I just noticed that it article mentions that 90 Elefants were at Kursk, which is untrue - the real number was 89, the remaining two being in Germany for testing.
The price Russia paid was not worth the likes of the third Reich. For a 1000 years there has always been somebody trying to tell the Russians how to live. They're still Russians. And they basically kicked the butt of everyone from Batu Khan to good ol uncle Adolf. :kill: :smok:
Im sorry but, isnt that being just a little too narrow minded ?? Russia is lucky its got its harsh winter's, wich was the reason for many deaths on the enemy's side in both the Napoleon-war and WW2. Remember 30 million Russians died during WW2 !
Yes, because its officer corps was inexperienced (thanks to Uncle Josef) and used outdated tactics relying purely on the fact that the Russians are with many. I don't think you can blame it on average Joe (or Ivan) that he was poorly led and wasted and thought little of. Those soldiers still defeated the previously unbeaten German army.
The German's were also very poorly led from the top, allthough they had some great Generals like Rommel, Güderian, Manstein.. etc etc... but these were not given permission to use their full advantage, because Hitler wanted to control it all himself. The Problem for the Russian's was not that the average soldier lacked stamina, as Russian soldiers probably were some of the toughest when it comes to deal with weather and food supply, simply because they were use to the land. But Russian soldiers lacked the training and professionalism of the German army, and that is what lead to the High casualties of the Red army. Plus the German's also had exellent officers, with very good training and special-training. Offcourse it didnt help that Joseph shot his Officers just before war broke out Regards, KBO
Kursk was basically the equivalent of Jutland - a tactical defeat in terms of the loss of men / equipment, but strategically a victory, and essentially the breaking of the enemy force (how many actions of such magnitude did the German Navy do after Jutland? Or the German army in the East after Kursk?)
I have a little quibble with the essay. Probably I am simply being dense, and you can shortly point this out to me! His loss & operational availability tables don't seem to add up. Taking the example of the Churchills on the Soviet tables... His availability table for July 10th, 11th & 12th shows 18, 18 & 8 Churchill operational, respectively. But, on those same dates, Churchills damaged were: 18, 1, 5 Churchills destroyed were: 0, 0, 6 The only way I can see around this is that all the Soviet Churchills were damaged on the 10th, but repaired in time to see action on the 11th. However, only 1 Churchill was damaged on the 11th, but only 8 were available on the 12th. So somehow The soviets had repaired all 18 tanks, got them back into operation, and then one is damaged and 9 more disappear. Or am I reading the table wrong?
Well it could be that the 1 damaged on the 11th, and the 5 damaged on the 12th (Or at least just 6 all put together), were all found that they were unrepairable, and then later on regarded as destroyed. But still we know that put together there were 44 Churchills operational, and 22 of them were lost.
