Let's talk about World War II, which is called the biggest armored battle in the history of war.

Kursk Armageddon: the biggest tank battle in the history of human war

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April 30, 2005, Xinhuanet

The Battle of Kursk was a strategic decisive battle between the Soviet Red Army and German fascists in the prominent area of Kursk from 65438 to 0943. In terms of scale, this is the biggest tank battle in the history of human war. In terms of its significance, as Hitler himself said in his letter to the German generals at that time: "The success or failure of this war against the Soviet Union may depend on the outcome of the Kursk battle."

For a long time, people have always believed that the Soviet Union won a decisive victory in the Battle of Kursk.

It is called an important milestone for the Soviet Union to finally defeat German fascism. However, some historians have recently put forward different views based on the latest declassified historical materials. They think that the German army did not suffer heavy losses in that battle, so it was weakened. On the contrary, the Germans still retained a large number of effective forces in the late stage of the campaign. These experts believe that the real reason why the Germans finally lost the strategic initiative and turned into a total rout was not the defeat of the Germans in this battle, but the command error caused by Hitler's lack of self-confidence.

Confrontation between the two armies

During the Battle of Stalingrad from July 1942 to February 1943, the Germans suffered heavy losses. In order to recover the defeat, boost morale and regain the strategic initiative, the German high command decided to launch a large-scale summer offensive in the Soviet-German battlefield. Because the prominent position of the Soviet Union in Kursk posed a great threat to Germany's defense, Hitler decided to pull out this thorn in the side and stab in the flesh. The Germans tried to create a "Battle of Stalingrad in Germany" through Kursk, then occupied the Don River and Volga River basins, captured Moscow, and completed the unfinished business at 1942.

In order to win the battle, the German high command began large-scale preparations in April 1943, and made a battle plan code-named "Fortress". In July of the same year, on the north and south sides of Kursk region, that is, Belgorod section and orel region, the German army was mainly composed of "Central Army Group" and "Southern Army Group", and * * assembled 17 tank division, 3 motorized division and 18 infantry division, equipped with 2,700 tanks and 2,050 combat aircraft, accounting for about 65,400. In addition, the Germans were heavily equipped with the most advanced weapons at that time-Tiger, Leopard tanks and Ferdinand assault guns. "Tiger" tank is equipped with 88 mm large caliber artillery, and its firepower is very fierce. At the same time, because its front armor is as thick as 100 mm, it has strong protective ability. Obviously, compared with Soviet T-34 tanks, German tanks have considerable advantages.

The strategic intention of the Germans is to put on a pincer attack and attack Kursk from the north and south. On the southern line of the war zone, the troops of the Confederate Army 16 Division, composed of the German Fourth Armored Division and Kembuf Group, attacked from south to north under the command of Marshal Manstein. On the northern line, Marshal Kruger commanded the Central Army 15 Division to attack from north to south. In addition, the Germans also prepared 20 divisions as strategic reserve forces. According to its operational plan, the two troops will meet east of Kursk to complete the camp construction.

Faced with the great strength of the German army, the Soviet high command decided to fight back with all its might. The strategic deployment of the Soviet army is: General rokossovsky led six group armies of the Central Army to defend the northern line; General Bashchin led six Japanese army groups in Voroney to defend the southern line; Take the grassland army as a strategic reserve. The Soviet army invested 6.5438+0.336 million people, equipped with 3,600 tanks and assault guns, 20,000 guns and 3 1.30 aircraft, with Marshal zhukov as the commander-in-chief.

A bloody battle

1in July, 943, the two sides completed the strategic assembly, 2 million troops confronted each other, and a bloody battle was imminent. At this time, the Soviet army learned from the prisoners that the Germans would attack at dawn on July 5. As a result, the Soviet high command took the initiative and decided to strike first.

1at 2 am on July 5, 943, the battle of Kursk began, and the Soviet army shelled it on a large scale. Faced with this situation, the Germans decided to change the raid into a storm, with tanks as the vanguard and a large number of infantry following. Each attack tank is arranged in a wedge shape, and the impact is carried out at the density of 0/00 vehicles per square kilometer/kloc. At the same time, 120 German bombers bombed the Soviet positions crazily under the cover of fighter planes. The Soviet troops standing on the first line of defense fought fiercely with the Germans and were outnumbered. They used tanks, anti-tank guns and bottles full of gasoline to give the Germans a head-on blow. At that time, the whole battlefield was filled with smoke and flames. The roaring sound of shells, deafening explosions, the shooting sound of automatic weapons and the roar of tank motors are intertwined, which is thrilling.

After two days of fierce fighting, both Soviet and German troops suffered heavy losses. By the evening of July 6, the Germans on both sides had broken through the first line of defense of the Soviet Union. However, in the following days of fighting, despite the continuous fierce German attacks, the goal of encircling the Soviet army was not achieved. On July 1 1, the commander of the German southern line, Manstein, made a new operational plan and decided to launch a new offensive against the Soviet troops on the southern line on June 12. At this point, the Battle of Kursk entered a critical second stage, which was also a controversial stage for many historians of World War II.

In order to win the second stage of the campaign, Manstein put the SS Panzer Corps and the 48th Panzer Corps into battle. The SS Panzer Corps is the elite mobile armored unit of the German Army. It consists of three armored divisions, namely Hitler's Guards Division, Imperial Division and Totan Kopf Armored Division. This is a trump card in the hands of Manstein.

