70 years since Kursk - Tanks for the memories........

Jawgap

Interesting piece on the battle here.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23137492

It's 70 years since Kursk, the largest ever tank battle. Will there ever be another battle involving thousands of tanks on each side or has armoured warfare had its day?

Before dawn on 5 July 1943 explosions lit up the Russian sky and the earth shook to a huge bombardment. As the sun rose, waves of German panzers began rolling across fields of sunflowers and wheat. The greatest tank battle in history was underway.

The Battle of Kursk pitted almost 3,000 German tanks against more than double that quantity of Soviet heavy armour.

DaveyCakes

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHH!!!

It does my nut when people say Kursk was a "tank battle"

almighty1

We it probably is the most famous battle of WW2 involving tanks. Mostly because it was the debut of the Tiger and Panther tanks.

I can't understand your consternation with it being called a "tank battle"

DaveyCakes

Every major land battle in Europe in WW2 involved tanks. Granted there were more tanks at Kursk than most other battles, but there were also more aircraft (somewhere in the region of 5,000 if my memory serves me well), infantry (over 2,000,000), artillery pieces..... Did they all just sit around drinking tea while the tanks slugged it out?

The Tiger's debut was near Leningrad in 1942 and they fought in North Africa and Southern Russia before Kursk

Elmer Blooker

almighty1 wrote: »

We it probably is the most famous battle of WW2 involving tanks. Mostly because it was the debut of the Tiger and Panther tanks.

I can't understand your consternation with it being called a "tank battle"

Neither can I, Prokhorovka wasn't a tank battle?
It was the turning point of WW2 when the Germans lost the battle of production.

beauf

I think this is what hes on about

http://www.amazon.com/Demolishing-Myth-Prokhorovka-Operational-Narrative/dp/1906033897
http://www.uni.edu/~licari/citadel.htm

To summarize, there was a lot more going on than the tank battle, which was greatly exaggerated for various reasons.

almighty1

Fair enough points and well made. However I think this is just the human psyche, pigeon-holing events into categories. Perhaps over-using the main aspect of something as its descriptor.

Like when most people think of D-Day they think of the allied soldiers landing on the beaches under heavy fire and refer to the general operation as the "D-Day Landings". No knowing that alot of other stuff went on also. E.g. Most of the German fortified positions being taken out by warships and the paratroop landings behind German lines to capture Cherbourg.

Jawgap

Not sure, but I think it was VII Corps who took Cherbourg. As an aside, its commander was "Lightning Joe" Collins, son of an Irish immigrant.

Also the operational research reports show that the vast majority of gun emplacements were not 'taken out' by naval or aerial bombardment, unless a direct hit was scored in the embrasure - bombardment in many cases did, however, neutralise a lot of gun positions by 'encouraging' crews to evacuate them or seek shelter.

Infantry, engineers and armour were more effective at physically destroying these positions than bombardment.

almighty1

Just a few questions then in the lead-up to the landings.

I've always wondered why they didn't take out all ALL of the fortifications on the target beaches prior to the soldiers landing.

Wouldn't dive bombers (such as the Douglas Dauntless) been able to easily knock out these targets?

Maybe I'm oversimplifying the complexity of this task but considering that the allies had complete control of the skies and water I can't understand why it wasn't achievable.

beauf

The accuracy of bombing, but especially the Allied bombing has been overstated for years. In truth it wasn't that accurate and to achieve any accuracy usually resulted in heavy losses.

Air-support operations - often overlooked in the success of D-Day - sustained significant losses:
Between the 1st of April and the 5th of June, 1944, the Allies flew 14,000 missions losing 12,000 airmen and 2,000 aircraft.
127 more planes were lost on D-Day.
By the end of the Normandy campaign, 28,000 airmen were dead.

Also its quite hard to destroy fortifications with bombing. They defenders move out during the raid them move back in afterwards. In some cases bombing makes it much harder for the attacking force to move forward as it churns up the ground, and blocks roads. It actually provides cover for the defenders.

Jawgap

almighty1 wrote: »

Just a few questions then in the lead-up to the landings.

I've always wondered why they didn't take out all ALL of the fortifications on the target beaches prior to the soldiers landing.

Wouldn't dive bombers (such as the Douglas Dauntless) been able to easily knock out these targets?

Maybe I'm oversimplifying the complexity of this task but considering that the allies had complete control of the skies and water I can't understand why it wasn't achievable.

The first point I'd make is that if they turned the full weight of the strategic and tactical air forces on the Normandy beaches they would have given the game away about where they are going to land.

The second point relates to cratering. To destroy heavily fortified emplacements needs a lot of explosives - which means a big bomb delivered accurately or smaller bombs to saturate an area. At the time Lancs could carry 5.5 tons on 14 bomb hooks - usually they carried 10 x 1000lb bombs and 4 x 500 lb bombs - changing this configuration could only be done on the say so of Harris. Same with fusing - only Harris could authorise changes to fusing -to destroy a concrete emplacement requires a 1-2 second delayed fuse, but generally the army didn't like delayed fusing because stray bombs cratered things, like roads which made movement difficult.

