In the forward positions, the Red Russians carefully designed their defenses, constructing several lines of defense with a depth of more than 100 miles, and the entire defense system consisted of a large number of closely coordinated trenches, barbed wire, anti-tank fire points and anti-tank trenches, and minefields, gathering a large number of troops and firepower in the most likely direction of the German attack. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The days of what was thought to be a possible German offensive passed peacefully, and the front appeared very calm for two months, and when the time came to July, Vatutin's letter to Supreme Commander Dzhugashvili that the Red Russian army should take the lead in launching the offensive, because the preparations made by the Red Russian army were all prepared for the German offensive in the summer, and if the Red Russian army's fortifications were useless in the autumn. The Red Russian High Command then ordered the capture of a German prisoner, after which the Red Russian 6th Guards Army in the south of the salient captured a soldier of the German 168th Infantry Division, who confessed that the Germans were about to start the offensive the next day, and in the early morning, the Soviet 13th Army in the north of the salient captured a sergeant of the German 6th Infantry Division, and he also confessed that the Germans would attack in a few hours. In order to disrupt the German offensive steps, Zhukov issued an order at 2:20 on the 5th to carry out artillery counter-preparations to the German positions, and the prelude to the Battle of Kursk began.

The shelling of the Red Russian army was completely unexpected by the Germans, causing heavy losses, although it was delayed by 3 hours than originally planned. The 4th Panzer Army of the German Southern Army Group launched an offensive according to the predetermined plan, and after the loss of 36 tanks, the Germans crossed the anti-tank minefield of the Red Russian army with difficulty and stormed the defense line of the Soviet 67th Guards Infantry Division. Unfortunately, the Germans still opened a gap in the second line of defense of the Red Russians and forced their way across the Pena River.

As the German offensive was much more fierce than expected, Vatutin was forced to cancel the planned counteroffensive and place some of the tanks of the 1st Tank Army, which was planned for the counteroffensive, behind the defensive line to support the infantry for defense, and some tanks on the flanks to attack the Germans. On this day, the Luftwaffe made more than 1,000 sorties, completely suppressing the Red Russian Air Force. After a day of fierce fighting, both sides suffered heavy losses.

In the evening, Vatutin asked Vasilevsky for reinforcements, who, with the consent of the Supreme High Command, immediately transferred 353 tanks of the 2nd and 10th Tank Corps of the 5th Guards Army of the Steppe Front to the Voronezh Front. At the same time, Vatutin received a call from Dzhugashvili himself, asking him to stop the German breakthrough in the southern part of the Kursk salient at any cost. During the battle, the Germans advanced only a few kilometers and failed to achieve the task of breaking through the Red Russian defenses. The next day, the Germans were still stubbornly continuing their offensive, and Vatutin was also planning a counteroffensive, for which he asked the High Command to transfer the 5th Guards Tank Army and the 5th Guards Army of the Steppe Front to him for command, and his request was quickly granted, but it took several days for these units to arrive. In the struggle for air supremacy, through air battles, the Red Russian Air Force has gradually reversed its inferiority, and it is only a matter of time before it completely seizes air supremacy.

Vatutin's troops continued to fend off the German advance on Oboyan head-on, while launching successive counterattacks on both flanks, and although these counterattacks failed again and again, the Germans were unable to attack their main target with all their might. The commander of the German 4th Panzer Army, General Hoss, seeing that it was impossible to break through Oboyan from the front, decided to break through from the right flank first, and he ordered the 2nd SS Panzer Corps to turn to Prokhorovka in the northeast. Over the next two days, the German offensive went relatively well, they reached the city of Prokhorovka, and the climax of the Battle of Kursk was staged.

There were also only about 600 tanks and self-propelled guns directly involved in the fighting. Among them, the Germans had less than 200 vehicles, and the Red Russian army had about 400 vehicles. In the battle, the 88 mm guns of the German "Tiger" tank and the 75 mm long-barreled tank guns of the improved "Hound Dog IV" tanks had obvious advantages, while the 76 mm guns of the Red Russian T-34 tanks could not pose a threat to the Germans at the same distance, and a large number of Red Russian tanks were destroyed by the Germans at a distance from the battle. The battle report of the 5th Guards Tank Army of the Red Russian Army reported that the tank corps under it had lost the ability to continue the offensive and had incorporated the remaining tanks into infantry units.

In this day's tank battle, although the Germans destroyed more Red Russian tanks with relatively small losses, they were unable to capture Prokhorovka, and the subsequent arrival of Red Russian reinforcements made their defenses stronger.

The battle can be described as tactically costly and the forced retreat of the Red Russians, neither the 5th Guards Tank Army nor the 2nd Waffen-SS Panzer Army could achieve their objectives, and the loss of tanks was already a subject of debate, with the losses of the Red Russians ranging from as few as 200 to as many as 822 vehicles, most of which were absolute losses. Similarly, the German losses ranged from as few as 80 to several hundred, including many Tiger tanks, a figure that could not be held up by the Germans in terms of the philosophy of calculating the number of lost tanks, from the 1st Guards Panzer Division and the 2nd Reich Panzer Division to fully reimburse the number of tanks was only 3, and an unknown number of tanks were damaged, and many of the losses came from Ozerov after the Red Russians. The number of German tank losses during the Rumyantsev counteroffensive was about 70 to 80 due to the capture of German tank repair plants, but it is not clear whether short-term or long-term repairs were required.

