IronDuke_slith
Posts: 1595
Joined: 6/30/2002
From: Manchester, UK
Status: offline
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Brent,
Thanks for the post, another exellent contribution, however, I do have a few issues with it. In no particular order...(sorry for the length of this).
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"Most of Zitadelle, except for the battle of July 12, consisted of German tanks vs anti tank guns and bunkers and dug in Russian tanks. There simply were not that many tank vs tank engagements. Read Michel Wittmann's biography. Most of his kills during Zitadelle were anti tank guns"
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This is one of those statistics (IMHO) which masks the truth. The best source I have for Wittman at Kursk (I haven't read his biography) says he claimed 30 tanks killed, 28 Anti tank guns, and two batteries of heavy guns. Now, I'm not concerned with the absolute numbers, I'm happy to concede your assertion he got more AT guns. However, clearly, 30 tank kills (including I gleaned from a separate source, 15 in the first two days) suggests that whatever he was doing to AT guns at this time, Wittman was taking on and destroying Russian tanks in large numbers.
Wittmans Eastern front tally (I further understand) was 117. Therefore, in the twelve days of Zitadelle, killed a quarter of his total tally for the war in the east. I can only conclude, therefore, he saw a lot of Tank V Tank action during this battle.
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"German tanks vs anti tank guns and bunkers and dug in Russian tanks."
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I make no distinction between a dug in vehicle or a mobile one. Arguably, the dug in vehicle has achieved a hull down position and is therefore harder to take out, but a tank is a tank is a tank, wherever you find it.
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"In the south, 1 Tank Army was ordered to dig in its tanks and so they were not committed as a body to attack Hoth's forces.The same day 160 of the 200 Panthers in 39 Panzer Rgt had broken down or disabled by mines. 5 Guards Tank Army did not arrive until July 12, by then Model had stopped his attack and 1 Tank Army had been cut to peices and was badly unbderstrength."
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You are referring to several different days here, by the looks of it. With regards the key date of the 12th July, the main body of forces attacking the 48th Panzer Corp were the 10th Tank Corp (100 Tanks) 56 Tank Corp (70 tanks) and 6th Tank Corp (50 tanks). The figures quoted are Glantz's. The original components of 1st Tank Army had been cut to pieces, but it had been heavily reinforced. Additionally, the Russian defences blocking the advance to Oboyan had another 150 tanks. Clearly 48th Panzer Corps had large numbers of Russian tanks to fend off, and get through in order to advance on Oboyan.
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"III Panzer Korps was not engaged as it was crossing the upper Donetz river on the 12th attempting to reach Prokhorovka to outflank Rodmistrov. who had about 700 tanks at Prokhorovka."
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Not sure what you're getting at, here. Kempf's III Pz Corp did not reach Prokhorovka. This is true. But it was clearly part of the fighting along the southern edge of Zitadella (as much so as 48th Pz Corp on II SS Pz Corp's other flank), so have been included in all vehicle counts thus far. If I've misunderstood, and you are actually saying that III Pz Corp was not engaged in any fighting on 12th whilst it made for the Prokhorovka battlefield, then this is not true. Its crossing of the river was contested. It took bridgeheads and held them against counterattacks. It also had to deal with Corp sized counterattacks against it's flanks. The Russians knew where Kempf was headed and did all they could to stop him getting there.
Turning now to Dubno............
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"Dubno was a true meeting engagement with very large numbers of tanks on both sides in repeated uncoordinated clashes along a 20 mile front to the noth and south of Dubno. There were no dug in defenses for either side and no slugging it out through defensive belts like at Kursk."
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Kursk was a true battle with very large numbers of tanks on both sides in repeated clashes.
However, we've already gone over exactly what happened on 12th July 1943. You concede in your last mail that Prokhorovka and it's surroundings was a fiercesome tank battle.
The 27th June (your 2000 vehicle day) is another interesting day. In the general area of the fighting there seem to have been four Pz divisions, 11 and 16 in the south of the battlefield, 13 and 14 in the north. The Soviet counterattack looks to have been based on 8 tank divisions, 12, 34, 8 & 10 in the south, and 35, 20, 40 and 43 in the north east. These divisions belonged to the 9th and 19th Mech Corps in the north east and the 8th and 15th Mech Corp in the south. I acccept your claim that 4th Mech Corp was involved in the fighting in so much as I believe one of it's formations (8 Tank Division) was transferred to 15th Mech to make up for losses. The rest was west of Lvov. It may explain the contradiction between yourself and OKW.
15th Mech's 37th Tank division does not seem to have taken part in the fighting. Glantz pointed out that after it first made contact with the Germans prior to 27th, it doesn't seem to feature in the fighting again thereafter.
Now, taking the southern fighting. 12 & 34 Tank Div appear to have fielded about 150 Tanks between them. 8 Tank div looks to have been below half strength, so lets assume 150 there, and 10 Tank division had been in action since the 24th, had been hit by air attack and swamp problems, and I'd be surprised if we could assume more than about 150 there as well. 450 vehicles in total.
Now, looking at the advance of these units, their aim was to cut off 11 and 16 Panzer which were operating to the east and south east of their advance. It appears they never made contact with either of the two pz divs. Instead they ran into 111th Infantry division, 16th Motorised division and finally (late in the day) 75th Infantry division. These three infantry formations stopped the advance in it's tracks. 16th Panzer did turn around at one point to attack westwards and ensure it's lines of communications remained open, but it hit a Russian motorised division, not a tank one. Therefore, although the Germans did not have Kursk style defensive belts set up to defend against this assault, the defence was undertaken by Infantry units, and therefore, is more similar to Kursk than you allow. In this southern sector, I don't see any large scale (or small scale) tank clashes on 27 June.
