World War II Essay on Battle of Kursk. History Research Paper

World War II Essay on Battle of Kursk
World War II Essay on Battle of Kursk
The battle of Kursk was the biggest tank battle of World War II between German and Soviet forces on the Eastern Front near Kursk that was fought between July 5 and August 23, 1943, on the steppe of Kursk oblast.The Germans who lost the battle of Stalingrad initiated this war by launching the German offensive operation citadel on July 5 in an attempt to pinch off the Kursk salient with surprise attacks on the salient base on both north and south simultaneously. They hoped to surround and destroy the Soviet forces within the bulge. On July 12, the Soviets began their Kursk strategic offensive operation by launching operation Kutuzov against the German. This occurred after the German offensive occupied the north of the salient.[Clark, Lloyd. . Kursk: The Greatest Battle. London: Hachette UK, 2013.] [Dunn, Walter. "The Battle of Kursk", by David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House." The Journal of Military History 64, no. 3 (2000): 887-945.] [Elder, Major James E. The Operational Implications of Deception at the Battle of Kursk. Auckland: Pickle Partners Publishing, 2015.]
On the South, the Soviets also instigated strong counterattacks, with one leading to a large armoredclash known as the "battle of Prokhorovka". On August 3, the Soviets commenced the second of the Kursk mission by launching an operation against the German forces on the salient South. The Germans wanted to weaken the offensive potential of the Germans by reducing and enveloping the Kursk salient forces. Hitler believed that a victory in this battle would restore the strength of the Germans and strengthen his connection with the allies who he thought wanted to withdraw from the war.[Ibid] [Ibid] [Ibid]
Germans also hoped that they could capture many soviet prisoners to use as slaves in their armament industry. The Soviet government knew the German intentions and planned an attack on the Kursk salient. Aware of these, the Soviets developed a defense in depth designed to erode the German armored spearhead. However, the Germans delayed the offensive while trying to increase their forces and wait for new weapons. Doing so gave the Red Army time to establish a chain of profound defensive belts and form a large reserve force for counter-offensiveness. The war ended with the Soviets declaring victory on Germany, even though both sides prepared vehemently.Hitlers ideologies and delayed tactics contributed to the defeat in the battle. Soviets’ ability to adapt to their enemy led to their victory. Therefore, from both a strategic and oprational viewpoints, the battle of Kursk had a long-term impact on the Second World War.[Glantz, David. "Kursk, Battle of (1943)." The Encyclopedia of War , 2011.] [Elder, Major James E. The Operational Implications of Deception at the Battle of Kursk. Auckland: Pickle Partners Publishing, 2015.]
The German assaulted forces consisted of 50 divisions, three tank battalions, two tank brigades, fifty divisions, and eight artillery assault divisions consisting of 2700 Tiger and Panther tanks, 900,000 troops, and two thousand aircraft. The Soviet forces, made up of the Army of Centerled by General K. K. Rokossovskii, the Voronezh Army under General N.F, and General I.S. Konev's Steppe Front Army, numbered about 1.3 million troops, 2,800 aircraft, and 3,600 tanks. The so-called "Citadel" which was the offensive code of the Germans, involved concurrent thrust against the Soviet-held southern and northern salient. Their successful repulsion enabled the Soviet forces to go over to the offensive by July 12.[Mulligan, Timothy P. "Spies, Ciphers and'Zitadelle': Intelligence and the Battle of Kursk, 1943." Journal of Contemporary History 22, no. 2 (1987): 235-260.] [Ibid] [Ibid] [Ibid]
On August 14, Orel City was freed. By the 18th, the German army assumed the defensive positions east of Bryansk. It lost 30 of its 50 divisions,and more than 500,000 men were killed, wounded, or missing in action. The Soviet's victory in the Battle of Kursk enabled the Soviet Red Army to free most of Ukrainians in 1943. Although a historical study of the west reveals the beginning of the German defeat to the D-Day Normandy invasion, the grave defeat of Kursk makes a possible decisive moment for the war. According to Klug, this battle was the largest tank battle in history involving six thousand tanks, two million troops, and four thousand aircraft. It marked the turning point of the offensive ability of the German on the Eastern Front to create room fo the Soviet Offensiveness.[Lucas, Thomas W., and John A. Dinges. "The effect of battle circumstances on fitting Lanchester equations to the Battle of Kursk." Military Operations Research , 2004: 17-30.] [Lacey, James, and Murray Williamson. Moment of battle: The twenty clashes that changed the world.Ist Ed. New York: Bantam, 2013.] [Klug, Jonathan Page. "Revisiting a" Lost Victory" at Kursk." 2003.] [Ibid] [Glantz, David M, and Harold Steven Orenstein. The Battle for Kursk, 1943: The Soviet General Staff Study.Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis, 1999.]
