was particularly dominant, gradually wearing down every German front-line position. Faced with a deteriorating situation, Model opted to conduct spoiling attacks with his panzers to knock the Soviets off balance. On 17 July, 2. and 8.Panzer-Divisionen mounted a sharp counter-attack against Panov’s 1 GTC that knocked out 25 tanks. However, Rendulic’s XXXV Armeekorps was gradually being worn down by continuous infantry and artillery attacks from Popov’s 3rd and 63rd Armies, forcing it back toward Orel. Model authorized Rendulic to conduct tactical withdrawals as needed, without the permission of either Hitler or the OKH. By the time that Zhukov finally allowed Rybalko’s rebuilt 3rd Guards Tank Army (3 GTA) to be committed on Popov’s Front on 19 July, Rendulic had already pulled back to shorten his lines and the Soviet armoured fist hit empty positions.

By 20 July, Harpe had stabilized the situation in the north and reduced Bagramyan’s advance to a crawl. The OKH transferred several infantry divisions to rebuild the gap where the LIII Armeekorps had been and Model successfully lobbied for the Großdeutschland to be transferred to him from von Manstein’s front. Bagramyan’s 11 GA had also outrun its supplies. However, Popov’s Bryansk Front was still in good supply since it had two functioning railheads nearby and Popov decided to use Rybalko’s 3 GTA to break open Rendulic’s increasingly thin frontline. Yet instead of using the armour in mass, Popov made the mistake of ordering Rybalko to split his armour and advancing on two divergent axes: the 15th Tank Corps and 2nd Mechanized Corps would proceed northwest to cut the rail line at Otrada while the 12th Tank Corps would advance southwest to overrun one of Rendulic’s infantry divisions. The result of this dispersal was that the Soviet armour gained ground and knocked the German front line back toward Orel, but 3 GTA failed to encircle or destroy any German units. Instead, the Germans hunkered down with 12.Panzer-Division blocking Rybalko’s 3 GTA from entering Orel. In the north, Harpe conducted a strong defence around Bolkhov and the Western Front opted to fight an extended positional battle for this unimportant town rather than using its mobility to outflank Harpe’s Panzers. For nearly a week, Model’s hard-pressed troops fought all three Soviet fronts to a near standstill. However, the cost was high in terms of resources and the Ferdinands, which had proved themselves as excellent defensive weapons, were almost all non-operational now due to mechanical defects and lack of spare parts.^{138}

It was not until 26 July that the Soviets were able to make any progress. Rybalko’s 3 GTA shifted south and reinforced an attack by 63rd Army against the boundary between the XXXV Armeekorps and XXXXVI Panzerkorps. Although Rybalko’s armour was unable to break through, when Rokossovsky committed his forces to this axis as well, the Germans gradually began pulling back. German anti-tank fire devastated Rybalko’s armour, knocking out 669 of his tanks in a week of combat. In the north, Zhukov finally released Badanov’s 4th Guards Tank Army (4 GTA) and Kriukov’s 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps (2 GCC) to reinforce the Western Front’s offensive, but achieved only modest results. The Großdeutschland arrived just in the nick of time to block Kriukov’s cavalry from severing the Orel-Bryansk rail line and 4 GTA only managed to force Harpe to abandon Bolkhov.^{139} Model did the best he could to delay the inevitable and inflict maximum damage on the enemy, while conserving his own forces, but on 31 July he requested and received permission from Hitler to abandon Orel and retreat to the Hagen Stellung. Unlike von Manstein, Model had developed a contingency plan and had carefully prepared a rearward defensive line along the Desna River.

The 12.Panzer-Division conducted the rearguard mission in Orel, delaying the Soviet entry into the city and ensuring that all bridges over the Oka River were destroyed. On the night of 4 August, 12.Panzer-Division evacuated the city and the Soviet 63rd Army marched in the next morning. Badanov’s 4 GTA and Rodin’s 2 TA mounted a pursuit against Model’s forces as they withdrew to the Hagen Stellung, but Model used his Panzer-Divisionen as mobile rearguards, successfully fending off Soviet probing attacks. During these missions, German tank platoons were deployed in defilade positions with their main guns over the rear deck; when the lead Soviet tanks appeared they would be knocked out and the German tanks would fall back to the next position to repeat again. These delay tactics were costly for the Soviets and induced caution in the advance tank brigades. By 18 August, Model’s AOK 9 and the remnants of PzAOK 2 were entrenched in the Hagen Stellung and the Stavka declared Operation Kutusov to be completed with the liquidation of the Orel Salient. The 38-day Operation Kutusov inflicted four times as many casualties upon Model’s forces as Operation Zitadelle had, a total of 88,000, including 27,000 dead or missing. All eight Panzer-Divisionen under Model’s command had suffered considerable losses, including 229 tanks and tank destroyers. Between Zitadelle and Kutusov, Heeresgruppe Mitte had lost one-third of its armour.

While Kutusov was an operational triumph for the Red Army, at the tactical level it was a frustrating and costly effort. The three Soviet fronts had suffered a total of 429,890 casualties during the operation and lost 2,586 tanks – enormous losses even by Red Army standards. Furthermore, the performance of all three Soviet tank armies was sub-par since they were used to fighting positional rather than manoeuvre battles. Instead of penetrating and encircling German units, Soviet armour pushed German units back to their next delay position. Although hard-pressed, the German tankers had great sport ambushing the Soviet vanguard battalions then falling back to the next position. The Soviets triumphed in Kutusov primarily because of their artillery and air support, plus plentiful infantry, not because of their tankers. Thus one of the lessons for the Red Army about Kutusov was that it needed to employ its tank armies more efficiently to achieve decisive, rather than local, results. Numbers had not won the battle for the Soviets, dogged persistence had. For the Germans, Kutusov was an ominous preview of coming attractions.

The Mius River Battles, 17 July–2 August 1943

Von Manstein had only been able to assemble a large enough force to conduct Zitadelle by prioritizing reinforcements and replacements to Hoth and Kempf, at the expense of his other two armies – Generaloberst Eberhard von Mackensen’s 1.Panzerarmee (PzAOK 1) and General der Infanterie Karl Adolf Hollidt’s 6.Armee (AOK 6). Although von Manstein fully expected that the Soviet Southwest and Southern Fronts could mount a major assault across either the Donets or the Mius rivers at any time, he took a calculated risk that PzAOK 1 and AOK 6 could fend off these attacks while he used his main armoured forces to crush the Voronezh Front. For their part, the Stavka directed these two fronts to build up their forces and wait for the right moment. Unlike the resource-starved Wehrmacht, the Red Army was able to deploy three mechanized corps, one tank corps and 20 other tank units with a total of about 1,300 tanks to support these two secondary fronts.

Hollidt’s AOK 6 was holding an extended front along the Mius River with nine infantry divisions in three corps. Although the rebuilt AOK 6 had not been seriously attacked along the Mius since early March, Soviet artillery had still managed to inflict 1,000–2,000 casualties per month during the lull, so Hollidt’s infantry units were well below authorized strength. Furthermore, the Mius was only a minor obstacle, averaging about 50 metres in width and not very deep; AOK 6 was dug in on the western side, behind mines and barbed wire obstacles. The German HKL (main line of resistance) was based upon company and battalion-size Stützpunkte. For anti-armour support, Hollidt had Sturmgeschütz-Abteilungen 209 and 243 with about 40–50 StuG-IIIs. German defensive doctrine at this point was based upon a well-defended HKL to slow the enemy advance and rapid counter-attacks to smash any breakthroughs. However, Hollidt’s only mobile reserve was Generalleutnant Gerhard Graf von Schwerin’s 16.Panzergrenadier-Division, equipped with 58 tanks (incl. 37 Pz III and 11 Pz IV).

General-polkovnik Fyodor I. Tolbukhin’s Southern Front intended to cross the Mius River between Dmytrivka and Kuybyshevo and smash through the centre of Hollidt’s line, held by the XVII Armeekorps. Tolbukhin massed the 2nd Guards Army and the 5th Shock Army in this sector with General-leytenant Karp V. Sviridov’s 2nd Guards Mechanized Corps (2 GMC) and General-major Trofim I. Tanaschishin’s 4th Guards Mechanized Corps (4 GMC) ready to exploit the expected breakthrough. In order to deceive von Manstein, Malinovsky’s Southwest Front would make diversionary attacks against Hollidt’s left flank along the Donets with 1st and 3rd Guards Armies. On the morning of 17 July, Tolbukhin attacked after a short, sharp artillery preparation. The 44th Army made a supporting attack against the XXIX Armeekorps to the south, but the main effort committed seven rifle divisions against the boundary of the 294. and 306.Infanterie-Divisionen of the XVII Armeekorps. The Soviet 8th Air Army had complete air superiority over this sector, providing effective close air support as Soviet infantry poured across the river. Both German divisions were hard hit by the Soviet artillery, suffering 2,100 casualties on the first day, and the Soviet rifle divisions quickly managed to seize a 4km-deep bridgehead across the Mius before local German counter-attacks began to slow the advance. The 44th Army’s supporting attack managed to gain a small bridgehead as well.

Hollidt realized that he needed to counter-attack immediately, before Tolbukhin got his mechanized corps across the Mius and before the XVII Armeekorps was overwhelmed. He appealed to von Manstein and the OKH for assistance, but decided to commit von Schwerin’s 16.Panzergrenadier-Division as soon as possible. Von Manstein had already committed part of Nehring’s XXIV Panzerkorps to deal with Malinovsky’s diversionary attacks around Izyum, but sent the 23.Panzer-Division on its way to Hollidt. Hitler ordered von Manstein to transfer two divisions from the II.SS-Panzerkorps and the 3.Panzer-Division to eliminate the Soviet bridgehead across the Mius front, but they would take time to disengage from the Belgorod sector.

On the morning of 18 July, von Schwerin’s division attempted to attack the left side of the Soviet bridgehead, but soon ran straight into Sviridov’s 2 GMC, which had crossed the Mius. Intense Soviet anti-tank and artillery fire broke up the German attack and von Schwerin retreated after losing 20 tanks. Once the German counter-attack had been repulsed, the 5th Shock Army continued to advance and captured the towns of Stepanovka and Marinovka. By the end of the second day, Tolbukhin’s bridgehead across Mius had been enlarged to 30km deep and 45km wide. Upon learning of von Schwerin’s defeat, Hollidt requested that Generalleutnant Nikolaus von Vormann’s 23.Panzer-Division move up quickly and launch another counter-attack against the bridgehead on 19 July. Kampfgruppe Sander, which included I./Pz.Rgt.201, a company of Marder tank destroyers and a reconnaissance company, moved out on the evening of 18–19 July and conducted a 170km night road march, with the rest of the division following. Amazingly, von Vormann’s division was able to begin an attack toward Stepanovka at 0700 hours on 19 July, but quickly ran into strong anti-tank defences, supported by tanks from 2 GMC and 4 GMC. The 16.Panzergrenadier-Division conducted a supporting attack with its 20 operational tanks. Despite some Stuka sorties and an artillery preparation, two attacks on Stepanovka were repulsed. The I./Pz.Rgt.201 lost 11 tanks destroyed and all four company commanders were killed or wounded. Altogether, 23.Panzer-Division suffered 369 casualties, including 112 dead or missing. Von Vorman claimed that his division had knocked out 14 enemy tanks and 20 anti-tank guns, but the Soviet line was barely dented.^{140} Following this failed attack, both the 16.Panzergrenadier-Division and the 23.Panzer-Division shifted to the defence from 20–29 July, assisting the XVII Armeekorps’ defence. Although Tolbukhin’s infantry and armour pounded on the thin German line around the bridgehead on 20–21 July and even gained a little more ground, they could not break out. On the afternoon of 22 July, Tolbukhin committed Tanaschishin’s 4 GMC against the 16.Panzergrenadier-Division sector southwest of Stepanovka. Tanaschishin advanced with more than 140 tanks in a large formation, while von Schwerin only had a few tanks left and the assault guns of Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 236. Once again, it was Luftwaffe batteries of 8.8cm flak guns that saved the day, destroying much of Tanaschishin’s armour before it could overrun von Schwerin’s frontline positions – the 4 GMC attack collapsed.^{141}

Following the repulse of 4 GMC’s breakout attempt, a brief lull settled over the Mius Front, as Tolbukhin regrouped for another offensive. Nehring’s XXIV Panzerkorps arrived in sector and took command over both 16.Panzergrenadier-Division and 23.Panzer-Division, as well as the attached Sturmgeschütz-Abteilungen. Nehring concentrated the remaining 33 tanks and 47 assault guns into mobile reserves to help hold the HKL, which was desperately short of infantrymen. Meanwhile, Hausser’s II.SS-Panzerkorps and the 3.Panzer-Division were en route by rail to make an all-out counter-attack. Hitler decided that he wanted the LSSAH sent to Italy, so Hausser was left only with the Das Reich and Totenkopf. These forces did not arrive in Hollidt’s AOK 6 area until 27–29 July, at which point Hollidt began preparing for his major counter-attack against the bridgehead, designated Operation Roland.

Hollidt’s plan was essentially a broad-frontal attack against the entire perimeter of the Soviet bridgehead, with the main effort against the hills around Stepanovka by Totenkopf, Das Reich and 3.Panzer-Division. Hausser had a total of 119 operational tanks (including about 15 Tigers) and about 30 assault guns in his two divisions, but even after acquiring LSSAH’s remaining armour when it departed for Italy his formations were about 30 per cent below strength.^{142} Generalleutnant Franz Westhoven’s 3.Panzer-Division, which had lost half its armour during Zitadelle, was able to put 37 tanks in the field, mostly Pz IIIs. Nehring’s two divisions would attack from the southwest with a total of 55 tanks, 28 assault guns and 17 Marder tank destroyers. The German XVII and XXIX Armeekorps would each also contribute one infantry division and a few assault guns to make supporting attacks on the flanks. Altogether, AOK 6 was committing five mechanized divisions with almost 300 AFVs against the Mius bridgehead. However, these German divisions could not count upon their traditional help from the Luftwaffe, which had suffered heavy losses during Zitadelle and depleted its limited fuel reserves. Fliegerkorps VIII had lost over 300 aircraft, including more than 50 Ju-87 Stukas, so close air support assets were in particularly short supply. Indeed, Zitadelle cost the Stuka squadrons eight of their best pilots, all holders of the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes.^{143}

Tolbukhin’s two mechanized corps had lost a substantial part of their armour during the efforts to break out of the bridgehead, but likely still had about 40– 50 tanks each. Some tank replacements were arriving as well. More importantly, the 2nd Guards Army’s 1st Guards Rifle Corps (1 GRC) had thoroughly fortified the town of Stepanovka and created a dense, three-tiered layer of minefields, covered by multiple anti-tank positions. In addition, the 8 VA was able to provide both fighter cover and close air support to the Soviet defenders.

Operation Roland commenced at 0810 hours on 30 July. Apparently, Hausser’s assault groups attacked with minimal artillery support and no air cover. Totenkopf was the main effort, committing 68 tanks in two columns driving along a ridgeline trail for Hill 213.9, just east of Stepanovka. Brigadeführer Hermann Priess, commander of Totenkopf, put his 10 Tigers in front, leading the advance, which proved to be a mistake on this occasion. About 1,000 metres after crossing their line of departure, the Tigers unexpectedly ran into a dense minefield and seven were quickly immobilized when their tracks were blown off. Intense anti-tank fire from 76.2mm ZIS-3 guns opened up, many from flank positions, and the German tanks were sky-lined on the ridge which made them wonderful targets.[34] Tanaschishin’s remaining T-34s were dug in so that only their turrets could be seen, and most of the ZIS-3 batteries were virtually invisible. Soviet infantrymen, using the PTRD anti-tank rifle, peppered the enemy tanks and forced their commanders to ‘button up’ – which made it very difficult to spot the enemy anti-tank guns. The immobilized Tigers were hit repeatedly and all were soon put out of action (two were later destroyed by their own crews when they could not be recovered). The rest of the Totenkopf’s panzers and assault guns were also hammered, and despite efforts by the divisional pioniers to breach the minefields, Totenkopf’s advance was repulsed. Efforts to mass the fire of Totenkopf’s divisional artillery failed to suppress the Soviet defences, which were difficult to pinpoint. Nor did Das Reich achieve much success, running into dense minefields and anti-tank guns west of Stepanovka, which knocked out 25 of its tanks. Adding to Hausser’s discomfort, Soviet IL-2 Sturmoviks repeatedly attacked German assault formations, with no interference from the Luftwaffe. By mid-afternoon, Das Reich’s Panzergrenadiers fought their way into the outskirts of Stepanovka, but were fought to a standstill. Similarly, Westhoven’s 3.Panzer-Division lost 18 of its 37 tanks and accomplished little. Amazingly, Hausser’s II.SS-Panzerkorps had lost 73 of its 119 tanks and 12 assault guns on the first day of the operation, as well as suffering 812 casualties – much heavier losses than it had incurred during a similar day of Zitadelle.^{144}

Hollidt’s counter-offensive might have collapsed against a wall of Soviet mines and anti-tank guns, had not Nehring’s XXIV Panzerkorps supporting attack achieved some measure of success southwest of Stepanovka. Von Vormann’s 23.Panzer-Division attacked with Kampfgruppe Schägger at 0810 hours. The composition of this Kampfgruppe demonstrates the growing poverty of German Panzer-Divisionen after Zitadelle: Major Peter Schägger’s Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 23, Hauptmann Robert Alber’s I./Pz.Rgt. 201, the II./Pz.Gren.Rgt. 126 and the Feld-Lehr-Bataillon 128 (the division’s replacement battalion). Despite lacking Tigers like Hausser’s Waffen-SS divisions, both Schägger and Alber were experienced reserve officers who knew how to handle their limited resources. Avoiding high ground, Alber manoeuvred his tanks through lightly-wooded, low-lying ground and managed to overrun the town of Saurivka (Saur-Mogilsky in 1943). Soviet mines and anti-tank guns were a problem in this sector as well, but the 315th Rifle Division’s defences were not as well-prepared. After breaking through the crust, Alber’s panzers boldly advanced cross-country and seized the village of Garany, behind the 315 RD’s main positions. At 1000 hours, the 16.Panzergrenadier-Division joined the attack and sent Kampfgruppe Sander (Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 116 and III./Grenadier-Regiment 50 from 111.Infanterie-Division) to link-up with Alber’s Panzers, which was achieved at 1145 hours. A force of just five battalions had surrounded the 315 RD and succeeded in taking over 3,000 Soviet prisoners on the first day of Roland, as well as destabilizing the left flank of the Mius bridgehead.^{145}

During the night of 30–31 July, Totenkopf’s pioniers were able to remove about 2,000 mines and cleared a narrow lane through the outer minefields, but pionier casualties for this effort were excessive. On the second day of the offensive, Hausser’s II.SS-Panzerkorps began their attack at 0915 hours with a 45-minute artillery preparation and received some Stuka close air support sorties, but their assault units were substantially weaker. Totenkopf attacked into the teeth of the Soviet defence with only 15 tanks (including two Tigers) and was again repulsed with heavy losses. Both Tigers were knocked out by anti-tank fire.^{146} SS-Unterscharführer Rolf Stettner commanded one of Totenkopf’s advancing tanks:

Before Das Reich could renew its effort to clear Stepanovka, it was struck by a large-scale counter-attack from the south at 0330 hours. Waves of Soviet infantrymen, supported by 70 tanks, converged on the town and the attack stunned the Germans by its ruthlessness. Das Reich’s Panzergrenadiers managed to hold onto one corner of the town by their fingernails but the panzers were forced to retreat and the Soviets mounted 14 separate attacks against the town during the day. SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Der Führer held its ground, but suffered over 200 casualties. However, Soviet casualties were much heavier and Das Reich took 1,400 prisoners. In the afternoon, heavy rain put a damper on the fighting for a while, but it was obvious that II.SS-Panzerkorps had failed to gain any ground. By the end of the day, Hausser’s II.SS-Panzerkorps only had a total of 38 tanks (2 Tigers, 15 Pz III and 21 Pz IV) and 34 assault guns still operational. Once again, Nehring’s XXIV Panzerkorps had a better day than the Waffen-SS, beginning with the elimination of the pocket created the day before. Elements of four Soviet rifle divisions were wrecked in this mini-Kessel and 52 anti-tank guns were captured. During the fighting around the pocket, the 23.Panzer-Division managed to destroy an SU-152 self-propelled gun, allowing the first close inspection of this new enemy vehicle. However, 23.Panzer-Division was reduced in strength to just 15 tanks and one assault gun, while 16.Panzergrenadier-Division had 12 tanks and 22 assault guns.^{148}

Von Manstein was incensed when he learned about the scale of tank losses in Operation Roland and he flew to Hollidt’s headquarters in Stalino. In just two days, Hollidt’s forces had lost 105 tanks, including 24 Totalausfalle, and gained very little ground. Von Manstein wanted to suspend the operation before II.SS-Panzerkorps was wrecked, but Hausser argued that he could accomplish his mission. In reality, the Waffen-SS was being built up by Nazi propaganda as an elite assault force and failure at the Mius River would have serious repercussions in the struggle for resources in the Third Reich. Himmler was in the process of establishing more Waffen-SS mechanized divisions and he could not afford for Hausser’s II.SS-Panzerkorps to fail to accomplish its mission twice in one month. Hausser was probably not high in von Manstein’s regard, given that he had openly disobeyed his orders twice before, but he agreed to let the operation continue for a few more days. Waffen-SS tactics on the first two days had been crude and costly and von Manstein urged a more methodical approach.

Hollidt assembled all available artillery and put it at Hausser’s disposal for an all-out attack on 1 August. By this time, the Germans knew where most of the Soviet artillery and anti-tank guns were located and thus the artillery preparation that started before dawn was far more effective. Prior to the ground assault, Nebelwerfer batteries created a thick smoke screen to conceal the advancing German infantry and tanks, thereby reducing the effectiveness of Soviet defensive fire. After much heavy fighting, Das Reich finally captured Stepanovka and then its panzers swept eastward, overrunning some of the anti-tank units blocking Totenkopf’s path. By 1600 hours, the centre of the Soviet defensive line was near collapse. However, Tolbukhin’s troops made one last desperate counter-attack with several thousand infantrymen that nearly overwhelmed Hausser’s exhausted troops before they could consolidate on the objective. SS-Unterscharführer Rolf Stettner, in another tank, once again fought for control of Hill 213.9:

In the south, the XXIV Panzerkorps achieved a major breakthrough and advanced toward the Mius. By evening, the Soviet defence crumbled and the remaining units began retreating across the Mius. On 2 August, Hollidt’s forces advanced to the river and crushed the last resistance in the bridgehead. Tolbukhin’s forces had suffered a major defeat, leaving behind 17,895 prisoners, but the remnants of 2 GMC and 4 GMC escaped across the river. Although a tactical success, the Mius River fighting was extremely costly for the Germans. Overall, AOK 6 suffered 21,369 casualties in the 17-day battle. Hausser’s II.SS-Panzerkorps was virtually burnt-out: Totenkopf suffered 1,458 casualties in its four-day attack and was reduced to just 23 operational tanks, while Das Reich suffered nearly 1,000 casualties and was left with 22 tanks.^{150} While many damaged tanks would be repaired in time, losses in Panzergrenadiers and pioniers were particularly crippling and not easy to replace. The 3. and 23.Panzer-Divisionen were also reduced to a very depleted condition and 16.Panzergrenadier-Division was wrecked (3,957 casualties between 17–31 July) by the Battle for the Mius Bridgehead. Tolbukhin’s short-lived Mius bridgehead succeeded in causing von Manstein to disperse his armour after Zitadelle and then crippling his strongest formation, II.SS-Panzerkorps.

Operation Rumyantsev, 3–23 August 1943

After the failure of Zitadelle, von Manstein believed that the Soviets would eventually mount a major offensive to retake Kharkov, as this had consistently been an objective for them. Once Hoth’s and Kempf’s forces withdrew to their original start lines, this possibility became increasingly likely. However, von Manstein also believed that it would take Vatutin’s Voronezh Front at least a month or more to recover its strength after the Battle of Kursk. In particular, he over-estimated the amount of damage that Vatutin’s two tank armies had suffered and he underestimated the ability of Soviet field workshops to repair damaged tanks. In fact, it took Vatutin just two weeks to refit his armies and prepare his own offensive, which the Stavka had designated Operation Rumyantsev.[35]

During the two weeks following the end of Zitadelle, the balance of forces had sharply changed in the Kharkov-Belgorod sector as von Manstein sent II.SS-Panzerkorps to the Mius and von Knobelsdorff’s XXXXVIII Panzerkorps lost 3.Panzer-Division to Operation Roland as well. Soviet deception efforts (Maskirovka) by 38th Army near Sumy convinced von Manstein that Vatutin might try an attack against the boundary of Hoth’s PzAOK 4 and 2.Armee, so he shifted the 7.Panzer-Division and part of 11.Panzer-Division west to that sector.^{151} In addition, Großdeutschland was sent to reinforce Model’s AOK 9 and Panzer-Regiment 39 was disbanded. By the end of July, Hoth’s PzAOK 4 was a shadow of its former self, with only Generalleutnant Gustav Schmidt’s 19.Panzer-Division and Major Karl von Siver’s Panzer-Abteilung 52 in tactical reserve near Tomarovka. Schmidt’s 19.Panzer-Division had 49 tanks and assault guns, including about 20 Pz IVs, while von Sivers only had 27 operational Panthers. Armee-Abteilung-Kempf’s sole armoured reserve was Oberst Wilhelm Crisolli’s 6.Panzer-Division, which had 28 tanks (mostly Pz III). Most of Hauptmann Clemens-Heinrich Graf von Kagenek’s s.Pz.Abt. 503 was pulled back off the line to rest in Kharkov, but the six operational Tigers were left with XI Armeekorps to defend Belgorod; the handful of Tigers remaining in this critical sector demonstrates the weakness of Zetterling’s Totalausfalle-based statistics to explain the results of Kursk. Despite the fact that the s.Pz.Abt. 503 had only lost seven of its 45 Tigers as Totalausfalle during July, it still had 32 tanks awaiting repairs when the Soviet counter-offensive began. Similarly, 106 Panthers were also still under repair. Not only was the Wehrmacht not receiving enough new Panzers, but it was having greater difficulty repairing damaged ones. Altogether, Hoth and Kempf could barely scrape together 200 tanks and assault guns in the Kharkov-Belgorod sector at the beginning of August 1943.

Vatutin had begun preparations for Rumyantsev on 24 July, but the Stavka had been planning the summer counter-offensive for months. Zhukov arrived at Vatutin’s headquarters as Stavka representative and to assist in coordination between the Voronezh, Steppe and Southwest Fronts. Although Stalin pressed hard for an immediate counter-offensive, Zhukov successfully argued for granting Vatutin 10 days to finalize preparations before commencing the operation. Even with replacements, most of the Voronezh Fronts infantry units were at 60 per cent strength, which was not enough to conduct a protracted operation. Although rushed, Rumyantsev was still much better planned and organized than previous Soviet offensives and the Stavka was generous with resources; three artillery divisions were transferred to Voronezh Front and enough tank replacements to restore all Vatutin’s tank units to combat readiness. Both Katukov’s 1 TA (6 TC, 31 TC, 3 MC) and Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA (18 TC, 29 TC, 5 GMC) were brought back up nearly to authorized strength in terms of tanks and personnel, but at least one-third would be seeing combat for the first time. As Andrei L. Getman, commander of 6 TC noted:

^{Operation Rumyantsev, the breakthrough of 1st Tank Army and 5th Guards Tank Army, 8 August 1943.}

Rumyantsev was designed as a relatively simple, brute-force plan. Vatutin deployed the 5th and 6th Guards Armies (5 GA, 6 GA) northwest of Belgorod and intended to use them to blast a hole through two German infantry divisions of the LII Armeekorps. Once a breakthrough was achieved, Vatutin would commit 1 TA and 5 GTA as front-level mobile groups to exploit and envelop Kharkov from the west. Each combined arms army would also have an independent tank corps to act as army-level mobile groups, which would open a new chapter in the Red Army’s operational use of tanks. The intermediate operational objective was Hoth’s headquarters, near the rail junction at Bogodukhov, 56km northwest of Kharkov. Three other armies from the Voronezh Front would mount supporting attacks to widen the breach, while Konev’s Steppe Front would use the infantry of 53rd and 69th Armies to mount a direct assault on Belgorod. Zhukov believed that Hoth’s PzAOK 4 would be encircled and destroyed in or near Kharkov. Rumyantsev was not a hastily-thrown together operation like the counter-attack at Prokhorovka, but a carefully planned effort that tried to assemble everything that the Red Army had learned so far about combined arms warfare.

At 0500 hours on 3 August, the Voronezh Front began a 170-minute artillery preparation in its designated attack sectors. The density of the barrage was much larger than the Germans were accustomed to and the LII Armeekorps’ forward positions were devastated. While the barrage was in progress, Soviet sappers moved forward and began clearing lanes through the German mines. Vatutin provided his two main assault armies, the 5 GA and 6 GA, with a special sapper brigade for obstacle removal. At 0750 hours, Vatutin’s ground assault began. The 5 GA hit the boundary between the German 167. and 332. Infanterie-Divisionen with two corps-size shock groups, the 32nd and 33rd Guards Rifle Corps. Each of these shock groups had three rifle divisions, a tank brigade and self-propelled guns for close support and engineer battalions to clear mines – all indications that the Red Army was learning how to conduct offensives more efficiently. The correlation of forces in the assault sector was over-whelming and 5 GA rapidly broke through the LII Armeekorps first line of defence and smashed the 167.Infanterie-Division. Only three hours after the ground attack began, Vatutin committed the lead elements of 1 TA and 5 GTA into battle to hasten the German collapse in this sector. Each tank army was led by a reinforced tank brigade, which acted as an advance guard well ahead of the main body. In Katukov’s 1 TA, it was Polkovnik Nikolai V. Morgunov’s 200th Tank Brigade, from 6 TC, that was out in front. By nightfall, Vatutin’s armour had achieved a penetration of 14km into Hoth’s lines. In general, the supporting attacks also went well, although Zhukov brow-beat commanders into committing their tactical armoured reserves too quickly, before breakthroughs had been achieved.

There was little that Hoth, in his headquarters at Bogodukhov, could initially do to contain Rumyantsev. Both 1 TA and 5 GTA advanced southward, side-by-side, with nearly 1,000 tanks. Hoth positioned Schmidt’s 19.Panzer-Division and its attached Panthers to create a Stützpunkt at Tomarovka on the west side of the Soviet breakthrough, but there was a growing gap in the LII Armeekorps sector that could not be closed. Assault guns from Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 911 and Crisolli’s 6.Panzer-Division tried to close the gap, but this proved impossible. A mobile delay with armoured forces is fought as a series of meeting engagements in reverse. Typically, the Germans would deploy a platoon of Pz IV medium tanks in concealed positions with their main guns slewed over the back deck; when the lead Soviet tanks appeared they would destroy the first few tanks and then race back to the next terrain feature to repeat the process. These ambush tactics usually resulted in tankers running up their ‘kill tallies’ without the risk of heavy losses. Mobile delay could be nerve-wracking, however, when crews were tired and inattentive; sometimes the pursuing Soviet tanks could approach from an unexpected direction.

Hoth ordered what was left of LII Armeekorps to establish hedgehog defences in towns but most of Katukov’s 1 TA blew past the Tomarovka Stützpunkt. Instead, much of 6 GA’s infantry and Kravchenko’s 5 GTC (which was supposed to be an army-level mobile group) became focused on seizing this one town. Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA lagged behind Katukov and 6.Panzer-Division conducted a mobile delay which slowed it even more. Meanwhile, the 53rd and 69th Armies eliminated the German defences north of Belgorod and closed in on the city. In order to envelope the city, Rotmistrov directed General-major Boris M. Skvortsov’s 5 GMC to push in Crisolli’s screen west of Belgorod. By 5 August, General der Panzertruppen Erhard Raus’ XI Armeekorps was nearly surrounded in Belgorod and he was forced to evacuate the city.

Major Karl von Sivers, an educated former cavalry officer, commanded the remaining Panthers, deployed in blocking positions just outside Tomarovka. He had missed Zitadelle due to illness, but was now to able to lead Panthers into combat under more favourable circumstances. By 4 August, T-34s from Morgunov’s 200th Tank Brigade were trying to skirt around Tomarovka to encircle the town, but von Siver’s Panthers engaged them at long range and knocked out seven. When sitting in a defensive position, the Panther’s long 7.5cm gun completely outclassed the opposition. However, by 5 August Tomarovka was nearly surrounded and von Sivers’ Panthers and Schmidt’s 19.Panzer-Division had to abandon the town and retreat southwest down the Vorskla River valley. Before evacuating the city, German pioniers blew up 72 damaged Panthers in the local Werkstatt; Hitler had ordered that no intact Panthers should fall into Soviet hands. Several long columns with thousands of German troops retreated westward, with the Panthers using their long-range gunnery to keep the wolves at bay. Over the course of 5–9 August, von Sivers’ Kampfgruppe, which became separated from the main body, retreated 100km and fought their way through Soviet roadblocks. At one point, Kravchenko’s 5 GTC manoeuvred a company-size force to block the road ahead of the retreating Germans, but von Sivers’ Panthers knocked out eight T-34s and shoved the rest aside. On the road march, the Panthers would have run out of fuel, but von Sivers radioed the Luftwaffe to provide some via airdrop. Finally, von Sivers’ Kampfgruppe linked-up with the Großdeutschland near Akhtyrka on 9 August. In five days of combat, the Panthers had destroyed 40 T-34s at no combat loss to themselves, but 16 Panthers broke down from mechanical faults on the retreat. Von Sivers’ was left with only nine operational Panthers.^{153}

Schmidt’s 19.Panzer-Division and the LII Armeekorps fared poorly during the retreat and lacked the firepower of Siver’s Panthers. They had to run a gauntlet with the 27th Army on one side and the 5 GA on the other, making it a shooting gallery for the Soviets. Schmidt’s headquarters was ambushed on 7 August and he and his aid opted to commit suicide near Borisovka.^{154} The remnants of the 19.Panzer-Division that reached Akhtyrka were so combat ineffective that they could not even contribute to the defence of the town. The 255.Infanterie-Division was so demolished in the retreat that it was disbanded and the 332.Infanterie-Division simply disappeared from a German Lage Ost situation maps, with the survivors sent rearward to reorganize. German accounts tend to emphasize Soviet tank losses during this phase of Rumyantsev, while skimming over the fact that Heeresgruppe Süd’s infantry was being eviscerated by one hammer blow after another.

Once the scale of the Soviet breakthrough became apparent, von Manstein immediately requested the return of Großdeutschland from Heeresgruppe Mitte and moved the 7. and 11.Panzer-Divisionen from the quiet Sumy sector to reinforce the battered LII Armeekorps. He also managed to get the 18.Panzer-Division from Heeresgruppe Mitte and placed it under Breith’s III. Panzerkorps, which he intended to use to plug the growing gap between Hoth’s PzAOK 4 and Kempf’s forces. However, Katukov’s and Rotmistov’s armour had already created a deep, 50km-wide penetration by the time that these additional forces began to arrive. Kravchenko’s 5 GTC had advanced the furthest. German Panzer units were forced to move straight into combat from their rail unloading sites, with little knowledge of enemy strength or dispositions. In fact, enemy pressure was constantly increasing during Rumyantsev since Vatutin deliberately chose to commit his armies in echelon, meaning that additional formations kept joining the offensive to sustain operational momentum and keep the Germans off balance.