When the exact figures of losses on both sides were determined, the outcome of the battle was clear, the 5th Guards Tank Army of the Red Russian Army could not achieve the goal of attacking advantageous terrain or defeating the 2nd Panzer Army of the German Waffen-SS, and both forces were weakened in the battle, Konev's decision to use the 5th Guards Tank Army against the Germans had a great impact on the situation of the battle, because this was the main direction of the German attack.

In fact, the sudden attack of the strong reserves of the Red Army and the abortation of the German 9th Army Corps north of the Kursk Salient due to the Red Army's Kutuzov operation forced Führer Hess to decide to stop the entire Citadel operation, and this omen made him a little nervous when he was already considering stopping the operation, and the Red Russian offensive against the new German 6th Army Corps at the Mias River south of Kharkov forced him to transfer the reserves that had been used to achieve the final victory south of the Kursk Salient. The High Command of the Wehrmacht also decided to await news of the victory of their Chinese allies on the Eastern Front of Red Russia.

Regardless of the tactical results, the outcome of the Battle of Prokhorovka turned into a psychological and physical victory for the Red Army, which the Germans had expected to need to move to the defensive and have no more anti-tank guns; On the contrary, the Red Russians still had more than 1,000 tanks, which clearly showed that the Red Russians were far from defeated and that this seriously influenced the German army's strategic decisions. This also shows that the German army's superiority in the quality of officers and soldiers has been reduced, and the Red Russian army is more confident that it will launch a large-scale offensive to drive the German army back into German territory in the future, and the strategic initiative will fall into the hands of the Red Russian army, of course, this will have to be done if China does not launch a more rapid offensive.

On the northern front, the shelling of the Red Russian army also delayed the German offensive by two and a half hours than planned, and after dozens of minutes of artillery preparation and aerial bombardment, the German 9th Group began its offensive as planned. In order to divert the attention of the Red Russian army from the direction of the main attack of the German army, Moder first carried out a feint attack on the left flank with 3 infantry divisions, but was stopped by the Red Russian army. In the direction of the main attack, the Germans concentrated the forces of 4 armored divisions and 3 infantry divisions, and after fierce battles, they broke through the first line of defense of the Soviet 13th Army and advanced with difficulty by 5 km. But on both flanks, the Red Russians stubbornly held their positions. At the same time as the fierce fighting on the ground, the air forces of both sides were also engaged in fierce battles, and on this day the German army made more than 1,000 sorties, and the Red Russian air force also made more than 600 sorties. By the end of the battle, the Germans had broken through less than 10 kilometers and lost at least 70 tanks.

The next day, Rokossovsky began a counterattack, and Moder also threw reserves into battle, and a large-scale tank battle began. After a fierce battle, the two tank brigades of the Red Russian Army suffered heavy losses, losing about 70 tanks, and the Germans advanced all the way to the second line of defense of the Red Russian Army, but were stopped by the Soviet 17th Guards Infantry Corps and the Soviet 17th Tank Army, which rushed to reinforce them. In the early morning, the Germans launched an offensive again, trying to seize the transportation hub of Boneri, the battle was extremely fierce, the Germans attacked the city several times, but were driven out by the tenacious Red Russian army, and the Red Russian Air Force after fierce fighting, seized air supremacy in the northern Kursk region, and since then has given the German ground forces a great deterrent.

Although the Germans inflicted great losses on the Red Russian army, the Red Russian army relied on its numerical superiority to hold its position, and in the city of Boneri, the Germans paid a heavy price and occupied most of the Boneri, but the Red Russian army still controlled some important strongholds in the city, and the German army could not continue to advance. On 9 July, Moder launched a final attack on the positions of the Red Russians with 300 tanks, but the result was still unsuccessful, by which time the attack energy of the German 9th Army was exhausted, and on the 10th Moder was forced to go on the defensive.

At the beginning of August, Hess finally ordered the halt of the fortress plan and summoned Kruger, Manstein and others to a meeting at his headquarters in East Prussia "Knightsburg" to announce this decision, which Kruger approved of Hitler's decision due to the dire situation of Army Group Center. However, Manstein strongly objected, believing that the German army should not end hastily on the decisive battlefield, and that the German army still had sufficient strength and could continue to consume the armored forces of the Red Russian army with superior tank exchange ratios, so that the Red Russian army could not launch a strong counterattack at least after the German army withdrew from the attack, so it was a wrong decision to cancel the "fortress" operation at the climax of the decisive battle in this battle. Führer Hess, who had experienced the blow of the Battle of Moscow, was even more lacking in courage and patience, and finally canceled the offensive, and the Germans began to retreat, and the two sides basically returned to their pre-battle posture. In fact, Hess's plan was not only to consider the current situation of the German army, but also to consider how to use the offensive of the Chinese Wehrmacht to mobilize the Red Russian army to move the main force eastward. "Bringing disaster to the east" is not a patent of Anglo-American law, and he can play with Hess boss, but China, which has actually occupied the world's number one power, can really be used by Germany?