A couple points- both Martin and Kai mention intelligence sharing between east and west in relation to Kursk- where are you guys reading this? In all my sources, I cannot find mention of this sharing in any significant amount. I've read that the intelligence Stalin recieved about Kursk came from his own spy network ("Werther", I believe?). Also common sense- in the time it took to decode a message, then relay it through diplomatic channels, the message would not longer be at all current. Even by the time of the Battle for Berlin, such intelligence messages were still being relayed through normal diplomatic channels, which took forever.
I also wonder about the panzerkiel tactic's effectiveness. For the germans, this seemed really unimiginative- just lining up tanks and sending them in. What's more, the panzerkiel as used at Kursk had one huge flaw- with the Tigers in the front, they would have engaged the enemy at relatively close range- a waste of the tiger. Tigers, because of the 88, excelled at LONG range fighting. But at close range, not only could the russian guns penetrate their armor, but the tigers also exposed their sides and exposed themselves to infantry attack.
Hmmm... numbers for Tiger lost during Kursk?

Kai also brings up one of the interesting ideas here- could Manstein have succeeded, if allowed to continue as he wanted?
In my opinion, he probably could not have because of the problems the northern pincer under Model was having. Had the russians been faced with a continuing attack from Manstein, they likely could have brought in enough reserves to halt the attck, and, even more, immediate relief could have come from shifting russian forces from north to south. BY July 9th, th northern pincer was essentially stopped. Forces could have been moved from the north to help hold Manstein. And Mansteins forces were beginning to run low on supplies, which was already slowing their progress.

One final thing- Kai, by the wars end, the russians had produced well over 50,000 T-34s, not 15,000 I think... or were you just citing one year?

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