^{Battle of Bogodukhov, 13–16 August 1943, Totenkopf vs. the 1st Tank Army.}

On the morning of 6 August, the 18th Tank Corps from 5 GTA fought its way into the town of Zolochev against negligible resistance.[36] Later that day, General-major Andrei L. Getman’s 6th Tank Corps from 1 TA fought its way into Bogodukhov; the loss of 700 tons of fuel in the supply depot was a major blow for Breith’s III. Panzerkorps. One of the first Soviet T-34s that fought its way into Bogodukhov was commanded by Leytenant Ivan M. Ivchenko, who had lived in this town before the war. When Ivchenko drove down the street, his wife recognized him and came running out of the house with his young son; Westerners often forget that this war was one of liberation for the Red Army, with troops having a personal stake in the outcome.^{155} The loss of both these towns also threatened the German lines of communications to Kharkov. However, when Katukov and Rotmistrov began advancing south of the Merla River, they had unexpected meeting engagements with the first major reinforcements arriving for Hoth’s PzAOK 4. The 18 TC ran into the 3.Panzer-Division south of Zolochev and General-major Semyon M. Krivoshein’s 3rd Mechanized Corps ran into the lead elements of SS-Gruppenführer Walter Krüger’s Das Reich (the reconnaissance battalion, two Panzergrenadier-Bataillonen and 20 assault guns). In both cases, the meeting engagements did not go well for the Soviet armoured units and the entire corps needed to deploy and prepare for a hasty attack. Rotmistrov reinforced 18 TC with the Skvortsov’s 5 GMC and launched several attacks against 3. Panzer-Division on 7–8 August; the Germans were forced to give up some ground, but inflicted significant losses on Rotmistrov’s two corps. Likewise, Katukov sent General-major Dmitry Kh. Chernienko’s 31st Tank Corps to reinforce Krivoshein and together they were able to push Das Reich back on 7–8 August. Neither side had much in the way of infantry or artillery support during these actions, which devolved into a series of company and battalion-size engagements. Hoth had no infantry in this sector and he was forced to use his precious motorized forces as blocking detachments, which was not the way that Panzer-Divisionen were supposed to be employed. On the other hand, Vatutin had to divert considerable forces from the 6 GA and 27th Army to deal with German hedgehogs at Borisovka and Grayvoron, which severely limited infantry support to Katukov during this critical moment of the exploitation phase.

On the night of 8–9 August, the lead elements of Katukov’s 1 TA, Getman’s 6 TC, reached the Merchyk River, which put them within striking distance of severing the main east-west rail line to Kharkov. There were virtually no German forces in this wide gap between Breith’s III Panzerkorps and the remnants of the LII Armeekorps and XXXXVIII Panzerkorps concentrated near Akhtyrka. However, the lead elements of SS-Brigadeführer Hermann Priess’ Totenkopf were rushing to establish blocking positions along the Merchyk. When Morgunov’s 200th Tank Brigade attacked the town of Murafa on 9 August, he was able to seize the town and a crossing over the river without much trouble, but then ran into the SS-Totenkopf-Aufklärungs-Abteilung, which was screening on the other side. Polkovnik Mikhail T. Leonov’s 112th Tank Brigade had an even ruder surprise when it tried to seize another crossing at Oleksandrivka and ran into two battalions from the SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 3. Leonov’s initial attack on the town failed.

While Katukov and Rotmistrov was struggling to push south and envelop Kharkov, the 27th and 40th Armies were pushing westward toward Akhtyrka with the help of three tank corps (2 TC, 10 TC, 4 GTC) to expand the Voronezh Front’s breakthrough. The LII Armeekorps and XXXXVIII Panzerkorps had established a thin line between Akhtyrka and Trostyanets with the Großdeutschland, 7. and 11.Panzer-Divisionen to try and prevent the Soviet advance from demolishing any link between Hoth’s PzAOK 4 and 2.Armee. By the morning of 9 August, General-major Vasily M. Alekseev’s 10th Tank Corps, acting as the mobile group for 40th Army, was threatening the rail junction at Trostyanets. Most of Großdeutschland’s armour was still en route, but a small Kampfgruppe with four Tigers from 13.Panzer-Regiment Großdeutschland and seven Panthers from 4.Panzer-Abteilung 51 were assembled and sent to stop Alekseev’s tanks.[37] On paper, this small Kampfgruppe should have been a formidable force, but it lacked any kind of support or information about enemy dispositions. En route to Trostyanets, one Panther’s engine caught fire and burnt out. Approaching the town, the Kampfgruppe was engaged by numerous anti-tank guns and T-34s concealed in a wooded area; the Panther’s long 7.5cm gun claimed several victims but when the tanks imprudently moved into the town, they were engaged at point-blank range. Here, Aleekseev’s tankers were fighting as a combined arms team, with infantry, anti-tank guns and tanks working together, whereas the Germans were disadvantaged as an armour-pure force. Two Tigers and five Panthers were knocked out and abandoned, with the remaining three tanks beating a hasty retreat.^{156}

On 10 August, General-major Pavel P. Poluboyarov’s 4 GTC tried to rush Akhtyrka with two of his tank brigades before Großdeutschland arrived in strength, but the rest of Panzer-Abteilung 51’s Panthers detrained in the town just before they arrived. A screen of Panthers met Poluboyarov’s T-34s outside Akhtyrka and repelled their attack, but the lack of pre-battle preparation was costly for the Germans. A total of 11 Panthers were knocked out against 16 T-34s, which was not a very favorable exchange ratio. After this rebuff, Poluboyarov tried to envelop Akhtyrka, since there was a large gap with no German forces to the south of the town. Kravchenko’s 5 GTC was sent into this gap, advancing against negligible opposition.

At the same time, Rotmistrov and Katukov were continuing to press Breith’s III Panzerkorps hard and managed to drive an armoured wedge between Das Reich and 3.Panzer-Division on 10 August. Counter-attacks by both German divisions temporarily restored the situation and inflicted heavy losses on the 18 TC and 29 TC, but 3.Panzer-Division was nearly combat-ineffective. The loss of Panzergrenadiers in defending static positions in towns was particularly painful and once a Panzer-Division lost a good part of its infantry it could not maintain a coherent front. While Soviet tank losses were heavy, both tank armies continued to receive march companies with new tanks and crews which kept them in business. Furthermore, Katukov and Rotmistrov’s units usually retained the battlefield now, improving the probability that their knocked out tanks would be recovered and repaired. However, the real problem was not shortage of tanks but the insufficient number of wheeled vehicles available to the Voronezh Front, which made it difficult to move artillery and supplies forward in a timely manner to support the advance of the tank armies.

On 11 August, Katukov fought his way across the Merchyk River despite desperate efforts by Totenkopf’s Panzergrenadiers to stop him. Then he sent the lead elements of 6 TC and 3 MC south to Kovyagi, which was a station on the Polatva-Kharkov rail line. Getman’s tankers, with some attached sapper squads, succeeded in blowing up several sections of rail track.^{157} Priess committed Edwin Meiderdress’ I.SS-Panzer-Regiment 3 to counter-attack Polkovnik Vladimir M. Gorelov’s 1st Guards Tank Brigade, which had just stormed its way into Kovyagi. The result was another vicious meeting engagement and this one went very badly for Totenkopf; one company commander was killed in his tank and two others were badly wounded.^{158} However, Meiderdress had better luck against the 22nd Tank Brigade, which only had seven tanks left and its commander, Major Aleksei A. Laptev, was killed in action.^{159} Altogether, Totenkopf knocked out 18 Soviet tanks in its counter-attack. However, Polkovnik Aleksandr F. Burda’s 49th Tank Brigade and the 17th Tank Regiment succeeded in slipping past Totenkopf’s reconnaissance battalion’s screen and some tanks headed west along the rail line to Vysokopol’ye. Burda was one of the most experienced tankers in the Red Army and not afraid to plunge deep into the enemy’s rear areas. Yet Totenkopf’s advance had isolated Burda’s brigade and other forward elements of Katukov’s 1 TA.

Breith’s III. Panzerkorps had significantly slowed the advance of 1 TA and 5 GTA between 7–11 August, but it had not stopped them and Hoth was desperate to stabilize the front. He had been trading space for time while trying to bring up more reinforcements, but time was running out. Hoth wanted to launch a coordinated pincer attack by III. Panzerkorps and XXXXVIII Panzerkorps, but the later would not be ready for days, so he decided to launch it only with Breith’s forces. The one bright spot for Hoth was the arrival of SS-Brigadeführer Herbert Otto Gille’s Wiking, which would give Breith three Waffen-SS divisions.

Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA actually kicked off 12 August by continuing its attack in the Zolochev-Olshany sector, which made it difficult for Wiking to deploy. Hoth began his counter-attack that morning, even though his divisions were not fully deployed. Altogether, Hoth had 130 tanks and 23 assault guns at his disposal: Totenkopf (36 tanks, including 3 Tigers), Das Reich (48 tanks, including 3 Tigers), Wiking (33 tanks) and s.Pz.Abt.503 with 13 Tigers. Katukov’s 1 TA had 268 tanks still operational and 5 GTA had 115, giving Vatutin’s forces a 2.4–1 local numerical superiority in armour.^{160} Totenkopf began the attack by rolling up Katukov’s units south of the Merchyk River and recapturing Vysokopol’ye, but this proved costly. The six Tigers in the lead bumped into a very strong anti-tank defence that knocked out one Tiger (possibly by an 85mm round from an AA gun) and damaged four more. Seven tankers in Totenkopf’s Tiger company were killed in the action.^{161} A number of Soviet tanks, probably out of fuel, were knocked out or abandoned, but many of the tankers retreated to the river. When Katukov tried to rush reinforcements forward in the afternoon he was shocked to find that Totenkopf had already reached the river and blocked his crossing sites. Das Reich contributed to Katukov’s problems by attacking Krivoshein’s 3 MC near Gavrishi around 0930 hours, which threatened to split the boundary between 1 TA and 5 GTA. Rotmistrov sent a brigade from the 29 TC to stop this German armoured drive, resulting in a large tank battle. Honours were about even and Das Reich had over 20 tanks disabled, although 29 TC was badly hurt, as well. Hoth was able to get some Luftwaffe close air support to assist his counter-attack, but Vatutin managed to push two rifle divisions from 6 GA forward to stiffen Rotmistrov’s vulnerable right flank.

On 13 August, Totenkopf deliberately chose a high-risk course of action, by deploying virtually all of the division north of the Merchyk River, but leaving only the SS-Totenkopf-Aufklärungs-Abteilung to screen south of the river. A major combined arms attack with tanks, infantry and artillery support at Nikitovka sent Krivoshein’s 3 MC reeling and smashed in Katukov’s left flank. However, Getman’s 6 TC had launched a renewed attack south of the Merchyk River, reinforced by the 52nd and 90th Guards Rifle Divisions from 23 GRC. Totenkopf’s reconnaissance battalion could not stop this push and Getman’s forces recaptured Vysokopol’ye and linked-up with Burda’s brigade that had been left isolated in this area the day before. Fighting continued on 14 August and on 15 August Totenkopf and Das Reich made a renewed push that smashed in the flank of the 6 TC and recaptured Vysokopol’ye once again on 16 August. Breith believed that this attack destroyed Katukov’s spearhead formations, as well as parts of two rifle divisions.

However, the commitment of virtually all available German armour to stop 1 TA and 5 GTA left only two Sturmgeschütz-Abteilungen to support Raus’ XI Armeekorps in the effort to stop Konev’s advance upon Kharkov. By 14 August, Konev had four armies pressing against the city’s defences from the north and the east and Kempf was unwilling to see his command encircled in Kharkov; he made the mistake of openly complaining about Hitler’s orders to hold the city. Unwilling to risk another commander making an unauthorized withdrawal – which would reflect badly on his authority – von Manstein relieved Kempf of command on 14 August. General der Infanterie Otto Wöhler was brought in to replace Kempf and his former command was soon redesignated as 8.Armee (AOK 8).

While III. Panzerkorps was continuing to spar with 1 TA and 5 GTA, Großdeutschland was delayed by difficulties in the rail transport of its armour to Akhtyrka. Four Tiger tanks and the maintenance section of one Panzer-Abteilungen were lost in the rail movement to Sumy.^{162} The III.Panzer-Regiment Großdeutschland then had to conduct a 110km road march to its assembly area near Akhtyrka, which caused numerous mechanical failures in the Tigers. Rather than attacking with a well-organized, combined arms team, Großdeutschland hastily threw together Kampfgruppe von Natzmer from the I. and III.Panzer-Abteilungen (16 Tigers, about 15 Pz III/Pz IVs, 15 Panthers from Hauptmann Heinrich Meyer’s Panzer-Abteilung 51, the divisional reconnaissance battalion and one battalion of self-propelled howitzers). The lack of infantry and pionier support was a severe deficiency. Nor was the Kampfgruppe given adequate time to plan its attack or conduct maintenance before the operation kicked off at 0630 hours on 15 August. With the Tigers in the lead, Kampfgruppe von Natzmer aimed to strike Katukov’s flank south of Akhtyrka. Kravchenko’s 5 GTC had pushed past Kotelva and its flanks appeared to be up in the air, although this was not in fact the case.

At 0630 hours on 15 August, Kampfgruppe von Natzmer advanced southward, with its Tigers in the lead. Approaching the town of Grun, the lead Tiger struck a mine and the rest of the battalion was engaged by enemy anti-tank guns, Su-122 assault guns and artillery hidden in a wooded area. In order to reach the town, the German tanks had to cross two deep ravines that were covered by fire. The Germans opted to have one Tiger company assault across the ravines while the other Tiger company provided overwatch fires. No smoke was used to conceal this effort, although the artillery battalion was within range. As soon as the Tigers entered the ‘kill sac’ the Soviets hit them with everything they had. The Tiger of Hauptmann Rene von Villebois, commander of 10.Kompanie, was hit on the turret by six 122mm rounds and another round penetrated the 60mm thick armour of the hull side; von Villebois was badly wounded and his Tiger was essentially wrecked. It is not clear if the Su-122s fired the new BP-460A HEAT round – although the hull penetration sounds like it – but the turret damage was likely from HE-FRAG rounds. In any event, after suffering heavy damage, the surviving Tigers fought their way into the town and destroyed the Su-122s.

Despite mines and a dense belt of anti-tank guns, the Großdeutschland overran the 166th Rifle Division and advanced over 12km within five hours to isolate the two Soviet tank corps near Kotelva. However, Zhukov worked with Vatutin in rapidly assembling a relief force from other elements of the 27th Army and 6 GA, which relentlessly attacked Großdeutschland and the German forces around Akhtyrka. Two rifle corps from the 47th Army, supported by General-major Viktor T. Obukhov’s 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps, routed the German 57.Infanterie-Division north of Akhtyrka, which forced the XXXXVIII Panzerkorps to divert resources away from its own counter-attacks. Although a tenuous contact was made between Totenkopf and Großdeutschland, the XXXXVIII Panzerkorps lacked the strength to eliminate the two isolated Soviet tank corps. Furthermore, the Panthers continued to take a beating in combat; Meyer was killed on 19 August and most of his tanks were knocked out in just a few days.

The swirling tank mêlées continued south of Bogodukhov until 18 August, by which point the 1 TA and 5 GTA had been halted and severely damaged, but Breith’s III. Panzerkorps was also in very poor shape. Over 35 German tanks had been knocked out or destroyed, including five of the 19 Tigers. The two Soviet tank armies had lost hundreds of tanks south of Bogodukhov and General-major Dmitry Chernienko, commander of 31 TC, was killed in action on 18 August. While the three Waffen-SS divisions still had some combat capability left, the 3.Panzer-Division only had 10 tanks left and 6.Panzer-Division had just four. All the German armour west of Kharkov barely amounted to 100 tanks and assault guns. Inside Kharkov, the Sturmgeschütz-Abteilungen 228 and 905 had a total of 22 assault guns left to defend the city. Since Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA had failed to envelope Kharkov, Konev was forced to mount a costly frontal attack upon the city which ground up his forces and Raus’ XI Armeekorps.

The final act of Rumyantsev occurred near Lyubotin, on the western road leading out of Kharkov. On Zhukov’s orders, Vatutin transferred Rotmistrov’s battered 5 GTA to Konev’s control on 20 August for the final assault on the city. Within a remarkably short time, Rotmistrov was able to partly restore Yegorov’s 18 TC and Skvortsov’s 5 GMC and use them to support a major attack by 53rd Army against Lyubotin on 21 August. This sector was chosen because it was the left flank of Raus’ XI Armeekorps and not as well defended, but the minor Udy River proved to be more of an obstacle than the German infantrymen. Rotmistrov’s tanks tried to ford it, but became bogged down in its marshy banks. It took Konev’s engineers half a day to build a pontoon bridge over the Udy, then Rotmistrov’s two corps crossed. During the night, the bulk of Das Reich shifted eastward to block Rotmistrov’s bridgehead. By coincidence, the first Waffen-SS Panthers arrived at the front and unexpectedly joined the defence; these were two companies of Hauptsturmführer Hans Weiss’ I.SS-Panzer-Regiment 2 with 42 Panther Ausf D. At 0500 hours on 22 August, the 53rd Army fired a large artillery preparation against the German positions then Rotmistrov’s two corps advanced with 111 tanks. A protracted tank battle ensued for three hours, with the Panthers knocking out about half of Rotmistrov’s tanks but some Soviet tank-infantry teams fought their way into Korotych, in the western suburbs of Kharkov. Although Rotmistrov’s depleted 5 GTA had failed to break through, by that evening von Manstein finally authorized Wöhler to begin evacuating the city. By 1100 hours on 23 August, Konev’s forces fought their way into the city and liberated Kharkov.

Operation Rumyantsev had succeeded in taking Belgorod and Kharkov and it had effectively smashed Hoth’s front line. However, the cost had been extremely high, even by Red Army standards. Altogether, Vatutin’s Voronezh Front and Konev’s Steppe Front suffered over 255,000 casualties (including 71,611 dead or missing) and lost 1,700 tanks. Since the Red Army controlled the battlefield, a good number of these tanks would be recovered and repaired. Hoth’s and Kempf’s forces had suffered over 32,000 casualties, including about 8,000 killed and 4,000 captured. German armoured losses were only a fraction of the Soviet losses – roughly 250 tanks and 50 assault guns – but they were enough. Virtually all of von Manstein’s Panzer-Divisionen were combat-ineffective after Rumyantsev and the number of operational German tanks had dropped from 2,287 on 5 July to only 926 by 20 August.^{163} Furthermore, the loss of territory during Rumyantsev cost the Panzerwaffe hundreds of damaged tanks that could not be moved in time; this was particularly true for the Panther and Tiger, both of which required multiple recovery vehicles to move.

It is also important to note that while Heersgruppe Süd was engaged in a protracted armoured battle of attrition around Kharkov, Hitler had decided to send four Panzer-Divisionen (16, 24, 26 and Hermann Göring) and five Panzergrenadier-Divisionen (LSSAH, 3, 15, 29, 90), which had a combined total of 572 tanks and 184 assault guns, to Italy to oppose the Anglo-American landings.^{164} If Hitler had sent most of these forces to von Manstein and opted to abandon southern Italy to the Allies, Heeresgruppe Süd probably could have fought Rumyantsev to a standstill.

Rumyantsev contained a series of punishing, indecisive tank battles because both sides’ armoured forces were approaching relative equality in terms of efficiency. The Germans often still enjoyed a small tactical edge, but this was being undermined by excessive losses of junior leaders. The tank battles around Bogodukhov were among the last occasions on which three Waffen-SS divisions attacked together, and although they inflicted great damage and showed a ruthless tenacity, they failed to accomplish their mission of destroying either 1 TA or 5 GTA. This time, there was no ‘backhand blow’. The Red Army had demonstrated the ability to smash a German fortified line and exploit to 50– 60km depth within a matter of days, which caught von Manstein completely by surprise. However, the failure to reinforce this success with more resources, and the tendency to try and reduce every German Stützpunkt rather than bypassing them, led to the main effort loosing too much combat power, too fast. In terms of C², Rotmistrov’s handling of 5 GTA was clumsy and, coming on the heels of his humiliation at Prokhorovka, his days as a front-line leader were numbered. Katukov’s forces had been tactically defeated, but demonstrated great pluck in staying in the fight. Even when units were isolated, they did not just dissolve into the woods as they had in the past.

Operation Suvorov: the Smolensk Offensive, 7 August–2 October 1943

In addition to Kutusov and Rumyantsev, the Stavka had also been planning to mount a major summer offensive toward Smolensk once Operation Zitadelle was defeated. General Vasily D. Sokolovsky’s Western Front had already contributed its 11th Guards Army and a good portion of its armour to Operation Kutusov in mid-July, but the Stavka wanted to use the rest of this front’s resources against the centre of Heeresgruppe Mitte’s line. General-Polkovnik Andrei I. Eremenko’s Kalinin Front would also make forces available for a push toward Smolensk. Stalin took great interest in the planning of the Smolensk offensive and it was named Operation Suvorov after one of Russia’s greatest generals to indicate the importance of the task. Since Zhukov and Vasilevsky were supporting Kutusov and Rumyantsev, Marshal of Artillery Nikolai N. Voronov was sent as Stavka representative to coordinate Suvorov.

With his two tank corps committed to Operation Kutusov, Sokolovsky’s only remaining large mechanized formation was General-leytenant Mikhail V. Volkhov’s 5th Mechanized Corps (5 MC), but he also had five tank brigades and four tank regiments that could be allocated for Suvorov. Since many of these units were well under-strength from previous combat, Sokolovsky received 298 new tanks in July to replenish his armoured units. Eremenko contributed a heavily-reinforced 39th Army with three tank units to Suvorov, so he received only 70 tank replacements. Altogether, the Western Front committed about 1,280 tanks and 45 self-propelled guns to the offensive and Kalinin Front committed 110 tanks. Both fronts were still using considerable numbers of Lend-Lease tanks (Matildas and Valentines) as well as older tanks like the T-60. In order to clear enemy obstacles, the Western Front received four sapper brigades and two more went to the Kalinin Front. The only serious deficiency in the preparation for Suvorov was in logistics; although 3–5 basic loads of tank and artillery ammunition had been stockpiled, the amount of fuel available was only 1.3 loads, which was grossly inadequate for a breakthrough operation.^{165} Given that the Western Front quartermasters had been primarily supporting positional warfare for the past 18 months, they do not appear to have been ready to shift to supporting mobile operations.

On the German side, Generalfeldmarschall Günther von Kluge’s Heeresgruppe Mitte was very weak in armoured resources but had the advantage of well-prepared defences in depth. Generaloberst Gotthard Heinrici’s 4.Armee (AOK 4), which was the main target of Operation Suvorov, had been holding the sector of the front between Yartsevo and Spas-Demensk since Operation Typhoon failed in 1941. Heinrici’s troops had built multiple lines of fieldworks that represented a 12–15km deep defensive network that included anti-tank ditches, mines, barbed wire obstacles and reinforced wooden bunkers. Here, the German troops had sufficient time and resources to build very deep trenches that could survive all but the heaviest artillery bombardments and the obstacle belts were thick and covered by fire. The terrain also favoured the defence, with thickly wooded areas and swampy rivers that were difficult for tanks to cross. While not impregnable, Heinrici’s defence was formidable. The only real problem facing Heeresgruppe Mitte was the lack of reserves. Heinrici’s AOK 4 consisted of 12 infantry divisions that were well under-strength and most replacements were going to von Manstein’s command. Since von Kluge had provided Model’s AOK 9 with all his Panzer-Divisionen, the only mobile reserve left was Generalleutnant Werner von Erdmannsdorff’s 18.Panzergrenadier-Division; this unit only had a combat strength of 3,000 troops and a few attached assault guns, which left it ill-equipped to seal off any Soviet breakthroughs, should they occur.^{166} Von Kluge had retained some assault gun units and he provided Heinrici with elements of three Sturmgeschütz-Abteilungen, totalling about 60 StuG IIIs.

Sokolovsky decided to make his main attack against the Yelnya-Spas-Demensk sector of AOK 4, held by the 268. Infanterie-Division of IX Armeekorps and the 252. and 342.Infanterie-Divisionen of XII Armeekorps. A 16km-wide sector would be attacked by 17 rifle divisions and 300 tanks from the 5th Army (General-leytenant Vitaliy S. Polenov), the 10th Guards Army (General-leytenant Kuzma P. Trubnikov) and the 33rd Army (General-leytenant Vasily N. Gordov). General-leytenant Evgeny P. Zhuralev’s 68th Army stood in reserve, ready to reinforce the main effort with six more rifle divisions and 100 tanks. The attack would rely on firepower and sappers to breach the German tactical defensive zone, then commit Volkhov’s 5 MC as a mobile group to exploit. The immediate objective of this attack was the city of Roslavl, whose capture was expected to unhinge Heinrici’s right flank. Sokolovsky also intended to mount a supporting attack north of Yartsevo, along the Smolensk-Vyazma highway, which was held by the 113.Infanterie-Division of XXXIX Panzerkorps and 52. Infanterie-Division of XXVII Armeekorps. The supporting attack would be conducted by the Western Front’s 31st Army and the Kalinin Front’s 39th Army, with 14 rifle divisions and 160 tanks. Once a breakthrough was achieved in this sector, two mechanized brigades and a tank brigade would form a mobile group and push toward Smolensk.

Four days before the offensive began, Stalin arrived at the Western Front to inspect the preparations, which put considerable pressure on Sokolovsky. Everything appeared ready and Stalin left satisfied that success was imminent. Yet unlike other Soviet offensives, Sokolovsky had placed little emphasis upon Maskirovka (deception) and Heinrici knew that an attack was imminent and reinforced the threatened sectors. At 0630 hours on 7 August, Suvorov began with a massive 110-minute artillery preparation, which included the firepower of the 5th and 8th Artillery Corps. Although Voronov ensured a maximum artillery effort, the width of the attack sectors somewhat diluted his fire power but he achieved 175 guns and mortars per kilometre of front in Sokolovsky’s sector and 100 in Eremenko’s sector.^{167} The 1st Air Army (1 VA) flew 1,200 sorties on the first day, striking German artillery positions. However, Heinrici’s defences were barely scratched and when the Soviet shock groups moved forward they immediately ran into trouble. German mortars, machine-guns and anti-tank guns were still intact and inflicted heavy losses on the attackers. By the early afternoon, some Soviet tank-infantry teams did penetrate up to 4km into the German defensive lines, but they often became isolated. Polkovnik Oleg Losik’s 119th Tank Regiment, which was supporting the 65th Guards Rifle Division, succeeded in digging its way through the outer layer of defences. Starshiy Leytenant Ivan S. Povoroznyuk, who commanded a company of T-34s in Losik’s brigade, was at the tip of the spear and his tanks overran a German infantry platoon and some anti-tank guns. Povoroznyuk, was no rookie and he was one of the Red Army’s new generation of tank leaders; he had first seen combat as a tank platoon leader in September 1941 and had already been wounded three times. He and his battalion fought for three days trying to break through the German lines but eventually his tank was destroyed by German Panzerjägers and he was killed in action; he was posthumously awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union (HSU).

In an effort to energize the offensive, Sokolovsky committed Zhuralev’s 68th Army six hours after the beginning of the operation, but this only made the battlefield a more target-rich environment. In the north, the 31st and 39th Armies struck the XXXIX Panzerkorps near Yartsevo, but barely advanced 2km in the first two days. The 31st Army tried to commit an ad hoc mobile group comprised of Podpolkovnik Viktor F. Kotov’s 42nd Guards Tank Brigade (22 T-34, 7 KV-1, 4 T-70 amd 18 T-60s), a motorcycle regiment and an anti-tank unit, even though no breakthrough had been achieved.^{168} The German 113. Infanterie-Division, rebuilt from cadres that survived Stalingrad, had deployed 27 heavy anti-tank guns in its sector and was fortunate to be provided with the new RSO tractors; the German anti-tank defences knocked out 35 of Kotov’s tanks.^{169} Von Kluge reacted very quickly to the Soviet offensive, transferring a Kampfgruppe from 2.Panzer-Division and the entire 36.Infanterie-Division (mot.) to Spas-Demensk and sending the 18.Panzergrenadier-Division to reinforce the Yartsevo sector. Heinrici committed these units and Sturmgeschütz-Abteilungen 270 and 667 to local counter-attacks, which repeatedly repulsed the Soviet shock groups.

Even though Suvorov was making little progress, Sokolovsky ordered 10th Guards Army to commit Volkhov’s 5 MC. On 12 August, Volkhov’s corps conducted a 130km roadmarch to the front, under heavy attack by the Luftwaffe, but was ready to join the battle on the morning of 13 August. Leytenant Dmitry F. Loza commanded a company of Matilda tanks in the 233rd Tank Brigade of 5 MC and he recalled that the sudden appearance of Lend-Lease tanks in this sector caused a fratricide incident when his brigade launched a local attack against a German position, then returned to its start line, within sight of a Soviet artillery unit.

Loza’s brigade lost a platoon of tanks in this incident because Soviet artillerymen were unfamiliar with the Matilda and assumed them to be German tanks. Nevertheless, the commitment of 5 MC added impetus to the 10 GA attack and Spas-Demensk was liberated on the same day. Yet it was not the commitment of more armour that gradually weakened Heinrici’s defence, but the relentlessly pounding of the Soviet artillery which ground up the German infantry. Between 7–21 August, AOK 4 suffered over 28,000 casualties, including 7,239 dead or missing. After the capture of Spas-Demensk, the Western Front continued to slowly grind its way through the German defences, but the offensive was temporarily suspended on 21 August in order to resupply and replenish depleted units. In 14 days of heavy combat between 7–21 August, the Western Front had advanced only 35–40km – roughly equivalent to what Hoth achieved during Zitadelle.

At this point, the Stavka realized that the Western Front could not hope to seize Smolensk in a single push and decided to restructure Suvorov as a multi-phase operation that would gradually slice up the German defences into digestible pieces. The next logical objective was Yelnya, in the centre of AOK 4’s line. Despite the fact that the Yelnya sector was heavily wooded and marshy, Sokolovsky asked for – and received – additional armoured support. Polkovnik Aleksei S. Burdeiny’s 2nd Guards Tank Corps (2 GTC) was transferred from Voronezh Front to reinforce Sokolovsky. After a week of refitting, the Western Front recommenced Suvorov on the morning of 28 August with a 90-minute artillery barrage, accompanied by airstrikes from 1 VA. Soviet artillery tactics were improving and the German front-line defences were badly chewed up. Attacking on a 25km-wide front, the 21 A, 33 A and 10 GA were able to penetrate 6km on the first day and extended the penetration to 12km on the second day. At that time, Burdeiny’s 2 GTC was committed and his tanks advanced 30km in a single day. On 30 August, the battered German forces were forces to abandon Yelnya. Sokolovsky continued pushing until his troops reached the Dnepr River, then halted the offensive on 7 September for another week.

Hitler had grudgingly authorized the creation of the Panther Stellung (line) on 11 August, directing it to be a line of fortifications running behind the Dnepr and extending all the way up to the Baltic, intended as a bulwark against further Red Army advances westward. However, the Panther Stellung was primarily a propaganda soundbite at this point and in the Heeresgruppe Mitte sector engineers were only just beginning to lay out defences west of Smolensk, centred on the cities of Mogilev, Orsha and Vitebsk. Von Kluge needed to buy time for the engineers to actually begin work on the Panther Stellung, so he took measures to reinforce Heinrici’s AOK 4. He ordered Model to transfer the s.Pz.Abt.505 from his AOK 9 to reinforce AOK 4 as soon as possible, although the battalion did not actually arrive until 17 September. However, before the Tigers could reach the front, Sokolovsky resumed the offensive. Having penetrated the outer defences of AOK 4, the Stavka now wanted Sokolovsky to push on to the main objectives – Smolensk and Roslavl. On 14 September, the Kalinin Front attacked first, followed by the Western Front on 15 September. This time, the Soviet shock groups made much better progress and it was clear that AOK 4 was no longer able to repulse large-scale Soviet attacks. Yartsevo was captured on 15 September, followed by Dukhovshchina on 17 September. On the same day, the Bryansk Front recaptured Bryansk from Model’s AOK 9. By 19 September, Heeresgruppe Mitte’s centre had been pierced and AOK 4 was in retreat. Von Kluge ordered Heinrici to fall back to the Panther Stellung, even though construction had just begun. On 25 September, the Western Front’s 5th Army fought its way into Smolensk and later in the day Roslavl was also liberated. It was only the fact that the Western Front’s forces were severely depleted and that there was no large mobile exploitation force available that prevented Suvorov from leading to the collapse of Heeresgruppe Mitte in 1943. Instead, von Kluge’s forces were able to withdraw to the putative Panther Stellung and established a new defensive line around Vitebsk, Orsha and Mogilev, which were heavily fortified during the winter of 1943/44.

Operation Suvorov accomplished its primary objectives of liberating Smolensk and pushing Heeresgruppe Mitte back over 150km. Sokolovsky’s Western Front used armour primarily in an infantry support role and had only two large armoured units available for exploitation. Nevertheless, the Red Army had lost 863 tanks during Operation Suvorov, about 63 per cent of the total engaged.^{171} Although Soviet progress through the Heeresgruppe Mitte defensive belts was slow and costly, it did teach them a number of valuable lessons that would improve tank-infantry-artillery coordination for the 1944 campaigns. On the German side, von Kluge and Heinrici only had limited amounts of armour available and they used it in small but powerful local counter-attacks to restore the AOK 4’s deteriorating HKL. The problem was that there were fewer and fewer infantry to man the HKL, even if it could be restored.

Advance to the Dnepr, 24 August–6 November 1943

After the fall of Kharkov, any thoughts that the front might stabilize again vanished as the Soviets began a series of multi-front attacks against Heeresgruppe Süd from the Sea of Azov up to the Sumy sector. For two weeks, von Manstein tried to hold with his much-depleted forces but he was astonished by the Red Army’s ability to quickly replenish its own combat units and resume the offensive, almost without let up. Mladshiy Leytenant Yuri M. Polyanovski, a tank platoon leader in the 24th Guards Tank Brigade of 5 GMC, was one of the Soviet junior tank officers at the tip of this spear. Polyanovski had already survived having his first T-34 knocked out by enemy fire at Kharkov and was provided with a replacement tank a few days after the city’s liberation. Once outfitted with new tanks and crews, the 24 GTB moved out southward:

Not only did Vatutin and Konev continue to push south and west from Kharkov with the intention of taking the German supply base at Poltava next, but the Southwest Front attacked PzAOK 1 in the Donbas and the Southern Front renewed its attacks on AOK 6 on the Mius. Malinovsky’s Southwest Front had already gained a small bridgehead across the Northern Donets 8km south of Izyum between 17–27 July and on 16 August the 6th, 12th and 8th Guards Armies began to try and break out of the bridgehead. Von Mackensen’s PzAOK 1 had deployed the 23.Panzer-Division, 16.Panzergrenadier-Division and Sturmgeschütz-Abteilungen 203 and 282 to seal off the bridgehead. Malinovsky initially committed six rifle divisions and three tank brigades to break the German ring, then eventually fed the 1 GMC and 23 TC into the fight. The Soviets mounted a series of powerful tank-infantry attacks but only succeeded in pushing the German cordon back a few kilometres. Between 17–23 August, von Vormann’s 23.Panzer-Division claimed to have knocked out 302 enemy tanks, but suffered 1,817 casualties (including 482 dead or missing). In particular, PzAOK 1 was running out of infantry and von Vormann was forced to borrow infantry from other units to reinforce his badly-depleted Panzergrenadiers.^{173}

Although Malinovsky’s attacks were held, Hollidt’s AOK 6 had much more difficulty in stopping Tolbukhin’s second attack across the Mius. After the departure of the Waffen-SS divisions for Kharkov, Hollidt lacked the forces to rebuild a solid front or reserves to prevent an enemy breakthrough. On 19 August the 2nd Guards Army attacked across the Mius near the boundary of the XVII and XXIX Armeekorps and quickly gained ground. Hollidt only had Generalleutnant Hellmut von der Chevallerie’s 13.Panzer-Division in reserve and it arrived piecemeal and too late to prevent a major breach in the front line. By 22 August, General-major Trofim I. Tanaschishin’s 4 GMC was across the river and pushing west, while the Germans were unable to seal the breach. Von Manstein tried to shuffle his limited armoured reserves around to keep the front from breaking, but virtually every sector now faced crisis. In order to reduce the threat to Stalino, he sent the 9. and 17.Panzer-Divisionen, but again they arrived too late to save the front. The 2nd Guards Army completely broke open the German HKL east of Stalino with the 13th Guards Rifle Corps, then conducted a textbook exploitation with the 2 GMC, 4 GMC and 4th Guards Cavalry Corps; by 29 August the Soviet armour and cavalry was pivoting southward to envelope General der Artillerie Erich Brandenberger’s XXIX Armeekorps (compromised of 13.Panzer-Division, the 17., 111. and 336.Infanterie-Divisionen, Luftwaffen Feld-Division 15 and Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 243) at Taganrog. The next day, Soviet tanks reached the Sea of Azov, isolating the German corps. It was only due to the quick thinking of von der Chevallerie, who quickly organized a breakout effort spearheaded by his 13. Panzer-Division, that the XXIX Armeekorps survived. After a day of fighting, the XXIX Armeekorps fought its way out of the Taganrog pocket to reach the rest of AOK 6. However, Brandenberger’s XXIX Armeekorps had lost a great deal of personnel and equipment in the breakout and Hollidt was unable to restore his frontline.

