(OK, I'll try this again, and maybe the gremlins will leave it here!)
Erich, the mechanics you mention did play a huge role at Kursk. Glantz claims that german repair/recovery units were at one of their high points during the battle for Kursk. there were plenty of recovery units, mostly with all the equipment they needed, including heavy prime movers (think about towing a tiger tank...). Two main reasons accounted for the high level of recovery units... First, the amounts of armor deployed at Kursk naturally led to a correspondingly heavy deployment of recovery units. But more important, the delays imposed on the operation actually had a beneficial effect on the recovery units. Recovery units were often deployed later than the frontline untis; but the delays at Kursk allowed for a large number of recovery units to make it to the front before the battle actually started.
This would likely explain some of the fluctuations in numbers of available tanks...

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