Hi I'm totally new here and don't know my way around at all. I sure could use some help as I don't even know how to reply to a post. Having an interest in the Battle of Kursk I used Google Earth to find some amazing street view images of the war zone. There are some great images in the middle of forest and fields where you can see the actual tank paths not near or in any town.Just miles and miles of tank paths. Thank you Google Earth for making it possible to see ground level the area of the largest tank battle in WW2.
Google Earth is a very useful resource. I've used it to see photos of places like Konigsberg and parts of the Stalin Line; at a certain resolution objects like the forts that surround, for example, Konigsberg are very obvious 'from the air' due to their regular shape. You can then zoom-in and review photos of the forts, etc taken by visitors. I'll try and find those tank roads you refer to.
The Red Army used two Fronts for the defence of Kursk, and created a third front behind the battle area which was held as a reserve. The Central and Voronezh Fronts fielded 12 armies, with 711,575 men (510,983 combat soldiers) and 625,591 men (446,236 combat soldiers) respectively. In reserve, the Steppe Front had an additional 573,195 men (449,133). Thus the total size of the Soviet force was 1,910,361 men, with 1,426,352 actual combat soldiers. Soviet armour strength included 4,869 tanks (including 205 KV-1 heavy tanks) and 259 SPGs (including 25 SU-152s, 56 SU-122s and 67 SU-76s)[170] Overall a third of the Soviet tanks at Kursk were light tanks, but in some units this proportion was considerably higher. Of the 3,600 tanks in the Central and Voronezh Fronts in July 1943, 1,061 were light as T-60 and T-70. With very thin armour and small guns, they were unable to effectively engage the frontal armour of German medium and heavy tanks or AFVs.[171] Battle of Kursk - Wikipedia I recommend books of the battle. The Soviets had a plan to defend Kursk, then attack with large forces around the German forces. Zhukov wanted Army Group Center ( Rzhev, another set of books ), and Stalingrad was not actually his major goal. It was a victory, but the Soviets never believed they would get so many Germn prisoners.Perhaps as many as 30-40,000 men at most.