Although von Manstein had been able to limit the advance of Vatutin’s and Konev’s forces, he had no real reserves left to save AOK 6’s crumbling front and this situation quickly snowballed out of control. In an effort to create a new, shorter line, Hollidt pulled his XXX Armeekorps back and deployed the 17.Panzer-Division to hold Stalino on 2 September, but Tolbukhin increased the scale of his offensive and began attacking along the entire front of AOK 6. Within a few days, both the XXIX and XXX Armeekorps were forced to yield more ground and the dam burst on 6 September; Slavyansk and Kramatorsk were liberated by the 1st Guards Army and PzAOK 1’s front was split wide open. Even worse, Tolbukhin’s forces linked up with Malinovsky’s bridgehead near Izyum, which now expanded rapidly. In order to prevent the loss of Stalino, von Manstein decided to commit one of his newly-arrived Panther battalions, Major Fritz Fechner’s II./Pz.Rgt. 23, to restore the situation. Committed piecemeal as it arrived by train, Fechner’s battalion managed to delay the loss of Stalino for a few days but once again, the Panther’s experienced serious mechanical problems and at least half were non-operational within two days.^{174} Despite the arrival of the Panthers, Stalino was liberated on 8 September.

During early September, von Manstein implored Hitler to authorize a retreat to the Dnepr, but the Führer still believed that Heeresgruppe Süd would stop the Soviet offensives, as they had in the past. Yet Tolbukhin had achieved a major breakthrough north of Stalino at Krasnoarmiis’k and General-leytenant Ivan N. Russiyanov’s 1st Guard Mechanized Corps (1 GMC) and General-leytenant Efim G. Pushkin’s 23rd Tank Corps were pushing rapidly west toward the Dnepr River at Dnepropetrovsk against negligible resistance. By 8 September, the vanguards of these two Soviet corps were approaching Pavlograd and were within 40km of the Dnepr. Von Manstein directed von Mackensen and Hollidt to make one last effort to cut off Tolbukhin’s spearheads and seal the breach in their front by means of a pincer attack. Vormann’s 23.Panzer-Division and the 16.Panzergrenadier-Division, which were subordinate to XXXX Panzerkorps, were reoriented to attack southward into Russiyanov’s exposed flank, while Fechner’s remaining Panthers (about 30 out of the original 96) were reinforced with some infantry and artillery into a combined-arms Kampfgruppe to attack Pushkin’s flank. Vormann’s division began the counter-attack on the morning of 9 September and slammed into the 266th Rifle Division at Slov’yanka; Tolbukhin had pushed some infantry units forward to hold open the breach, but they had yet to establish a strong defence. Vormann’s panzers were able to overrun and destroy this isolated Soviet rifle division and then began pushing south. It took Kampfgruppe Fechner longer to reorient and they did not join the attack until 11 September, but Fechner’s Panthers sliced into the flank of the 23 TC. On 12 September, Fechner’s Panthers linked-up with the 16.Panzergrenadier-Division, thereby isolating the 1 GMC and 23 TC near Pavlograd. Fechner established a blocking position on the main road with three Panthers and a platoon of pioniers, which indicates the paucity of German combat power at this point. Eight Soviet tanks which approached the roadblock were knocked out. Hollidt and von Mackensen had succeeded in closing the breach in the front with a pincer attack and inflicting a sharp tactical defeat on Tolbukhin’s advance guard, but the results were all for naught.

Despite the success in sealing the breach, it was obvious that AOK 6 was on the verge of collapse. Fechner’s battalion was reduced to just five operational Panthers and the 9., 13., 17. and 23.Panzer-Divisionen were little more than battlegroups. Hollidt lacked the strength to eliminate the two isolated Soviet mechanized units near Pavlograd and it was obvious that the rest of Tolbukhin’s forces would soon break through to them. Nor was Hoth’s sector in any better shape, since the Voronezh Front had driven a wedge between 2.Armee and PzAOK 4 near Romny and Hoth’s left flank was unravelling. Von Manstein met again with Hitler and stated that either Heeresgruppe Süd had to retreat to the Dnepr to avoid destruction, or the OKH had to immediately send 12 fresh divisions to reinforce it. Hitler was always reluctant to cede territory, but he had very few reinforcements to offer, so on 8 September he agreed to allow AOK 17 to finally abandon the Kuban in order for its troops to be sent to reinforce AOK 6. However, it took another week of heavy fighting and the realization that Hollidt’s AOK 6 was in immediate danger of being encircled and destroyed to finally convince Hitler to change his mind. During the 10 weeks between the start of Zitadelle and the loss of Stalino, Heeresgruppe Süd had suffered over 185,000 casualties, including 51,000 dead or missing – the Third Reich simply could not afford to replace these losses in a timely manner. With Hitler’s grudging approval, on 15 September von Manstein finally ordered his four armies to begin withdrawing to the Panther Stellung behind the Lower Dnepr River and the Wotan Stellung at Melitopol. The later city needed to be held, even though it was on the east side of the Dnepr, because it protected the land route to the Crimea, which Hitler wanted to hold. In his mind, the Panther-Wotan Stellungen were impregnable positions, even though he had only authorized construction four weeks before and no work had even begun on any fortifications.

Retreats are painful and even worse if the enemy is actively pursuing. Many of the German tanks that were damaged or awaiting repair had to be blown up, including 20 of Fechner’s brand-new Panthers.^{175} A total of 80 Panthers were lost in September, mostly due to mechanical defects that forced their crews to abandon them.^{176} Discipline in some German units began to slip during the retreat as troops availed themselves of liquor from supply depots that were going to be abandoned. Other troops simply went missing. Von Manstein’s forces had to retreat 150km or more to get behind the Dnepr and then cross at one of six bridges. The German infantry divisions relied on horses and carts to move their artillery and supplies, which meant that they could not outrun fast-moving armour units equipped with T-34s. This discrepancy in tactical mobility meant that most of the German Panzer-Divisionen would have to conduct rear guard actions in order to buy time for the slower-moving formations to retreat to the Dnepr. However, von Manstein also recognized that he needed to get some forces to the main crossing sites over the Dnepr – at Kiev, Kanev, Cherkassy, Kremenchug, Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhe – as soon as possible in order to prevent the Soviets from seizing any of these with a coup de main. Thus, von Manstein was on the horns of a dilemma about the best use of his armour during the retreat – to protect his infantry or to protect the crossing sites. Von Manstein decided to deploy all of the III. and XXXXVIII Panzerkorps to conduct a major delay operation at Poltava with four Panzer-Divisionen (3., 6., 7., 11.) and four Panzergrenadier-Divisionen (Wiking, Das Reich, Totenkopf and Großdeutschland) in order to give his slower-moving forces more time to withdraw. However, the 19.Panzer-Division was ordered to retreat straight to Kiev and then spread out to defend the far side of the river. Hoth was ordered to retreat toward Kiev, Kanev and Cherkassy, then spread out quickly to defend the various crossing sites. Wöhler’s AOK 8 was to head for Kremenchug, but assist with the delay at Poltava. Von Mackensen’s PzAOK 1 would head for Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhe, while Hollidt’s AOK 6 would retreat to Melitopol. As the retreat began, it began to rain heavily, further slowing the Germans down.

The Stavka had been expecting von Manstein to retreat to the Dnepr at any time and once indications of withdrawal were detected by Soviet aerial reconnaissance, Stalin issued orders directly to the fronts for the advance to the Dnepr. Five fronts surged toward the Dnepr with over two million troops and 2,000 tanks. Vatutin would head for Kiev and the Dnepr Knee and was provided Rybalko’s partly-refitted 3 GTA (7 GMC, 9 MC, 6 GTC, 7 GTC, 91 TB) to act as a mobile group (podvizhnyi grupp) in the drive toward the Dnepr from the Romny area. Although Rybalko only had about 50 per cent of his authorized tanks and one of his motorized brigades had no trucks, it was still a powerful force with over 300 tanks. Both Katukov’s 1 TA and Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA had been temporarily pulled back to refit after weeks of heavy combat, leaving Rybalko’s half-strength tank army as the only large mechanized formation available for the time being. Konev was ordered to head for Kremenchug, Malinovsky for Dnepropetrovsk and Tolbukhin for Melitopol. While all these fronts received additional reinforcements from the RVGK, ammunition and fuel stockpiles at the front were very low after weeks of heavy combat and this impaired the ability of the Red Army to conduct high-tempo mobile operations for more than a few days.^{177} Nor did the Red Army logisticians have the means of moving large amounts of supplies forward, due to shortages of trucks and the damage inflicted upon the rail lines by the retreating Germans. In terms of engineer support, the fronts moving toward the Dnepr had five pontoon bridging brigades and three heavy pontoon regiments, but the problem was that the ‘scorched earth’ tactics used by the Germans made it difficult to push these cumbersome support units forward to where they needed to be and the insufficient amount of fuel available was mostly going to combat units.^{178}

Recognizing the difficulty of crossing the Dnepr, the Stavka began preparing several airborne brigades to support an assault crossing of the Dnepr. Vatutin was given operational control over a provisional airborne corps (1st, 3rd and 5th Guards Airborne Brigades) with 10,000 paratroopers and the authority to employ them. On the night of 19–20 September, Rybalko’s 3 GTA began advancing toward the Dnepr, with Podpolkovnik Trofim F. Malik’s 56th Guards Tank Brigade as the advance guard. The Stavka believed that the Germans would have all the major crossing sites well defended (a false assumption, as it turned out) so Rybalko was ordered to head for the so-called ‘Dnepr Knee,’ a great bend in the river south of Kiev and near the Kanev crossing site. Soviet partisans had reported that there were no German forces in this area and the Stavka hoped that Rybalko could ‘bounce’ this undefended section of the Dnepr before the Germans arrived.

Nehring’s XXIV Panzerkorps retreated toward Kanev with the 10.Panzergrenadier-Division, Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 239 and elements of three battered infantry divisions. Unknown to him, Rybalko’s armour was coming up fast behind him, but Nehring did not opt to conduct any delaying actions. Oberst Hans Källner’s 19.Panzer-Division crossed the Dnepr at Kiev on 20 September, the first of von Manstein’s armoured units to regain the western bank. Even before Källner’s division was assembled in Kiev, he was ordered to dispatch his reconnaissance battalion to the Dnepr Bend to look for any signs of Soviet crossing activity. Meanwhile, the III. and XXXXVIII Panzerkorps fought a bitter – and futile – delaying action at Poltava on 20–22 September against Konev’s forces, before abandoning the city on 23 September.

Rybalko’s armour advanced rapidly and covered 165km in a single day; by the evening of 21 September his lead units were approaching the Dnepr Bend. Then his tanks ran out of fuel, just short of the river. General-major Mitrofan I. Zin’kovich, commander of the 6 TC, frantically radioed Rotmistrov and requested an emergency fuel resupply of 20–30 tons of diesel.^{179} Some of the Soviet infantry travelling as desant troops with Malik’s brigade continued on foot to the river and the 95-man Submachinegun Company used a few small boats to cross near Grigorovka, north of Kanev, before dawn on 22 September. This tiny force was soon reinforced to battalion-size. Shortly thereafter, small numbers of infantry from General-polkovnik Kirill S. Moskalenko’s 40th Army’s 309th Rifle Division also crossed the Dnepr at Rzhyshchiv, 25km to the west. These initially non-contiguous lodgements of 3 GTA and 40 A were thereafter collectively known as the Bukrin bridgehead. The Bukrin area was heavily wooded and isolated. There were no German troops in the area, but Rittmeister Helmut von Moltke’s Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 19 had been assigned to conduct screening operations in this sector and was already en route. Rybalko’s troops were the first to cross the Dnepr, but unless he could quickly get tanks and artillery across, the Germans would move against the tiny Bukrin bridgehead and crush it. At Grigorovka the Dnepr was 600–800 meters wide and 8 metres deep, so tanks could not cross without pontoon bridges or ferries, which would take days to prepare.

It took the Germans about 24 hours to realize that the Soviets had already gained a toehold across the Dnepr at Bukrin, but once this was confirmed by von Moltke’s reconnaissance troops on the afternoon of 23 September, Källner was ordered to move a reinforced Kampfgruppe (two Panzergrenadier battalions, one artillery battalion, one tank company and a few Panzerjägers and pioniers) from his division to conduct a counter-attack. Nehring’s XXIV Panzerkorps, still crossing at Kanev, was also ordered to send a Kampfgruppe from 57.Infanterie-Division to Kanev. On the night of 23–24 September, Rybalko and Moskalenko conducted a ‘mass crossing’ of the Dnepr with thousands of troops moving to the opposite shore on rafts and fishing boats or simply swimming. By 24 September, Moskalenko and Rybalko had enough troops on the west side of the Dnepr to expand their bridgehead to a depth of 3–4km and pushed back von Moltke’s screening troops. General-major Zin’kovich personally decided to cross into the bridgehead with some of his infantry (an odd choice for a tank corps commander), but he was mortally wounded by a Luftwaffe air attack that struck the crossing site.^{180}

However, the main Soviet play came that evening, when Vatutin decided to commit the airborne troops to reinforce and expand the bridgehead. The airborne operation was a three-star mess from the beginning, starting with a 24-hour delay due to weather and logistical problems, then shortages of transport aircraft. Instead of committing all three brigades (which would have delayed the operation further), Vatutin decided to go with two brigades and the last-minute planning changes led to chaos. At 1930 hours on 24 September, the Soviet transports began dropping paratroops from the 3 GAB and 5 GAB southwest of the Bukrin bridgehead. The drops were badly scattered and most of the 4,575 paratroops who jumped missed their drop zones; instead they landed on top of the Panzergrenadier-Regiment 73, which by the fortunes of war was just arriving in sector. With the sky full of white parachutes, the Panzergrenadiers had a field day and engaged the paratroopers with automatic weapons and light flak. In the first 24 hours, the Germans captured or killed 901 paratroopers and the airborne operation failed to reinforce the Bukrin bridgehead.^{181}

Nehring tried to organize a counter-attack against the Bukrin bridgehead as quickly as possible, but he only had part of the 19.Panzer-Division and part of 57.Infanterie-Division, which he felt was insufficient to overrun the enemy position. In fact, the Soviets had not yet succeeded in bringing more than a few heavy weapons across the Dnepr and no tanks, so the Soviet position was still quite tenuous. However, the Germans were not sure exactly how many Soviet troops were in the bridgehead and Nehring decided to wait for further reinforcements. Von Manstein sent him Kampfgruppen from the 7.Panzer-Division and 20.Panzergrenadier-Division, but this delayed the counter-attack until 29 September. The Soviets used this week-long respite wisely, digging in their infantry and using a small number of pontoons to begin ferrying tanks and artillery across the river on 26 September. By the end of that day, Rybalko had 14 tanks and 18 120mm mortars on the western side of the river and Moskalenko was able to push 17 tanks, 27 76.2mm guns and 51 45mm anti-tank guns across on the first day.^{182}

Just before the German counter-offensive began, von Knobelsdorff’s XXXXVIII Panzerkorps assumed command over all German formations in the Kanev-Bukrin sector, which was not a very bright idea since all the preparations for the counter-attack had been done by Nehring’s staff. The German counter-attack on 29–30 September inflicted over 2,800 casualties on the defenders and regained some ground, but was shocked to encounter dug in anti-tank guns and tanks. Air attacks by Fliegerkorps VIII succeeded in destroying one Soviet pontoon bridge, but this was soon rebuilt. Even worse, the Germans discovered that the Soviets had crammed elements of 19 rifle divisions into the Bukrin bridgehead.^{183} Consequently, von Knobelsdorff decided to shift to the defensive and bombard the bridgehead with his artillery in order to conserve his own forces.

Meanwhile, the III. Panzerkorps succeeded in crossing the Dnepr in orderly fashion at Cherkassy and Wiking moved to the west bank on 27 September. However, the situation with XI Armeekorps and XXXXVII Panzerkorps at Kremenchug was much more chaotic, due to traffic jams at the bridges. Amazingly, the Soviet VVS failed to bomb these packed German formations awaiting to cross, which could have inflicted great slaughter. Yet even before all of the German forces had crossed, Konev’s pursuing forces managed to seize toeholds across the Dnepr south of Kremenchug; on the night of 25–26 September at Uspenka and on 27–28 September at Deriyivka. Wöhler’s AOK 8 had not yet had time to create a continuous front behind the Dnepr and were particularly thin in this sector: only the much-depleted 106. Infanterie-Division was nearby and it could do little to prevent the 7 GA from expanding its bridgeheads. Even worse, Konev’s bridgeheads were near the boundary between Wöhler’s AOK 8 and Mackensen’s PzAOK 1. By the time that the Germans rushed the SS-Kavallerie-Division and Kampfgruppen from 23.Panzer-Division and Großdeutschland to this sector, the Soviets were already poised to break out and push southwest. German efforts to establish a viable defensive perimeter around the Soviet bridgeheads were hindered by the severe lack of infantry. Unit commanders were forced to start cannibalizing their rear area support troops and staff to refill depleted infantry units, which noticeably reduced the operational efficiency of the Wehrmacht.

Von Mackensen managed to conduct a fairly orderly crossing with PzAOK 1 at Dnepropetrovsk, but he was ordered to hold a bridgehead on the east side of the Dnepr at Zaporozhe with his XXXX Panzerkorps in order to protect the Dnepr dams. This dam provided hydroelectric power that was important for German war industries in the region, including tank repair facilities at Dnepropetrovsk amd Nikopol. Furthermore, Hitler did not want to completely abandon the east bank of the Dnepr and was still toying with fanciful ideas about future offensives to reconquer the Donbas. Consequently, von Mackensen was forced to keep six divisions of his PzAOK 1 on the east bank, including most of 9.Panzer-Division, where they could be relentlessly pounded into ruin by Malinovsky’s 3rd and 8th Guards Armies. In order to stiffen the anti-tank capability of XXXX Panzerkorps, the Germans scraped together an ad hoc Kampfgruppe under Major Georg Baumunk from the remnants of schwere Panzerjäger-Regiment 656 and Sturmpanzer-Abteilung 216, consisting of 12 repaired Ferdinands and 13 Sturmpanzers. Major Gerhard Willing’s s. Pz.Abt.506 also arrived from Germany with 45 new Tigers to reinforce the Zaporozhe bridgehead. Baumunk’s Ferdinands and Willing’s Tigers repulsed repeated Soviet attacks on the bridgehead for three weeks. Malinovsky committed the 23 TC and 1 GMC to overrun the bridgehead. On 10 October, Baumunk’s Ferdinands repulsed a major Soviet armoured attack, claiming 48 enemy tanks destroyed. Yet despite the excellence of the Ferdinand and Tigers as defensive weapons, the Soviet artillery gradually pulverized the German infantry positions and PzAOK 1 was forced to evacuate the Zaporozhe bridgehead on 15 October.^{184} Willing lost seven Tigers in the bridgehead battle and most of the remainder were damaged, leaving only seven out of the original 45 operational.

Similarly, Hollidt’s AOK 6 (which was now subordinate to Heeresgruppe A), was forced to hold Melitopol in the vain hope of protecting the rail link to the Crimea. Hollidt’s forces reached the illusory Wotan Stellung on 20 September and were shocked to find no prepared defences. All troops, including Panzertruppen, were ordered to dig in immediately. Unteroffizier Erich Hager, a Pz IV crewmen in the II.Pz. Rgt. 39 in 17.Panzer-Division, recounted digging in every night and fending off Soviet probing attacks every day. The weather was already turning cold due to frequent drenching rain and Hager wrote, ‘we look like pigs’.^{185} German front-line morale was increasingly brittle. Tolbukhin’s forces soon arrived near Melitopol in strength and on 26 September, began a massive assault against AOK 6’s left flank with the 5th Shock Army and 44th Army. This sector was held by the battered IV Armeekorps, which included two Luftwaffe Feld-Divisionen. Tolbukhin committed the 11 TC, 20 TC and 4 GMC against IV Armeekorps, along with a large amount of infantry and artillery. In order to prevent a breakthrough, Hollidt rushed the 17.Panzer-Division to this sector and in five days of heavy fighting, the Germans claimed to have destroyed 181 enemy tanks.

The OKH dispatched forces to reinforce Hollidt, including the I./Pz.Rgt. 2, intended for the 13.Panzer-Division; this battalion was the first equipped with the Panther Ausf A model. The Panther Ausf A incorporated a number of minor product improvements that had been unable to include in the original Ausf D model, but it still possessed the same reliability issues. On 10 October, the new Panthers were committed to a counter-attack to repulse a local breakthrough by the 20 TC and 4 GMC, which resulted in the ‘tank battle of Oktoberfeld.’ As usual, the superior firepower of the Panthers inflicted punishing losses on the opposing T-34s – the Germans claimed about 60 knocked out – but numerous Panthers dropped out with mechanical defects. Despite heavy losses, the Soviets were often able to recover their damaged tanks and they kept pounding at AOK 6’s front throughout October. Hollidt was finally forced to yield Melitopol on 23 October and Tolbukhin made a massive push that sent AOK 6 in pell-mell retreat for the Dnepr. While two German corps retreated toward Nikopol, the XXXXIV Armeekorps (Gruppe Becker) retreated toward Kherson with the 13.Panzer-Division, the Panther battalion and two infantry divisions. The Panthers were particularly useful during the retreat, keeping 4 GMC’s armour at bay and preventing the Soviets from cutting off the escape of Gruppe Becker. Although Gruppe Becker succeeded in crossing safely at Kherson, very few Panthers of the I.Pz.Rgt. 2 were still operational. The IV and XXIX Armeekorps were less fortunate, in that rather than crossing at Nikopol, Hitler ordered them to remain on the eastern bank to protect the manganese ore mines near Nikopol; fighting for the Nikopol bridgehead would continue for nearly 100 days.[38]

In the north, the PzAOK 4 finally evacuated its Kiev bridgehead by 30 September and repulsed several efforts by Vatutin’s forces to cross the Dnepr north of Kiev. On 5 October, the 38th Army managed to seize a small bridgehead at Lyutezh, 25km north of Kiev, which was reinforced with three rifle divisions in a week. For his part, von Manstein regarded the swampy terrain north of Kiev as unsuitable for armour and did not attach much importance to the Lyutezh bridgehead. Instead, he ordered the XIII Armeekorps to seal off the bridgehead with two infantry divisions and directed Hoth to position the 7. and 8.Panzer-Divisionen nearby as mobile reserves, just in case. By the beginning of October, von Manstein was focused on crushing the Bukrin bridgehead and containing Konev’s lodgement south of Kremenchug. The Stavka was equally intent upon transforming these tactical successes into the springboard for a major operational victory and ordered Konev and Vatutin to attack as soon as they had sufficient forces across the Dnepr.

Vatutin moved an artillery division to support the Bukrin bridgehead and on 24 October he began a major effort to break through the XXXXVIII Panzerkorps’ perimeter. The Soviets were able to gain a little ground, assisted by river crossings on both flanks, but the Germans moved up the Das Reich and the 11.Panzer-Division to reinforce the defence. In very heavy fighting, the Soviet offensive was stopped cold and the Germans claimed 140 enemy tanks knocked out. By late October, Vatutin realized that the German defences were too strong at Bukrin and he ordered his forces in the bridgehead to shift to the defence. On 20 October, the Stavka also decided to redesignate the Soviet fronts: Vatutin’s Voronezh Front became the 1st Ukrainian Front, Konev’s Steppe Front became the 2nd Ukrainian Front, Malinovsky’s Southwestern Front became the 3rd Ukrainian Front and Tolbukhin’s Southern Front became the 4th Ukrainian Front.

While Vatutin’s front was stymied, Konev enjoyed the greatest success from his bridgeheads located between Kremenchug and Dnepropetrovsk. When looking at the German Lage Ost (Situation East) maps for 1 October 1943, it appears that von Manstein had succeeded in creating a continuous line behind the Dnepr and that the few small Soviet bridgeheads were highly vulnerable to the converging German Panzer-Divisionen. However, in order to create this continuous front, von Manstein had to spread his depleted armoured units out across an 800km-wide front – his only reserves were whatever unit was inbound on the next train from France or Germany. In the Uspenka-Deriyivka sector (which was soon known as the Myshuryn Rog bridgehead), the PzAOK 1’s LII Armeekorps had the 23. Panzer-Division and Großdeutschland backing up two infantry divisions. While the presence of these units probably appeared sufficient to Hitler in Rastenburg, Großdeutschland only had 15 operational tanks (including five Tigers) and 23.Panzer-Division had seven tanks, nine SPWs and 1,100 infantry left.^{186} Even worse, so many trucks had been lost in the retreat that panzer units were forced to borrow horses and wagons from nearby infantry units to conduct their resupply operations. Combat damage, worn-out equipment and mechanical defects had reduced almost all of von Manstein’s armoured units to minimal combat effectiveness. Further diluting their combat power, the remaining panzers were spread out to reinforce the weakened infantry, meaning that in order to employ anything larger than a tank platoon in any sector, the Germans were forced to strip other sectors of armoured support. The Soviets were quick to notice this new German weakness and began attacking sectors that had been denuded of armour. On 2 October, Konev’s infantry expanded their bridgehead and captured Myshuryn Rog; it took two days for 23.Panzer-Division to organize a counter-attack, which amounted only to a company of pioniers, some tanks and SPWs. By this time, Konev had a bridge built over the Dnepr near Borodaivka, on the eastern side of the Myshuryn Rog bridgehead, and was pushing tanks across. Furthermore, on 3 October, Konev received Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA, which had spent three weeks refitting in the rear. Rotmistrov stealthily moved his tank army 200km forward to the Dnepr in night marches, to avoid Luftwaffe reconnaissance.

Through great effort by the Instandsetzungsgrupe, the 23.Panzer-Division was able to repair 15 tanks by 7 October, including some of Fechner’s Panthers.^{187} General der Panzertruppe Friedrich Kirchner, commander of LVII Panzerkorps, decided to commit both the 23.Panzer-Division and Großdeutschland to a joint counter-attack at Annovka and Borodaivka, in order to threaten the Soviet bridge site. On 8 October, Fechner’s Panthers attacked Soviet infantry at Annovka and managed to knock out three T-34s and 11 anti-tank guns, without loss. However, Großdeutschland’s attack on 9 October was poorly organized and five Tigers advanced toward Borodaivka without close infantry support. On this occasion, the Tiger’s powerful main gun and thick armour did not save them; all five tanks were surrounded and picked off at close range by concealed anti-tank guns and infantry tank destroyer teams. At least two crews were captured, the rest killed – a net loss of 25 Tiger crewmen.^{188} Following this disaster, the German counter-attacks diminished somewhat, which allowed Konev a breathing space to begin moving the lead elements of Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA into the Myshuryn Rog bridgehead on the night of 14–15 October.

On the morning of 15 October, the Soviet 37th Army and 7th Guards Army attacked the thinly-held German perimeter south of Myshuryn Rog with four guards airborne divisions and three rifle divisions, following a massive artillery preparation. Rotmistrov was only able to contribute the 7 MC and part of 18 TC on the afternoon of the first day of the offensive.^{189} Vormann’s 23.Panzer-Division was holding this sector with the depleted Panzergrenadier-Regiment 128 and divisional pioniers, but they were quickly overrun by this avalanche of men and tanks. Vormann committed his eight remaining tanks, but lost three Pz IVs when they encountered JSU-152 self-propelled guns and a wall of anti-tank guns. The remaining five German tanks retreated and Vormann’s other Panzergrenadier-Regiment was nearly surrounded by Soviet armour, so the entire 23.Panzer-Division fell back. Although seven of Rotmistrov’s T-34s were knocked out in the opening skirmishes, the German tankers noted that Soviet tanks had learned to use dead space to manoeuvre in order to reduce their vulnerability to anti-tank fire.^{190} The Red Army was learning.

On 16 October, Rotmistrov brought the rest of 18 TC and 29 TC across the Dnepr and pressed the attack, quickly forcing the 23.Panzer-Division back, which created a 10km-wide gap in the German front. A Soviet tank brigade pressed into the gap, overrunning the 23.Panzer-Division’s Flak-Bataillon, then pushing on to attack Großdeutschland’s divisional command post. Although Vormann managed to gather up three Panthers and three Pz IVs to conduct a mobile screen in the gap, they offered little serious resistance to Rotmistrov’s mass of armour. By the third day of the offensive, Rotmistrov’s armour had achieved a clear breakthrough and surged forward to overrun Vormann’s command post and support units in Popel’naste. Although the Germans claimed to have knocked out many of Rotmistrov’s tanks, the fact is that Soviet tanks were roaming in the rear areas, shooting up German support units. Both 23.Panzer-Division and Großdeutschland were forced to abandon many damaged tanks at workshops, leaving them with a combined total of about 12–15 operational tanks. Rotmistrov kept the pressure on, continuing to advance at night, in order to prevent the Germans from forming a new line. Soon, Kirchner’s LVII Panzerkorps headquarters was threatened by Soviet tanks and had to flee, causing a disruption in German C² at a critical moment. Panic set in, as German support units fled rearward without orders – not unlike French troops in May 1940. It just got worse and worse for PzAOK 1, as Rotmistrov’s armoured fist exploited rapidly to the south. In life, there are few experiences as exhilarating as an armoured pursuit of a broken enemy and this must have been a heady moment for Rotmistrov’s tankers, as well as sweet revenge for Prokhorovka.

Vormann’s 23.Panzer-Division tried to mount a defence of the rail station at P’yatykhatky, but this effort fell apart and Soviet tanks reached the virtually undefended town at 2030 hours on 18 October. At the train station, the Soviet desant troops on the T-34s discovered flatcars loaded with 10 brand-new Tiger tanks, destined for Großdeutschland.^{191} Another train in the station was discovered loaded with wounded German troops, who were unceremoniously dispatched by the victorious Soviet Desantniki with grenades and small arms. Meanwhile, a massive column with over 3,000 German vehicles was fleeing from the as yet unoccupied southern side of the town. Spotting the escaping enemy, Soviet T-34s fired high explosive rounds into the column, inciting a panic.^{192} Vormann’s 23.Panzer-Division was wrecked, with only 10 tanks left, 30 men in Panzergrenadier-Regiment 126 and 29 in Panzergrenadier-Regiment 129. Having shattered the connection between PzAOK 1 and AOK 8, Konev was faced with the decision of whether to push west to Kirovograd to roll up AOK 8’s right flank or south to Krivoi Rog, to threaten PzAOK 1’s line of communications. He opted to split his forces and attempt to seize both objectives: Skvortsov’s 5 GMC and the 53rd Army would push toward Kirovograd while the 18 TC and 29 TC advanced to Krivoi Rog. The Germans were literally reeling from the Soviet armoured breakthrough and resistance was patchy, which allowed the 5 GMC to reach Novo Starodub on the Inhulets River on 22 October and the rest of Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA reached the outskirts of Krivoi Rog on 27 October. Mackensen’s PzAOK 1 was threatened with envelopment by the Soviet advance, which forced him to abandon Dnepropetrovsk on 25 October. Malinovsky’s 3rd Ukrainian Front swarmed across the Dnepr with three armies.

Time and again, the Germans proved themselves adept at recovering from tactical setbacks, just as the Soviets demonstrated great difficulty in logistically sustaining deep armoured penetrations. Fortuitously, Rotmistrov’s fuel supplies in his forward tank brigades dwindled just as the Germans received powerful armoured reinforcements from the West. Both the 14. and 24.Panzer-Divisionen had been destroyed at Stalingrad in February, but now eight months later they reappeared on the Eastern Front. These units were the first of a new breed of watered-down Panzer-Divisionen, each equipped with 49 Pz IV tanks and 44 StuG III assault guns, configured primarily for mobile defensive operations. Von Manstein directed both fresh Panzer-Divisionen to assemble in Kirovograd. Major Willing’s s.Pz.Abt.506 was sent from Zaporozhe to defend Krivoi Rog. The 11.Panzer-Division and Totenkopf were also moved to support this sector. General der Panzertruppe Sigfrid Henrici’s XXXX Panzerkorps took control over the bulk of these forces and began planning a counter-attack to cut off Rotmistrov’s spearheads. However, only a week before the German counter-offensive was to begin, Henrici was sent into the Fuhrer Reserve and the XXXX Panzerkorps was handed over to General der Gebirgstruppen Ferdinand Schörner, who was flown in from Finland. This was an amazing example of Hitler’s interference in tactical matters. Not only did Schörner have no experience with mechanized operations, but he also had no experience with combat in the main war zone in Russia. Yet Hitler had not chosen Schörner randomly. He was selected because of his fanatical command style and devotion to the Nazi regime. When the chips were down, Hitler chose political reliability over professional skill.

Only days after taking command, Schörner ordered the counter-attack to begin immediately, even though only parts of the 14. and 24.Panzer-Divisionen had arrived. On 28 October, Totenkopf kicked off the attack against Skvortsov’s 5 GMC with 5 Tigers and a handful of other tanks, while 11.Panzer-Division attacked Rotmistrov’s spearhead near Krivoi Rog. The next day, those parts of the 14. and 24. Panzer-Divisionen that were available joined in. Rotmistrov was caught flat-footed, not expecting to be struck by fresh enemy armoured divisions and his 5 GTA recoiled from Krivoi Rog after suffering heavy losses. The German armoured counter-attack plugged the gap between PzAOK 1 and AOK 8, but a great opportunity had been squandered by Schörner, who unimaginatively opted to push the enemy salient back, rather than cut it off. Had these four Panzer-Divisionen been properly coordinated, the XXXX Panzerkorps might have cut off and destroyed at least two of Rotmistrov’s three corps. Instead, Hitler and Schörner opted for an ordinary victory.

As October 1943 drew to a close, Konev and Malinovsky were across the Dnepr in strength, but Vatutin had been stymied for weeks. The Stavka recognized that the Germans had effectively contained the Bukrin bridgehead, but ordered Vatutin to instead shift his main effort to the tiny Lyutezh bridgehead north of Kiev. In order to provide an exploitation force, Vatutin ordered Rybalko on 25 October to shift his 3 GTA from the Bukrin bridgehead to Lyutezh. This was a very risky gambit and it would only work if von Manstein remained unaware that the mass of Vatutin’s armour had shifted northward. Under Zhukov’s critical eye, Vatutin employed the full range of Maskirovka tactics to deceive the Germans and Rybalko’s tanks were only allowed to move at night, under strict discipline. Rybalko used radio deception by leaving several rump command posts in the Bukrin bridgehead, pretending to represent the entire 3 GTA. Given that there were only three pontoon bridges over the Dnepr and a few ferries, it took Rybalko three nights to move the entire 3 GTA back to the east side of the river. However, fog and rainy weather prevented the Luftwaffe from noticing the transfer of Soviet armour. Rybalko’s tank army still had about 400 tanks but it had lost a great deal of its trucks, so it took two days for his forces to move 150km and reach the crossing over the Desna at Letki, then begin crossing into the Lyutezh bridgehead. By the morning of 2 November, Rybalko’s entire 3 GTA was assembled in the bridgehead and the Germans remained ignorant of this fact.