Many historians relate the Soviet's victory to their advanced equipment and firepower. However, looking at the battle of Kursik from the principle of war, it is evident that the Germany’s inability to enforce these standards destructed their clause. According to Glantz, the Germans' capacity to reinstate damaged weapon systems with new equipment before the battle of Kursk was nearly fictional. By January 1943, the German commanders could not successfully re-deploy their worn-out troops because they encountered a 30% tank loss.. This scarcity of industrial recourse accompanied by defeats by the Red Army forced a lot of German commanders to re-assess the Germany’s end a complete triumph. However, Hitler saw this view as totally deplorable and held that an absolute conquest was obtainable.[Ibid] [Ibid] [Ibid]
To obtain sufficient land for German's expansion, Hitler believed that it was imperative to fight against both the Soviet forces and against its people. Nothing other than complete obliteration was useful. This belief enabled Hitler to allow his forces to abandon an offensive position for a defensive posture. Hitler perceived that winning the battle could help German to reinforce the Germany morals and that of its allies. Hitler also took an offensive position because he believed that the region around the salient was influential to the Soviet's economy. As such, dorminatig the Kurt salient would enable him to affect the Soviets’ war effort and, disregard the idea of trading space for time.[Zetterling, Niklas, and Anders Frankson. Kursk 1943: a statistical analysis. Vol. 6.Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis, 2000.] [Speight, L. R. " Within-Campaign Analysis: A Statistical Evaluation of the Battle of Kursk." Military Operations Research, 2011: 41-62.] [Ibid]
With the delusionof Kursk being significant to the Soviet's war, and Hitler's' wish to attain a decisive win, he decided to take an offensive operation in the next mission. Thinking from along the offensive operation, Field Marshal Manstein started formulating the subsequent chapter of the campaign. Due to insufficient equipment and taskforce, Manstein was unsure that his teams were prepared to take a strategic offensive action and assumed that his only option was the defense. At this point, Manstein's primary concern was the lack of armor. He tried to maintain a high number of panzer divisions but ended up reducing the number of tanks in the division. There was also a decrease in motorized transportation needed to support a mechanized division. As a result, the ability of any long-range to sustain offensive operations declined.[Ibid] [Ibid] [Showalter, Dennis E. " Armor and Blood: The Battle of Kursk, the Turning Point of World War II. Random House Incorporated." 2013.] [Potgieter, T. D. "The Battle of Kursk, the outcome of the Second World War and contemporary military history.Journal for Contemporary History 28, no. 3 (2003): 45-65.]
German shortages and inexperience of the Soviets led Manstein to conclude that a resilient defense coupled with counterstroke would be significant to German victory. Manstein ws aware of the complexity of the offensive operations, and by pushing the Soviets to invade, he would put more difficulty on their capacity to control their troops. The poor infrastructure of the Soviets forced for an erection of logistical hubs. These hubs were emplaced at the back the Soviet army in expectation of their extraction. It was a trick to ensure that the Soviet forces had a challenge in maintaining operations when attacking because they had to move away from their supply centers. In this case, they would find it difficult to maintain the operations. As a result, the advances of the Soviets were always disjointed.[Ibid] [Zamulin, Valeriy. "The Battle of Kursk: New Findings." The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 25, no. 3 (2012): 409-417.] [Ibid] [Lucas, Thomas W., and John A. Dinges. "The effect of battle circumstances on fitting Lanchester equations to the Battle of Kursk." Military Operations Research, 2004: 17-30.]