Harris generally wasn't keen on delayed fusing either as he only wanted to make buildings uninhabitable, not necessarily knock them down. The armies just had to take what he was offering as he wasn't going to change fusing or configuration for battlefield attack purposes.

Ironically, RAF heavies tended to be more accurate than the Americans - the RAF aircraft bombed individually aiming for a designated point, the Americans bombed in fixed formations so while they got good coverage of the area, they didn't get the clustering the RAF got.

Dive bombing has been hugely over-stated in its effect - you increase accuracy but the bombload is severely reduced, so anything less than a direct hit won't have much of a physical impact. However, infantry like it because they can see it. Bit like the Typhoons - looks great, it's terrifying but dive bombing doesn't have much of a destructive effect. And dive bombing using specialist aircraft like the Dauntless or the Stuka is a waste of sortie effort.

The reports compiled by No. 2 Operational Research Section make interesting reading (if you're into that sort of thing) - generally they found soldiers hated and feared air attack more than artillery. They also found that whether a unit breaks depends more on it's psychological state than it's physical defences - soldiers psychologically prepared for bombardment recovered quickly from the initial shock - less well prepared units broke and tended to abandon positions and equipment. But even a fairly middling unit could recover in as short a time as 20 minutes from an air attack.

Neutralising the fortifications either by destruction or demoralisation just wasn't within the capacity of the air forces in the time allowed. The airpower theorists would also argue that even if it was possible it would have been a waste of effort - massed airpower should be used the way it was in the run up to Overlord - to isolate the battlefield and create what they referred to as the railway desert.

DaveyCakes

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

Neither can I, Prokhorovka wasn't a tank battle?
It was the turning point of WW2 when the Germans lost the battle of production.

Prokhorovka ≠ Kursk

jonniebgood1

DaveyCakes wrote: »

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHH!!!

It does my nut when people say Kursk was a "tank battle"

DaveyCakes wrote: »

Every major land battle in Europe in WW2 involved tanks. Granted there were more tanks at Kursk than most other battles, ...

This is why.

Without wishing to be pedantic the inclusion of 'land' in your qualification above narrows the field a lot. In terms of just 'battles' there were many that did not involve tanks thus it is natural to distinctly identify something like Kursk with tanks as they were a dominant feature.

namloc1980

almighty1 wrote: »

We it probably is the most famous battle of WW2 involving tanks. Mostly because it was the debut of the Tiger and Panther tanks.

I can't understand your consternation with it being called a "tank battle"

The Tiger first appeared in combat in and around the Leningrad front in Aug/Sept 1942 well before the Battle of Kursk the following summer.

Stovepipe

In Normandy, the Germans hated the constant presence of Allied strafers but developed strategies to sustain the delivery of fuel and oil and men and arms to the front. Artillery, they detested because anywhere within ten miles of the beachhead was subject to naval gunfire and by that stage of the war, Allied massed fire control of field artillery was excellent and devastating. German massed artillery was sporadic because of the counter-battery effect and the presence of spotter aircraft. In fact, the thing most Allied veterans speak about is how effective German mortars were, as they could easily be concealed and they were extremely hard to counteract. The Allied soldiers detested the Nebelwerfer and the tank men hated the 88mm. German veterans have been quoted as saying that the Allied use of massed fire was more effective than the Russian equivalent, because of the speed with which it could be changed from target to target.

regards
Stovepipe

indioblack

Stovepipe wrote: »

In Normandy, the Germans hated the constant presence of Allied strafers but developed strategies to sustain the delivery of fuel and oil and men and arms to the front. Artillery, they detested because anywhere within ten miles of the beachhead was subject to naval gunfire and by that stage of the war, Allied massed fire control of field artillery was excellent and devastating. German massed artillery was sporadic because of the counter-battery effect and the presence of spotter aircraft. In fact, the thing most Allied veterans speak about is how effective German mortars were, as they could easily be concealed and they were extremely hard to counteract. The Allied soldiers detested the Nebelwerfer and the tank men hated the 88mm. German veterans have been quoted as saying that the Allied use of massed fire was more effective than the Russian equivalent, because of the speed with which it could be changed from target to target.

regards
Stovepipe

I think Nebelwerfers were what my father called "Moaning Minnies".
After he was wounded in Normandy he was taken to a makeshift field dressing station - the building was mortared and he was wounded again.

BDSC1964

Chaps
I have read extensively about Kursk which is quite easy considering it lasted only a few days. Read Paul Carel. The more I read the more I found it not to be a great tank battle. However what came out of it was the fact that to stop the german armoured units (and infantry with many assault guns and tank destroyers) the soviets lost over 50% of their entire tank cadre (700-800) in about a week many due to luftwaffe 87d strikes in rear areas where tank corp were recklessly exposed and grouped together. A historical presedence was set here by the 87d stuka tank buster where an entire tank corp was wiped out in minutes.