^{Soviet breakout from the Lyutezh Bridgehead and liberation of Kiev, 3–5 November 1943.}

By early November, Hoth’s PzAOK 4 had established a perimeter around the Lyutezh bridgehead with four badly-depleted infantry divisions (68, 82, 208, 327) from the XIII Armeekorps and the 88.Infanterie-Division from VII Armeekorps.^{193} Nearby, in reserve, Hoth had positioned Oberst Gottfried Frölich’s 8.Panzer-Division, which was a sad indication of what poor condition the Heer’s once-mighty Panzer-Divisionen had been reduced to by three years of near-continuous combat. Although Frölich’s division had a paper-strength of 13,665 troops on 1 November, he only had a total of 610 infantrymen in his four Panzergrenadier-Bataillonen and the pioniers, reconnaissance troops and Panzerjägers added another 545 troops. His sole tank battalion, I./Pz.Rgt.10, had 14 tanks, including seven Pz IV with long 7.5cm. The 8.Panzer-Division’s Panzerjägers were equipped with seven 7.5cm Pak, two 5cm Pak 38 and five 3.7cm Pak 36, while divisional artillery support consisted of three self-propelled Wespe (10.5cm), two 10cm cannons, two 15cm howitzers and nine 10.5cm howitzers. On the plus side, Frölich still had 64 SPWs and 828 trucks, so his remaining troops were fairly mobile. Frölich deployed Kampfgruppe Neise (all the Panzergrenadiers) and Kampfgruppe von Mitzlaff (I./Pz.Rgt.10, reconnaissance and one artillery battalion) as tactical reserves for the XIII Armeekorps.^{194}

At 0800 hours on 3 November, General-leytenant Kirill S. Moskalenko’s 38th Army began a massive 40-minute artillery preparation against the German infantry positions around the southern side of the Lyutezh bridgehead. Vatutin had also moved the 7th Artillery Corps within range of the bridgehead, as well as numerous Katyusha rocket batteries. The German front-line infantry in this sector were not expecting a major enemy assault and had not built deep fieldworks in the marshy ground near Lyutezh; consequently, the Soviet artillery bombardment wreaked havoc. At 0840 hours, six Soviet rifle divisions surged forward, supported by tanks from the 5 GTC. Sappers proceeded in front to remove enemy mines. Although dazed, the German infantry put up a tough fight and limited the initial Soviet push to a 3km advance.^{195} Frölich’s 8.Panzer-Division was slow to react and then managed only a few local counter-attacks. As the 38th Army committed its second-echelon forces, including additional armour, the German 68. and 82.Infanterie-Divisionen began to collapse, yielding another 4km. In an unusual move, Rybalko’s 3 GTA (6 GTC, 7 GTC, 9 MC) entered the battle at dusk and continued to advance forward during the night. On the second day of the offensive, drizzling rain deprived both sides of air support but also helped to conceal the fact that the Red Army had committed three tank and one mechanized corps to the breakout operation. Pounded relentlessly, the German XIII Armeekorps collapsed and the Soviet 51st Rifle Corps reached the outskirts of Kiev by the evening of 4 November. While 5 GTC followed Moskalenko’s 38th Army into the city, Rybalko’s 3 GTA swung to the southeast to cut the enemy road and rail links into the city. In order to conduct continuous operations, Rybalko ordered his tanks to drive through the night with headlights on, which enabled 7 GTC to cut the main road into Kiev before 8. Panzer-Division could block them.

By 5 November the 88.Infanterie-Division was virtually obliterated and the 8.Panzer-Division had been shoved rudely aside by Rybalko’s armoured mass. Hoth quickly realized that defending Kiev was now a hopeless task and focused instead upon saving the rail station at Fastov, where the 25.Panzer-Division was just arriving. He deployed the 7.Panzer-Division to block the 6 GTC, but it arrived too late and the Soviet tankers occupied the station. During the early morning hours of 6 November, a motorized infantry company fought its way to the centre of Kiev and raised the Red flag. Once the Germans realized that Soviet units were in the centre of the city they brusquely retreated to the south. Vatutin’s use of Rybalko’s 3 GTA to liberate Kiev demonstrated a vast advance in the Red Army’s practice of mechanized warfare and von Manstein was left chagrined at his failure to anticipate enemy actions. The fall of Kiev was the culmination of the Soviet Lower Dnepr offensive, which had seen Hitler’s plan to transform the Dnepr River into an impregnable bulwark completely frustrated. In the process, Heeresgruppe Süd had suffered crippling losses, amounting to about 170,000 personnel (including over 48,000 dead or missing) and over 500 tanks. Furthermore, only 44 per cent of German tanks on the Eastern Front – about 600 vehicles – were still operational.^{196} Nevertheless, this Soviet operational triumph did not come cheap, costing the Red Army at least 450,000 casualties and 1,800 tanks.

German counter-attacks near Kiev, 7 November-24 December 1943

Hitler was furious that Hoth had lost Kiev and he decided to replace him with General der Panzertruppe Erhard Raus. Von Manstein was also rapidly falling out of favour, but he argued with Hitler that it might be possible to conduct another ‘Backhand Blow’ counter-offensive against Rybalko’s 3 GTA and retake Kiev. It was true that strong armoured reinforcements were arriving on the Eastern Front, including the refitted 1.Panzer-Division and the LSSAH (now redesignated as a Panzer-Division), which were very powerful formations, each equipped with one battalion of Panthers and one of Pz IVs. In addition, the newly-formed 25.Panzer-Division was arriving from Norway and the new s.Pz. Abt.509 from Germany with more Tigers. These formations were all at full-strength and totalled 558 tanks, including 172 Panthers and 72 Tigers. Von Manstein also received Das Reich, which still had 33 tanks, including five Tigers. He decided to mass this incoming armour at Bila Tserkva and Berdichev under the control of XXXXVIII Panzerkorps and make a coordinated strike against Rybalko’s left flank at Fastov. Always eager to approve offensives that might restore the situation, Hitler quickly agreed to von Manstein’s recommendations. On the other hand, Hitler had issued Führer Directive 51 on the same day as the beginning of the Soviet breakout from the Lyutezh bridgehead; this edict shifted priority of replacements to the West in anticipation of an Allied amphibious invasion of France in 1944, which meant that von Manstein could not expect significant reinforcements beyond what was already en route.^{197}

Von Clausewitz, the Prussian military writer, spoke of ‘friction’ in war – an often indiscernible sequence of small events and factors that can gradually undermine an operational plan. It was this friction – some of which was self-inflicted – which caused von Manstein’s second attempted ‘Backhand Blow’ to fail. First, both Hitler and the OKH disrupted planning by shuffling commanders around, seemingly at random. General der Panzertruppen Heinrich Eberbach, commander of the XXXXVIII Panzerkorps, was replaced at the last moment by General der Panzertruppen Hermann Balck, who had been sent to command a corps at Salerno for a month then returned to the Eastern Front.[39] Second, Soviet partisans disrupted German rail traffic west of Fastov and many inbound units were arriving piecemeal and often unloaded at different rail stations, which seriously disrupted preparations to employ them in a coherent manner. Finally, enemy actions did not stop and PzAOK 4’s left flank had virtually fallen apart, allowing the Soviets to advance toward Zhitomir and Korosten. Ideally, von Manstein would have waited until all his units were fully assembled and prepared, but Vatutin was not going to give him that time. Now, von Manstein was forced to conduct a major armoured counter-attack in the manner that the Red Army had employed in 1941 – with sloppy staff work, poor logistics and units committed as they arrived. The decision to begin a major counter-attack during a rainy period when deep mud seriously hampered tactical mobility further impaired German capabilities.

In order to prevent Ivanov’s 7 GTC from over-running the German assembly areas, Raus committed the Das Reich, Kampfgruppe von Wechmar from the 25.Panzer-Division and s.Pz.Abt.509 to local counter-attacks south of Fastov on 9–13 November. Although the Germans claimed to have knocked out over 30 Soviet tanks in several days of tank skirmishing, the results were disappointing. In particular, s.Pz.Abt.509 lost seven Tigers destroyed and only had 14 operational by the time that von Manstein’s counter-offensive was supposed to begin.^{198} It was also obvious during the lead-up to the counter-offensive that the newly-arrived 25.Panzer-Division was a ‘soft’ unit that was not ready to be thrust into heavy combat; most of its personnel had been on occupation duty in Norway for years and its original commander, Generalleutnant Adolf von Schell, had no command experience and was in poor health. Guderian tried to stop him from going East with the division but he was overruled by the OKH; within a week, Schell was relieved of command. Indeed, Guderian tried to stop the entire division from being sent East since he believed that it was not combat-ready. In its first action, Kampfgruppe von Wechmar was sent to retake Fastov but panicked when attacked by T-34s and retreated in disorder, suffering heavy losses of men and vehicles.^{199}

An even worse development than Rybalko’s threat to the German assembly areas south of Fastov was that Vatutin achieved a major operational breakthrough west of Kiev and he sent General-leytenant Viktor K. Baranov’s 1st Guards Cavalry Corps (1 GCC) as a mobile group east toward the main German supply base at Zhitomir, followed by General-leytenant Kirill S. Moskalenko’s 38th Army. Moskalenko’s army included the 7th Guards Heavy Tank Regiment equipped with 21 of the new KV-85 heavy tanks, which were intended as a stop-gap until the new IS-2 and T-34/85 tanks arrived in early 1944. Frölich’s 8.Panzer-Division tried to block the Zhitomir-Kiev road, but they were forced to retreat by Baranov’s cavalry, whose own armoured support greatly exceeded this threadbare Panzer-Division.[40] On 13 November, the 1 GCC and 23rd Rifle Corps captured Zhitomir.^{200} The loss of Zhitomir was near-catastrophic since it was a vital rail junction and supply base; without it Heeresgruppe Süd’s line of communications were reduced to single track rail lines. Von Manstein and Raus were forced to reorient their counter-offensive from a classic pincer attack into more of a head-on engagement to retake both Zhitomir and Fastov. Deploying the LSSAH as a covering force near Brusilov to prevent interference from Rybalko’s 3 GTA, Raus sent the 1. and 7.Panzer-Divisionen to converge upon the 1 GCC at Zhitomir. Rybalko’s tanks sparred with LSSAH and repulsed an attempt to capture Brusilov, but otherwise failed to support the isolated 1 GCC, so tanks and Panzergrenadiers stormed Zhitomir on 20 November.

Raus then brought up the 19.Panzer-Division from the south to conduct a double envelopment of Rybalko’s armour at Brusilov, while LSSAH held their attention and 1.Panzer-Division shifted eastward to get around their northern flank. The terrain in the Brusilov area was heavily wooded and littered with ravines, which meant that most tank engagements occurred at ranges under 600 metres and rapid tactical movements were difficult. Once again, the Panther’s long 7.5cm gun easily defeated the T-34s, but mechanical defects sidelined over 50 of 1.Panzer-Division’s Panthers in less than a week of combat. On the night of 23–24 November, 1.Panzer-Division linked up with 19.Panzer-Division, thereby creating a small Kessel at Brusilov. The Germans claimed 3,000 enemy troops killed and 153 tanks destroyed in the pocket, but most of Rybalko’s forces slipped away before the pincers closed.^{201} At that point, rainy weather and logistical problems caused von Manstein to temporarily suspend the XXXXVIII Panzerkorps counter-attack on 26 November. Although Zhitomir had been recaptured, the Germans had accomplished very little given the scale of effort expended.

After a brief pause, the XXXXVIII Panzerkorps resumed its counter-attack on 6 December. By this point, the ground had hardened and the first snow arrived, which improved German tactical mobility. This time, the 1. and 7.Panzer-Divisionen and LSSAH tried to outflank the Soviet 60th Army at Radomyschl from the west, while Das Reich, 8. and 19.Panzer-Divisionen tried to envelop it from the southeast. However, the LSSAH’s panzers ran out of fuel on the second day of the attack, and trying to surround infantry in forested areas with tanks proved rather difficult. Eventually, the German armoured pincers closed and von Manstein claimed three Soviet rifle divisions had been ‘wiped out’ in the four-day Battle of Radomyschl, but based upon the paltry haul of prisoners this was a bald lie.^{202} Next, von Manstein decided to clear the area east of Korosten, where 38th Army had dug in around the town of Meleni. When Vatutin recognized that von Manstein was committing strong armoured reserves to a counter-offensive, he shifted his forces onto the tactical defensive, moving anti-tank and infantry units forward and pulling Rybalko’s armour back. The Red Army was learning how to be flexible in order to absorb German counter-attacks, rather than rigidly carrying on with a preconceived operational plan, as Timoshenko had done at Kharkov in May 1942. On 18 December, the LSSAH and 1.Panzer-Division attacked Soviet positions near Meleni but quickly ran into a wall of anti-tank guns and mines. For six days the XXXXVIII Panzerkorps kept attacking, but it could not create a Kessel and von Manstein was forced to suspend the counter-offensive on 20 December. Das Reich was so burnt out by the end of this operation that the bulk of the division was sent to rebuild in France, but a brigade-size Kampfgruppe with two Panzergrenadier-Bataillonen, two Panzer-Kompanien (15 tanks), the reconnaissance battalion, two self-propelled artillery batteries and a Pionier-Kompanie remained on the Eastern Front until April 1944.

Von Manstein claimed a significant tactical victory in the tank battles around Fastov, Brusilov, Radomyschyl and Meleni. He declared that Vatutin had lost 700 tanks in these battles and that Rybalko’s 3 GTA and the 38th and 60th Armies had been badly defeated. Again these were ridiculous exaggerations, intended to assuage Hitler’s anger about the loss of Kiev. In order to buttress his claims, two KV-85 tanks captured during the December counter-attacks were sent back to Germany as trophies, although these provided an ominous indication that the Red Army would field new tanks in 1944. In fact, Vatutin’s armour losses during this period were moderate because he did not allow Rybalko’s 3 GTA to become decisively engaged, instead parrying XXXXVIII Panzerkorps’ blows with his anti-tank units. Vatutin wanted to conserve 3 GTA for the exploitation role and instead relied upon the independent tank regiments attached to his infantry armies to support the defence. Von Manstein also ignored the fact that Soviet battlefield recovery techniques were improving, which meant that many tanks that were knocked out were salvaged and repaired. German recovery of damaged tanks was increasingly difficult due to the excessive amount of resources required to salvage 45-ton Panthers and 54-ton Tigers. During the counter-offensive, von Manstein failed to land any really solid blows upon Vatutin’s armour, which meant that the results were indecisive. Even worse, by 20 December, only 46 per cent of PzAOK 4’s armour was still operational (including 28 Panthers and 11 Tigers).^{203}

While XXXXVIII Panzerkorps was futilely pounding away at Vatutin’s infantry and anti-tank guns, Rybalko’s 3 GTA was receiving an infusion of fresh tanks and crews to restore its fighting strength. In addition, Katutov’s 1 TA (4 GTC, 11 GTC, 8 GMC) had been rebuilt to a strength of 42,000 troops and 546 tanks/self-propelled guns. Amazingly, the Red Army was able to restore the bridges and rail lines in Kiev in just three weeks and Katukov’s 1 TA was brought across the Dnepr by rail, thereby sparing the tanks the wear and tear of a long road march. By 20 December, Katukov’s 1 TA had been assembled behind Moskalenko’s 38th Army near Fastov.^{204} Vatutin intended to make his main effort against the German XXXXII Armeekorps near Brusilov, which was holding a 40km stretch of front with the 8., 19. and 25.Panzer-Divisionen; it was a mark of desperation that the Germans were holding a large chunk of front line with armoured units due to the limited amount of infantry available. Furthermore, PzAOK 4 was badly deployed, with the strongest formations, LSSAH and 1. Panzer-Division on the extreme left, near Korosten.

The morning of 24 December was overcast and it was raining. At 0600 hours, Moskalenko’s 38th Army began a 60-minute artillery preparation against the XXXXII Armeekorps, then attacked with ten rifle divisions supported by 200 tanks. The main Soviet effort struck the boundary between the 19. and 25.Panzer-Divisionen and quickly gained ground. Generalmajor Hans Källner’s 19.Panzer-Division had 16 operational tanks and eight self-propelled Panzerjagers, but only a few hundred Panzergrenadiers, so it was forced to fight a delaying action. The 25.Panzer-Division was considerably stronger, with 51 tanks and seven StuG IIIs, but its left flank was soon exposed and Källner fell back.^{205} The same thing happened to the 8.Panzer-Division, as its right flank was exposed. By nightfall, the centre of XXXXII Armeekorps was collapsing under the hammer-blows of infantry and tanks and its three Panzer-Divisionen had to keep fighting their way out of encirclements. Once it was clear that Moskalenko had achieved a tactical breakthrough, Vatutin committed both Katukov’s 1 TA and Rybalko’s 3 GTA to exploit – the first time that two tank armies had attacked simultaneously side-by-side. Caught by surprise, Raus tried to adjust his forces, but the Soviet armour moved much too quickly. By the third day of the Soviet offensive the XXXXII Armeekorps was falling apart and Raus had nothing to plug the gap. Raus focused on massing 1.Panzer-Division and LSSAH around Zhitomir, but Vatutin reoriented his tanks southward instead of westward, flowing around German strongpoints. By 30 December, the XXXXVIII Panzerkorps was nearly encircled in Zhitomir and PzAOK 4 had broken into three pieces, with large gaps in between. Raus abandoned both Korosten and Zhitomir and tried to mass his remaining forces around Berdichev. As the year ended, Vatutin had PzaOK 4 on the run and the German front was in complete chaos.

German accounts of this period of the war tend to emphasize tactical victories, where small numbers of German tanks knocked out much larger number of Soviet tanks. While there is some truth in these accounts, they are generally silent about German losses. These types of accounts also tend to miss the main point, that German armour was fighting delaying actions, not successful defensive operations, while the much-maligned T-34s were generally accomplishing their operational objectives. The fact is that by late 1943 the Panzer-Divisionen could no longer stop the Soviet ‘steamroller’, only delay it and increase the price of victories. Each retreat cost the Germans logistic resources that further degraded their ability to maintain combat-effective Panzer-Divisionen in the field and the breaking point was fast approaching. It is also important to note that the Panzer-Divisionen lost their freedom of manoeuvre in late 1943, due to being increasingly tied to the defence of critical sectors. Von Manstein no longer had a masse de manoeuvre.

There is no doubt that victory did not come cheaply for Vatutin’s and Konev’s fronts, which had suffered personnel casualties that exceeded 1 million (including 290,000 dead or missing) during July–December 1943, but they received a similar number of replacements. In the same period, the Red Army as a whole lost about 12,000 tanks, but 10,162 new tanks were built and about 7,000 damaged tanks repaired, which enabled the Soviets to maintain a 3–1 or better armoured numerical superiority over the Germans.^{206} In contrast, the Germans lost a total of about 2,800 tanks and 850 assault guns in the East during July–December 1943, against 1,954 tanks and 1,328 assault guns received as replacements or reinforcements.^{207} Indeed, only 60 per cent of German AFV production in this period went to the Eastern Front, the rest going to build up armoured units for the defence of Western Europe. Due to the loss of repair facilities in Dnepropetrovsk and Kiev, German support capabilities were severely disrupted: only half of the 2,053 German tanks on the Eastern Front on 31 December 1943 were operational.^{208} The personnel situation was even worse for von Manstein, with Heeresgruppe Süd having suffered over 372,000 casualties (including 102,000 dead or missing) in the last half of 1943, but receiving fewer than 200,000 replacements.

Beyond the crushing quantitative imbalance, the failure of the much-anticipated Panther tank to deliver a qualitative solution to the Red Army’s numerical advantage was a severe disappointment for the Panzer-Divisionen. Although the Panther’s long 7.5cm KwK 42 gun had proven itself, the new tank’s mechanical unreliability prevented it from making more than a local impression; at the critical moment in December 1943, only 28 of PzAOK 4’s 139 Panthers were operational.^{209}

Chapter 3

Armoured Operations in 1944

Heeresgruppe Nord retreats from Leningrad, 14 January–1 April 1944

For nearly three years, Heeresgruppe Nord had been holding its positions outside the city of Leningrad, with little change in the opposing lines. Although the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts had opened a land corridor to Leningrad with Operation Iskra in January 1943, a year later the Germans were still within artillery range of the city. Generalfeldmarschall Georg Wilhelm von Küchler commanded Heeresgruppe Nord from his headquarters in Pskov and he had two armies: AOK 18 holding the lines around Leningrad and AOK 16 deployed between Novgorod and Velikiye Luki. Given the static nature of warfare on the Leningrad sector, the OKH had stripped Generaloberst Georg Lindemann’s 18.Armee (AOK 18) down to the bone during 1943. Several Luftwaffe Feld-Divisionen were sent to this relatively quiet sector, which allowed Heer infantry divisions to be sent southward and AOK 18 received far fewer personnel replacements than other German armies. At the start of 1944, Lindemann had 20 divisions holding a 280km-long front. In terms of armour, AOK 18 had relied upon the Tigers from s. Pz.Abt. 502 to repel enemy attacks and this unit enjoyed a considerable amount of success outside Leningrad. Oberleutnant Otto Carius was one of the Tiger ‘aces’ who made a name for himself in this Stellungskrieg (positional warfare).

However, on 6 October 1943, the Soviet Kalinin Front launched a massive attack near the boundary of Heeresgruppe Nord and Heeresgruppe Mitte. The 3rd and 4th Shock Armies, with a total of 16 rifle divisions and 300 tanks, attacked the II.Luftwaffen-Feldkorps near Nevel and rapidly achieved a major breakthrough. Both AOK 16 and PzAOK 3 were compelled to commit all their reserves to this endangered sector, to prevent the Kalinin Front from driving a wedge between the two German army groups. Von Küchler had to send his only mobile reserve, the Tigers of s.Pz.Abt.502, to support a counter-attack intended to retake Nevel and crush the Soviet penetration. The fighting around Nevel dragged on indecisively for months, although the Germans claimed that 1,450 Soviet tanks were destroyed in this sector over the course of the battle.

Despite the distraction of the Nevel breakthrough, by late 1943 the OKH assessed that the Soviet Leningrad Front would eventually attack Heeresgruppe Nord’s AOK 18 in force, so Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner’s III.SS-Panzerkorps headquarters was sent to join Lindemann’s command in ealy December 1943, along with 11.SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Nordland and 4.SS-Panzergrenadier-Brigade Nederland. Despite their grandiloquent titles, these recently-raised Waffen-SS formations were of mediocre quality, consisting primarily of Volksdeutsche, and poorly equipped. The Nordland’s SS-Panzer Battalion 11 was supposed to be equipped with Panther tanks, but most proved defective and the battalion was still unready for combat in January 1944.^{1} A few of the immobilized Panthers were sent to the front and dug in as strongpoints. Instead, the Nordland had SS-Sturmgeschutz Battalion 11 with 42 StuG III and the Nederland brigade had a battery with 10 StuG III. In order to increase its anti-tank capabilities, AOK 18 had also formed Panzer-Zerstorer-Bataillone 477 and 478, each equipped with 20 of the new 8.8cm Panzerschreck rocket launchers. As a contingency plan, Heeresgruppe Nord began construction of the Panther Line on 7 September 1943; the line was intended to run from Narva, behind Lake Peipus to Pskov and Ostrov. By the end of December, some anti-tank ditches and fieldworks were in place, but the bulk of the fortification effort would not be completed until March 1944.^{2}

The main problem for AOK 18 was the Oranienbaum salient, which the Red Army had held since late 1941. This heavily-fortified salient was supplied by sea and forced AOK 18 to maintain at least a corps-size formation to contain it. Steiner’s corps was assigned to defend the southern side of the Oranienbaum salient, to prevent a link-up between the Soviet forces in Leningrad and the enclave. Nordland would serve as a mobile reserve for this critical sector. However, von Küchler and Lindemann were not particularly concerned about the Oranienbaum salient, which had been a quiet sector for two years. Instead, von Küchler and Lindemann focused on repelling a Soviet breakout from Leningrad toward the Pulkovo Heights. Once again, the Germans were let down by their poor intelligence support, which failed to note a shift in Soviet intentions. General-leytenant Leonid A. Govorov, commander of the Leningrad Front, was resolved to end the German threat to the city and to destroy AOK 18. Instead of attacking from the east, as he had tried in all previous offensives in 1941–43, this time Govorov decided to make his main effort from the Oranienbaum salient.

General-leytenant Ivan F. Fediuninskiy, a protégé of Zhukov, was put in command of the 2nd Shock Army, which consisted of seven rifle divisions, two tank brigades and three tank regiments. Fediuninskiy’s strike force was quietly moved into the Oranienbaum salient in late December; not all of this could be concealed, but the Germans failed to appreciate this as the Soviet main effort. Instead, the Germans focused on General-polkovnik Ivan I. Maslennikov’s 42nd Army, which was outfitted with nine rifle divisions, two tank brigades, six tank regiments and two artillery divisions. Golikov’s preparations were meticulous, and for once the Red Army was allowed adequate time for preparation. On the morning of 14 January, Golikov attacked. Fediuninskiy’s artillery commenced a massive artillery bombardment against the 9. and 10.Luftwaffe-Feld-Divisionen on the eastern side of the salient. Two Soviet battleships supported the attack, with 305mm naval gunfire. After smashing their positions with over 100,000 rounds in 65 minutes, Fediuninskiy then attacked with five rifle divisions and two tank brigades. Contrary to expectations, the Luftwaffe troops put up a stout defence that prevented an immediate breakthrough and enabled Nordland to send some reinforcements. At the same time, Maslennikov distracted the German L Armeekorps with a massive bombardment, which kept Lindemann from committing his limited reserves against Fediuninskiy’s 2nd Shock Army. As night fell, Fediuninskiy committed a mobile group consisting of Polkovnik Aron Z. Oskotsky’s 152nd Tank Brigade and two tank regiments to begin pushing toward the road junction at Ropsha.

On the morning of 15 January, Maslennikov’s 42nd Army attacked the L Armeekorps after another lengthy artillery bombardment and quickly achieved a 4km-deep penetration on the Pulkovo Heights. The breakthrough was assisted by the 36th and 49th Guards Tank Regiments, each equipped with 21 Churchill tanks. Meanwhile, Fediuninskiy smashed the remnants of the two Luftwaffe divisions but mobile group Oskotsky was stopped by a counter-attack from Nordland before it could reach Ropsha. Lindemann was able to organize local counter-attacks on 16–17 January that temporarily slowed the two Soviet armies that were advancing toward each other. Nordland employed its assault guns and mobile artillery to strike at the flanks of the Soviet penetration, but could not seal it off. Maslennikov formed a mobile group with the 1st and 220th Tank Brigades, but these were stopped north of Krasnoye Selo. However after five days of battle, the German defence began to crumble and the Soviet armies surged toward Ropsha. On 19 January, the 2nd Shock Army and 42nd Army fought their way into Ropsha, which isolated a number of German units and forced Lindemann to retreat. Adding to von Küchler’s problems, Meretskov’s Volkhov Front launched an attack against AOK 16 which overran a Luftwaffe division at Novgorod and threatened to unhinge AOK 18’s right flank, as well. Lindemann’s centre was pierced and both flanks were in retreat.

Hitler ordered von Küchler and Lindemann to stand fast, as help was on the way. He promised the transfer of the 12.Panzer-Division from Heeresgruppe Mitte and Panzer-Grenadier-Division Feldherrnhalle from France to reinforce AOK 18, but neither would arrive soon enough to prevent Golikov from completing his breakout. Instead, the only immediate help came from s.Pz. Abt.502, which sent its 3.Kompanie under Leutnant Herbert Meyer with 15 Tigers by rail on 19 January. By the time Meyer’s Tigers arrived at Gatchina on 20 January, the station was already under artillery fire and the lead elements of the 42nd Army were approaching. With the rest of the battalion still en route, Meyer’s Tigers were scooped up by a local commander who ordered him to advance northwest to assist elements of the L Armeekorps, which were under pressure from Soviet armour. With a platoon of four Tigers, Meyer promptly advanced in a movement to contact, completely ignorant of both the friendly and enemy situation. Advancing to the sound of gunfire, Meyer unexpectedly bumped into an enemy tank battalion with 20–30 tanks. The terrain around Leningrad is heavily wooded and the ensuing action must have occurred at short range; three of Meyer’s four Tigers were knocked out and abandoned. Meyer returned with his last Tiger to link up with the rest of his company north of Gatchina, assembling a blocking force on the main road to Leningrad. However, Meyer had no supporting infantry and when the 42nd Army came rolling down the highway the next morning, Kampfgruppe Meyer was quickly encircled. Although Meyer’s Tigers knocked out eight enemy tanks and six anti-tank guns, the situation was hopeless since fuel and ammunition were low. In desperation, Meyer committed suicide and all 11 of his Tigers were destroyed or captured.^{3} Without support, the Tiger was little more than a bunker.

With AOK 18’s front broken and the Soviets rolling inexorably toward the Luga River, von Küchler’s nerve cracked and he ordered both armies to retreat to the Panther Line, even though its fortifications were incomplete. Under heavy pressure, AOK 18 conducted a fighting retreat to the Luga River, while AOK 16 fell back about 30km. The remaining Tigers of s.Pz.Abt.502 assisted the AOK 18 in its withdrawal by turning to ambush the Soviet spearheads; on 25 January they claimed 41 Soviet tanks destroyed at Voyskovitsy, 5km southwest of Gatchina. However, German supply lines were disrupted by the retreat and resupply of fuel and ammunition became problematic. On 28 January, the Tigers made a brief stand at Volosovo while the infantry retreated to the Luga River. One lone Tiger was engaged by a battalion with 27 T-34s; despite having only three AP rounds and nine HE rounds, it managed to knock out seven T-34s and then fall back. Yet aside from the few remaining assault guns, Heeresgruppe Nord had almost no other armoured units to serve as a rearguard.

Von Küchler’s retreat order was unauthorized and Hitler immediately sacked von Küchler and decided to replace him with Generaloberst Walter Model, who had already made a name for himself as a steadfast commander. However, by the time that Model arrived in Pskov on 31 January, Heeresgruppe Nord was already in full retreat and Fediuninskiy’s 2nd Shock Army was on the outskirts of Kingisepp. Even worse, Model found that AOK 18 had barely 17,000 combat troops to hold the 115km-wide front on the Luga River, which was insufficient to repulse a determined offensive. Affecting a bold front, Model declared that Heeresgruppe Nord would employ Schild und Schwert (sword and shield) tactics to stop the Soviet steamroller. By this he meant limited tactical withdrawals to enable him to concentrate enough troops for local counter-attacks. Model ordered the establishment of large-scale stützpunkte at Narva and Luga, while combing out infantry replacements from Heeresgruppe Nord’s rear-area troops. He personally went to inspect the defences at Narva and decided to commit the remaining Tigers to reinforce Steiner’s III. SS-Panzerkorps’ defence, since the loss of Narva would fatally compromise the Panther Line.

Yet despite Model’s bravado, the Soviet steamroller kept right on coming, advancing up to 16km per day, overrunning Kingisepp on 1 February and then seizing bridgeheads over the Luga River. At Narva, Fediuninskiy’s 2nd Shock Army managed to cross the Narva River south of the fortress city, but was stopped by a fanatical defence by Gruppe Sponheimer. Other Soviet elements crossed the frozen Lake Peipus, but were quickly destroyed. Generalleutnant Erpo von Bodenhausen’s 12.Panzer-Division arrived by rail from Heeresgruppe Mitte and Model decided to use it in a Schild und Schwert effort to stop the 42nd Army on the Luga River. The 12.Panzer-Division had never been completely refitted from its losses in 1941 and could only field a single Panzer-Abteilung, equipped with a mix of Pz III and Pz IV tanks. In contrast, the Leningrad Front received additional armour for the breakout, included some of the new KV-85s and IS-1s. After a few failed counter-attacks, von Bodenhausen used his armour and Panzergrenadiers to slow the Soviet advance, but the 42nd Army still managed to capture Luga on 13 February. Any hope Model had for standing on the Luga were demolished when Popov’s 2nd Baltic Front joined the Soviet offensive on 16 February and its 1st Shock Army overran the AOK 16 position at Staraya Russa. With Hitler’s grudging acceptance, Model ordered all of Heeresgruppe Nord to retreat to the Panther Line. When the troops arrived at the designated positions, they were forced to dig fighting positions in the frozen, snow covered ground. One innovation that did help was the ‘trench plow,’ a large steel hoe that was towed behind a semi-track vehicle and used to rip open the ground.

Govorov focused most of his effort on Narva, hoping to capture the city and outflank the rest of the Panther Line. He decided to reinforce Fediuninskiy with the 8th and 47th Armies. General der Infanterie Otto Sponheimer commanded a mixed force of survivors at Narva, including the Nordland division, the Nederland brigade, four infantry divisions and s.Pz.Abt.502 (with 23 operational Tigers), as well as Estonian Waffen-SS troops and Luftwaffe troops. In early February, the Panzer-Grenadier-Division Feldherrnhalle arrived to bolster his command.[41] Narva was a formidable defensive position, located on a narrow isthmus between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Peipus, surrounded by marshes and forests. The city itself was located on the west side of the Narva River, which effectively served as a wide moat. While the Nordland division moved into the city, Oberleutnant Otto Carius and four Tigers were left as a rearguard on the east side of the river to gain time for the Waffen-SS troops to fortify their position. Model promptly arrived at this exposed position and personally told Carius, ‘I am holding you personally responsible that no Russian tanks break through.’^{4} Once the Nordland was dug in, Carius’ Tigers were allowed to retreat across the river and the bridge was blown up.

Rather ambitiously, the Soviets attempted a double envelopment of Gruppe Sponheimer at Narva, with the 47th Army crossing the Narva River north of the city at Riigi and Siivertsi and the 8th Army crossing south of the city at Krivasso. In addition, on 13–14 February the Soviet Baltic Fleet landed a battalion of naval infantry behind German lines on the Gulf of Finland. Somehow, Sponheimer was able to scrape together just enough of a reserve to deal with each Soviet attack. Otto Carius’ Tigers played a major role in defending Narva, first sending three Tigers to crush the amphibious attack on 14 February. Next, several Tigers assisted the Nordland in battering the northern Soviet bridgeheads on 18 February, then shifted to deal with the southern threat. While the Soviets came close to encircling Narva, the Tigers prevented the pincers from shutting and kept a narrow lifeline open. Soviet tanks crossed the river, but not in sufficient numbers to overcome s. Pz. Abt. 502, which was reinforced with 17 new Tigers in late February.

On 1 March, the Soviet 59th Army began a major offensive from the Krivasso bridgehead which created a substantial lodgement south of Narva. However, the Nordland division finally destroyed the small bridgeheads north of Narva, which allowed the Germans to shift the Feldherrnhalle division to block this southern threat. On 6 March, the Soviets heavily bombed Narva, turning it into a pile of rubble, then attacked across the river with 2nd Shock Army. On 17 March, the 59th Army attacked from the south to sever the main east-west rail line, but three Tigers under Carius managed to hold the thinly-manned HKL and destroyed 14 T-34s and 1 KV-1, which halted the attack.^{5} Instead of overwhelming Carius’ small force, the Soviets attacked piecemeal, with only company-size groups of tanks supporting a battalion of infantry. Despite heavy casualties, the German defence held and after two weeks of heavy fighting the Soviets ceased their attacks.

As the Soviet offensive ebbed, the OKH decided to mount a major counter-attack to try and eliminate the 59th Army’s Krivasso bridgehead. It was a decidedly low-budget affair. Oberst Graf von Strachwitz was sent to Narva to lead a Panzerkampfgruppe formed from the remaining Tigers and a handful of Panthers and Pz IVs scraped up from repair depots. Elements of three infantry divisions were also committed to the effort. On 26 March, Strachwitz attacked and in six days he managed to demolish the western side of the Soviet bridgehead. The 59th Army had not expected a tank attack and failed to establish effective anti-tank defences. Strachwitz resumed the counter-offensive in early April and achieved more success until the spring thaw brought a halt to his mobile operations. The Soviets still maintained a toehold at Krivasso, but the threat to Narva was temporarily reduced. Strachwitz’s counter-offensive inflicted about 12,000 casualties on the 59th Army and brought the Soviet steamroller to a halt.

By early April, the situation along the Panther Line had stabilized for Heeresgruppe Nord. The defence of Narva was difficult and resource-consuming, but the fanatical defence of the city brought Govorov’s advance to a halt. The Soviets became too engrossed with taking Narva, rather than pressing hard at other sectors of the Heeresgruppe Nord front. Consequently, the rest of AOK 16 and AOK 18 were able to establish a new defensive line on the border of Estonia, although the army group lacked mobile reserves. As it was, the Leningrad Front came close to breaking Heeresgruppe Nord in February and it was the lack of large armoured mobile groups that reduced the scale of the Soviet victory. With all the tank armies committed to the Ukraine, Govorov and Meretskov had to make due with combining various tank brigades and regiments into ad hoc groups, which was little better than the Red Army tactics of 1941–42. For the Germans, it was equally unnerving to realize how little armoured support they had when a positional campaign transitioned to mobile warfare.

