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Posted on 03/28/2005 9:45:36 PM PST by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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 The Battle of Kursk was a significant battle on the Eastern Front of World War II. It remains the largest armored engagement of all time, and included the most costly single day of aerial warfare in history. Though the Germans planned and initiated an offensive strike, the Soviet defense managed to stop their ambitions and launch a successful counteroffensive. The German Army relied on armored forces to push through enemy lines at high-speed (the famous Blitzkrieg tactic). This meant they could only assume the offensive during the summer when the Russian continental climate had dried out the ground enough to give tanks a high degree of mobility. The Eastern Front war in 1941 and 1942 had thus developed into a series of German advances in the summer, followed by Soviet counterattacks in the winter.  In the winter of 1942/1943 the Soviets conclusively won the Battle of Stalingrad. One complete army had been lost, along with about 500,000 Germans and allies, seriously depleting the Axis strength in the east. With an Allied invasion of Europe clearly looming, Hitler realized that an outright defeat of the Soviets before the western Allies arrived had become unlikely, and he decided to force the Soviets to a draw. In 1917 the Germans had built the famous Hindenburg line on the Western Front, shortening their lines and thereby increasing their defensive strength. They planned on repeating this strategy in Russia and started construction of a massive series of defensive works known as the Panther-Wotan line. They intended to retreat to the line late in 1943 and proceed to bleed the Soviets white against it while their own forces recuperated.  In February and March 1943 Erich von Manstein had completed an offensive during the Second Battle of Kharkov, leaving the front line running roughly from Leningrad in the north to Rostov in the south. In the middle lay a large 200 km wide and 150 km deep Soviet-held salient (bulge) in the lines between German forward positions near Orel in the north, and Manstein's recently captured Kharkov in the south. Von Manstein pressed for a new offensive based on the same successful lines he had just pursued at Kharkov, when he cut off an overextended Soviet offensive. He suggested tricking the Soviets into attacking in the south against the desperately re-forming 6th Army, leading them into the Donets Basin in the eastern Ukraine. He would then turn south from Kharkov on the eastern side of the Donets River towards Rostov and trap the entire southern wing of the Red Army against the Sea of Azov.  The OKW did not approve von Manstein's plan, and instead turned their attention to the obvious bulge in the lines between Orel and Kharkov. Three whole Soviet armies occupied the ground in and around the salient, and pinching it off would trap almost a fifth of the Red Army's manpower. It would also result in a much straighter and shorter line, and capture the strategically useful railway town of Kursk located on the main north-south railway line running from Rostov to Moscow. In March the plans crystallized. Walther Model's 9th Army would attack southwards from Orel while Hoth's 4th Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf under the overall command of Manstein would attack northwards from Kharkov. They planned to meet near Kursk, but if the offensive went well they would have permission to continue forward on their own initiative, with a general plan to create a new line on the Don River far to the east.  Contrary to his recent behavior, Hitler gave the General Staff considerable control over the planning of the battle. Over the next few weeks they continued to increase the scope of the forces attached to the front, stripping the entire German line of practically anything remotely useful for deployment in the upcoming battle. They first set the attack for May 4, but then delayed it until June 12, and finally until July 4 in order to allow more time for new weapons to arrive from Germany, especially the new Panther tanks. One could instructively contrast this plan with the traditional (and successful) blitzkrieg tactic used up to this point. Blitzkrieg depended on massing all available troops at a single point on the enemy line, breaking through, and then advancing as fast as possible to cut off enemy front-line troops from supply and information. Blitzkrieg involved avoiding direct combat at all costs: attacking a strongpoint makes no sense if an invader can achieve the same ends by instead attacking the trucks supplying the strongpoint. And Blitzkrieg worked best by attacking at the least expected location -- hence the Germans had attacked through the Ardennes in 1940, and towards Stalingrad in 1942.  The OKW's conception of the attack on the Kursk salient, Operation Citadel formed the antithesis of this concept. Anyone with a map could confidently predict the obvious point of attack: the German plan reflected World War I thinking more than the Blitzkrieg. A number of German commanders questioned the idea, notably Heinz Guderian who asked Hitler: Was it really necessary to attack Kursk, and indeed in the east that year at all? Do you think anyone even knows where Kursk is?. Perhaps more surprisingly Hitler replied: I know. The thought of it turns my stomach. Simply put, Operation Citadel embodied an uninspired plan. The Red Army had also begun planning for their own upcoming summer offensives, and had settled on a plan that mirrored that of the Germans. Attacks in front of Orel and Kharkov would flatten out the line, and potentially lead to a breakout near the Pripyat Marshes. However, Soviet commanders had considerable concerns over the German plans.  All previous German attacks had left the Soviets guessing where it would come from, and in this case Kursk seemed too obvious for the Germans to attack. However, Moscow received warning of the German plans through a spy ring in Switzerland. Stalin and a handful of the Red Army Stavka (General Staff) wanted to strike first. They felt that history had demonstrated the Soviet inability to stand up to German offensives, while action during the winter showed their own offensives now worked well. However the overwhelming majority of the Stavka, and notably Georgi Zhukov, advised waiting for the Germans to exhaust themselves in their attack first. Zhukov's opinion swayed the argument.  The German delay in launching their offensive gave the Soviets four months in which to prepare, and with every passing day they turned the salient into one of the most heavily defended points on earth. The Red Army laid over 400,000 landmines and dug about 5,000 kilometers of trenches, with positions as far back as 175km from the front line. In addition they massed a huge army of their own, including some 1,300,000 men, 3,600 tanks, 20,000 artillery pieces and 2,400 aircraft. The Germans had good information on the Soviet defensive preparations. Why they did not then switch targets remains a mystery.