Essentially, Manstein intended to take the Soviet's outside their logistics hubs, weaken their forces by taking a defense defense-in-depth position, then counterattack next to their adjusted flanks. This would lead to the destruction of the remaining Soviet troops. To succeed in his plan, Manstein knew he had to trick the Soviet’s into invading. According to Potgieter, this move would exceed the limits of the German, allowing the Soviets invade the Germans from the South wing. While this plan resembled that of Manstein's earlier strategy, it depended deeply on the theory that the Soviets would begin the invasion and divert their attention towards the Donbas area. This postulation, coupled with Hitler's wish for a decisive win, influenced the decision for a stringent offensive-oriented plan.[Ibid] [Potgieter, T. D. "The Battle of Kursk, the outcome of the Second World War and contemporary military history." Journal for Contemporary History 28, no. 3 (2003): 45-65.] [Ibid] [Zamulin, Valeriy N. "Could Germany Have Won the Battle of Kursk if It Had Started in Late May or the Beginning of June 1943?" The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 27, no. 4 (2014): 606-617.]
Manstein held the notion that a German attack would reduce consequences on the Russian war and supported a counterattack that would help the fatigued German troop. However, Hitler wanted to attack the Soviets before the collapse of the Mediterranean theater but was worried about two fronts. With that in mind, Manstein knew it was an opportunity to strike the Soviets before the Red Army got the chance to restore its forces. Manstein did not want to engage in a resource war with the Soviets. He also did not want significant replacements to occur. All he wanted was to reach the Salient before the beginning of the winter.[Ibid] [Speight, L. R. " Within-Campaign Analysis: A Statistical Evaluation of the Battle of Kursk." Military Operations Research, 2011: 41-62.] [Ibid]
The Kursk salient was about 200 kilometers wide by 150 kilometers deep. The town of Kursk was the only significant urban area in the salient. The town did not have any strategic importance either to the Soviets or Germans or Soviets since the railway line ran perpendicularly to the military front and could not be used to move troops or supplies. Moreover, there were close to no industries that could benefit the Soviets because the Kursk's main crop, the sugar beet, lacked sufficient substance substance to maitain heavy actions during the winter. Despite the little to no benefits of the Kursk's salient, it still attracted the the German command.[Ibid] [Mulligan, Timothy P. "Spies, Ciphers and'Zitadelle': Intelligence and the Battle of Kursk, 1943." Journal of Contemporary History 22, no. 2 (1987): 235-260.] [Mulligan, Timothy P. "Spies, Ciphers and'Zitadelle': Intelligence and the Battle of Kursk, 1943." Journal of Contemporary History 22, no. 2 (1987): 235-260.]
Manstein and his generals knew that the salient supported two war facets, namely, speed and maneuverability, that the Germans historically helped Germans. Speed was vital due to the unwieldy movement of the Soviet Army and their command structruce which was centralized and slow to respond to mobile forces. Due to lack of industries in Kursk, the terrain mainly consisted of open fields, that support mechanized warfare. These fields also hindered the Soviet's ability to replenish their army due to the absence of logistical infrastructure. Soviets could not quickly move forces throughout the country. So, they were forced to relocate their sizable troops near the front lines. This strategy enabled the Germans to trap the bulk of Soviet forces in an ideal area for mechanized warfare and rapid attack.[Zamulin, Valeriy. Demolishing the Myth: The Tank Battle at Prokhorovka, Kursk, July 1943: An Operational Narrative. London: Grub Street Publishers, 2011.] [Ibid] [Hermann, Balck, David T. Zabecki, and Dieter J. Biedekarken. Order in Chaos : The Memoirs of General of Panzer Troops Hermann Balck. Massachussetts: EBSCO Publishing, 2015.] [Ibid]
Initially, Manstein was interested in attacking the Kursk salient immediately after the Germans won the battle at Kharkiv. However, the plan was shelved because General Kluge could not push for a unified attack. Guidance from the Oberkommando des Heeres, the High Command of the German Army, was to attack the soviets when unprepared. The continued slow reconnaissance of the Germans forced the the Sovietsto construct a defensive perimeter to protect the salient. Rather than abolishing the hit, Hitler delayed the attack to replenish his army. Through this action, Hitler effectively entered an arms race with the Soviets. Regarding Soviet attack, Manstein and his commanders anticipated it because they thought Joseph Stalin would uphold offensive operations until the allies started to invade Europe. Although this was true, it did not occur because Stalin did not see the advantage of a coordinated attack but saw the importance of allowing the troops to accumulate.[Clark, Lloyd. Kursk: The Greatest Battle. London: Hachette UK,...