Battle of Prokhorovka - Background

Background

In the winter of 1942–1943 the German Sixth Army had been lost during the Battle of Stalingrad. The subsequent Soviet operations—Operation Uranus, Operation Winter Storm, and Operation Little Saturn—threatened the position of Army Group South. The Soviet operations, if successful, may have destroyed the entire Army Group. These operations led to the liberation of most of the Caucasus from German occupation at a cost of only 70,000 casualties. Keen for more success, Stalin had ordered the Red Army to encircle German Army Group South by thrusting through to Rostov-on-Don. The Red Army advanced but became overstretched. Erich von Manstein recognised this and organised an improvised counter-offensive which resulted in the Third Battle of Kharkov. In a repeat of the Second Battle of Kharkov, mobile German forces pinched off the flanks of the Soviet spearhead and destroyed them. The German victory had enabled the Wehrmacht and SS forces to recapture Kharkov on 14 March 1943 and drove the Red Army back over the northern Don River. In the process they punched a bulge into the Soviet lines to create a salient some 150 miles from north to south. The Germans took some 9,000 prisoners and counted 23,000 Soviet dead. Soviet figures counted 45,000 killed and captured.

German forces also recaptured Belgorod to the south of Kursk, but the Soviets held Kursk. The German advance beyond Kharkov was soon slowed to a halt as Soviet resistance grew stronger. Neither had the strength to continue offensive operations and the Kursk salient was formed. Adolf Hitler and the German High Command selected the relatively narrow Kursk sector for their next major offensive in an attempt to crush Soviet operational and strategic reserves. This was to restore equilibrium to the Eastern Front and win back the strategic initiative. Soviet intelligence recognised the Kursk bulge would be the focus of a major German offensive in the summer. The Soviet strategic defence of Kursk, unlike Moscow in 1941, would not occur along the entire front. This enabled the Soviets to prepare a strong defence in depth of up to 100 kilometres deep. The Soviets committed 10 Soviet Army Fronts, containing 40 combined armies and five tank armies operating on a 2000 kilometre front to a depth of 600–700 kilometres. The Stavka authorised a defensive strategy aimed at wearing down the German spearhead by forcing them to breakthrough multiple lines of heavily fortified positions, defended by Soviet units with combined arms capabilities. When the German offensive withered, the Soviet operational armour reserves would be released to counterattack and destroy the weakened enemy.