Happy reading CrazyD88!
About that intelligence part. I donīt have it near but twice i have read that the British delivered the information after they decoded it. Yet not giving all the information, which could explain why the german attackīs main thrust in the south came as a surprise. If I find the bit, Iīll come back to it. The russian link to OKW has been discussed often, but so far I havenīt found any clues to whom or how it could have been done. Also the man somewhere in the Balkans, who sent the messages to Moscow, has stayed rather obscure-at least to me. Of course all Iīm saying is mostly how I see it- making my own links, as direct evidence isnīt shown.
The panzerkeil probably worked well in the russian plains as it was excellent tank battle ground. Nothing comes from the bushes and the view up to kilometers is clear.SO if you saw T34īs and you had a tiger tank, you had all the time in the world to kill those russian tanks.Their 75 mm would be useless up to 700 meters. And the smaller tanks inside would mop up the rest, as the tigers would take care of the bigger fish.
The northern sector in Kursk was useless literally. They were stuck. So Mansteinīs main idea was to crush the 5th guardīs tanks and whatever was left of the other reserves,which would have given them a breathing space, as russians had no other reserves there. As a whole the Zitadelle was lost, but a minor victory was at hand. The other fronts might have stopped the attacking in order to strenghten the Kursk region, but at least Russia would have had 200-300 T 34īs less after that.
Youīre probably right about those tanks.