The Evisceration of Heeresgruppe Süd, January–March 1944

There was no pause in Vatutin’s offensive as January 1944 began and his troops succeeded in capturing Berdichev and Belaya Tserkov by 5 January. Vatutin had created a large gap between Heeresgruppe Süd and Heeresgruppe Mitte north of Korosten, into which Vatutin sent three infantry armies, but he had no tanks for exploitation in this sector. Rybalko’s 3 GTA was reduced to only 59 operational tanks by 8 January and was soon pulled out of the line to refit, leaving Katukov’s 1 TA to continue the advance.^{6} During the first 10 days of January 1944, Vatutin lost 314 tanks and then another 294 in the next ten days. A steady stream of tank replacements kept Vatutin’s armour advancing, but just barely. Meanwhile, Zhukov directed Vatutin and Konev toward a singular goal, which was a massive pincer effort to push back both PzAOK 1 and PzAOK 4 in order to encircle and destroy the German salient near Cherkassy. Recognizing that the front was collapsing, von Manstein pleaded with Hitler to allow him to pull back from the Dnepr in order to create a new front, but this was refused. Hitler regarded the propaganda value of holding part of the Dnepr line as more important than the military value of conserving his remaining forces. Unable to withdraw, von Manstein opted to quietly begin shifting parts of Hube’s PzAOK 1 westward to shore up his broken left flank, held by the remnants of Raus’ PzAOK 4. Von Manstein conducted these transfers without authorization from the OKH and knowing that Wöhler’s AOK 8 would be hard-pressed to hold the right flank.

While Vatutin pushed Katukov’s armour toward the main German supply base at Uman and von Manstein’s headquarters at Vinnitsa, Konev began his own offensive against east of Kirovograd on the morning of 5 January. While the 5 GA and 53 Army achieved some success, Hube was able to prevent Konev’s first-echelon forces from breaking through his front and deftly used 11.Panzer-Division to mount local counter-attacks. Easily frustrated, particularly when Zhukov was looking over his shoulder, Konev committed Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA to the attack only two hours after the operation had begun.^{7} Rotmistrov’s armour ran straight into a still solid German defence and lost 139 tanks on the first day. Eventually, Konev shifted Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA to a more favorable axis on the second day of the operation, but continued to misuse his armour. Hube was force to evacuate Kirovograd on 8 January, but managed to not only maintain a coherent front, but also to transfer some forces to reinforce Raus’ PzAOK 4. Indeed, Hube was so steadfast that he was given command authority over the VII and XXXXII Armeekorps holding the Korsun salient on the Dnepr. Like von Manstein, Hube pleaded to evacuate the salient, but was ignored. Throughout mid-January, Vatutin and Konev continued to grind forward, slowly overwhelming one German-held town after another. Katukov’s 1 TA enjoyed the most success, threatening to overrun both Uman and Vinnitsa.

Although he was on the ropes, von Manstein recognized that the Soviet advance was slowing due to a combination of casualties and supply difficulties. He believed that if he could cut off and destroy Katukov’s armoured spearheads, Vatutin’s offensive would cease. With great difficulty, von Manstein managed to assemble a considerable counter-attack force consisting of the LSSAH, 16.Panzer-Division and 101.Jager-Division under von Vormann’s XXXXVII Panzerkorps by 21 January. Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke’s LSSAH had 50 operational tanks and 27 assault guns left (including 1 Tiger, 22 Panthers, 25 Pz IV), but its two Panzergrendier Regiments had barely 30 per cent of their authorized strength. The 16.Panzer-Division was one of the strongest formations in PzAOK 4, with more than 60 operational tanks, including 38 Panthers and 24 Pz IV. As an experiment, von Manstein ordered the formation of Schwere Panzer-Regiment Bäke (34 Tigers and 46 Panthers), which was formed from s.Pz.Abt.503 and parts of 6.Panzer-Division; this was the first time that Tigers and Panthers had been integrated in the same unit. At 0600 hours on 24 January, von Vormann’s strike force launched a slashing attack into Katukov’s right flank east of Vinnitsa. Although Katukov was surprised by the appearance of over 200 German AFVs, he quickly shifted anti-tank guns into this sector and ordered his troops to emplace mines, which made German heavy tanks move cautiously. Due to the disruption of logistical bases, Schwere Panzer-Regiment Bäke ran out of ammunition on the second day of the operation and fuel shortages were also a recurring problem. Breith’s III Panzerkorps (6. and 17.Panzer-Divisionen) was added to the counter-offensive, now dubbed Operation Vatutin, which culminated with several small encirclents on 30 January. Von Manstein claimed to have killed or captured 13,500 Soviet troops and knocked out 701 tanks and self-propelled guns.^{8} Von Manstein’s claims were slightly exaggerated; Soviet records indicate that Vatutin’s entire front lost 513 tanks and 146 self-propelled guns during the last 10 days of January, suggesting that von Manstein’s counter-attack probably accounted for 300–400 enemy AFVs.^{9} Furthermore, none of Katukov’s brigade commanders from either the 8 GMC or 11 GTC were casualties during this period, which one would expect if the bulk of 1 TA had been destroyed. Schwere Panzer-Regiment Bäke claimed to have knocked out 267 tanks in return for the loss of three Tigers and four Panthers, a purported 38–1 kill ratio. In fact, the German claims were nonsense. Operation Vatutin managed to temporarily force 1 TA onto the defensive and inflicted heavy material losses, but von Manstein’s inflated claims were made in order to conceal the fact that his counter-stroke failed to alter the deteriorating situation.

While von Manstein was focused on Katukov, Vatutin was forming a new tank army for his next operation. On 20 January, General-leytenant Andrei G. Kravchenko took command of 6th Tank Army, comprised of Volkhov’s 5 MC and Alekseev’s 5 GTC; it was not a full-strength formation, totalling just 160 tanks and 50 self-propelled guns.^{10} Volkhov’s 5 MC had recently been reequipped with Lend-Lease M4A2 Sherman tanks.^{11} On 26 January, Vatutin attacked the German VII Armeekorps with the 40th Army but his main effort failed to achieve a breakthrough. Surprisingly, a supporting attack against the over-extended XXXXII Armeekorps achieved a minor breakthrough and Kravchenko sent a mobile group under General-major Mikhail I. Savelev from 5 MC to exploit the gap. Savelev’s mobile group consisted of the 233rd Tank Brigade (equipped with Sherman tanks), a regiment of Su-76, a motorized rifle battalion and an anti-tank battery.^{12} However, Kravchenko was unable to send the rest of the 5 MC after Savelev, since Vatutin was concerned by Breith’s counter-attack against 1 TA and ordered Kravchenko to send part of the corps to reinforce Katukov. Consequently, Kravchenko’s 6 TA was reduced to barely 100 tanks just as it was achieving a major success.

Meanwhile, Konev renewed his offensive against Wöhler’s AOK 8 on 25 January and overwhelmed the over-extended 389.Infanterie-Division, then quickly committed Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA (20 TC, 29 TC) with 323 tanks. Rotmistrov’s armoured wedge also forced the burnt-out 14.Panzer-Division to retreat. After 24 hours of fighting, Rotmistrov was able to squeeze the 20 TC and 29 TC through a gap in the German lines and they pushed west against negligible resistance. Wöhler mounted a quick counter-attack with the 11.Panzer-Division (15 tanks and 15 assault guns) which temporarily succeeded in severing the line of communications behind the two advancing Soviet tank corps, but lacked the strength to do any more.^{13} By 27 January, Rotmistrov’s armour was rapidly pushing west and close to linking up with Savelev’s mobile goup. The only hope to reverse this dangerous situation was Major Glässgen’s I.Pz.Rgt.26 which had only arrived from Germany two weeks before, and it was quickly attached to XXXXVII Panzerkorps to cut off Rotmistrov’s spearheads. Although the battalion had not yet seen combat, it already lost a dozen tanks disabled with mechanical problems and the 75km march to its assembly area cost it another Panther destroyed by engine fire and four broken down.^{14} Clearly, the ‘teething problems’ associated with Zitadelle were still not resolved.

At 0600 hours on 28 January, the I.Pz.Rgt.26 attacked northward with 61 Panthers to Kapitanovka to link up with Major von Siver’s Panthers from 11.Panzer-Division. In complete disregard for combined arms tactics, the attack was begun without infantry, artillery, air support or even reconnaissance, so Glässgen’s inexperienced Panther crews moved blindly into a meeting engagement with an enemy of unknown strength. As it turned out, Konev had moved strong anti-tank units into this sector and General-major Vasily I. Polozkov’s 18 TC was in the process of reopening the road. The German attack was a four-star fiasco, with the Panthers being engaged repeatedly in flank by anti-tank ambushes; Major Glässgen and two of his company commanders were killed, 10 Panthers were destroyed and 18 damaged. Another 16 Panthers broke-down from engine defects, leaving I.Pz.Rgt.26 with just 17 operational Panthers. While Polozkov’s 18 TC lost 29 T-34s in the action, he succeeded in reopening the road to Rotmistrov’s two tank corps that were driving west.^{15}

On 28 January, Podpolkovnik Ivan I. Proshin was pushing his 155th Tank Brigade forward as fast as possible, as the advance guard of 20 TC. By the afternoon, his lead tanks had reached the town of Zvenigorodka, which was a German supply base. After scattering rear area troops, Proshin secured the town and around 1800 hours the lead Sherman tanks from Savelev’s mobile group arrived, which created a link-up between 6 TA and 5 GTA.^{16} A total of 59,000 German troops from the VII and XXXXII Armeekorps were now isolated in the Korsun pocket, comprising SS-Wiking, four infantry divisions (57, 72, 88 and 389) and two Sturmgeschütz-Abteilungen (228, 239). The German forces within the Korsun pocket were quickly redeployed for all-around defence and were redesignated as Gruppe Stemmerman, after General der Artillerie Wilhelm Stemmermann, commander of XXXXII Armeekorps. Amazingly, Hitler refused to allow Gruppe Stemmermann to conduct a breakout and ordered the Luftwaffe to begin an airlift and von Manstein to mount a ground rescue operation. It was Stalingrad all over again, on a somewhat smaller scale. Von Manstein was determined not to repeat the mistakes of Stalingrad, but it would take several days to organize a relief effort and, in the meantime, he had to create a new frontline in the vacuum south of the Soviet encirclement. Both Konev and Vatutin began pushing infantry units into the corridor to hold the ring around Gruppe Stemmermann, while the 29 TC advanced to expand the ring before the Germans could rush units to the new front.

Von Vormann’s XXXXVII Panzerkorps was able to organize a small relief effort fairly quickly with 11.Panzer-Division, which had 22 Panthers, three Pz IV and 13 assault guns, but just 1,000 Panzergrenadiers. A small Kampfgruppe from 13.Panzer-Division could also participate. On the morning of 1 February, von Vormann attacked and his Panthers easily sliced through two Soviet rifle divisions which had not yet dug in. In six hours, 11.Panzer-Division advanced 31km over the frozen terrain and reached the Shpolka River at Iskrennoye, less than 20km from Gruppe Stemmermann. However, when the Panthers attempted to cross a bridge over the river it collapsed, bringing the advance to a halt. Von Vormann was able to bring up pioniers to build a bridge for his StuG-IIIs, but AOK 8 lacked material to build a 60-ton pontoon bridge for the Panthers. Hitler also intervened in von Vormann’s relief operation, ordering him to wait since he was transferring the 24.Panzer-Division (which only had 17 tanks and 14 StuG IIIs) from the Nikopol bridgehead to reinforce him. Since this division was nearly 300km away and had to move via its own tracks, this was a remarkably stupid idea that helped to delay XXXXVII Panzerkorps when it had a brief window of opportunity. Instead, Hitler should have helped von Vormann to get bridging material forward, but the Führer was not interested in pontoon bridges. Instead, von Vormann paused at Iskrennoye, which allowed the Soviets to move the 29 TC and 49th Rifle Corps to block any further advance. Exacerbating von Vormann’s problems, temperatures rose to 5 degrees C (41 degrees F) which caused the ground to thaw, reducing mobility. Although von Vormann would continue to try and advance toward Gruppe Stemmermann for the next two weeks, he achieved no further significant advances.

^{German effort to relieve the Korsun Pocket, 1–16 February 1944.}

Meanwhile, von Manstein did not immediately cancel Operation Vatutin against Katukov’s 1 TA, but by 30 January he ordered Hube to transfer Breith’s III Panzerkorps to mount a second relief operation from the southwest, which was designated Operation Wanda. Due to the muddy roads caused by the thaw and the difficulty extracting armoured units from the ongoing battles, it took longer than expected to assemble Breith’s III Panzerkorps for Operation Wanda. Breith’s corps initially consisted of the 16. and 17.Panzer-Divisionen, Schwere Panzer-Regiment Bäke and s.Pz.Abt.506 with a total of 105 tanks (48 Panthers, 41 Pz IV and 16 Tigers) and 21 assault guns. On the morning of 4 February, both Panzer-Divisionen attacked side-by-side, with two infantry divisions in support. Although the Soviet 104th Rifle Corps put up tough resistance and mines hindered the German advance, Breith’s two Panzer-Divisionen were able to advance nearly 19km on the first day. Vatutin committed Kravchenko’s 6 TA and an anti-tank brigade to block Breith’s panzers on the Gniloy Tikich, which was normally a minor obstacle but now widened by rain and melting snow. By the second day of Wanda, Breith’s forces ran into Soviet armour and indecisive tank skirmishing cost both sides vehicles. Despite reinforcements from 1.Panzer-Division and LSSAH, Breith’s advance was brought to a halt for a week. The Soviets had learned that the way to halt a German armoured drive was to constantly attack both flanks of a salient, which forced the Germans to divert troops to prevent from being cut off. Although this cost Kravchenko’s 6 TA many of its tanks, Vatutin received regular replacements – unlike the Germans. Furthermore, the lack of engineer support made it difficult to get heavy tanks across the Gniloi Tikich and Bäke’s panzers ran out of ammunition and fuel by the second day of the operation. Breith blamed the mud for reducing his mobility, but this tended to be a standard German excuse whenever a poorly-planned operation began to unravel. In Russia and the Ukraine, there was always mud.

By 6 February, both German relief efforts had been halted, 35–40km short of the Korsun pocket. Unlike Stalingrad, Gruppe Stemmermann was in no danger of starving to death, but Soviet pressure on the pocket was inexorably squeezing the defenders and forcing them to consume their ammunition. By 10 February, it was clear that Gruppe Stemmermann could not simply wait for relief and had to take some measures to increase the odds of a link-up with either Breith’s or von Vormann’s forces. Stemmermann decided to reposition his best division, Wiking, to be prepared to attack toward III Panzerkorps at the appropriate moment. SS-Brigadeführer Otto Gille’s Wiking had about 20 operational tanks (Pz III/IV) and several assault guns, as well as 47 artillery pieces (including 9 Wespe and 3 Hummel).

Meanwhile, Breith’s III Panzerkorps was stuck in the mud south of the Gniloi Tikich. Recognizing that Vatutin had blocked his current axis of advance, he decided to regroup and attack eastward, where enemy defences were thinner. By this point, Breith had 140 tanks (incl. 80 Panthers and 12 Tigers) and 14 assault guns. On the morning of 11 February, Breith attacked with Bäke’s heavy tanks in the lead and advanced 8km in two hours. Within five hours, the Panthers had succeeded in capturing a bridge over the Gniloi Tikich at Frankovka. At this point, Breith decided to employ two schwerpunkte in his advance toward Gruppe Stemmermann: Kampfgruppe Bäke would advance northeast while Kampfgruppe Frank from 1. Panzer-Division (one battalion with 28 Panthers and one SPW battalion) would advance east to Lisyanka. With two spearheads advancing toward the pocket, Breith hoped to find weak spots in the Soviet defences. Frank succeeded in capturing Lisyanka in a night attack, before fuel shortages forced both him and Bäke to halt their advance. Both German spearheads were virtually out of fuel and had to waste the next day waiting for the supply units to catch up along the muddy roads.[42] One German supply column moving forward was shot up by Soviet units that had been bypassed in the rapid advance, indicating that Bäke’s lines of communication were not secure.

Vatutin always seemed to have another card up his sleeve and now he introduced General-leytenant Semyon I. Bogdanov’s 2nd Tank Army (3 TC, 16 TC, 11 GTB), which had been in the RVGK until a week before. Bogdanov moved four tank brigades directly into Breith’s path on 12 February, while the German spearheads were immobilized by lack of fuel. The German two-wheel drive Opel Blitz used by the supply echelons were virtually immobilized by the Ukrainian mud and proved to be the Achilles’ Heel of the relief effort. In addition, Kravchenko’s remaining armour and infantry from the 40th Army continued to attack Breith’s exposed flanks, which was a constant irritant. On 13 February, Breith finally had enough fuel to resume his advance and now von Manstein told him that it was ‘now, or never’ – he must reach Gruppe Stemmermann before it was crushed. Bäke advanced with 10 Tigers and 10 Panthers, followed by Kamfgruppe Frank from 1.Panzer-Division. Near the village of Dadushkovka, Bäke’s panzers ran into T-34s from Polkovnik Roman A. Lieberman’s 50th Tank Brigade (3 TC). One platoon of T-34s made the amateur mistake of trying to engage Tigers from a distance of 1,800 meters and paid for this ignorance in blood. However, the other T-34s were more cunning and remained in defilade positions near anti-tank guns, which forced the German panzers to get in much closer, where the T-34s could occasionally score. The tank battle lasted more than an hour, with the Germans claiming another Soviet tank brigade destroyed, but five Tigers and four Panthers were knocked out, leaving Bäke with just 10–11 functional tanks. Although Bäke managed to advance another 12km and reached Khizhintsy, he was still 10km from the pocket and once again out of fuel.

Konev’s forces captured the Korsun airfield on 13 February, abruptly terminating the Luftwaffe airlift. It was clear that Gruppe Stemmermann could only last a few more days. On 14 February, as a desperate expedient, Luftwaffe Ju-52s flew low over his tanks and dropped drums of petrol in the mud, most of which burst. Bäke received just enough fuel to make a small advance, but he could not reach the pocket and he was stopped by intense enemy resistance on Hill 239. That day, the thaw ended and it began to snow again, which hardened the ground. Kampfgruppe Bäke and Kampfgruppe Frank sparred with Bogdanov’s armour near Lisyanka, claiming another 19 T-34s from 5 GTC and some Shermans from 5 GMC, but four Tigers and three Panthers were damaged. With ammunition and fuel nearly exhausted and barely 20 tanks still operational, Breith’s relief effort ground to a halt at Lisyanka on 15 February. Vatutin simply ordered Bogdanov to place more tanks and anti-tank guns to bar any further advance, while the remainder of his forces and Konev’s reduced the pocket. One of the units that arrived to reinforce the 16 TC was Polkovnik Nikolai S. Grishin’s 13th Guards Heavy Tank Regiment, equipped with 21 IS-1 (IS-85) heavy tanks, equipped with the same 85mm D-5T as the KV-85. These heavy tanks were committed into action on 15 February and unwisely attacked Kampfgruppe Bäke instead of sitting on the defence; the Panthers and Tigers knocked virtually all of them out. Following this incident, the GABTU resolved to upgrade the new IS-series heavy tanks to the 122mm gun.

Finally recognizing that relief would not arrive in time, Stemmermann resolved to conduct a breakout operation on the night of 16–17 February to reach III Panzerkorps. In order to gain a springboard for the breakout, Stemmermann launched a series of night attacks from 11–13 February which captured the towns of Shanderovka and Nova Buda from the besieging 27th Army. Attacking at night wearing winter camouflage uniforms, the German infantry caught the Soviet trops by surprise and succeeded in getting a bit closer to III Panzerkorps at Lisyanka. During the day, Konev attempted to retake these towns, but Wiking’s last tanks and assault guns, led by SS-Sturmbannführer Hans Köller, fought them off and defended the breakout assembly areas.^{17}

Kampfgruppe Frank and Kampfgruppe Bäke made one last push to Oktaybr on 16 February, destroying part of another Soviet tank brigade but losing more Tigers and Panthers in the process. Frank’s Panthers encountered KV-85s from the 13th Guards Heavy Tank Regiment, attacked to the 16 TC, which was an unpleasant surprise.^{18} Gruppe Stemmermann’s lines were 7km away. Stemmermann’s breakout began at 2300 hours on 16 February and initially went quiet well, as infantry from the 72.Infanterie-Division infiltrated through the Soviet cordon, which was held by elements of 5 GTA. However, the Soviets soon detected the breakout and all hell broke loose as the night sky was lit by flares and artillery fire. Wiking tried to break out with 11,500 troops, seven tanks and three assault guns, but was engaged by Soviet tanks and anti-tank guns. Although the combat troops maintained some semblance of discipline, many of the support troops panicked and scattered, or caused traffic jams with the vehicle columns. Stemmermann was killed in the stampede and Soviet cavalry appeared out of the woods to cut up the rear echelons. Thousands of German troops reached the Gniloi Tikich River on foot and were forced to cross this obstacle, which ended up with hundreds drowned or frozen to death. Soviet tanks fired into the horde at the river’s edge, causing further panic. In the end, 35,199 Germans managed to flee the Korsun pocket and reach III Panzerkorps, but about 19,000 were killed or captured.^{19} Gruppe Stemmermann abandoned all its artillery and vehicles in the pocket, including 20 tanks and 30 assault guns. Wiking lost over 3,000 men in the breakout and took six months to refit.

The relief effort cost the German Panzer-Divisionen involved dearly, with III. Panzerkorps and XXXXVII Panzerkorps suffering a total of over 4,000 casualties. Breith’s III. Panzerkorps lost 156 tanks and assault guns during the relief effort and was left with only 60 tanks and six StuG IIIs operational. Approximately 56 per cent of the losses were due to mechanical defects, particularly with the problematic Panther (at least 15 of 37 lost in III Panzerkorps suffered engine problems and were destroyed). Indeed, on 29 February 171 of the 187 Panthers in PzAOK 1 were under repair. Von Vormann’s XXXXVII Panzerkorps had lost about 80 tanks and assault guns and was left with 32 operational tanks and 27 assault guns. The combination of muddy roads and limited recovery vehicles meant that when the relief forces retreated to new defensive lines, many non-operational tanks were blown up rather than allowed to fall into enemy hands. In order to save part of five trapped divisions, von Manstein had expended his armoured reserves.

At one stroke, Vatutin and Konev had removed two corps from Heeresgrupe Süd’s order of battle and incapacitated most of the German armour in the Ukraine, which made it virtually impossible for von Manstein to hold any kind of frontline. In the aftermath of Korsun, von Manstein was primarily focused on shoring up the left flank of Heeresgruppe Süd held by PzAOK 4, which was holding a 240km front with 12 depleted divisions. The gap between Heeresgruppe Süd’s left flank and Heeresgruppe Mitte’s right flank was only screened by the XIII Armeekorps, which failed to prevent Vatutin’s 13th Army from seizing the cities of Rovno and Lutsk on 5 February. Indeed, there was little from preventing Vatutin from driving due west into Poland. However, von Manstein’s right flank was also on the verge of collapse. The transfer of the 24.Panzer-Division to support the Korsun relief effort had weakened the German defence of the Nikopol bridgehead at a critical moment. On 2 February, Malinovsky’s 3rd Ukrainian Front attacked the left flank of Hollidt’s AOK 6 east of Krivoi Rog and quickly achieved a breakthrough that the Germans lacked the armoured reserves to block. Within 24 hours, the Soviets captured the vital rail junction at Apostolovo and threatened to isolate the IV and XVII Armeekorps in the Nikopol bridgehead. Hollidt was forced to abandon Nikpol on 7 February and retreat westward to avoid encirclement. Even when the 24. Panzer-Division was returned to Hollidt, it had lost most of its tanks and 55 per cent of its trucks in the fruitless march north to join the Korsun relief effort.

Meanwhile, the Soviets were able to replenish the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts within two weeks of the end of the Korsun battle and Zhukov was eager to press on and finish off Heeresgruppe Sud before it could be reinforced. However, Vatutin was badly wounded by Ukraininan partisans on 28 February and died six weeks later; Zhukov temporarily took command of the front. The loss of Vatutin was a serious blow to the Red Army since he had become one of its most skilled practitioners of combined arms warfare. In comparison, Konev and most of the other front commanders tended to rely more on firepower than manoeuvre or deception. Zhukov immediately began preparing for the next round and using his clout with the Stavka, he managed to acquire the 4th Tank Army (6 GMC, 10 GTC) from the RVGK; this formation was under the command of General-leytenant Vasily M. Badanov, who had led the Tatsinskaya Raid in December 1942. In addition, Zhukov was able to get replacements for the 1 TA and 3 GTA, although neither could be brought up to full strength.

On 4 March, Zhukov’s 1st Ukrainian Front attacked the boundary between PzAOK 4 and PzAOK 1, while Konev’s 2nd Ukraininan Front attacked the boundary between PzAOK 1 and AOK 8. Zhukov’s three tank armies attacked east of Tarnopol and made good progress, despite the efforts of the LSSAH, 7.Panzer-Division and s.Pz.Abt.503 (13 Tigers) to block the advance. Konev had even more success, attacking the XXXXVII Panzerkorps and VII Armeekorps in the area south of Lisiyanka with the 2 TA and 6 TA. A total of five Soviet tank armies were involved in the operation. Without adequate armoured reserves to opposive the 5 GTA, Wöhler was compelled to retreat or face envelopment, but Hube held most of his ground, centred on Proskurov. In 10 days, Konev’s forces advanced 90km toward the Dnestr River. Hitler ordered von Manstein to stand fast, even though it was apparent the front was collapsing. Zhukov’s forces were on the outskirts of Tarnopol, which Hitler declared to be a fortress and ordered held.

In the south, Malinovsky’s 3rd Ukraininan Front attacked Hollidt’s AOK 6 south of Krivoi Rog on the morning of 6 March and the 8th Guards Army achieved a major breakthrough the next day. Demonstrating great agility, the 8 GA punched through the XXIX Armeekorps, shoving aside the burnt-out 23. Panzer-Division, which had only four tanks, one assault gun and six SPWs. Soviet tanks and cavalry – not seriously impeded by the mud – advanced boldly to AOK 6’s headquarters in Novy Bug and overran many German rear-echelon units. The 23.Panzer-Division was virtually destroyed, losing all its maintenance, medical and logistic units, as well as many of its vehicles.^{20} The Soviets then pivoted south to envelope five German infantry divisions from the IV Armeekorps and the 9.Panzer-Division. This trapped force was dubbed Gruppe Wittmann and since no rescue force was available, it was compelled to fight its way out of encirclement over the course of the next several weeks. Soon, all of AOK 6 was forced to retreat to avoid being cut off by fast-moving Soviet armoured spearheads. The 24.Panzer-Division fought a rearguard action, but lost over 800 men and one-quarter of its wheeled vehicles, which were immobilized by deep mud. By 13 March, AOK 6 formed a composite Panzergruppe with the remaining tanks of the 9., 23. and 24.Panzer-Divisionen – three tanks – to cover the retreat.^{21} Fuel shortages plagued the Germans during the retreat, forcing them to abandon a great deal of equipment. Totenkopf ran out of fuel at Balta, just short of the Dnestr, on 27 March and when the Soviets overran the town, the division was forced to abandon over 60 tanks and assault guns, as well as 1,000 wheeled vehicles.^{22} The last seven Tigers were blown up near Tiraspol by their crews on 2 April. By the time Totenkopf crossed the Dnestr into Romania, it had no tanks left.

Von Manstein expected the 1st Ukrainian Front to head west toward L’vov, so he strengthened Raus’ PzAOK 4 at the expense of Hube’s PzAOK 1. In fact, Zhukov and Konev struck southward on 18 March, breaking through on both of Hube’s flanks. On 17 March, the 2 TA reached the Dnestr River at Yampol. On 20 March, Katukov’s 1 TA re-entered the battle with 140 tanks and severed the last remaining links between Hube’s army and Raus’ PzAOK 4. At the same time, Konev unleashed Kravchenko’s 6 TA, which captured Mogilev-Podol’skiy on the Dniestr. The PzAOK 4 was in retreat and Gruppe Neinhoff, with 4,600 troops, was encircled in Tarnopol by the 1 GA. With his flanks demolished, Hube began falling back toward Kamenets-Podol’skiy, but Katukov severed his communications to the west, then managed to seize a bridgehead across the Dnestr. On 27 March, the 10 GTC from Badanov’s 4 TA captured Kamenets-Podol’skiy, which left Hube in a shrinking salient with his back to the Dnestr. He was cut off from the one remaining German-held bridge over the Dnestr at Khotin and the Luftwaffe began an airlift to supply him.

The encirclement of Hube’s PzAOK 1 was the largest catastrophe facing the Wehrmacht since Stalingrad. Hube’s army comprised over 200,000 troops in 10 Panzer-Divisionen (LSSAH, Das Reich, 1, 6, 7, 11, 16, 17, 19), one Panzergrenadier-Division (20), 12 infantry divisions, one artillery division, s.Pz.Abt.509 and s.Panzerjäger-Abteilung 88 (Nashorn).[43] Although the army only had 35 operational tanks when it was surrounded, the loss of the veteran personnel would effectively cost Germany half her trained tankers. After much arguing with Hitler, von Manstein finally convinced him that Hube had to break out of encirclement or Heeresgruppe Süd’s front would collapse. Although it was possible that Hube could have crossed the Dnestr, this would have made it very difficult for von Manstein to establish a new front. Instead, Hube was ordered to attack westward, where a relief force would assemble near the town of Berezhany. Hube reorganized his forces for combat, dividing all his units into two main assault formations: Korpsgruppe von der Chevallerie (1., 6., 7., 11. 16, 19.Panzer-Divisionen and LSSAH, plus six infantry divisions) and Korpsgruppe Breith (Das Reich and 17.Panzer-Division, plus seven infantry divisions). Unlike previous pockets where the entrapped forced remained stationary in order to receive air resupply, Hube did not intend to remain tied to airfields since he knew that Zhukov would soon assemble overwhelming forces around the pocket to prevent escape or rescue. Instead, Hube intended to fight his way through the Soviet encirclement and rely upon parachuted supplies. Having learned quite a bit about supplying encircled forces, the Luftwaffe sent a special team (Kesseltrupp) into the pocket equipped with air-ground radios, beacons and flares in order to mark drop zones as needed.^{23} Hube ordered all unnecessary or damaged vehicles destroyed, in order to reduce his army’s fuel requirements. On 28 March, Hube began attacking westward with Korpsgruppe Breith.

Badanov’s 4 TA was the main force blocking Hube’s escape, with his 10 GTC holding the vital road junction at Kamenets-Podol’skiy and the 6 GMC located just west of there. Although Badanov only had about 100 tanks left, he still had plenty of infantry, artillery and anti-tank guns with him. The 10 GTC formed a hedgehog in Kamenets-Podol’skiy which blocked the main routes across the Smotrich River, a tributary of the Dnestr. Rather than assaulting the Soviet strongpoint, the 17.Panzer-Division seized a crossing site over the Smotrich north of Kamenets-Podol’skiy and Hube’s army crossed over there. In the process, the 10 GTC itself was temporarily surrounded at Kamenets-Podol’skiy and Badanov, trying to stop the German breakout, was badly wounded on 29 March. The experienced General-leytenant Dmitri K. Lelyushenko was brought in to take command of 4 TA, but there was little that he could do but try to delay the breakout.

Initially, Zhukov was over-confident about the Kamenets-Podol’skiy pocket and simply assumed that Hube’s PzAOK would sit put. Instead of reinforcing Badanov, Zhukov sent Katukov’s 1 TA to capture Chernovtsy on 30 March and focused most of his effort on preventing any German units from escaping south across the Dnestr. He also committed the bulk of the 60th Army to reducing the German fortress of Tarnopol, even though the garrison was less than 5,000 troops. Both Zhukov and Konev used their infantry armies to compress the northern side of the pocket, but paid little attention to the western side of the pocket. At the same time, Hitler was furious that both Heeresgruppe Süd and Heeresgruppe A were in retreat and he opted to sack both von Manstein and von Kleist, whom he had lost faith in. In the case of von Manstein, the relief was not unjustified since von Manstein had consistently failed to anticipate enemy actions since Kursk and seemed more interested in retreats than counter-attacks. In their place, Hitler substituted Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model to command Heeresgruppe Süd and Schörner to command Heeresgruppe A. However, the immediate impact on the battle was negligible and both army groups continued to retreat.

By 31 March, Hube was advancing steadily westward and pushing back Lelyushenko’s over-extended 4 TA (part of which was still encircled at Kamenets-Podol’skiy). Recognizing that Hube was escaping westward and not southward as expected, Zhukov ordered Katukov to bring part of 1 TA back north of the Dnestr to assist 4 TA. Nevertheless, Zhukov did not move any significant infantry forces into this area to strengthen the defence, which enabled Hube’s desperate forces to continue pushing westward. By 4 April, Hube’s army was approaching the Strypa River at Buchach. Meanwhile, Model was assembling the relief force near Berezhany, 60km away, consisting of Hausser’s II. SS-Panzerkorps (9.SS-Panzer-Division Hohenstaufen and 10.SS Panzer-Division Frundsberg), schwere Panzerjäger-Abteilung 653 (with 28 rebuilt Ferdinands) and two infantry divisions. Hausser’s two SS-Panzer-Divisionen had been training in France, but they were not fully equipped as Panzer-Division. Instead, each only had two companies Pz IVs and two batteries of StuG-IIIs, a total of 98 medium tanks and 88 assault guns. Nevertheless, by 6 April Hausser was attacking eastward toward Buchach to meet Hube.

In the end, the skill and desperation of Hube’s troops to escape and Zhukov’s failure to bolt the door decided the battle in the German favour. With the 6. and 7.Panzer-Divisionen in the lead, Korpsgruppe Breith fought its way through the Soviet cordon. Belatedly, Zhukov tried to shift six rifle divisions and the 2 GTC into Hube’s path, but 17.Panzer-Division fended them off long enough for the rest of the army to reach the Strypa River. On 8 April, the 6.Panzer-Division and two Tigers from the s.Pz.Abt.509 fought their way into Buchach and shortly thereafter, linked up with elements of II.SS-Panzerkorps. It took almost a week for all of Hube’s exhausted army to cross the Strypa River, but then it was able to form a new continuous front with PzAOK 4. In terms of equipment, PzAOK 1 was in extremely poor shape with barely two dozen tanks left (one Tiger), a few assault guns and seven Nashorns. The escape of Hube’s PzAOK 1 from encirclement at Kamenets-Podol’skiy was one of the great operational achievements of the Second World War, since it prevented the complete collapse of the German southern flank, at least for the time being. While Winston Churchill – speaking of Dunkirk – was correct that retreats do not equal victories, the successful breakout of Hube’s army was nevertheless a huge morale boost for the Wehrmacht.

