Yes, finally!
I think one of the key elements was that the russians knew the attack plan beforehand, and by now Hitler didnīt trust the generals, so he gave orders that included every minute of the attack. And the british got every part of it thanx to knowing the secret of Enigma-and sending the info to the russians.
One other thing was the 6 lines of defence, full of mines, AT-cannons and T 34 īs. Very deadly. Also the soviet air force was rather well equipped now and Luftwaffe couldnīt take care of the tanks and other goals like 1941. It seems to me that the russians attacked in small groups including 100-200 men and 5-6 T34īs, like punching holes to the german lines as they moved on.
Panzerkeil was the new tactics, in which the tigers were in the first line, and smaller tanks in the middle.very effective as Tigers killed the T34īs very quickly.In one battle they saw 100 T 34īs and 5 tigers destroyed all of them in 3 minutes, as they were some 1..2-1.5 kms away. So I believe the sorty of P hausser counting the tanks in LAH sector with chalk ( some 98 ) as he couldnīt believe his eyes.
The unfortunate thing seems to me now, that the german attack ended as Hitler demanded this. The Prokhorovka battle wasnīt such a big loss to germans but to the russians was. the 5th guard had 200 T34īs out of 500-600 to begin with after Prokhorova, so their losses were great. Also das Reich captured several villages south of prokhorovka after 12th july so they did keep goin on even though the momentum of attack was gone.LAH was sent to Italy, and troops were sent to take care of other battles. Manstein wanted to attack with the reserve tanks against 5th Guards, but wasnīt allowed, so the russian tank reserve was saved by Hitler, actually.
So it seems that the battle of prokhorovka was russian propaganda, probably to explain the big losses. By destroying these tank reserves germany would have bought a lot of more time but the goal of destroying six russian armies would not have been possible as the northern pincer couldnīt move! germans lost enough precious tanks so that the balance totally shifted to the russians now. Well, after all over 15 000 T34īs were built so no wonder they had tanks!
Ok, just starting to warm up here! I bet loads of discussions will come up so better end this here! This is just my idea of it by what I have read.
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