Kursk 43  - History

 

The Battle of Kursk was a World War II engagement between German and Soviet forces on the Eastern Front near Kursk (450 kilometres or 280 miles southwest of Moscow) in the Soviet Union during July and August 1943. The German offensive was code-named Operation Citadel and led to one of the largest armoured clashes in history, the Battle of Prokhorovka.

The Germans hoped to weaken the Soviet offensive potential for the summer of 1943 by cutting off a large number of forces that they anticipated would be in the Kursk salient assembling for an offensive.  The Kursk salient or bulge was 250 km north to south, 160 km east to west.  By eliminating the Kursk salient they would also shorten their lines of defence, taking the strain off their overstretched forces.  The plan envisioned an envelopment by a pair of pincers breaking through the northern and southern flanks of the salient.

The Battle of Kursk was the first time a German strategic offensive had been halted before it could break through enemy defences and penetrate to its strategic depths. Though the Soviet Army had succeeded in winter offensives previously, their counter-offensives following the German attack were their first successful strategic summer offensives of the war