There were two important tactical postscripts to the Korsun Pocket and Hube’s Pocket, both of which reflected the growing importance of German armour being used to rescue trapped garrisons. In the first case, the survivors of Gille’s Wiking division’s breakout from Korsun were sent to the Cholm-Kovel region in eastern Poland to regroup. Barely a month after arriving in Poland, a new Soviet offensive by the 2nd Byelorussian Front’s 47th Army encircled the city on 15 March, trapping over 4,000 troops. Although Wiking’s troops were outside the pocket, they had negligible combat capability. Nevertheless, a relief effort was hastily organized. The II./SS-Panzer-Regiment 5 had just arrived at Cholm after re-equipping with Panther tanks, but only one company was combat-ready and it was committed to lead the relief effort. By 21 March, Soviet Sherman tanks fought their way into Kovel and the city could fall at any time. On 27 March, a scratch relief force was assembled at Lukov, west of Kovel, consisting of an SS Kampfgruppe (17 Panthers and III./SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment Germania) and a Heer Kampfgruppe (7 StuG IIIs and Grenadier-Regiment 343). The direct route to Kovel led through a frozen marsh crossed by a railroad track, which was blocked by the 60th Rifle Division, a battery of anti-tank guns and mines. The Waffen-SS opted for the direct approach and attacked at midday on 28 March, during a blizzard. No artillery support was available due to communication problems – one of the most common forms of friction in war.^{24} Soviet 76.2mm anti-tank guns were sited at a right angle to the road and managed to destroy three Panthers with flank shots into their thinner side armour. When the Panthers tried to manoeuvre off road, 10 of the remaining 14 became bogged down in the soft terrain, which halted the relief effort. Recovering 10 Panthers from bog-like terrain with only a single Bergepanther consumed more than a day and the Heer troops were not sanguine about trying to push further with such a small force. Nor did the column have any pioniers to clear mines along the road. Nonplussed, the SS Panzer-Kompanie commander opted to go on alone and with a column of just nine Panthers he boldly advanced through the Soviet lines on the night of 29–30 March, losing two to mines, but then reached the city. However, this effort failed to lift the siege and only added a handful of tanks to the trapped garrison.^{25}

On 2 April, the rest of the II.SS-Pz.-Rgt.5 began arriving by rail with 59 more Panthers and a larger relief effort was assembled, including Kampfgruppen from 4. and 5.Panzer-Divisionen. On 4 April, the second relief attempt began and the Soviets desperately tried to stop it. Untersturmführer Renz, leader of the reconnaissance platoon from the II./SS-Pz.Abt.5, described the final lunge toward Kovel:

During our next forward move, we took a hit, which, luckily, only rattled our Panzer. My gunner reacted with lightning speed. I directed him, patting his shoulder with my right hand, exactly to the target. With ‘Explosive shell – 800 metres – cluster of buildings, Pak position in front – fire!’ we began the firefight. Our first shot was dead-on. A huge cloud of dust, mixed with fragments of trees and building material, rose into the sky. Being the point Panzer, I directed the fire of the whole 6.Kompanie by radio. Grossrock followed my gunner with the fire from his five Panthers, and within a few minutes we managed to stop the fire from the Paks and the tanks. Afterwards it was determined that we had destroyed several tanks, approximately ten Paks, and numerous heavy and light machine guns.^{26}

After blasting their way through the cordon of tanks and anti-tank guns, the Wiking’s Panthers reached Kovel on 5 April. However, only a tenuous line of communication existed to Kovel and since Hitler would not countenance evacuating the city, Wiking’s limited forces were committed to widening the corridor for the next three weeks. The Wiking Panthers gradually pushed the Soviet infantry back from the western side of the city, but mines and anti-tank guns wore down the SS-Panzer-Regiment 5’s strength.^{27} Yet Hitler was pleased, since Kovel was held for another four months. As with Korsun, even when a relief effort was successful, the cost in armour was often much higher than the benefits gained.

The other major relief effort during this period was Model’s attempted relief of Gruppe Neinhoff in Tarnopol. Model knew that it was important for front-line morale not to write-off trapped garrisons and once Hube’s PzAOK 1 was re-integrated into the front he managed to assemble a fairly large relief force by 10 April and selected Hermann Balck’s XXXXVIII Panzerkorps to command the operation. The main assault element was SS-Gruppenführer Wilhelm Bittrich’s 9. SS-Panzer-Division Hohenstaufen, which contributed a battalion of Pz IVs (II./SS-Pz.Rgt.9), a battalion of StuG-IIIs, a reconnaissance battalion, a battalion of Panzergrenadiers in SPWs (III.SS-Pz.Gr.Rgt.19), five other infantry battalions and a self-propelled artillery battalion (6x Hummel and 12x Wespe). Significantly, two-thirds of Hohenstaufen’s infantry were on foot, lacking motor transport. In addition, the 8.Panzer-Division contributed Kampfgruppe Friebe (I./Pz.Rgt.10) with 21 Panthers, the 8.Panzer-Division provided its SPW battalion (I./Pz.Gr.Rgt.79), s.Pz.Abt.507 added 12 Tigers and s.Pz.Jg.Abt.653 contributed 28 Ferdinands. Altogether, the relief force had 64 tanks, 27 assault guns and 2,000 infantrymen, although it was short of pionier support. Balck kicked off his attack on 11 April from a bridgehead over the Strypa River, but soon ran into stiff resistance from the Soviet 60th Army, which had deployed numerous anti-tank guns and mines along the route. Heavy spring rains turned the soil into mud so deep that German tanks ‘bellied out’ with their hulls, greatly reducing mobility. The 52nd Guards Tank Brigade from the 6 GTC (3 GTA) counter-attacked the German column with some of the new T-34/85 tanks, which was an unpleasant surprise for Hohenstaufen’s Pz IVs. Even two Ferdinands were destroyed with flank shots.^{28} In six days of heavy combat, Balck’s relief force advanced halfway toward Tarnopol, but lost 13 Pz IVs, two Tigers and 21 StuG-IIIs. The Germans claimed to have knocked out 74 Soviet tanks and 21 anti-tank guns.^{29} In an impressive display of front-line leadership, Model personally came forward to evaluate the operation’s progress, riding in a Sd.Kfz.251 command track. Nevertheless, it was clear by 15 April that the relief effort had bogged down short of its objective and the Soviets were rapidly reinforcing this sector with more armour. Model finally decided to abort the relief operation 8km short of Tarnopol and he ordered Gruppe Neinhoff to attempt a breakout operation before the town was overrun. Before dawn on 16 April, about 1,300 survivors of the garrison attempted to infiltrate through the Soviet cordon but only 55 reached the positions held by Balck’s XXXXVIII Panzerkorps. Neinhoff was killed in the breakout, as were most of his troops.

Following the efforts to relieve Kovel and Tarnopol, the Germans gained a brief respite due to the spring thaw. Both sides were also exhausted by 10 months of near-continuous fighting. On 4 April, the OKH decided to redesignate Heeresgruppe Süd as Heeresgruppe Nordukraine, with control of PzAOK 1, PzAOK 4 and the 1st Hungarian Army. Heeresgruppe Südukraine was created to control AOK 8, AOK 6, AOK 17 (in the Crimea) and what was left of the Romanian army. Interestingly, the Wehrmacht no longer remained on Ukrainian soil and Heeresgruppe Süd had been split into two pieces. Model believed that once the Soviets rebuilt their tank armies their main effort in the summer would be directed against his army group around L’vov and he used his influence to push for strong Panzer reinforcements to rebuild his command.

Defence of the Dniester Line, 5 April–15 May 1944

By the beginning of April 1944, Heeresgruppe Süd appeared to be broken in two and the Stavka regarded the liberation of the Ukraine as nearly complete. Although all the Soviet fronts were worn down by months of heavy combat, Stalin was eager to continue a broad front advance to seize as much territory as possible before the Germans regained their balance. Given that all four tank armies in the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts were reduced to 25 per cent or less of their authorized tank strength, a prudent course of action might have been to focus the remaining combat power on one axis of advance and temporarily shift to the defence elsewhere. Yet Stalin was not interested in prudence. He was interested in gaining as much territory as quickly as possible, before the Allies landed in France. Stalin ordered Zhukov’s 1st Ukrainian Front to continue advancing westward toward L’vov and Konev’s 2nd Ukrainian Front to move south into Romania, which meant the two strongest Soviet fronts assumed divergent courses and would no longer be within supporting range. Stalin regarded Romania as a particularly tempting target due to the Third Reich’s dependence upon the Ploesti oil fields and he believed that it was open for the taking.

On 5 April, the Stavka ordered Konev to advance into northern Romania with his 27th and 40th Armies, supported by Bogdanov’s 2 TA, to capture the frontier cities of Jassy and Kishinev.^{30} The Stavka ordered Malinovsky’s 3rd Ukrainian Front to assist Konev with the advance into Romania, although the bulk of Malinovsky’s forces were focused on liberating the port of Odessa. Bogdanov could only field about 120 tanks between his 3 TC and 16 TC, but Stalin promised to send reinforcements. However just prior to Konev’s offensive, the Stavka pulled Kravchenko’s 6 TA back into reserve to refit, followed by Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA, leaving very little armour at the front. Consequently, Konev’s advance across the Dniester River into northern Romania began primarily with infantry on foot, supported by fewer than 200 tanks and a bare minimum of artillery support. In effect, the Stavka was repeating the same kind of mistake that it had previously made with Operations Star and Gallop in early 1943.

^{Second Battle of Tirgu Fromos, 2 May 1944.}

There was no doubt that the German and Romanian forces were disorganized after their precipitate retreat from the Ukraine, but Wöhler’s AOK 8 was able to coalesce around Kishinev with five Panzer-Divisionen (Totenkopf, 3., 11., 13. and 14.Panzer-Divisionen) that proved to be a serious obstacle. At Jassy, the XXXXVII Panzerkorps concentrated Großdeutschland, 23. and 24.Panzer-Divisionen to block an advance by the under-strength 2 TA. In these sectors, the Germans were aided by rough terrain that favoured the defence and rainy weather that greatly slowed the Soviet advance. Inside Romania, the German units had simplified supply lines and received ample supplies of fuel and ammunition.

Nevertheless, the 27th Army advanced fairly rapidly into northern Romania, easily dispersing small Romanian rearguards and its 3rd Guards Rifle Corps (3 GRC) was able to capture the vital road junction at Tirgu Fromos on 9 April. Wöhler reacted by ordering Großdeutschland to conduct an immediate counter-attack in conjunction with the Romanian IV Army Corps to retake the town. Despite its involvement in heavy combat since Zitadelle, the Großdeutschland was one of the few mechanized units on the Eastern Front that the OKH had kept up to strength; in this, the fact that the division could recruit from across Germany, like the Waffen-SS, gave it an advantage over the Heer’s other Panzer-Divisionen, whose replacements were derived from home Wehrkreis. By early April 1944, Großdeutschland was still a formidable force with about 45 operational tanks (a mix of Pz IV, Panthers and Tigers), 25 assault guns and 1,600 Panzergrenadiers.^{31} Under the leadership of the firebrand Generalleutnant Hasso von Manteuffel, Großdeutschland conducted a rapid 40km march toward Tirgu Fromos, which caught the Soviet 27th Army completely by surprise. Von Manteuffel attacked with his Panzergrenadiers and Panzers on the morning of 10 April and recaptured Tirgu Fromos by evening, isolating three rifle divisions from the 3 GRC. Since von Manteuffel lacked the troops to surround the 3 GRC, the Soviet divisions were able to escape, but abandoned much of their equipment. Having cleared the area, von Manteuffel rapidly established a new defensive hedgehog around Tirgu Fromos, with his Panzergrenadiers digging in on the perimeter and his tanks kept as a mobile reserve. Once secure, von Manteuffel mounted an active defence for the next three weeks, using company-size armoured raids to keep Konev’s forces off balance.

Surprised by the rebuff at Tirgu Fromos, Konev urged Bogdanov’s 2 TA to push toward Podu Iloaie with 3 TC, 16 TC and two rifle divisions. However, the 24.Panzer-Division mounted a series of small armoured counter-attacks on 12–13 April that completely halted Bogdanov’s advance. Likewise, the German armour concentration at Jassy fended off all efforts by Bogdanov to move in that direction as well. Further south, the XXXX Panzerkorps mounted a strong defence at Orgeev with the 3., 11. and 13.Panzer-Divisionen which slowed the 4th Guards Army’s crossing of the Dniester. By mid-April, Konev was forced to shift to the defence across his front and await replacements to restore his dulled combat capabilities. Consequently, German tactical victories at Tirgu Fromos, Podu Iloaie and Jassy prevented Konev from pushing rapidly into Romania and gave Heeresgruppe Südukraine a short, but valuable respite.

Meanwhile, Malinovsky’s 3rd Ukrainian Front succeeded in liberating Odessa on the morning of 10 April, but efforts to encircle the eastern half of AOK 6 with General-leytenant Issa A. Pliev’s tank-cavalry mobile group (4 GMC, 4 GCC) failed.^{32} Instead, Malinovsky pursued Hollidt’s retreating AOK 6 to the Dniester River with four armies and managed to seize a number of small bridgeheads over the river before the Axis defence gelled. However, the Stavka pulled Pliev’s cavalry group back to refit and Malinovsky was left only with the depleted 23 TC and a few tank brigades, which were insufficient to expand the bridgeheads. Instead, Axis resistance noticeably stiffened and AOK 6 fortified high ground overlooking the tiny bridgeheads and repulsed all of Malinovsky’s attempts to break out for the next several weeks.

Embarrassed by his initial defeats at Tirgu Fromos, Konev used the last half of April to prepare for a second round. He brought up General-polkovnik Mikhail S. Shumilov’s relatively fresh 7th Guards Army (seven rifle divisions and the 27 GTB) to be the main battering ram against Wöhler’s lines to the west of Tirgu Fromos and Rotmistrov’s partly-rebuilt 5 GTA to be the exploitation force. General-leytenant Sergei G. Trofimenko’s 27th Army (seven rifle divisions and two tank regiments) would mount a supporting attack northeast of Tirgu Fromos, with Bogdanov’s 2 TA ready to exploit a breakthrough. Rotmistrov would deploy the 18 TC and 29 TC with 231 tanks (incl. 183 T-34) and 87 self-propelled guns. In addition, the RVGK reinforced Rotmistrov with the 14th and 53rd Guards Heavy Tank Regiments, each with about 20 of the new JS-2 heavy tanks. Rotmistrov had also received some of the new T-34/85 medium tanks.^{33} Boganov’s 2 TA was considerably weaker, with the 3 GTC, 16 TC and 11 GTB having a total of just 98 tanks (75 T-34, 16 JS-2 heavy tanks, 5 JS-85 heavy tanks and 2 Churchills) and 23 self-propelled guns (18 SU-152 and 5 SU-85).^{34} Due to the lack of combat-ready independent tank brigades, Konev was forced to use both 5 GTA and 2 TA in the infantry support role, which left him with no armoured reserve for exploitation. Nevertheless, Konev could commit nearly 500 AFVs in his two tank armies, which he believed provided him with a 4–1 or better numerical superiority in armour. Assisted by three artillery divisions, Konev expected to blast his way through Wöhler’s front and push on deep into the interior of Romania.

In fact, Konev’s offensive planning was based upon faulty intelligence. Kirchner’s LVII Panzerkorps used the Großdeutschland to anchor the defence at Tirgu Fromos, but had to rely upon Romanian units to cover both flanks. The Romanian infantry was poorly equipped and suffered from poor morale, but Brigadier-General Radu Korne’s 1st Armoured Division still had some fight left in it. In September 1943 Germany had begun to provide Romania with Pz IV tanks and Korne’s division had several dozen Pz IVs and a dozen StuG-III assault guns, as well as some SPWs for its infantry. Von Manteuffel’s Großdeutschland had 36–39 operational tanks (22 Pz IV, 6–7 Tigers and 8–10 Panthers) in Oberst Willy Langkeit’s Panzer-Regiment, and the division still had a number of assault guns.^{35} Generalleutnant Maximilian Freiherr von Edelsheim’s 24.Panzer-Division, deployed at Podul-Iloaie, was also available to support Kirchner with 15 Pz IVs and nine StuG-IIIs.[44] Although Totenkopf had lost all its tanks and many of its vehicles during the retreat to the Dniester, it had just received some replacements and Wöhler ordered it to form a mobile Kampfgruppe as an operational reserve for LVII Panzerkorps; by evening of 1 May SS-Sturmbannführer Fritz Beiermeier formed a group consisting of 24 Pz IV tanks, II.SS-Pz.Gr.Rgt.6 and a battery of assault guns. The German troops had used the three weeks at Tirgu Fromos wisely, digging in deeply and laying minefields. For once, the Germans had something like a defence in depth and adequate mobile reserves. Furthermore, German intelligence knew where the enemy was about to strike.

At 0515 hours on 2 May, Konev began his offensive with a massive 60-minute artillery barrage that laid waste to some of the enemy’s front-line positions. Then at 0615 hours, Shumilov’s 7 GA attacked with eight reinforced rifle divisions, followed by waves of tanks from General-major Evgeny I. Fominykh’s 29 TC. The Grenadier-Regiment Großdeutschland was hard hit and partly overrun, with at least one company nearly destroyed. Interestingly, even in an elite unit like Großdeutschland, Panzergrenadiers still relied upon the hand-delivered Hafthohlladung (hollow charge magnetic mine) for close-combat with tanks since the new Panzerfaust was not yet available in quantity.

However, Fominykh’s tankers failed to spot a battery of concealed assault guns, which blasted the lead Soviet tank battalion from the point-blank range of 300 metres. Then von Manteuffel committed Langkeit’s Panzer-Regiment Großdeutschland in an expertly-executed counter-attack, which virtually slaughtered the remainder of Fominykh’s T-34s. As the Soviet attack ebbed, Langkeit’s Panzers came under long-range fire from 13 JS-2 heavy tanks from the 14th Guards Separate Heavy Tank Regiment.^{36} Langkeit brought up Oberleutnant Fritz Stadler’s eight Tigers and the first battle between the latest Soviet and German heavy tanks began at a range of over 2,000 metres. Technically, the Soviet 122mm D-25T gun had better penetration than the German 8.8cm KwK 36 at this kind of range, but the Soviet tankers lacked the training to achieve accuracy over this distance. Von Manteuffel saw rounds from the Tigers strike the enemy heavy tanks, but they ‘all bounced off.’ The IS-2 had a much lower rate of fire than the Tiger and only eight BR-471 APHE rounds each, so they fired sparingly. Stadler decided to move in closer and probably told his crews to switch to Panzergranate 40 APCR with tungsten cores.[45] This time, from a range of about 1,800 metres, the Tigers were able to destroy four IS-2, which caused the rest to retreat. Langkeit aggressively ordered a company of Pz IVs to pursue the retreating enemy heavy tanks and they were able to close within 1,000 metres and knock out a few more with shots into the rear armour.

While von Manteuffel was focused on his left flank, two more Soviet rifle divisions and General-major Ivan A. Vovchenko’s 3 GTC tried to overrun his Füsilier-Regiment. Langkeit sent his other company of Pz IVs to this sector and von Edelsheim also sent part of an armoured Kampfgruppe, which resulted in Vovchenko’s tankers being hit on both flanks and losing more than 30 tanks in a one-sided action. Ironically, Shumilov’s 7 GA achieved some success west of Tirgu Fromos, where the 8th Guards Airborne Division and the 18 TC succeeded in routing the Romanian 6th Infantry Division. However, Korne moved a battlegroup of his armoured division to prevent a complete collapse in this sector and Konev failed to reinforce his success here.

Northeast of Tirgu Fromos, the Soviet 27th Army attacked the right flank of Füsilier-Regiment Großdeutschland and a regiment from the 46.Infanterie-Division with three rifle divisions. Bogdanov supported the attack with about 120 AFV, including 16 JS-2s from the 6th Separate Heavy Tank Regiment. This attack achieved some success, penetrating over 5km into the German line, which caused Bogdanov to commit Dubovoi’s 16 TC to exploit the perceived gap. Before noon, the JS-2s drove into the town of Facuti and began to engage German artillery and headquarters troops. This was a tense moment for von Manteuffel, whose own armour was fully engaged at this point. However, von Edelsheim committed both his Kampfgruppen, which attacked into Dubovoi’s exposed flank with about 40 tanks and assault guns. Two of Dubovoi’s brigades were shot-up, losing perhaps 40 tanks, and the rest of the corps was routed. Amazingly, Kirchner’s LVII Panzerkorps had repulsed Konev’s offensive and inflicted heavy losses upon the 2 TA and 5 GTA, amounting to about 150–200 tanks and self-propelled guns.^{37} Out of about 36 tanks engaged, Großdeutschland lost six tanks destroyed and eight damaged.

Konev refused to accept that Kirchner’s defence around Tirgu Fromos was still solid and decided to renew the attack on 3 May. Massing his remaining armour, infantry and artillery, Konev tried to bash his way through Kirchner’s lines on a narrower front, but the 8.8cm flak guns from Großdeutschland inflicted a ‘tank slaughter’ upon Rotmistrov and sharp counter-attacks by the Großdeutschland, 24.Panzer-Division and Kampfgruppe Beiermeier from Totenkopf repulsed every Soviet attack. After two days of combat, Konev had fewer than 200 AFVs still operational, but he tried again on 4 May; this final surge only resulted in more needless casualties and left’s Konev’s exhausted and depleted forces over-extended. He decided to shift to the defence and pulled Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA back to refit. Bogdanov’s 2 TA was reduced to just 35 tanks and 12 self-propelled guns.^{38} Sensing the weakness of Konev’s front-line units, Kirchner mounted two combined-arms counter-attacks with infantry, panzers and some air support on 7 May, which caught the Soviet 7 GA and 27 Army flat-footed. Both Großdeutschland and 24.Panzer-Division were able to recover some key terrain and inflict painful losses on Konev’s forces. Following this success, both sides shifted to the defence in northern Romania.

However, the Stavka had hoped that Malinovsky’s 3rd Ukrainian Front could mount an offensive across the Dniester from its small Tashlyk bridgehead and set the stage for a push toward Kishinev. Rather than used the depleted units already in the bridgehead, Malinovsky opted to bring up his relatively fresh 8th Guards Army (8 GA) and 5th Shock Army to take their places. It is always dangerous conducting a relief in place under the gaze of an alert enemy and the German 6.Armee (AOK 6), now under General der Artillerie Maximilian de Angelis, spotted what Malinovsky was attempting to do and decided to pre-empt it. General der Panzertruppen Otto von Knobelsdorff formed an assault group based around his XXXX Panzerkorps, comprised of the 3., 13. and 14.Panzer-Divisionen, two assault gun brigades and two infantry divisions. On the morning of 10 May, von Knobelsdorff attacked with all three Panzer-Divisionen on line after an artillery preparation and rapidly penetrated the Soviet perimeter of their bridgehead. General-leytenant Vasily I. Chuikov, hero of Stalingrad, commanded the 8 GA in the bridgehead, but his units were not ready to repel an attack by over 100 German tanks and assault guns. Chuikov had only 10 tanks in the bridgehead and his artillery was very short of ammunition. The Germans struck while Chuikov’s divisions were still moving into the bridgehead and they were shattered. In three days of heavy fighting, von Knobelsdorff’s Panzers greatly reduced the Soviet bridgehead and inflicted up to 30,000 casualties upon Chuikov’s veteran 8 GA; thousands of Soviet soldiers were taken prisoner.^{39}

Malinovsky attempted to reduce the pressure on Chuikov’s battered 8 GA by ordering the 5th Shock Army to mount a supporting attack across the Dniester, but von Knobelsdorff’s assault troops handily defeated this effort and inflicted 20,000 more Soviet casualties. With both Konev’s and Malinovsky’s fronts defeated, the Stavka had no choice but to postpone a major push into Romania until the summer months. Not only did Heeresgruppe Südukraine conduct a very successful defence, but Wöhler’s AOK 8 even continued local attacks in June to disrupt Konev’s forces north of Jassy. For the Red Army, once again the danger of continuing offensives with badly depleted forces was made evident, which played to the German strength of striking back at over-extended Soviet spearheads. It was also a very poor idea to use valuable tank armies in the infantry support role. For the Germans, the victory in defending the Dniester in April-May demonstrated the value of a mobile defence and was one of the last occasions where Panzer-Divisionen achieved a significant operational-level success.

Operation Bagration and its Aftermath, 22 June–31 August 1944

Contrary to popular Eastern Front historiography, the Stavka did not ignore Heeresgruppe Mitte during the winter of 1943–44 and mounted several major attacks against the Vitebsk salient held by 3.Panzerarmee (PzAOK 3) and against 4.Armee (AOK 4) at Orsha. Despite some tense moments, Heeresgruppe Mitte’s central defences held, even if both flanks were increasingly vulnerable. Nevertheless, Heeresgruppe Mitte still suffered over 128,000 casualties between January and mid-June 1944, including 36,000 dead or missing. The drain of constant casualties and the influx of partly-trained replacements led to a stark reduction in the quality of many of the divisions in Heeresgruppe Mitte. Half of the infantry units were at 50 per cent strength or less, but each was expected to hold 20km or more of the front. Under Generalfeldmarschall Ernst Busch, Heeresgruppe Mitte settled into a Stellungskrieg (positional warfare) mindset and focused on building up impregnable defences. Each German division established minefields and obstacles to their front and alternate defence lines to their rear. The cities of Bobruisk, Mogilev, Orsha and Vitebsk were converted into strong defensive hedgehogs, intended to act as obstacles to any Soviet advance. The terrain in this area, replete with marshlands and forests, favoured the defence and made the large-scale use of armour seem improbable. Due to Soviet advances in the Ukraine, Heeresgruppe Mitte now held a large salient, centred around Minsk, which offered the theoretical advantage of using the ‘central position’ tactic which had worked well in the defence of previous salient, such as Rzhev. However in order for the tactic to work, the defender had to have mobile reserves.

In May 1944, Model began requesting that the OKH transfer him additional armoured formations in order to mount a counter-offensive to recover ground east of L’vov. In reality, Model simply wanted additional armoured reserves to deal with the next round of Soviet offensives and he was able to convince Hitler and the OKH that Heeresgruppe Nordukraine was likely to receive the enemy’s main blow, rather than Heeresgruppe Mitte. Eventually, Hitler authorized the transfer of the LVI Panzerkorps (4. and 5.Panzer-Divisionen, s.Pz.abt.505 and Sturmgeschütz-Brigade 237) from Heeresgruppe Mitte to Heeresgruppe Nordukraine on 29 May, which effectively deprived the former of its primary armoured reserves. Instead, Heeresgruppe Mitte was left with only a single Panzer-Division in operational reserve – Generalleutnant Mortimer von Kessel’s 20.Panzer-Division, which had a single Panzer-Abteilung with 71 Pz IVs. In addition, Heeresgruppe Mitte had s.Pz.Abt.501, with 20 operational Tigers.

^{Advance of Soviet tank armies during Operation Bagration and Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive, June-July 1944}

Yet even if Heeresgruppe Mitte had retained the LVI Panzerkorps and been reinforced with additional armour, Germany’s ability to conduct mobile operations was rapidly coming to an end due to the fuel crisis. The Third Reich had always been short of fuel, but the Allied bombing effort that began in April 1944 against German oil production facilities had an almost immediate impact upon the Luftwaffe and mechanized units. The Romanian oil fields at Ploesti were bombed repeatedly in April-June 1944 and production was curtailed by 80 per cent, while the attacks on synthetic plants deprived Germany of both fuel and synthetic rubber. Between March and September 1944, Germany’s production of fuel for motor vehicles fell by 64 per cent, which immediately impacted the operational mobility of Panzer-Divisionen at the front.^{40}

On 31 May 1944, the Ostheer had been reduced to only 955 operational tanks on the Eastern Front, of which 233 were Tigers, 238 were Panthers and 484 were Pz IVs.^{41} The Ostheer had a total of 16 Panzer-Divisionen, seven Panzergrenadier-Divisionen and six schwere Panzer-Abteilungen. Only about six of the 23 mechanized divisions were still reasonably combat effective (Großdeutschland, 1., 4., 5., 8. and 24.Panzer-Divisionen) while the rest were reduced to 25–40 per cent combat effectiveness. Noticeably, the bulk of the German armour was in the south: 606 tanks in Heeresgruppe Nordukraine, 190 in Südukraine, 86 in Mitte and just 73 in Nord. In contrast, the Red Army was now capable of committing over 6,000 tanks into battle across the Eastern Front, with large reserves ready to replace losses.

By early June 1944, Heeresgruppe Mitte had over 578,000 personnel assigned – 31 per cent of the entire Ostheer – although its actual front-line combat strength was barely 120,000 troops.^{42} Busch’s main forces consisted of Generaloberst Georg-Hans Reinhardt’s PzAOK 3, General der Infanterie Kurt von Tippelskirch’s AOK 4 and General der Infanterie Hans Jordan’s AOK 9, which altogether had a total of 26 infantry divisions, two Luftwaffe Feld-Divisionen and three Panzergrenadier-Divisionen (18, 25, Feldherrnhalle). Busch also had Generaloberst Walter Weiss’s AOK 2, which protected the boundary between Heeresgruppe Mitte and Heeresgruppe Nordukraine. Busch was fairly optimistic that the salient could be held due to the strong field works, since previous Soviet offensives had taken days or weeks to chew their way through less robust defences. Based upon past experience of Soviet efforts to break German defence lines, neither Busch nor the OKH anticipated that the Red Army would be able to create a breakthrough in more than one or two sectors, which could then be contained. The only really worrisome factor was the weakness of the Luftwaffe, since Luftflotte 6 only had 40 Bf-109G fighters assigned – grossly insufficient for air cover over Heeresgruppe Mitte.

Since Busch’s mission was strictly defensive, most of the armour assigned to Heeresgruppe Mitte consisted of assault guns and self-propelled Panzerjägers. Aside from Mortimer’s 20.Panzer-Division, the only other division with tanks was Feldherrnhalle, which had 20 Pz IVs and a battery of StuG-IIIs. Altogether, the PzAOK 3 had about 60 assault guns and one battalion of Nashorns (s.Pz. Jgr.Abt.59), the AOK 4 had 246 assault guns and two battalions of Nashorns (s.Pz.Jgr.Abt.655) and AOK 9 had 76 assault guns. This gave Heeresgruppe Mitte a grand total of 111 tanks, 382 assault guns and 100–120 tank destroyers (Nashorn and Marder).^{43} It is significant that Heeresgruppe Mitte had no Panthers at this point – one year after they had been introduced on the Eastern Front – and still relied upon the Pz IV as its main battle tank. Although German industry had increased the production of the Pz IV tank to 300 per month, the latest Ausf J version was a step backward, since it omitted the turret motor to save space and weight; this meant that German tankers using this model now had to laboriously crank the turret around by hand – a huge disadvantage in battle. Busch could have massed his assault guns in mobile anti-tank reserves with 50 or more StuG-IIIs kept behind each army, but he allowed these assets to be split up into penny packets, generally a battery or a platoon assigned to each infantry division.

German intelligence expected that any new Soviet offensives against Heeresgruppe Mitte would likely focus on Vitebsk and Orsha, as they had in the past. However, since the OKH expected the main Soviet offensive would be against Model’s Heeresgruppe Nordukraine that is where the bulk of the German armour was deployed. Thus Busch’s army group was now like the French in 1940, expecting a predictable battle of position but getting a battle of manoeuvre for which it was unprepared.

On the other side, the Soviets had four fronts deployed against Heeresgruppe Mitte: Rokossovsky’s 1st Byelorussian Front, General-polkovnik Georgy F. Zakharov’s 2nd Byelorussian Front, General-polkovnik Ivan Chernyakhovsky’s 3rd Byelorussian Front and General Ivan Bagramyan’s 1st Baltic Front. After the liberation of the Ukraine, Stalin was eager to see Byelorussia liberated as well and he directed the Stavka to begin planning for a major summer offensive against Heeresgruppe Mitte. Zhukov was recalled to Moscow in late April and together with Vasilevsky and other members of the Stavka, they developed an outline for a grand offensive to be known as Bagration. Unlike previous Soviet offensives, Bagration was intended to be a massive set-piece battle with the resources needed to achieve a decisive victory. This time, Stalin did not rush the professionals but allowed Zhukov and Vasilevsky the time they need to amass overwhelming combat power against Heeresgruppe Mitte. While most of the 118 rifle divisions allocated for the operation were at only 60 per cent of authorized strength, the Soviets would still enjoy a 3–1 superiority in infantry. This time, the Red Army would use all the tools of combined arms warfare in synchronization, in order to unlock the German defences. A massive amount of artillery support, including 13 artillery divisions, was provided for Bagration. Four air armies were deployed with over 5,000 aircraft, including 2,300 fighters – which would allow the VVS to completely dominate the airspace over the battlefield.

The Stavka intended to use infantry, artillery and airpower to smash through Heeresgruppe Mitte’s front lines at multiple points, and then push its armour through to exploit deep into the rear. Zhukov and Vasilevsky were both familiar with Vladimir K. Triandafillov’s pre-war theories of Deep Battle (glubokiy boy) and intended to use a similar approach in the conduct of Bagration. As part of the Maskirovka (deception) effort, the bulk of the Red Army’s armoured formations remained with the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts, but the four fronts involved in Bagration were provided with six tank corps (1 TC, 1 GTC, 2 GTC, 3 GTC, 9 TC, 29 TC) and two mechanized corps (1 MC, 3 GMC), including Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA which was quietly transferred from northern Romania to Chernyakhovsky’s 3rd Byelorussian Front. These armoured formations had over 2,700 tanks. Soviet production was such that the Red Army could now begin to equip tank brigades entirely with T-34s and the T-70 light tanks began to phase out of service. About 20 per cent of the T-34s were the newest T-34/85 model, which was definitely superior to the Pz IV Ausf J. Some Soviet units were still equipped primarily with Lend-Lease armour, such as the 3 GMC, which had over 100 M4A2 Shermans and some Valentines and Churchills.^{44} The number of JS-2 heavy tanks was still limited and only 80 in four regiments were available for Bagration. However, production of the Su-76M self-propelled gun was well advanced and over 1,000 SPGs would be involved in the offensive, as well as over 100 of the new JSU-122 which was capable of defeating Tiger tanks.

On 22 June, the four Soviet fronts began counter-reconnaissance and probing actions all along Heeresgruppe Mitte’s front, stripping away its outpost line. Then at 0500 hours on 23 June, the Red Army unleashed a two-hour artillery preparation unlike anything the Germans had previously experienced. Most Soviet artillery units fired two basic loads of ammunition during the preparation, meaning that a battery of 122mm howitzers fired 640 rounds each.^{45} Although well dug in, the front-line German infantry positions were badly battered. Around 0700 hours, the ground attack began with specially-organized assault groups moving forward to clear obstacles and eliminate forward German positions. Unlike previous offensives, the Red Army avoided sending large masses of infantry forward until forward obstacles were breached and ensured that these assault groups were provided with adequate engineer support. The new PT-34 mine-roller tank was employed for the first time in quantity and it proved a success at rapidly clearing lanes through minefields. Although the German forward defences in the AOK 4 and AOK 9 sectors was still strong enough to repulse the initial attacks, it was a different story in Reinhardt’s PzAOK 3 sector. The 6th Guards Army and 43rd Army from Bagramyan’s 1st Baltic Front punched their way through the German IX Armeekorps defence west of Vitebsk while the 5th and 39th Armies from Chernyakhovsky’s 3rd Byelorussian Front smashed the VI Armeekorps south of Vitebsk. By the end of the first day of Bagration, it was clear that the two Soviet fronts were attempting a double envelopment of the LIII Armeekorps in the Vitebsk salient.

Busch was at Hitler’s headquarters when Bagration began and did not immediately grasp the scale of what he was up against. Hitler ordered ‘no retreat’ and Busch obeyed, without protest. In reality, it was really up to the local German commanders to decide how to respond to the Soviet offensive and thus the normal quick-thinking style of decision-making that characterized earlier German operations was not really evident in this situation. On 24 June, the Soviets increased the scale of artillery preparation in all sectors and this time, achieved small breakthroughs against AOK 4 and AOK 9, as well. The problem was that the German units were trying to hold too much frontline with too few troops, so inevitably the Soviet assault groups would find a weak spot. Near Orsha, the AOK 4 split the 20 Tigers of s.Pz.Abt.501 up across a wide area, trying to contain multiple enemy assault groups, but the dispersion into platoon-size packets robbed the Tigers of their ability to influence the battle. Although the Tigers, assault guns and Pak guns managed to knock out a significant amount of Soviet tanks, it was soon apparent that the Soviets were advancing much more quickly than thought possible. Reinhardt’s sector was the hardest hit and his front collapsed first. For the Germans soldiers in the front line of Heeresgruppe Mitte, Operation Bagration struck like a tidal wave, inundating all their fixed defences at a terrifying rate.

Hans Jordan waited until 25 January before committing Kessel’s 20.Panzer-Division and then sent it to deal with the enemy breakthrough south of Bobruisk, in the XXXXI Panzerkorps sector. Kessel’s division did not move into combat as an integral whole, but in pieces, and it was surprised to bump into armour from the 1 GTC well behind the XXXXI Panzerkorps’ HKL. Near the village of Slobodka, Panzer-Abteilung 21 claimed to have knocked out 60 tanks from Panov’s 1 GTC, but lost about 30 Pz IVs. While Kessel’s Panzers were tied up with Panov, the Soviet 3rd Army punched through the XXXV Armeekorps east of Bobruisk and sent the 9 TC to envelop the city. After just three days of battle, Jordan’s AOK 9 was in serious trouble. In the middle of the German front, AOK 4 initially held together because it had some of the best units and Zakharin’s 2nd Byelorussian Front did not have its own armoured exploitation force. Yet when both flanks began to give way on 25 June, AOK 4 began falling back toward the Dnepr River and Orsha was overrun on 26 June. Chernyakhovskiy sent Burdeiny’s 2 TC down the Smolensk-Minsk highway in pursuit.