On July 12, the German army with the SS Panzer Corps as the core launched an unprecedented tank encounter with the 5th tank guards and 5th guards of the Soviet Grassland Army near Loka, Proch. On this day, the Soviets dispatched about 850 tanks, while the Germans invested about 650 tanks. The two sides conducted a tank "hand-to-hand combat" on the battlefield of 15 square kilometers. The three divisions of the SS Panzer Corps went hand in hand, with Tiger heavy tanks in the front and Mark -5 tanks in the back, and charged the Soviet Union at a density of 0/50 tanks per square kilometer. Although the tiger tank has strong attack power, its speed is only 20 kilometers per hour. In addition, the German front is long and narrow, and 500 to 700 German tanks are crowded together, making it difficult to give play to their advantages. The Soviets seized this opportunity and decided to slow down. At the beginning of the battle, the Soviet tanks rushed into the enemy lines with full horsepower, and used the agility of their T-34 tanks to destroy the "Tiger" tanks in the melee. This bold strategy surprised the Germans and immediately caused chaos. In the end, in the chaos, the SS Panzer Corps was hit hard, and about 400 rickety tank wrecks were thrown on the battlefield, including 70 to 100 Tiger tanks. This battle completely destroyed the fighting capacity of the SS armored forces, completely reversed the war situation on the southern line of Kursk, and ended the German offensive plan on the southern line in failure.

rewrite history

However, according to a secret document about the SS Panzer Corps in the National Archives of Washington, D.C., some experts believe that the previous description of this battle is not accurate. This data shows that, first of all, the SS Panzer Corps does not have more than 700 tanks recorded in historical materials. Even before the start of the campaign, only 2 1 1 tanks of the SS Panzer Corps had full combat effectiveness. Secondly, in the battle of 12, the SS armored forces did not suffer heavy losses as people said. According to an internal German statistic on July 3rd, 1943, the SS Panzer Corps still had 163 tanks to fight after this campaign, only 48 tanks were lost. This is much smaller than the loss of the Soviet Fifth Armored Army. According to a history of World War II of the 5th Soviet Tank Corps in 1984, after the battle on 12, as many as 400 tanks only need to be overhauled. Although the book does not record the number of tanks lost by the Soviet army, this figure is enough to prove that the Soviet army paid a huge price in this battle. Some Soviet-era source materials even have such words: "The 5th Tank Corps lost about 650 tanks in this encounter, and the rest tanks were incorporated into the infantry company because they could not recover their attack capability."

According to these declassified materials, historians re-describe the battle that happened 55 years ago: 12 In the early morning of July, the deafening sound of tank motors came from the position of Hitler's bodyguard division of the SS armored division, which indicated that a Soviet armored force was heading here. At about 5 am, hundreds of Soviet tanks appeared at the front of the position. Most of these tanks were Soviet T-34 tanks and T-70 tanks, which were divided into 40 to 50 groups and rushed to German positions. Tanks also carry infantry. Seeing this, the Germans immediately went into battle. Suddenly, artillery and armor-piercing projectiles from both sides exploded, and smoke enveloped the whole earth. At the beginning of the battle, Soviet T-34 tanks went straight to the enemy lines. However, the 76 mm artillery of the T-34 tank could not hit the German tanks at a long distance, so a large number of Soviet tanks were destroyed by the German "Tiger" tanks before approaching the enemy. After the battle, hundreds of Soviet tanks were on the battlefield, and all Su 18 1 tanks were killed.

If that had been the case at that time, the history of the Eastern Front should have been rewritten, and the battle on July 12 would not have been the watershed of the whole battle as the traditional view thought, let alone the fundamental reason for the German army's full withdrawal from the southern front. In fact, after the 12 campaign, the Germans still had strong fighting capacity, and made some progress in the next few days, surrounded several Soviet infantry positions and occupied some high places with great strategic value. So, what caused the Germans to finally give up their attack on the southern line and retreat? Experts believe that Hitler himself was the cause of Germany's defeat.

From 65438 to 0943, World War II entered a critical turning point. At the beginning of July, just as the battle between the Soviet Union and Germany was heating up, the British Eighth Army under Montgomery's command and the American Seventh Army under Barton's command landed in Sicily, Italy. After getting the news, Hitler was on pins and needles. He decided to give up fighting in the Soviet-German battlefield and withdraw his troops to save his strength and prepare for defense. Manstein, commander of the German southern line, was greatly dissatisfied with Hitler's decision. He believes that if we persist in the end, the Germans will probably surround the main force of the Soviet Fifth Tank Guards and eventually occupy Plo Holovka, a strategic place. But the headstrong Hitler did not take manstein's advice, but transferred the main forces such as the SS Panzer Corps from ProHolovka. From July 17 to July 18, these troops officially withdrew from the battlefield. Since then, Hitler's Guards of the German SS Panzer Division have been transferred to Italy.

The main reason why the Germans retreated was not that they lost their fighting capacity, but that Hitler lost the courage and confidence to continue fighting with the Soviet Red Army. With Hitler's decision, the last chance for the German army to win the strategic initiative in the Eastern Front went up in smoke.

Historians point out that the newly disclosed archives give people a more accurate understanding of the battle that took place more than half a century ago, but this cannot change the doomed fate of German fascists in World War II. The Battle of Kursk, which lasted more than 50 days, ended in the final victory of the Soviet Union on August 23rd, 1943. After the war, the Soviet army completely grasped the strategic initiative and turned to the strategic offensive. In evaluating this hard-won victory, Stalin said: "The victory of the Soviet Union in the Battle of Kursk marked the imminent collapse of German fascism." (Wang Leyan)