Turning to the northern assault. Two things to note first here. The four Soviet divs were attacking after a march to the battlefield under German interdiction. Secondly, these two Mech Corps had few (if any) of the more modern heavy tanks (T-34 and KV). I've not been able to find an analysis of the approximate actual numbers of vehicles deployed on 27th. Their attacks started on 26 June with around 160 vehicles between them. (Each tank div deploying a forward detachment of 30-40 tanks). Possibly, more substantial elements of all four divisions would
have joined in on 27th. It was these forward detachments that look to have suffered the brunt of the fighting, though. Reading your original post, you put the number of vehicles in these formations as approx 550 which at 80% TOE suggests they might have deployed an upper limit of 440 minus interdiction losses.
However, these formations were (as in the south) all stopped by Infantry formations. 111th and 299th Infantry. 14th Panzer looks to have been deployed to the north of this fighting.
The only Tank on Tank fighting I can trace on the 27th came when 13th Panzer hit these four forward detachments of the northern assault. It took them in flank and knocked one after the other out of the way whilst advancing in a southerly direction. My feeling is that it was largely the original forward detachments which were hit, rather than the full divisions because 13th Panzer had enough time before days end to get through the four divisions and then turn east to outflank them.
Now, if we include all four PZ divisions, they started with around 636 vehicles. I'm not sure this is completely accurate, as Nafziger seems to suggest their starting totals on 22/06/41 were lower, but this all depends on what you are counting, I suppose, and I don't think it's worth the argument over a handful of vehicles. By 27th, we could be generous and assume they still had 600. That gives us a running total of around 1050 adding in the vehicles of the southern russian assault (8th & 15th Mech). 11th and 14th Panzer (and maybe even 16th Panzer) don't look to have strictly been part of this fighting but lets include them as having been engaged in the general area in the same way as 48th and III Panzer Corp were at Prokhorovka/Kursk. All that remains to add in is 9th and 19th Mech. On the 26th, 9th and 19th Mech began by fielding only 160 tanks. On the 27th their attack was stopped in its tracks and they were forced to look fearfully over their shoulder as 13th Panzer attacked them in flank, and then manouevred to flank them. The figure of 440 suggests there was an upper limit of 1500 vehicles in the area on 27 June, perhaps fewer than 1200 actually comitted, though.
5th Mech doesn’t look to have arrived in the area until the 28th when it formed a line to stop the eastward advance of 11 Panzer. 22nd Mech after big losses leading up to the 27th, looks to have retreated northeastwards to set up a defensive line to the north of 14 Panzer.
Conclusions
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2000 vehicles seems to me to be too generous a figure for the 27th June, but as we have seen, whatever the figure, very few of these machines (perhaps as few as 300) had the chance to engage in tank on tank combat. I don't think Glantz can be
used to support this figure of 2000, but if you have a detailed breakdown of this figure, I'd be interested to see it.
If you are going to include all the formations mentioned above when counting the day's totals, including those who didn’t actually get involved in either making or stopping the Soviet counterattack of 27th, you have to include every vehicle deployed along the southern edge of the Kursk battle area when counting there on 12th July, including those not directly involved at Prokhorovka.
The figure at Kursk for 12th July looks fairly reliable at 1800+. The figure for Dubno on 27th looks to be around 1500 although if you want, you can add in 22nd Mech. However, one of this formations Tank divisions (19th) had suffered badly at the hands of 14th Panzer already, and the other (41) seems to have wandered around and done very little (except temporarily lose two of its Tank regiments in the mud at one point). These might have had 300 operational vehicles on 27th but I doubt it. I think there were more arrayed along the southern edge of Kursk.
If you are going to use all the formations quoted above to tally a total figure for the encounter as a whole, then it is again only fair to count all the formations arrayed along the southern edge of Kursk prior to Zitadelle beginning. We have to count in the same manner in each instance in each location.
At Kursk, Manstein faced the Voronezh front. This fielded 1704 vehicles. It got a further 900 from Steppe front reserve on or before 12th july (5th Guards Tank, 10th Tank Corp etc). Manstein himself looks to have fielded approximately 1500 vehicles with another 100 in reserve. Over 4000 vehicles would have heard shots fired at Kursk’s southern wing, therefore. These are all actual as opposed to paper figures.
At Dubno, the situation is complicated by the actual versus paper strengths. I believe half of 4th Mech never got involved, 5th Mech and 9th Panzer only got involved after 27th when the soviets went over to the defensive. If you want to include all these, then you stretch the definition of the battlefield eastwards to Ostrog (where 5th Mech looks to have met 11th Panzer) and west of Lvov where elements of 4th Mech look to have been deployed.
Since 22nd Mech were first and finally in combat north of Luck, the final dimensions of the field become north of Luck to just south of Brody. I think that’s around 125 miles by 70 miles. The Kursk bulge was around 120 miles north-south, and 70 miles or so deep. Therefore, if you want all of your formations, we probably have to tally in Model and the northern Kursk wing as well. That makes for a grand total of around 7000. Even leaving Model outl, you have 4000 vehicles committed to action at Kursk's southern wing. you might make a case that 4000 vehicles were intended to be committed at Dubno, but I’d argue the actual number involved was lower.
Finally, as others have touched on in this thread, it's what constitutes a battle. You describe Dubno as a series of meeting engagements. When you analyse 27/06/41, you find exactly that, everybody was on the move, and usually attempting to cut someone else off. Units didn't always make contact.
At Kursk, everyone knew where the enemy was (usually a few hundred yards in front of them), knew contact was imminent, and knew that there would be more of the same tomorrow (except on 11 july 43 when there would be a LOT more of the same tomorrow).
However I try and add it up, the evidence suggests to me that Kursk has the best claim to be the largest Tank battle.
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