For Heeresgruppe Mitte, the real disaster occurred in the area in between VI Armeekorps and XXVII Armeekorps, where the 5th Army achieved a complete breakthrough when two German infantry divisions disintegrated. Choosing the right moment, Chernyakhovsky committed Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA into the breach and this time, the Soviet armoured wedge advanced rapidly into the depth of the German defences, overrunning artillery and support units. The collapse of the VI Armeekorps left Reinhardt’s right flank in ruins and Soviet infantry and armour moved in to encircle the LIII Armeekorps in Vitebsk. Reinhardt pleaded with Busch and Hitler to allow these units to retreat before they were surrounded, but this was refused. Instead, the Soviets surrounded LIII Armeekorps by 26 June and the formation attempted a breakout on 27 June that resulted in the loss of 30,000 German troops. Reinhardt’s broken PzAOK 3 retreated westward toward Polotsk. Rotmistrov’s armour poured into the German centre, wreaking havoc. The Panzer-Grenadier-Division Feldherrnhalle tried to act as a blocking force north of Orsha but it was easily batted out of the way, then encircled and destroyed.

By 27 June, it was obvious even to Hitler that Bagration was no normal Soviet offensive, since Heeresgruppe Mitte was giving way everywhere. Ignoring Busch’s belated requests to retreat to save his armies from imminent encirclement, Hitler began to act irrationally. He ordered the 12.Panzer-Division (equipped with nine Pz III and 35 Pz IVs) transferred from Heeresgruppe Nord to reinforce Jordan’s AOK 9, then relieved Jordan of command for his belated commitment of 20.Panzer-Division.^{46} Yet before the lead elements of 12.Panzer-Division could begin arriving by rail, Rokossovsky began to complete his double envelopment of Bobruisk. In short order, the 20.Panzer-Division and the bulk of the XXXV Armeekorps and XXXXI Panzerkorps were surrounded. Kessel spearheaded a breakout effort on 28 June that managed to save part of his division and 12,000 German troops, but the rest were abandoned to their fate. When the 65th Army stormed Bobruisk on 29 June, two German corps and 70,000 troops had been killed or captured. Rokossovsky exploited his victory by dispatching a mixed armour-cavalry group east toward the rail junction Baranovichi, which would complicate the German ability to move in reinforcements against his flank.

With PzAOK 3 and AOK 9 virtually destroyed, von Tippelskirch’s AOK 4 was unable to hold on the Dnepr and fell back rapidly to the Berezina River, abandoning Mogilev on 28 June. Only six out of 20 Tigers from s.Pz.Abt.501 made it across the Berezina; the rest either ran out of fuel or were damaged. The German infantry divisions were in even worse shape since they had very few motor vehicles and their artillery was towed by horses – so they could not outrun Soviet mechanized units. Rotmistrov’s armour was hot on AOK 4’s heels, stomping on retreating German columns and his vanguard was approaching the Berezina. The 78.Sturm-Division, one of the best infantry divisions in the Heer, was surrounded and destroyed near Orsha. As the Germans retreated, they were also pounded by VVS airstrikes, which killed two German corps commanders on 28 June (Pfeiffer of VI Armeekorps and Martinek of XXXXI Panzerkorps). The AOK 9 headquarters was also bombed, knocking out critical communications links. On the same day, Hitler sacked Busch and replaced him with Model, although this officer also retained command over Heeresgruppe Nordukraine.

By the time Model took command, Heeresgruppe Mitte was a broken, routed force that had almost no intact units left and was running for the rear. Reinhardt’s PzAOK 3 was a loose fragment, gravitating toward the northwest, without connection to either Heeresgruppe Nord’s AOK 16 or the rest of Heeresgruppe Mitte. Bagramyan’s 1st Baltic Front pursued Reinhardt and, if it had possessed a tank army, the pursuit could have been decisive. In the centre, the remnants of AOK 4 and AOK 9 fell back toward the Berezina at Borisov then to Minsk, where Generalleutnant Karl Decker’s 5.Panzer-Division and the attached s.Pz.Abt.505 (29 Tigers) were just arriving by rail from Kovel; this division had been recently rebuilt and had 55 Pz IVs and 70 Panthers.^{47} Generalleutnant Dietrich von Saucken, a solid Prussian cavalry officer, was put in charge of Decker’s division and a few other rear detachments and was given the difficult mission of holding the crossings over the Berezina as long as possible in order to save the two retreating armies.

One company of Tigers from s.Pz.Abt.505 detrained near Krupki, 36km northeast of Borisov, on the evening of 27 June and found itself immediately in contact with the lead elements of Vovchenko’s 3 GTC from Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA. Vovchenko’s corps was primarily equipped with Lend-Lease tanks: 110 M4A2 Shermans 70 Valentine Mk IX and 16 T-34s.* On 28 June, the Tigers tried to make a stand against the mass of the 3 GTC, but it was like a rock against the sea; the Tigers knocked out 34 tanks but the Shermans flowed around both flanks and six damaged Tigers have to be abandoned. The next day, the Tigers knocked out another 21 enemy tanks but were quickly threatened with encirclement once their ammunition was nearly exhausted and they were forced to retreat. Reaching the Berezina River, the Tigers could not cross the bridge and had to await engineer support to reinforce the structure. Once across the Berezina on 30 June, the Tigers conducted a mobile delay action to slow 5 GTA while 5.Panzer-Division deployed.

Decker’s Panzer-Pioniers wired the bridges over the Berezina for detonation while the divisional reconnaissance battalion screened along the river. However, the lead elements of the 5 GTA reached the Berezina and decided to bypass the 5.Panzer-Division roadblock at Borisov by gaining a small crossing north of the city. Several Soviet rifle divisions were right behind 5 GTA and also got troops across the river. No more German troops were coming, so Decker blew the bridges over the river. Once Rotmistrov reached the Berezina, he pushed the 29 TC across north of Borisov while the 2 GTC crossed south near Berezino. Since Decker’s 5.Panzer-Division did not yet have its Panzer-Regiment on the Berezina, he was only able to fight a delaying action before abandoning Borisov on the evening of 30 June. By 1 July, Rotmistrov was across the Berezina in force and Heeresgruppe Mitte rear elements began to evacuate Minsk. Rotmistrov decided to conduct a double envelopment of the city, sending 2 GTC as the southern pincer and 29 TC and 3 GMC as the northern pincer. Once Panzer-Regiment 31 reached the front, Decker and von Saucken elected to fight a tank battle near Pleshchenitsy, 55km northeast of Minsk, to stop the northern pincer. The battle was fought in an area covered by forests and peat bogs, which complicated tactical mobility and reduced engagement ranges to under 500 metres. Decker’s 5.Panzer-Divison fought a bitter action on 1–2 July and succeeded in stalling the northern pincer and inflicting considerable losses, but his own losses were heavy as well. On 5 July, the s.Pz.Abt.501 blew up its last Tiger and was withdrawn to Germany to refit.

However, 5.Panzer-Division could not hold off a tank army on its own and Burdeiny’s 2 TC slipped around south of Minsk virtually unopposed and began entering the city early on 3 July. A brisk fight followed but the Germans could not hold the city and Minsk was liberated by the end of the day. Burdeiny’s capture of Minsk isolated the remnants of AOK 4 and AOK 9 which were still east of the city and these formations were annihilated over the next few days. A breakout was attempted but very few units escaped the pocket and another 100,000 German troops were lost. Decker’s 5.Panzer-Division fought a brilliant delaying action but after losing more than 80 per cent of its tanks, it was compelled to retreat. Model literally had nothing left to work with – three of Heeresgruppe Mitte’s armies had been destroyed and the remaining fragments were too weak to hold anywhere. Without authorization from Hitler or the OKH, Model ordered his troops to fall back into Poland, realizing that his only option now was to trade space for time.

The collapse of Heeresgruppe Mitte created a cascading effect across the Eastern Front. Bagramyan’s 1st Baltic Front boldly pushed toward Polotsk, which was overrun on 4 July. Despite frantic efforts by Model and Heeresgruppe Nord to recreate a frontline in this sector, Bagramyan and Chernyakhovsky’s 3rd Byelorussian Front advanced into eastern Lithuania against minimal opposition. Vilnius was liberated on 13 July and Soviet armour was soon approaching Riga and the Baltic Sea, threatening to isolate Heeresgruppe Nord by 31 July. In the south, on 13 July Rokossovsky’s 1st Byelorussian Front and Konev’s 1st Ukrainian Front struck Heeresgruppe Nordukraine, which had been weakened by transfers to Heeresgruppe Mitte. Rokossovsky committed three tank armies (1 GTA, 3 GTA and 4 TA), which smashed through the PzAOK 1. By this point, large numbers of T-34/85s were available and they outclassed both the Pz IV and the StuG-III. It still took two weeks to achieve a complete breakthrough, but then L’vov fell on 27 July. Konev’s and Rokossovsky’s forces surged into southern Poland while PzAOK 1 and PzAOK 4 survived by falling back into the Carpathian Mountains. Bogdanov’s 2nd Tank Army liberated Lublin then advanced toward the Vistula, but he was wounded on 21 July and General-major Aleksei I. Radzievsky continued the advance with the 8 GTC, 16 TC and 3 TC. On 27 July, the Soviet 8th Guards Army was able to gain a bridgehead over the Vistula at Magnuszew, south of Warsaw. By the morning of 31 July, the lead elements of two Soviet tank corps were just east of Warsaw – which sparked the Warsaw Uprising by the Polish Home Army.

Due to the amazing success of Bagration, virtually the entire German front was in retreat and the Red Army was on the verge of a historic military triumph. However, Soviet logistics were strained by an advance of over 500km in one month, and it became apparent that there were not enough trucks and transport planes to keep the forward tank units supplied. Furthermore, the OKH was rushing reinforcements to Model, including 12 Volksgrenadier-Divisionen, the Fallschirm-Panzer-Division Hermann Göring from Italy and the 19.Panzer-Division from Holland. The Hermann Göring had 64 Pz IV and 31 of the new Jagdpanzer IV assault guns, while 19.Panzer-Division had 81 Pz IV and 79 Panthers – a remarkably strong force. Guderian, the new head of the General Staff, helped to orchestrate a counter-attack against the 2 TA with these two fresh divisions and Wiking and Totenkopf on the morning of 1 August. By massing over 170 tanks, the Germans were able to badly maul the 3 TC in four days of tank battles around Wolomin and force 2 TA to pull back 20km. For the only time during the Second World War, Stalin deliberately exaggerated the extent of the German victory and claimed that 2 TA could not advance to Warsaw until its losses were replaced. In fact, the Red Army had considerable strength on the Vistula by 5 August, but Stalin wanted the Germans to destroy the Home Army to pave the way for a communist dictatorship in post-war Poland.

Elsewhere, the madcap Soviet advances of July came to a halt in August. Outside Riga, Saucken conducted Operation Doppelkopf on 15–27 August, with the XXXIX Panzerkorps (4. and 12.Panzer-Divisionen) and XXXX Panzerkorps (5., 7, 14.Panzer-Divisionen) against Bagramyan’s forces in an effort to reopen the rail line to Heeresgruppe Nord. After more than a week of fighting, the operation succeeded in capturing the town of Jelgava and re-opening land communications, despite the arrival of the 5 GTA. However, Hitler refused to allow Heeresgruppe Nord to retreat through the corridor and ordered them to remain in Estonia and northern Lithuania, so Doppelkopf proved a hollow tactical victory. The Germans were less successful in Romania, where the coup in Bucharest on 23 August led to Romania switching sides. In short order, AOK 6 was badly defeated and Malinovsky’s forces were able to roll into Romania against negligible opposition. The loss of the oil from the Ploesti oilfields further exacerbated the Wehrmacht’s worsening fuel crisis and ensured the end of large-scale mechanized operations.

In southern Poland, Konev’s forces had secured a crossing over the Vistula near Sandomierz on 29 July and began feeding elements of Katukov’s 1 TA into the bridgehead. Heeresgruppe Nordukraine mounted counter-attacks to eliminate the bridgehead, but without success. On 5 August, the reconstituted s.Pz.Abt.501 was sent to spearhead another counter-attack with 45 of the new Tiger II tanks. This was the combat debut of this new weapon on the Eastern Front and it was a disaster. Forced to make a 50km road march from the rail head to the front, 37 of 45 Tiger IIs broke down due to faulty final drives. When the counter-attack actually began, it did not go well. A single T-34/85 from the 53rd Guards Tank Brigade (6 GTC/3 GTA), commanded by Leytenant Aleksandr P. Oskin, was camouflaged in a corn field and spotted a platoon of three King Tigers approaching in column along a road. Oskin fired BR-365P APCR rounds from a range of just 200 metres against the turret sides of the lead two Tigers and destroyed both with four rounds each; the turrets of both King Tigers were blown off. The third King Tiger tried to retreat, but Oksin pursued and pumped a round into its engine compartment, disabling it. In the one-sided action, 11 of 15 German King Tiger crewmen were killed, the rest captured.^{48} The next day, the s.Pz.Abt.501 was forced to abandon another King Tiger, which was captured intact by the Soviets.

By the end of August 1944, the war in the East was decided, even though the Wehrmacht was able to temporarily create a new front. In an effort to get more tanks to the front, the OKH sent four Panzer-Brigaden, each with 36 Panthers, to the East in August 1944. These Panthers were the improved Ausf G model, which were less prone to engine fires, but the final drives still tended to fail after just 150km. In contrast, the Red Army was rapidly re-equipping its tank units with the T-34/85, which in competent hands could deal with any German tank. The Soviets not only had an overwhelming numerical superiority, but they were closing the gap in qualitative terms as well.

During the period June–August 1944, the Third Reich suffered catastrophic defeats on both the Eastern and Western Fronts. Altogether, the Wehrmacht suffered over 900,000 dead or missing in this period, which cost them the bulk of the combat veterans who had achieved the victories of 1940–42. After this point, the Wehrmacht could only continue to fight on for another eight months by scraping the bottom of the barrel. The Germans also lost 2,398 tanks in this three-month period, including 801 Panthers and 481 Tigers; these losses could not be replaced on a one-for-one basis because Allied strategic bombing on the tank factories and rail yards in Germany was finally causing a drop in German tank production. Without adequate fuel, veteran crews, spare parts or replacement tanks, the outlook for the Panzer-Divisionen was grim.

Compared to previous Soviet offensives, the Red Army did not pay an excessive price for its unprecedented gains during Bagration and the L’vov-Sandomierz operations; altogether 256,000 personnel dead or missing and 4,300 tanks lost. These losses would be made good in short order and the Red Army was gathering its strength for the final lunge into Germany.

Epilogue, September 1944–May 1945

Due to the drawn-out Polish rebellion in Warsaw, which the Germans were allowed to crush undisturbed, the Stavka decided to temporarily suspend operations in the centre of the Eastern Front and concentrate on the flanks. The 1st Baltic Front struggled to sever Heeresgruppe Nord’s lines of communication through Riga, but PzAOK 3 was reinforced and mounted another counter-offensive on 16 September with nearly 400 tanks – one of the last major German armoured operations of this size on the Eastern Front. However, the effort failed to remove the threat to the corridor and lost one-third of its tanks. The Red Army’s tank units were now plentifully equipped with the T-34/85 and even the JS-2 was available in significant numbers. Every time the Germans managed to scrape together an armoured force, it ran straight into a wall of anti-tank guns and was constantly attacked by Soviet fighter-bombers. The Luftwaffe could no longer protect the Panzer-Divisionen. After absorbing the German counter-attacks, the 1st Baltic Front began its own massive offensive on 6 October, using the 5 GTA as its battering ram. The 3 PzAOK disintegrated and retreated into East Prussia, while the 5 GTA reached the Baltic on 10 October. By 15 October, Riga fell and Heeresgruppe Nord was isolated in the Courland Peninsula, where it remained for the rest of the war. The 4. and 12.Panzer-Divisionen were among the isolated units. Instead of evacuating these two armies by sea to reinforce the defence of East Prussia, Hitler ordered them to remain where they were, although some units were evacuated in January 1945. Amazingly, the Soviets decided to keep attacking the Courland Pocket all winter – even though it made little military sense – and lost over 1,000 tanks for minimal gains.

The other major focus for the Stavka was the Balkans. Romania was completely occupied by the end of September and the 1st and 4th Ukrainian Fronts advanced into Hungary, while the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts marched into Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. The German PzAOK 1 and PzAOK 4 put up a stiff fight in the Carpathians, particularly at Dukla Pass in eastern Czechoslovakia in September. At Debrecen, the Germans managed a counter-attack that destroyed Pliev’s mobile cavalry-mechanized group, although this was just a tactical victory. Since AOK 6 had been destroyed yet again in Romania, the OKH decided to form a new 6.Armee, even though it only had the decimated 13.Panzer-Division and a single infantry division. Pursued by Tolbukhin’s forces, AOK 6 retreated into southeastern Hungary and by the end of October nearly half of Hungary had been overrun and Belgrade had been liberated. In November, Malinovsky’s 2nd Ukrainian Front made a push for Budapest, but did not encircle the city until 26 December 1944.

Amazingly, Germany succeeded in recreating fronts in both the east and west, while their opponents outran their supply lines. Yet instead of using this respite to rebuild his forces in the East, Hitler decided to allocate his remaining armoured reserves for a grand, nonsensical counter-stroke in the West in the Ardennes. All the best armoured units went to the Ardennes, leaving mostly burnt-out or untried divisions in the East. Yet the Ardennes offensive failed and squandered Germany’s last armoured reserves. In addition to ill-conceived counter-strokes, the Germans also decided to upgrade the Großdeutschland division to a corps-size formation, and the same was done with the Hermann Göring division; this was a foolish waste of resources on a few elite units while the rest of the Panzer-Divisionen were starved of replacements. The second division in Panzerkorps Großdeutschland, Panzergrenadier-Division Brandenburg, was poorly equipped and its Panzer-Regiment only had a single battalion equipped with a mix of Panthers, Pz IVs, Pz IIIs, assault guns and SPW half-tracks.^{49}

In early January 1945, Hitler mandated that AOK 6 would mount a relief operation to rescue the trapped forces in Budapest, which included the 13.Panzer-Division, Panzergrenadier-Division Feldherrnhalle and Hungarian 1st Armoured Division. Operation Konrad was hastily organized, with the IV SS-Panzerkorps (Totenkopf and Wiking) making two efforts to break through to the city but failing. Even with the addition of the 23.Panzer-Division and King Tigers from the s.Pz.Abt.503, the third attack also failed. A small number of troops escaped the city in a breakout effort, but the rest of the garrison surrendered on 13 February. The quality of German replacements dropped off sharply by late 1944, as youths were conscripted to replace combat veterans. Even the Waffen-SS was scraping the bottom of the barrel: 16-year-old Gunter Grass was conscripted in autumn 1944 and sent to join the SS-Frundsberg division in Silesia in early 1945. Grass was assigned to a unit with three Jagdpanthers but was given no training and panicked in his first taste of combat.^{50} Even as Germany deployed its best tanks and tank destroyers in the final hours of the war, it had few competent troops left to operate them.

Meanwhile, the German forces defending the Vistula were out-numbered 6–1 in armour, 5–1 in personnel and 8–1 in artillery. Indeed, the German defence in central Poland was little more than a reinforced screen. Zhukov and the Stavka spent months planning the Vistula-Oder operation and it was the best Soviet set-piece offensive of the war. Zhukov decided to use the Magnuszew and Pulawy bridgeheads as the springboards for the 1st Byelorussian Front’s attack on the rebuilt AOK 9. He brought up Katukov’s 1 GTA and Bogdanov’s 2 GTA to serve as his exploitation forces. The offensive began on the morning of 14 January 1945 with an artillery preparation that shattered two frontline Volksgrenadier-Divisionen and Zhukov’s troops advanced 20km on the first day. The AOK 9 committed its mobile reserve – the 19. and 25.Panzer-Divisionen from XXXX Panzerkorps – but their counter-attacks were too puny and uncoordinated. Zhukov committed Bogdanov’s armour on the second day of the operation and it created a broad wedge in AOK 9’s front. After four days of fighting, the German front broke wide open and Warsaw was occupied. In less than three weeks, Zhukov’s forces shattered Heeresgruppe Mitte and Heeresgruppe A and advanced 500km to the Oder River. Soviet losses were relatively light, but Soviet logistics were still inadequate despite the influx of large numbers of American-made trucks.

In March 1945, the Germans mounted their last offensive in the East near Lake Balaton, south of Budapest with the 6.SS-Panzerarmee, transferred from the West. Guderian wanted to use this armour to stabilize the main front in the east, but Hitler was focused on recovering ground in Hungary. Operation Frühlingserwachen (Spring Awakening) employed virtually all the Waffen-SS Panzer-Divisionen (LSSAH, Das Reich, Totenkopf, Wiking, Hohenstauffen and Hitler Jugend), elements of four Heer Panzer-Divisionen (1, 3, 6, 23) and two King Tiger battalions against Tolbukhin’s 3rd Ukraininan Front on 6 March. This operation saw the last major concentration of German armour, with almost 500 tanks (including 249 Panthers and 72 King Tigers) and 173 assault guns. After a brief initial period of success that achieved a 30km advance in two days, the offensive bogged down and was called off after 10 days. German material losses were crippling in this last offensive, leaving the panzer units involved in woeful state by mid-March.

The final campaign along the Oder River in April 1945 and the subsequent attack into Berlin was not the Red Army’s finest hour. Instead, Zhukov allowed his rivalry with Konev to affect his decision-making and Stalin goaded both men into a sloppy offensive that relied on mass, rather than skill. Zhukov’s decision on 16 April to commit the 1 GTA and 2 GTA into battle, even though the German defences on the Seelow Heights were still unbroken, resulted in massive Soviet casualties. Amazingly, Hitler had not anticipated a direct Soviet advance across the Oder and had left his best armoured units in Hungary, which left few Panzer units on the Oder. The SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Nordland and 10 King Tigers from schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 503 were the only veteran armoured units to fight in the final battle for Berlin. Instead of elite units, the approaches to Berlin were defended by extemporized units such as Panzer-Division Müncheberg and Panzer-Division Kurmark, which were divisions in name only. The final German stand on the Oder and in Berlin involved only small amounts of armour, mostly assault guns, but the fanatical defence inflicted enormous losses on the Red Army, including nearly 2,000 tanks. The widespread introduction of the Panzerfaust proved deadly in Berlin and the Soviet use of so much armour in the dense urban terrain was a tactical error. Nevertheless, Zhukov and Konev used their armour to batter their way into Berlin and brought an end to the Third Reich.

Conclusions

Both sides made tactical and operational mistakes in the conduct of armoured operations on the Eastern Front in 1941–45, but it was the Germans who made the strategic mistake of starting a war that they were not prepared to win. Furthermore, the Red Army learned a great deal more from its defeats in 1941– 42 than the Wehrmacht learned from its victories. Both during and after the war, the Germans repeatedly tried to rationalize their defeat by pointing to the Soviet numerical superiority, as if it was somehow not fair. Yet the reason that the Red Army enjoyed a numerical superiority in tanks was due to the fact that its tanks were designed to be simple to produce and operate and easy to repair; they could also move lengthy distances without too many breaking down. This functionality of Soviet tanks was based on pre-war industrial decisions that were made with an eye to winning a protracted war. Both before and throughout the war, the Soviet oversight of tank development, production and evolution was much more professionally directed than on the German side. Unlike the Germans, who did not put a tank expert like Guderian in charge of overseeing the restoration of the Panzer-Divisionen until after Stalingrad, General-leytenant Yakov N. Fedorenko, head of GABTU, directed Soviet tank programmes throughout the entire war. Furthermore, Guderian was ignored on all the key decisions – such as the premature commitment of the Panther tank, the decision to attack at Kursk, the need to build panzer reserves – whereas Fedorenko played a key role in reconstituting shattered Soviet tank armies and ensuring that tank production stayed ahead of combat losses. Instead, the Germans opted for more sophisticated tanks that were produced in smaller numbers and were more difficult to maintain. The Germans also enjoyed producing small numbers of experimental designs such as the Ferdinand tank destroyer, whereas the Soviets had the discipline to focus on a few proven designs.

Certainly the most obvious mistake German tank designers made was to rely upon petrol engines rather than expending the effort to build a high-torque diesel engine, as the Soviets had. Fuel-hogs like the Panther and King Tiger were using 2–4 times as much fuel as earlier designs, just when Germany was running short of fuel. Hitler regarded the diesel engine as the preferred solution, but allowed himself to be dissuaded by technocrats who opined that it would take too long to develop and the war would be over before it was ready. Tied in with the mistaken reliance on fuel-inefficient petrol engines, the Germans became enamoured of mounting bigger and bigger guns on their tanks and Panzerjägers. The problem was that armoured vehicles over 45 tons were difficult to get across rivers, since German pontoon bridges were not intended for heavy tanks, and it was increasingly problematic for recovery vehicles to retrieve them on the battlefield. Thus, by 1943, German heavy tanks had difficulty getting across minor water features, which negatively impacted mission accomplishment on a number of occasions, such as Kursk and the Korsun relief operation. Germany needed a good 30–35-ton tank with a diesel engine and a long 7.5cm gun that could be built in quantity, but instead the Panzer-Divisionen were provided with tanks that increasingly failed to meet the operational requirements of Bewegungskrieg. Interestingly, many of the design features that the Germans found so interesting – such as interweaved road wheels – were abandoned by all post-war tank designers.

Another mistake which cost the Germans dearly was the diversion of so many resources to building Waffen-SS and Luftwaffe Panzer-Divisionen, which was done for political rather than military reasons. By late 1943 Himmler was outfitting more and more Waffen-SS units, many of which were of dubious quality. Guderian failed to stop this diversion of resources and most of the Heer Panzer-Divisionen were starved of resources and allowed to become second-rate formations by late 1944. After Kursk, the German combined arms team was increasingly broken as less infantry, air and artillery support was available.

Soviet leaders stuck with a conservative attitude toward tank design and production throughout the war and it paid off handsomely. By late 1943 the Red Army had six tank armies which contained up to 30 per cent of its available armour and a small cadre of veteran front leaders such as Vatutin, Rokossovsky, Bagramyan and Konev, who learned to employ these armoured fists to achieve operational-level victories. Yet the Red Army could not have smashed German army groups just with superior numbers – that method had failed repeatedly in 1941–42. Instead, the Red Army learned how to mass its artillery to achieve breakthroughs and to employ its engineers in mobility and counter-mobility roles. By the time of Kursk, the Soviets learned that a minefield covered by fire from concealed anti-tank guns was the best answer to the Tiger or Panther, yet the Germans never really improved their mine-clearing skills. The Soviet ability to quickly refit decimated tank armies and redeploy them long distances without being detected was another skill that contributed greatly to the Soviet victory over the Panzer-Divisionen. Soviet expert use of Maskirovka (deception) allowed the Red Army to gain the advantage of surprise again and again over German commanders who could not understand that their opponents were evolving.

The Soviet failure to invest in developing armoured personnel carriers for their infantry, better reconnaissance vehicles and mobile flak guns were serious technical mistakes that proved costly in battle, but Lend-Lease deliveries of US-made halftracks and reconnaissance vehicles helped to partly rectify this deficiency by the last year of the war. Could the Red Army have defeated Germany’s armoured forces without Lend-Lease? This is doubtful for a number of reasons. Although the quality of many Lend-Lease tanks was poor, the quality of the trucks, halftracks and other support vehicles was not and without these vehicles, the Red Army’s ability to conduct Deep Operations would have been severely impaired. Another factor is that the supply of aluminum, machine tools and other key raw materials enabled the Soviet Union to rapidly expand its tank production despite the loss of so much of its own territory and resources; without this assistance, Soviet tank production would likely have been reduced by one-third. It is highly unlikely that the Red Army would have had the mobility and the numbers necessary to conduct the sweeing advances of 1944–45 without Allied Lend-Lease aid.

Yet Soviet armoured tactics were undermined throughout the war by the lack of training provided to Soviet tankers in comparison to their opponents. In 1945, some Guards tank units were afforded special gunnery training, but for most of the war Soviet tankers went into battle with inadequate gunnery training and poor communications due to the limited number of radios. These limitations – which could have been mitigated – gave an enormous advantage to German tankers and help to explain many of the lop-sided kill ratios. Yet Stalin and his Kremlin cronies were not interested in improving military training since they regarded this as a step toward professionalism and elitism, which was dangerous for the authority of the party. Instead, Stalin accepted heavy losses as the price of victory and only cared about losses when it affected mission outcomes. Nevertheless, the Red Army eventually developed a veteran armoured force by 1945 that was capable of achieving any mission assigned and had surpassed the capabilities of the German Panzer-Divisionen even in their prime.

Appendix I

Rank Table

Appendix II

Armour Order of Battle, 1 July 1943

German

Heeresgruppe Nord (Generalfeldmarschall Georg von Küchler)

16.Armee (Generalfeldmarschall Ernst Busch)

○ 18.Panzer-Grenadier-Division (Generalleutnant Werner von Erdmannsdorff)

○ Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 184

○ 18.Armee (Generaloberst Georg Lindemann)

○ Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 226

○ Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 912

○ schwere Panzer-Abteilung 502

Heeresgruppe Mitte (Generalfeldmarschall Günther von Kluge)

3.Panzerarmee (Generaloberst Georg-Hans Reinhardt)

• XXXXIII Armeekorps (General der Infanterie Karl von Oven)

○ 20.Panzer-Grenadier Division (Generalmajor Georg Jauer)

• Army Reserves:

○ 8.Panzer-Division (Generalmajor Sebastian Fichtner)^{1}

4. Armee (Generaloberst Hans von Salmuth)

• Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 270

• Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 667

2.Armee (Generaloberst Walter Weiss)

9.Armee (Generaloberst Walther Model)

XLVI Panzer-Korps (General der Infanterie Hans Zorn)

• 7.Infanterie-Division (Generalleutnant Fritz-Georg von Rappard)

○ 2./Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 909

• 31.Infanterie-Division (Generalleutnant Friedrich Hoβbach)

○ 1.,3/Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 909

• 258.Infanterie-Division (Generalleutnant Hanskurt Höcker)

○ 6./Panzer-Regiment 29 [Pz IV]

○ 2./Panzerjäger-Abteilung 2 [Marder]

XXXXI Panzer-Korps (General der Panzertruppen Josef Harpe)

• 18.Panzer-Division (Generalmajor Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben)

• 86.Infanterie-Division (Generalleutnant Helmuth Weidling)

○ schwere Panzerjäger-Abteilung 654 [Ferdinand]

○ Panzerkompanie (Fkl) 313

○ Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 177

• 292.Infanterie-Division (Generalleutnant Wolfgang von Kluge) WIA 20 July

○ schwere Panzerjäger-Abteilung 653 [Ferdinand]

○ Panzerkompanie (Fkl) 314

○ Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 244

• schwere Panzerjäger Regiment 656:

○ Sturm-Panzer-Abteilung 216 [Sturmpanzer]

XXXXVII Panzer-Korps (General der Panzertruppen Joachim Lemelsen)

• 2.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Vollrath Lübbe)

• 9.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Walter Scheller)

• 20.Panzer-Division (Generalmajor Mortimer von Kessel)

• 6.Infanterie-Division (Generalleutnant Horst Groβmann)

○ 1.,2./schwere Panzer-Abteilung 505

○ Panzerkompanie (Fkl) 312 (Leutnant Nolte)

• Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 245

• Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 904

XXIII Armeekorps (General der Infanterie Johannes Frießner)

○ Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 185

○ Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 189

Group Esebeck (9.Armee Reserve):

• 4.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Dietrich von Saucken)

• 12.Panzer-Division (Generalmajor Erpo Freiherr von Bodenhausen)

• 10.Panzer-Grenadier-Division (Generalleutnant August Schmidt)

2.Panzerarmee (General der Infanterie Heinrich Clößner)

LIII Armeekorps (Generalleutnant Friedrich Gollwitzer)

• 25.Panzer-Grenadier-Division (Generalleutnant Anton Grasser)

• 5.Panzer-Division (Generalmajor Ernst Felix Fäckenstedt)

• Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 202

• Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 904

Heeresgruppe Süd (Generalfeldmarschall Erich von Manstein)

4.Panzerarmee (Generaloberst Hermann Hoth)

• XLVIII Panzerkorps (General der Panzertruppen Otto von Knobelsdorff)^{2}

○ 3.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Franz Westhoven)

○ 11.Panzer-Division (Generalmajor Johann Mickl)

○ Panzer-Grenadier Division Groβdeutschland (Generalleutnant Walter Hörnlein)

○ 10.Panzer Brigade (Oberst Arnold Hans Albert Burmeister) Oberst Karl Decker

▪ Panzer-Regiment 39 (Major Meinrad von Lauchert)

• Panzer-Abteilung 51

• Panzer-Abteilung 52

○ Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 911

• II.SS-Panzerkorps (General der Waffen-SS Paul Hausser)

○ 1.SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer Sepp Dietrich)

○ 2.SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Das Reich (SS-Gruppenführer Walter Krüger)

○ 3.SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Totenkopf (SS-Brigadeführer Max Simon)

Armee-Abteilung Kempf (General der Panzertruppe Werner Kempf)

• III Panzerkorps (General der Panzertruppe Hermann Breith)

○ 6. Panzer-Division (Generalmajor Walther von Hünersdorff)

○ 7. Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Hans Freiherr von Funck)

○ 19. Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Gustav Richard Ernst Schmidt)^{3}

○ Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 228

○ Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 393

6. Armee (General der Infanterie Karl-Adolf Hollidt)

• 16. Panzergrenadier-Division (Generalleutnant Gerhard Graf von Schwerin)

• Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 203

• Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 210

• Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 243

• Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 287

1. Panzerarmee (Generaloberst Eberhard von Mackensen)

• Sturmgeschütz Abteilung 209

• Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 232

• Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 901

XXIV Panzerkorps (General der Panzertruppe Walther Nehring)

• 5.SS Panzergrenadier Division Wiking (SS-Brigadeführer Herbert Otto Gille)

• 17.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Walter Schilling)

• 23.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Nikolaus von Vormann)

Heeresgruppe A (Generalfeldmarschall Ewald von Kleist) 17.Armee (General der Pioniere Erwin Jaenecke)

• XXXXIX Gebirgs-Korps (General der Gebirgstruppe Rudolf Konrad)

• 13.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Hellmut von der Chevallerie)

• Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 191

• Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 249

Reinforcements:

• August 1943

○ 22 August: I./SS-Panzer-Regiment 2 [Panther] (SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Weiss) for Das Reich

○ 24 August: I./Pz.Rgt. 15[Panther] (Major Karl von Sivers) for 11. Panzer-Division

○ 31 August: II./Pz.Rgt. 23 [Panther] (Major Fritz Fechner) for 23. Panzer-Division

• September 1943:

○ 20 September: s.Pz.Abt. 506 [Tiger]

• October 1943:

○ 2 October: I./Pz.Rgt. 2 [Panther] (Hauptmann Bollert) for 13. Panzer-Divison

○ 20 October: 24. Panzer-Division (Generalmajor Maximilian Freiherr von Edelsheim) from Italy

○ 25 October: 14. Panzer-Division (Oberst Martin Unrein) from France

• November 1943:

○ 6 November: 25. Panzer-Division from Norway (Generalleutnant Adolf von Schell)^{4}

○ 7 November: s.Pz.Abt. 509 [Tiger]

○ 9 November: LSSAH, including I./SS-Panzer Regiment 1 [Panther] (SS-Sturmbannführer Herbert Kuhlmann)

○ 11 November: 1.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Walter Krüger), including I./Pz.Rgt.1 [Panther] (Major Ernst Phillip) arrives from Greece

• December 1943

○ 5 December: I./Pz.Rgt.31 [Panther] (Major Hubertus Feldtkeller), attached to XI Armeekorps.