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Good morning Mayor.
Prayers offered for your wife.
I made it just in time for Treadhead Tuesday so I thought I'd post a(n)(anti) Treadhead related memorial photo from home.
This monument is over at Fort Hood, not far from my house. My daughter and dad go over here and shoot skeet a couple or 3 times a week.
Consider prayers in queue. My spouse just went through 3 hernia surgeries in the past four months. Not only will I say a prayer for your loved one, but for the doctor(s) and staff who are working with her, as well.
It was Hell on Earth.
That's a real purdy picture!
Morning P.E.
Federal Spending (excluding Social Security) as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product has ranged from 21.4% in '76, up to 23.5 in '83 (yep...Reagan), then down to 18.4 % in 2000, then up to 20.3 in 2005. The OMB is estimating that it will drop to 19.0 by 2010.
Now, as Conservatives, can we all agree that the Federal Spending must go down for America to prosper to its fullest potential?! And how better to measure Federal Spending than as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product? Well, Dubyuh came into office with Federal Spending accounting fer 18.4% of GDP and he is estimated to leave office in 2008 with the Fed siphoning off 19.2% of GDP. Shouldn't Conservatives DEMAND that Federal Spending be cut as required to decrease the percentage below 18.4% by the time Bush leaves office?! Heck, we've got a GOP Congress and a GOP White House and spending goes UP over eight years?!
That's worth fighting fer if you ask me...MUD
Good morning, hope everyone had a Happy Easter.
Thanks for the pings, always good reading.
Cheers!
Agreed. But do you have the numbers if you take military/defense (i.e. war on terror) out of the picture?
I'm not saying we don't need to watch the spending there as well. But I think we need to consider those numbers separately.
Whoa, way cool Flag-o-gram today, PE. Thank You.
Good Morning, Foxhole - Incredible tread today. Great pictures and great equipment.
Thought I'd share a little tread with the Foxhole.
The little tread pic above is from a gizmo site that has the plans and specs for making a mobile 1/5 Sherman Tank for kids based on the T4 model. This thing is made out of plywood and is operable via an X-Arcade Joystick. When I ran into this site I thought this might be a fun project for a kid of any age. (If I were more of a craftsman, I'd make one for myself.)
Have a great sunny day everyone.
Can I buy one of theese?
Vacuum Tube Lifting Systems with Bag and Sack Lifting Attachment
What bag. I just see an attendant.
They're talking about the WWII T-70
A Soviet Light tank with a 20mm gun.
Morning alfa6.
I read Hans Rudel's "Stuka Pilot" in High School
Hans Ulrich Rudel began his amazing career as a Stuka pilot in Poland in 1939, and was one of the few pilots to survive six years of combat flying. Shot down more than a dozen times, he finished the war flying an FW190 - with one leg amputated and the other in a cast! Rudel's fame as the "indestructible" pilot - and his record of 2530 operational flights, 519 Russian tanks, and the Soviet battleship Murat destroyed brought his to the attention of the Fuehrer. Rudel won eleven decorations - the last a new medal specifically designed for him by Hitler. Rudel's Fire Brigade shows him in one of his low level support roles using his 37mm anti-tank weapons mounted under the wings of his Stuka.
Morning!
Thanks for the added insight and info.
The Germans were also using the Hs-129 Tank Buster.
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