The detailed disposition of the Soviet forces in the Kursk salient showed that the Soviet Central Front, the Voronezh Front and the Steppe Front, which participated in the first phase of the Kursk Campaign, had a 2.4:1 advantage in strength over the German 9th and 2nd Armies, the 4th Panzer Army and the Kev's Corps (i.e., 3.8 million Soviet troops against 1.8 million German soldiers) and a 1.9:1 advantage in tanks (i.e., 7,040 to 3,696 vehicles). 《》

May 4, 1941, was the first day in the United States and the beginning of Germany's future destiny. The Germans launched an offensive campaign against Kursk. Just like the German general von? As described by Merinzin in his book "Tank Warfare": On the day of May 4, the weather was sweltering, the battlefield was tense, the morale of the attacking troops was extremely high, and they were ready to sacrifice at all costs to complete the task they had been given.

At 3 p.m. on 4 May, the aviation of the German Army Group South carried out a heavy bombardment of Soviet positions, followed by a tentative feint by Ott's 52nd Army.

Immediately afterwards, all the front-line generals of the German army came up with a new order, which was signed by Li Mo himself, and at the same time a new battle plan was delivered, of course, these battle plans were only available to generals at or above the military level.

Li Mo's order is very simple, not to assault at the bottom of Kursk, where is the area heavily defended by the Soviet Union, but the Kursk area of the Soviets has deployed more than 3 million troops, more than 7,000 tanks, and tens of thousands of artillery, Li Mo obviously knows that such a powerful Soviet army has gathered in this area, and he has to command his troops to attack the Soviet defense line. Isn't that pure second-hand goods? How could Li Mo do such a stupid thing.

Li Mo's strategic intention was only to change the offensive aspect, and the original plan was to launch a pincer offensive directly at the bottom of Kursk, so that the distance between the north and the south would be about 150 kilometers in a straight line, but Li Mo did the opposite, not breaking through from the bottom of Kursk, but attacking from the north to the north, and the southern attack group to the south, so that he could avoid the defensive positions that the Soviets had amazingly constructed, and at the same time, the Soviet defense in these areas would be much weaker. (See the map of the work.) ）

The Germans made an emergency move that night, and the German salient was only thirty kilometers. One night's transfer is enough. Even if the Soviets had found out, it would have been impossible for them to change their deployment, especially since they did not have time to build a defensive line.

Early the next morning, the 48th Panzer Corps of Knobelsdorff in the North managed to break through the lines of Chistyakov's 6th Guards Army in the evening of the same day, supported by self-propelled guns and engineers. Subsequently, the 2nd SS Panzer Corps of the South was ordered to do so the next morning. An offensive was launched in the area between Suiltsev and Luhanino. The 3rd and 11th Panzer Divisions attacked on both of its flanks.

On the second day of the offensive, the surprise of the German army immediately overwhelmed the Soviet side. No matter how hard they tried, they could not stop the German army from continuing to advance in the torrent of steel. Because Stalin deployed a large number of the main mechanized troops in the Kursk area, and dug a large number of anti-tank trenches in the Kursk area, and the other defensive lines of the Soviet army were relatively weak, so Li Mo suddenly changed the direction of the offensive and won the attack.

But the German 48th Panzer Corps was a swamp directly in front of him, and at this time it was constantly under heavy Soviet artillery fire, and its progress was slow. Everything else went well, the expected heavy battle did not happen, and more than 2 million German troops under the command of Li Mo entered the Soviet defenses. When the depth of the attack reaches 50 to 80 kilometers, the attacking north-south attack groups will make a turn and encircle the Kursk region.

In the early morning of 5 May, the German 8th Air Corps, after engaging several bomber regiments of the Soviet Air Force that attempted to bomb German airfields in the Kharkiv region, seized air supremacy over the combat area, but they were unable to stop the continuous and effective air assault of the Soviet Army on the tanks assembled by the 48th Panzer Army that day.

In the central region, General Hausser's SS division on the right flank of the 48th Panzer Army broke through the first line of Soviet defense on the evening of 5 May, while Bright's 3rd Panzer Army captured only a small landing ground on the Donets River south of Belgorod. By the end of the next day's fighting, the Germans had broken through in three places, and the depth had reached sixteen or seventeen miles.

Although the Soviet army has suffered great losses in the opposite part of the salient, they still do not dare to transfer the troops in the Kursk area at will, Stalin does not speak, even Zhukov will not work, the area broken by Germany, the Soviet army has to desperately resist and counterattack, but there is little effect, the hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops of the Soviet Bryan Front can not stop the rapid assault of nearly a million German troops, and their defense line has been broken through one after another.

On 6 May, the 4th Panzer Army continued its offensive on Oboyan along the road to Kursk. The 8th Air Army flew nearly 1,700 sorties, half of which were Stuka dive bombers, and they had to support the 48th Panzer Corps and the SS 2nd Panzer Corps in battle, and at the same time deal with the increasing resistance of the enemy air force, and the German air power was not enough. On the night of 5 May and the morning of 6 May, Chistyakov's 6th Guards Army was reinforced with a large number of anti-tank units, and Katukov's 1st Tank Army moved into the second defensive zone, behind the 6th Guards Army.

On May 5, the fourth day of the Battle of the "Bastion", the German army finally achieved great results, and the two German attack groups in the north and south successfully broke through the Soviet defense line for more than 50 kilometers, and then the two attack groups began to turn around and encircle Kursk. As long as this tactical goal is achieved, at least more than one million elite Soviet troops will be encircled, which will definitely make Stalin vomit blood.

The "Veliky German" armored infantry division under the German 48th Panzer Corps made a breakthrough on both sides of Suiltsev, and the Soviet troops were forced to retreat to the line of Gremuch and Suiltsev. The 48th Panzer Corps then began to slowly but non-stop to seize enemy positions and attacked Oboyan in conjunction with the 2nd SS Panzer Corps.

The 3rd Panzer Corps of the Kempf Cluster advanced northeast from the flank of Shumilov's 5th Guards Army, and was moving so rapidly that it was beginning to move closer to them. The Soviet troops, who were constantly retreating, were intercepted by German artillery fire and suffered huge losses. In the afternoon, the tank units that reached Suiltsev were stopped by heavy defensive fire, and the Soviet tank units launched a counterattack on the Germans, but were repulsed. At this time, the development of the tide of the battle seemed to be more and more favorable to the Germans, as they mastered tactical mobility and constantly made breakthroughs in the enemy's defensive territory.

This caused some panic on the Soviet Voronezh Front, which took an unusual measure: in view of the fact that there had been no fighting in the southwestern corner of the Kursk salient so far, the 38th and 40th Armies of Moskalenko, which were stationed there, were ordered to hand over all their artillery units (including the artillery regiments of the infantry divisions) to the 6th Guards Army. A tank corps and several infantry divisions were also drawn from these two armies to defend Oboyan. On the same day, the 2nd and 5th Guards Tank Corps carried out counter-assaults on the assault units of the flanks of the 4th Panzer Army.

…… (To be continued.) )u