○ III. SS-Panzerkorps (Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner)

▪ 11.SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Division Nordland

▪ 4.SS-Panzergrenadier-Brigade Nederland

• January 1944

○ Panzer-Grenadier-Division Feldherrnhalle from France (Generalleutnant Otto Kohlermann)

• March 1944:

○ 9.SS-Panzer-Division Hohenstaufen (SS-Gruppenführer Wilhelm Bittrich)

○ 10.SS Panzer-Division Frundsberg (SS-Gruppenführer Karl Fischer von Treuenfeld)

Soviet

Leningrad Front (General-polkovnik Leonid A. Govorov)

• 5x Tank Brigades (1, 152, 220, 222; 30 G)

• 6x Tank Regiments (98, 260, 261; 31 G, 46 G, 49 G)

• 3x OTB (86, 116, 287)

• 1x SAP (1439)

Volkhov Front (General Kirill A. Meretskov)

• 6x Tank Brigades (16, 29, 122, 124, 185; 7 G)

• 5x Tank Regiments (25; 32 G, 33 G, 35 G, 50 G)

• 6x OTB (107, 500, 501, 502, 503, 507)

• 2x SAP (1433, 1434)

Northwestern Front (General-polkovnik Pavel A. Kurochkin)

• 2x Tank Brigades (60, 81)

• 10x Tank Regiments (27, 32, 37, 38, 65, 226, 227, 239, 249; 3 G)

• 4x OTB (150, 170, 514, 515)

Kalinin Front (General-polkovnik Andrei I. Eremenko)

• 4x Tank Brigades (78, 143, 236; 28 G)

• 2x Mechanized Brigades (46, 47)

• 2x Tank Regiments (105, 221)

• 1x OTB (171)

Western Front (General-polkovnik Vasily D. Sokolovsky)

• 13 Tank Brigades (94, 120, 153, 187, 196, 213, 256; 2 G, 10 G, 23 G, 29 G, 42 G, 43 G)

• 4x Tank Regiments (119, 161, 233, 248)

• 2x OTB (138, 520)

• 3x SAP: (1453, 1536, 1537)

• Under Front Control:

○ 1st Tank Corps (General-major Vasily V. Butkov)

○ 5th Tank Corps (General-major Mikhail G. Sakhno)

Bryansk Front (General-polkovnik Markian M. Popov)

• 1x Tank Brigade (68)

• 9x Tank Regiments (36, 82, 114, 231, 253; 11 G, 12 G, 13 G, 26 G)

Armour Order of Battle, 1 July 1943 245

• 6x SAPs (1444, 1445, 1452, 1535, 1538, 1539)

• Under Front Control:

○ 1st Guards Tank Corps (General-major Mikhail F. Panov)

Central Front (General Konstantin K. Rokossovsky)

• 2nd Tank Army (General-leytenant Aleksei G. Rodin)

○ 3rd Tank Corps (General-major Maksim D. Sinenko)

○ 16th Tank Corps (General-major Vasily E. Grigor’ev)

○ 11th Guards Tank Brigade

• 2x Tank Brigades (129, 150)

• 14x Tank Regiments (40, 43, 45, 58, 84, 193, 229, 237, 240, 251, 259; 27 G, 29 G, 30 G)

• 4x SAP (1442, 1454, 1540, 1541)

• Under Front Control:

○ 9th Tank Corps (General-leytenant Semen I. Bogdanov)

○ 19th Tank Corps (General-major Ivan D. Vasil’ev)

Voronezh Front (General Nikolai F. Vatutin)

• 6th Guards Army (General-leytenant Ivan M. Chistiakov)

○ 96th Tank Brigade

○ 230th and 245th Tank Regiments

○ 1440th SAP

• 7th Guards Army (General-leytenant Mikhail S. Shumilov)

○ 27th Guards, 210th Tank Brigades

○ 148th, 167th and 262nd Tank Regiments

○ 1438th and 1529th SAP

• 1st Tank Army (General-leytenant Mikhail E. Katukov)

○ 3rd Mechanized Corps (General-major Semen M. Krivoshein)

○ 6th Tank Corps (General-major Andrei L. Getman)

○ 31st Tank Corps (General-major Dmitri Kh. Chernienko)^{5}

• 38th and 40th Armies

○ 86th, 180th and 192nd Tank Brigades

○ 59th and 60th Tank Regiments

• Under Front Control:

○ 2nd Guards Tank Corps (Polkovnik Aleksei S. Burdeinyi)

○ 5th Guards Tank Corps (General-leytenant Andrei G. Kravchenko)

Southwestern Front (General Rodion Ia. Malinovsky)

• 4x Tank Brigades (11, 115, 173, 179)

• 9x Tank Regiments (52, 141, 212, 224, 243; 5 G, 9 G, 16 G, 17 G

• 1x SAP (1443)

• Under Front Control:

○ 1st Guards Mechanized Corps (General-leytenant Ivan N. Russiianov)

○ 2nd Tank Corps (General-major Aleksei F. Popov)

○ 23rd Tank Corps (General-leytenant Efim G. Pushkin)^{6}

○ 9th Guards Tank Brigade

○ 10th Guards Tank Regiment

Southern Front (General-polkovnik Fedor I. Tolbukhin)

• 2nd Guards Army (General-leytenant Georgy F. Zakharov)

○ 2nd Guards Mechanized Corps (General-leytenant Karp V. Sviridov)

• 5th Shock/28th, 44th and 51st Armies

○ 4x Tank Brigades (140; 6 G, 32 G, 33 G)

○ 1x Tank Regiments (22 G)

• Under Front Control:

○ 4th Guards Mechanized Corps (General-major Trofim I. Tanaschishin)^{7}

North Caucasus Front (General-leytenant Ivan E. Petrov)

• 2x Tank Brigades (63; 5 G)

• 5x Tank Regiments (85, 244, 257, 258; 6 G)

• 2x OTB (75, 132)

• 2x SAP (1448, 1449)

Stavka Reserve (RVGK)/Steppe Front (General Ivan S. Konev)

• 4th Guards Army (General-leytenant Grigoriy I. Kulik)

○ 3rd Guards Tank Corps (General-major I.A. Vovchenko)

• 5th Guards Army (General-leytenant Aleksei S. Zhadov)

○ 10th Tank Corps (General-leytenant V.G. Burkov)

• 5th Guards Tank Army (General-leytenant Pavel A. Rotmistrov)

○ 5th Guards Mechanized Corps (General-major Boris M. Skvortsov)

○ 29th Tank Corps (General-major I. F. Kirichenko)

○ 53rd Guards Tank Regiment

○ 1549 SAP

• Other forces in Steppe Military District:

○ 4th Guards Tank Corps (General-leytenant Pavel P. Poluboiarov)

○ 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps (General-major Viktor T. Obukhov)

○ 1st Mechanized Corps (General-leytenant Mikhail D. Solomatin)

○ 2nd Mechanized Corps (General-leytenant Ivan P. Korchagin)

○ 93rd Tank Brigade

○ 34th, 35th and 39th Tank Regiments

Stavka Reserve (RVGK)/Separate Armies

• 3rd Guards Tank Army (General-leytenant Pavel S. Rybalko)

○ 12th Tank Corps (General-major Mitrofan I. Zin’kovich)^{8}

○ 15th Tank Corps (General-major Filipp N. Rudkin)

○ 91st Tank Brigade

• 5th Mechanized Corps (General-major Mikhail V. Volkov)

• 18th Tank Corps (General-major Boris S. Bakharov)

• 25th Tank Corps (General-major Fedor G. Anikushkin)

• Tank Regimens (126, 127, 225)

• SAP (1547, 1548)

Moscow Military District

• 6th Guards Mechanized Corps (General-major Aleksandr I. Akimov)

• 11th Tank Corps (General-major Nikolai N. Radkevich)

• 20th Tank Corps (General-leytenant Ivan G. Lazarev)

• 30th Tank Corps (General-leytenant Georgy S. Rodin)

• 6x Tank Brigades (88, 92, 118, 144; 31 G, 34 G)

Volga Military District

• 9th Mechanized Corps (General-major Konstantin A. Malygin)

• 8x Tank Brigades (41 G; 2, 10, 14, 15, 116, 207, 254)

• 5x Tank Regiments (51, 61, 104, 154, 250)

• 6x OTB (126, 249, 258, 563, 564, 608)

Reinforcements:

• August 1943

○ 7th Mechanized Corps (General-major Ivan V. Dubovoi)

○ 8th Mechanized Corps (General-major Abram M. Khasin)

Appendix III

Tanks on the Eastern Front, 1943–44

Appendix IV

Tank Production, 1943

¹ Name changed to Nashorn in January 1944.

Key Industrial Decisions, 1943

• Hitler is impressed with the 128-mm gun and orders it mounted on either a Panther or Tiger as a tank destroyer.

• May 1943, Hitler approves the Maus super-heavy tank (188 tons) for production, which will divert resources from Krupp and Alkett for the next two years.

• August 1943, Pz III production terminated and facilities shift to Sturmgeschütz production.

• December 1943, Hitler approves Jagdpanzer IV for production against Guderian’s objections. Krupp-Grusonwerk AG plant ceases Pz IV production in favor of Jagdpanzer IV.

Primary AFV Manufacturing Centers:

• Braunschweig (Muehlenbau und Industrie AG (MIAG), Pz III, StuG-III

• Nurnberg (Maschinenfabrik Augsburg Nurnberg AG or MAN), Pz III, Pz V

• Berlin-Marienfelde (Daimler-Benz AG); Pz III, Pz V

• St. Valentin, Nibelungenwerke, Pz IV

• Plauen (Vogtlaendische Maschinenfabrik AG or VOMAG), Pz IV

• Magdeburg (Krupp-Grusonwerk AG), Pz IV

• Hannover (Maschinenfabrik Niedersachen Hannover, GmbH), Pz V

• Kassel (Henschel & Sohn AG), Pz V, Pz VI

• Berlin-Borsigwalde (Alkett or Altmärkische Kettenwerk GmbH), StuG-III, StuH 42, Marder II

• Breslau (Fahrzeug und Motorenbau, GmbH (FAMO), Marder

• Duisburg, (Deutsche-Eisenwerke AG or DEW), Hornisse/Nashorn

Tank Engines:

• Friedrichshafen (Maybach Motorenbau GmbH): Maybach HL 120 TRM; Maybach HL 230 P30 V12;

• Berlin (Norddeutsche Motorenbau); Maybach HL 120 TRM

• Berlin-Niederschönewide (assembly plant)

• Berlin (Daimler-Benz AG); Maybach HL 230 P30 V12

• Zwickau (Auto Union AG): Maybach HL 230 P30 V12

New tank models (3):

• April 1943, Pz IV Ausf H with new KwK 40 L/48 gun, improved frontal armor protection up to 80-mm but increased weight by 2.5 ton

• July 1943, Pz V Ausf D with long 7.5-cm KwK 42 L/70 introduced

• August 1943, Pz V Ausf A introduced

New assault gun models (3):

• March 1943, StuH 42 assault gun with 10.5-cm StuH 42 L / 28 howitzer starts mass production. Ten pre-production models were built in November 1942 and sent to Leningrad.

• April 1943, Sturmpanzer introduce with 15-cm StuH 43 L/12 howitzer on Pz IV hull, built by Deutsche Eisenwerke A.G.

• December 1943, StuG IV introduced

New tank destroyer models (2):

• February 1943, Nashhorn tank destroyer equipped with 8.8-cm Pak 43 L/71 on Pz IV chassis. Built by DEW (Deutsche-Eisenwerke AG) in Duisburg

• April 1943, Ferdinand tank destroyer introduced with 8.8-cm KwK 43 L/71 gun, built at Nibelungenwerke

Key Industrial Decisions, 1943

• 21 March 1943, Production of the Su-76 is stopped by GKO after only 170 built due to engine and transmission failures. The improved version, Su-76M, re-enters production in late May or June 1943

• August 1943, Phase-out of KV-1 heavy tank, shift to heavy assault guns and new IS-series heavy tanks

• October 1943, all light tank production programs are cancelled

Primary AFV Manufacturing Centers:

• Sverdlovsk/Plant 37, T-60, Su-76

• Gorky/GAZ Plant, T-70, Su-76

• Nizhniy Tagil/Stalin Ural Tank Factory183, T-34/76

• Chelyabinsk (ChTZ), T-34/76, KV-1, KV-85, IS-1/2, SU-152

• Gorky/Krasnoye Sormovo Plant No. 112, T-34/76

• Omsk/Lenin Plant 174, T-34/76

• Sverdlovsk/UZTM Uralmash, T-34/76, Su-85, Su-122

• Kirov/Plant 38, Su-76

• Mytishchi/Plant 40; Su-76

Tank Engines:

• V-2 Diesel engine (Zavod 75)

New tank models (4):

• July 1943, the T-80 light tank entered service as an improved T-70 with a two-man turret, improved armored protection and better horsepower, but was cancelled three months later.

• September 1943, the KV-85 heavy tank entered service as an interim design until the IS-1/2 heavy tanks were ready for production. Based upon a KV-1S hull, but using a new turret designed for the IS-series tank and armed with the 85-mm D-5T gun, a total of 148 KV-85s were built.

• October 1943, the IS-1 (or IS-85) heavy tank entered service, armed with the 85-mm D-5T gun, but these tanks were later re-equipped with the 122-mm D-25T gun.

• December 1943, the IS-2 heavy tank entered service, armed with the 122-mm D25T gun.

New SP/Assault gun models (3):

• February 1943, the SU-152 self-propelled gun entered service as a replacement for the KV-2. Originally designated as the KV-14, it mounted the 152-mm ML-20S gun-howitzer on the chassis of a KV-1S.

• August 1943, the SU-85 tank destroyer entered service, armed with the 85-mm D-5T gun on a T-34 hull.

• December 1943, the ISU-152 assault gun entered service as an improved replacement for the SU-152. It used the same ML-20S howitzer, but substituted the new IS tank chassis.

Appendix V

Armour Order of Battle, 21 June 1944

German

Heeresgruppe Nord (Generaloberst Georg Lindemann)

16.Armee (General der Artillerie Christian Hansen)

18.Armee (General der Artillerie Herbert Loch)

Armee-Abteilung Narwa (General der Infanterie Johannes Frießner)

• III. SS-Panzerkorps (SS-Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner)

○ schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 103

○ SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Division Nordland (SS-Gruppenführer Fritz Scholz)

○ 20.Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (estnische Nr. 1) (Brigadeführer Franz Augsberger)

○ 4.SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier-Brigade Nederland (SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Wagner)

Under Heeresgruppe Nord control:

• 12.Panzer-Division (Generalmajor Gerhard Müller)

Heeresgruppe Mitte (Generalfeldmarschall Ernst Busch)

3.Panzerarmee (Generaloberst Georg-Hans Reinhardt)

2.Armee (Generaloberst Walter Weiss)

4.Armee (General der Infanterie Kurt von Tippelskirch)

• XII Armeekorps (Generalleutnant Vinzenz Müller)

○ 18.Panzergrenadier-Division (Generalleutnant Karl-Ludwig Zutavern)^{1}

• XXVII Armeekorps (General der Infanterie Paul Volkers)

○ 25.Panzergrenadier-Division (Generalleutnant Paul Schürmann)

• Under Army Control: s.Pz.Abt. 501 (Tiger), s.Pzjr.Abt. 655 (Nashorn)

9.Armee (General der Infanterie Hans Jordan)

Under Heeresgruppe Mitte control:

○ 20.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Mortimer von Kessel)

○ Panzer-Grenadier-Division Feldherrnhalle (Generalmajor Friedrich-Carl von Steinkeller)

○ 5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking (Gruppenführer Herbert Otto Gille)

Heeresgruppe Nordukraine (Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model)

1.Panzerarmee (Generaloberst Erhard Raus)

• III. Panzerkorps (General der Panzertruppe Dietrich von Saucken)

○ 1.Panzer-Division (Generalmajor Werner Marcks)

○ 7.Panzer-Division (Generalmajor Gerhard Schmidhuber)

○ 8.Panzer-Division (Generalmajor Werner Friebe)

○ 17.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Karl-Friedrich von der Meden)

○ 20.Panzergrenadier-Division (Generalleutnant Georg Jauer)

• XXIV Panzerkorps (General der Panzertruppen Walther Nehring)

○ schwere Panzerjäger-Abteilung 653 (Ferdinand)

4.Panzerarmee (Generaloberst Josef Harpe)

• LVI Panzerkorps (General der Infanterie Johannes Block)

○ 4.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Clemens Betzel)

○ 5.Panzer-Division (General der Panzertruppe Karl Decker)

○ s.Pz.Abt.505 (Tiger)

○ Sturmgeschütz-Brigade 237

1st Army [Hungary] (Lieutenant General Károly Beregfy)

○ 2nd Armored Division [Hungarian] Brigadier General Zoltán Zsedényi

Under Heeresgruppe Nordukraine Control:

○ 2.SS-Panzer-Division Das Reich

○ 9.SS-Panzer-Division Hohenstaufen

○ 10.SS Panzer-Division Frundsberg

○ 16.Panzer-Division (General-major Hans-Ulrich Back)

Heeresgruppe Südukraine (Generaloberst Ferdinand Schörner)

6.Armee (General der Artillerie Maximilian de Angelis)

• XXX. Armeekorps (General der Artillerie Maximilian Fretter-Pico)

○ 13.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Hans Tröger)^{2}

• XXXXIV Armeekorps (General der Artillerie Maximilian de Angelis)

○ 10.Panzergrenadier-Division (Generalleutnant August Schmidt)

• LII Armeekorps (General der Infanterie Erich Buschenhagen)

○ schwere Panzerjäger-Abteilung 93 (Nashorn)

• Army Reserve:

○ 3.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Wilhelm Philipps)

8.Armee (General der Infanterie Otto Wöhler)

• LVII Panzerkorps (General der Panzertruppen Friedrich Kirchner)

○ 14.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Martin Unrein)

○ Panzergrenadier-Division Großdeutschland (Generalleutnant Hasso von Manteuffel)

○ 24.Panzer-Division (General der Panzertruppe Maximillian Reichsfreiherr von Edelsheim)

○ 3.SS-Panzer-Division Totenkopf (Gruppenführer Hermann Priess)

• IV Armeekorps (General der Infanterie Friedrich Mieth)

○ 23.Panzer-Division (Generalleutnant Joseph von Radowitz)

• Romanian 4th Army

Under Heeresgruppe Südukraine control:

• 1 Rumania Mare Armored Division (Brigadier General Radu Korne)

Reinforcements:

July 1944:

• Fallschirm-Panzer-Division Hermann Göring from Italy

• 6.Panzer-Division from Germany

• S.Pz.Abt. 510 [Tiger]

August 1944:

• 19.Panzer-Division from Holland

• Panzer-Brigaden 101, 102, 103, 104 [Panther]

September 1944:

• Panzer-Brigaden 109, 110 [Panther]

• Fuhrer-Grenadier Brigade [Panther]

Soviet

Leningrad Front (General Leonid A. Govorov)

• 4x Tank Brigades (30 G; 1, 152, 220)

• 14x Tank Regiments (26 G, 27 G, 31 G, 46 G, 260 G; 27, 45, 82, 98, 124, 185, 221, 222, 226)

• 12x SAP (394 G, 396 G, 397 G; 806, 938, 952, 1198, 1222, 1238, 1439, 1495, 1811)

3rd Baltic Front (General Ivan I. Maslennikov)

• 3x Tank Brigades (7 G; 16, 122)

• 4x Tank Regiments (33 G; 51, 258, 511)

• 3x SAP (750, 768, 1433)

2nd Baltic Front (General Andrei I. Eremenko)

• 3x Tank Brigades (29 G; 78, 118)

• 6x Tank Regiments (37, 47, 81, 227, 239, 249)

• 4x SAP (991, 1199, 1453, 1539)

• Under Front Control:

○ 5th Tank Corps (General-major Mikhail G. Sakhno)

1st Baltic Front (General Ivan Bagramyan)

• 5x Tank Brigades (10 G, 34 G, 39 G; 143, 171)

• 2x Tank Regiments (2 G; 105)

• 1x SAP (1203)

○ 43rd Army (General-leytenant Afanasy P. Beloborodov)

○ 1st Tank Corps (General-leytenant Vasily V. Butkov)

3rd Byelorussian Front (General-polkovnik Ivan D. Chernyakovskiy)

• 5x Tank Brigades (2G; 28 G; 120, 153, 213)

• 1x Tank Regiment (63 G)

• 10x SAP (735, 926, 927, 953, 954, 957, 958, 959, 1435, 1445)

○ 11th Guards Army (General-leytenant Kuzma N. Galitskiy)

○ 2nd Guards Tank Corps (General-leytenant Aleksei S. Burdeyniy)

○ 5th Tank Army (Marshal Pavel A. Rotmistrov)

○ 3rd Guards Tank Corps (General-major Ivan A. Vovchenko)

○ 29th Tank Corps (General-major Evgeny I. Fominykh)

○ 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps (General-leytenant Nikolai S. Oslikovskiy)

○ Front Reserve:

○ 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps (General-leytenant Viktor T. Obukhov)

2nd Byelorussian Front (General-polkovnik Georgiy F. Zakharov)

• 4x Tank Brigades (23 G, 42 G, 43 G; 256)

• 1x Tank Regiment (233)

• 7x SAP (722, 1196, 1197, 1444, 1819, 1830, 1902)

1st Byelorussian Front (Marshal Konstantin K. Rokossovsky)

○ 2x Tank Brigades (1, 68)

○ 8x Tank Regiments (36, 42, 193, 223, 230, 231, 251, 259)

○ 16x SAP (713, 922, 925, 1204, 1205, 1206, 1221, 1295, 1812, 1821, 1888, 1890, 1897, 1899, 1900, 1901)

○ 3rd Army (General-leytenant Aleksandr V. Gorbatov)

○ 9th Tank Corps (General-major Boris S. Bakharov)

○ 65th Army (General-leytenant Pavel I. Batov)

○ 1st Guards Tank Corps (General-major Mikhail F. Panov)

○ 1st Mechanized Corps (General-leytenant Semyon M. Krivoshein)

Under Front control:

○ 8th Guards Tank Corps (General-leytenant Aleksei F. Popov)

○ 11th Tank Corps (General-major Filipp N. Rudkin)

○ 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps (General-leytenant Vladimir V. Kriukov)

○ 4th Guards Cavalry Corps (General-leytenant Issa A. Pliyev)

○ 7th Guards Cavalry Corps (General-major Mikhail P. Konstantinov)

1st Ukrainian Front (General Konstantin K. Rokossovsky)

• 1st Guards Tank Army

○ 8th Guards Mechanized Corps (General-major Ivan F. Dremov)

○ 11th Guards Tank Corps (General-leytenant Andrei L. Getman)

○ 64th Guards Tank Brigade

○ 11th Guards Tank Regiment

• 3rd Guards Tank Army

○ 6th Guards Tank Corps (General-major Vasily V. Novikov)

○ 7th Guards Tank Corps (General-major Sergei A. Ivanov)

○ 9th Mechanized Corps (General-leytenant Ivan P. Sukhov)

○ 91st Tank Brigade

○ 71st Guards Tank Regiment

• 4th Tank Army

○ 6th Guards Mechanized Corps (General-leytenant Aleksandr I. Akimov)

○ 10th Guards Tank Corps (General-major Evtikhii E. Belov)

○ 93rd Tank Brigade

○ 72nd Guards Tank Regiment

• 13th Army

○ 25th Tank Corps (General-major Fedor G. Anikushkin)

• 60th Army

○ 4th Guards Tank Corps (General-leytenant Pavel P. Poluboiarov)

○ 59th Tank Regiment

• 31st Tank Corps (General-major Vasily E. Grigoriev)

• 1x Tank brigade (150)

• 3x Tank Regiments (1G, 12 G; 39)

• 4x SAP (293 G; 1228, 1827, 1889)

2nd Ukrainian Front (General Rodion Ia. Malinovsky)

• 2nd Tank Army

○ 3rd Tank Corps (General-leytenant Vasily A. Mishulin)

○ 16th Tank Corps (General-major Ivan V. Dubovoi)

○ 11th Guards Tank Brigade

○ 754th, 1219th SAP

• 6th Tank Army (General-leytenant Andrei G. Kravchenko)

○ 5th Mechanized Corps (General-leytenant Mikhail V. Volkov)

○ 5th Guards Tank Corps (General-leytenant Vasily M. Alekseev)^{3}

○ 156th Tank Regiment

○ 1494th SAP

• Under Front Control:

○ 7th Mechanized Corps (General-major Fedor G. Katkov)

○ 18th Tank Corps (General-major Vasily I. Polozkov)^{4}

• 1x Tank Brigade (27 G)

• 2x Tank Regiments (25, 38)

3rd Ukrainian Front (General Fedor I. Tolbukhin)

• Under Front Control:

○ 4th Guards Mechanized Corps (General-major Vladimir I. Zhdanov)

○ 23rd Tank Corps (General-major Aleksei O. Akhmanov)

○ 5th Guards Mechanized Brigade

• 1x Tank Brigade (96)

• 2x Tank Regiments (5 G; 52)

• 6x SAP (398 G; 864, 1200, 1201, 1202, 1891)

STAVKA Reserve (RVGK)

• 10th Tank Corps (General-major Matvei K. Shaposhnikov)

• 19th Tank Corps (General-leytenant Ivan D. Vasiliev)

• 20th Tank Corps (General-leytenant Ivan G. Lazarev)

• 1st Guards Mechanized Corps (General-leytenant Ivan N. Russiyanov)

• 2nd Guards Mechanized Corps (General-leytenant Karp V. Sviridov)

• 5th Guards Mechanized Corps (General-major Boris M. Skvortsov)

• 7th Guards Mechanized Corps (General-leytenant Ivan P. Korchagin)

• 8th Mechanized Corps (General-major Abram M. Hasin)

Coastal Army (General-leytenant Kondrat S. Mel’nik)

• 1x Tank Brigade (63)

• 3x Tank Regiments (85, 244), 257)

• 1x SAP (1449)

Reinforcements:

December:

• 10th Mechanized Corps

Appendix VI

Tank Production, 1944

Key Industrial Decisions, 1944

• December 1943 – January 1944, Utilize Czech production facilities to mass-produce the Jagdpanzer 38 tank destroyer.

• Spring 1944, VOMAG ceases Pz IV production in favor of Jagdpanzer IV. Only Nibelungenwerke still producing Pz IV.

• August 1944, Hitler order Pz IV tank production to cease by the end of 1944 and shift production resources to the Jagdpanzer IV program.

Additional AFV Manufacturing Centers: Jagdpanzer 38 (t)

• Prague, Boemisch-Märische Maschinenfabrik (BMM), began production in March 1944

• Pilsen, Skoda Werke, began roduction in July 1944

New tank models (1):

• March 1944, Panther Ausf G introduced.

New assault gun models (1):

• August 1944, the Sturmtiger entered limited service (18 built) after a long development period by Krupp and Alkett. It mounted a 380-mm rocket launcher on a Tiger I hull.

New tank destroyer models (5):

• January 1944, the Jagdpanzer IV was introduced. It mounted a 7.5-cm Pak 39 L/48 atop a Pz IV chassis.

• January 1944, the Jagdpanther entered service, mounting an 8.8-cm Pak 43 on a Panther hull.

• April 1944, the Jagdpanzer 38 was introduced as a low-cost supplement to use the Pz 38(t) chassis with a 7.5-cm Pak 39 L/48.

• July 1944, the Jagdtiger is introduced in limited numbers, mounting a 12.8-cm Pak 44 L/55 atop a King Tiger chassis. Total of 51 built in 1944.

• August 1944, the Panzer IV/70, which was an up-gunned variant of the Jagdpanzer IV armed with the 7.5-cm Pak 42 L/70 gun, entered serviced.

Key Industrial Decisions, 1944

• Production switched from the T-34/76 to the T-34/85 in April 1944 and T-34/76 production ceased entirely by September 1943.

• Chelyabinsk (ChTZ) ceased all T-34 production after March 1944 and switched entirely to IS-2 and ISU-152 production.

Plates

^{T-34 tanks on the production line. By January 1943, Soviet industry was building over 1,000 T-34s per month against Germany’s production of barely 200 medium tanks per month. Although German industry was able to increase production by late 1943, the Soviets continued to enjoy a 3-1 edge in tank production output throughout the critical phase of the war. Stalin’s industrialization programs of the 1930s had prepared the Soviet Union for a war of production and its ability to out-produce Germany was the result of careful planning.}

^{Vyacheslav Malyshev was the Soviet engineer tasked by Stalin with running the Soviet Union’s tank industry. Malyshev was ruthless, but competent, and he let plant managers know what would happen to officials that failed to meet production quotas. Here, he poses with a model of a new heavy tank design which eventually resulted in the JS-2. Malyshev was conservative and did not favour experimentation, but by 1943 he was forced to recognize that the Red Army needed a new tank to counter the German Panthers and Tigers.}

^{A Lend-Lease Matilda tank with a tank unit in the Central Front, January 1943. Although its 2-pounder (40-mm) gun lacked a high explosive shell, the Matilda continued to serve in the infantry support role in the Red Army throughout 1943. The Soviet tankers liked its thick armour, but by 1943 it was completely out-classed by German tanks armed with long 7.5-cm cannons.}

^{An Su-122 self-propelled gun negotiates its way down a very muddy trail. The Red Army was quick to note the value of the German assault guns in the infantry support role and decided to develop its own range of weapons mounted on tank chassis. The Su-122 was normally deployed in a self-propelled artillery regiment and attached to tank or rifle corps. The 122-mm howitzer provided Soviet assault groups with mobile firepower to reduce strongpoints – something that had been missing in 1941–42.}

^{German preparations for Operation Zitadelle were extensive. Here, brand-new Pz IIIs stand next to a mountain of new track, much of which would be used to restore older vehicles. Despite the association of Tigers and Panthers with Kursk, the obsolescent Pz III medium tank still played a very large role in the battle.}

^{A Soviet tank company commander briefs his platoon leaders on their next operation. By the summer of 1943, the Red Army had a leavening of veteran tank crews and commanders, which narrowed the qualitative gap between German and Soviet tank units.}

^{The turret of a Panther Ausf D after an internal explosion had shattered the interior. The Germans were forced to abandon large numbers of derelict Panthers during the retreat to the Dnepr and tried to destroy them when feasible. In 1943, the primary cause of loss of most Panthers was destruction by their own crews.}

^{A German StuG-III assault gun pauses by a burning T-34/76 Model 1942 in the summer of 1943. The StuG-III with the long 7.5-cm cannon was extremely lethal on the defence, but when pressed into offensive roles as at Kursk, it was unable to completely fill in for tanks. (Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-688-0162-23)}

^{This is the same burning T-34 as in the previous photo. One of the assault gun crewmen is going through the pockets of a dead Soviet tanker. (Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-688-0162-24)}

^{A Tiger positioned next to a knocked-out KV-1. It is interesting to note the tanks are roughly equivalent in size and both suffered from transmission problems. By mid-1943, the KV-1 was being phased out because of its poor mobility and insufficient firepower.}

^{Crewmen of a Panther loading 7.5-cm ammunition in a hurried, haphazard manner which begs for an accident. Most tank ammunition is base-activating and can be set off by static electricity, even from human hands. There are few records of non-combat casualties from the Eastern Front, but there must have been considerable losses due to lack of sleep and the strain of combat. As crews grew exhausted in protracted battles like Kursk, tank crewmen were increasingly vulnerable to making mistakes.}

^{A T-34 with its turret blown off after a massive explosion. The introduction of more powerful anti-tank weapons like the long 7.5-cm gun and the 8.8-cm gun transformed the firepower equation on the Eastern Front, which had heretofore favoured the Red Army. High-velocity APCR rounds proved highly lethal at Kursk and it was clear that the T-34’s previous advantage in armoured protection had passed. (Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-220-0630-04A)}

^{The crew of an SU-76M assault gun in action. This open-topped vehicle offered only minimal crew protection but the mobile firepower it offered helped greatly as the Red Army began advancing westward in 1943. Prior to this, the Red Army was generally dependent upon towed artillery and offensives petered out as advancing units out ran their fire support. Once the SU-76M reached the front in numbers, the tempo of the Soviet offensive became more aggressive.}

^{Soviet T-34s enroute to Zhitomir, November 1943. Rybalko’s rapid breakout from the Lyutezh bridgehead and exploitation toward the southwest caught the Germans completely by surprise. Note that the T-34s carry desant infantry.}

^{A Soviet KV-85 tank captured during the German counter-attack near Radomyschyl in early December 1943. This tank was sent back to Germany for technical evaluation but there was little for the Germans to learn from it. The KV-85 was only produced in limited numbers as a way of getting an 85-mm equipped tank into the field in 1943, until the T-34/85 and JS-2 were fielded in 1944. (Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-708-0270-13A)}

^{Soviet Lend-Lease Churchill tanks entering Kiev, November 1943. The heavily-armoured Churchill proved to be an excellent breakthrough tank and remained in Soviet service until the end of the war.}

^{T-34s advance with infantry across a frozen field, winter 1943/44. Note these latest-model T-34s are equipped with the cupola, but the tank commanders are still ‘buttoned up’. This Soviet habit contributed to poor situational awareness and heavy casualties throughout much of the war. Despite ample evidence that tank commanders should keep their heads up as long as possible, the Red Army continued to teach this flawed habit long after the war.}

^{A German Pz IV advancing with an infantry section. Note that one of the grenadiers is carrying a magnetic hollow charge anti-tank mine. By the winter of 1943/44, German armour was increasingly employed in small counter-attacks against Soviet penetrations. Note the head of the German tank commander is just visible, giving him good situational awareness. (Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-277-0835-29)}

^{The recapture of Zhitomir in late November 1943 was a minor tactical victory, but von Manstein’s armoured counter-offensive failed to destroy Rybalko’s 3 GTA or recover Kiev. The 4. Panzerarmee managed to temporarily halt the Soviet steamroller with its fresh Panzer-Divisionen, but could not stop Vatutin’s massive offensive which began on 24 December 1943.}

^{A Kampfgruppe from 1.Panzer-Division advances during the effort to relieve the Korsun Pocket in February 1944. Initially, mobility was good over hard-packed snow, but a early thaw brought deep mud that greatly reduced German mobility. Like most of these rescue operations, the Germans were forced to operate under conditions that were poorly suited to the kind of mobile operations they favoured and they tended to degenerate into slugging matches to break through to trapped troops before they were annihilated.}

^{German infantry ride atop a Pz IV tank during the winter of 1944. During the breakout from Hube’s pocket, 1.Panzerarmee had very few tanks, SPWs or trucks and had to conduct a mobile operation with very meagre resources. The fact that the breakout succeeded testifies to the determination and skill of the German Panzertruppen and Panzergrenadiers, even as the Third Reich slid inevitably toward defeat. (Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-277-0835-04)}

^{A German grenadier with a Panzerfaust observes a burning T-34 in a village. The introduction of the cheap, easy-to-produce Panzerfaust anti-tank weapon in the autumn of 1943 was a potential game-changer since it finally provided the German infantryman with a reliable weapon to stop enemy tanks. However, by the time that it was introduced, the Heer was running out of trained infantrymen.}

^{A late-model Pz IV alongside a knocked-out late-model T-34/76 in the Ukraine, early 1944. The size comparison of these two medium tanks is interesting, as well as the effect of thick mud upon operations.}

^{A Panther from SS-Wiking in a wood line in Poland, September 1944. Note that trees have been cleared to create a clear field of fire in front of the Panther.}

^{A Lend-Lease Sherman in Red Army service. By mid-1944, the Red Army had a considerable number of Shermans and particularly liked the models with the 76-mm gun. Like the T-34, the Sherman was automotively reliable and was excellent in the exploitation role.}

^{A JS-2 lies disabled in the streets of an East Prussian town. The 122-mm gun on the JS-2 was a powerful weapon with the potential to destroy Tigers and Panthers at long-range, but like most heavy tanks, it was ill-suited for urban combat.}

^{Another JS-2 has come to grief in a German city street, which was far too narrow for armoured operations. In this type of urban environment, the Panzerfaust could knock out even heavy tanks with point-blank shots.}

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Copyright

First published in Great Britain in 2016 by

Pen & Sword Aviation

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Copyright © Robert A. Forczyk 2016

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Endnotes