However, with the Soviets now being starved of oil and with no great propaganda victory at Stalingrad, morale is at an all-time low in Russia.
In the immediate term the Soviets are unable to shift the Germans from their country, but at the same time, the Germans are unable to inflict the killer blow to the Soviets due to logistics and supply. Instead, a stalemate ensues. With Moscow still in Soviet hands, Stalin continues to orchestrate attacks on the German forces. With Germany still fighting a war on two fronts, in the end, it becomes too much to bear; Russia bleeds the Germans dry whilst the Western Allies apply the final blow.
In many scenarios it is hard to envisage Nazi Germany ever defeating the Soviet Union in the way Hitler wanted — complete extermination. With no heavy loses at Stalingrad, Germany still have the battle-hardened troops available to continue their expansion eastwards. They now also have fully operational oil refineries at their disposal whilst the Soviets would be cut off from their main supplies. Read more about: Battles The Battle of Kursk: the largest tank battle in history.
With a significant military power now out of the war and the vast resources of the country at the disposal of the Germans, millions of soldiers and thousands of aircraft and tanks fighting on the Eastern Front are now freed up to be used elsewhere. Constant uprisings in Russia plague the Third Reich whilst it struggles to immerse the country into its empire.
With the atomic bomb being dropped on a number of German cities, the Nazi regime, just like the Japanese before them, is forced to sue for peace. Although it is the worst possibility of them all, it is perhaps the least likely. Stalingrad it seems was one such sliding doors moment, a battle that could put Germany on a path to overall victory. Even at the time, the world understood the significance of that bloody urban conflict.
After Russia's defeat how were we to handle the German land and air forces liberated? England would be again bombarded, threat of invasion revived And now! We start under conditions I would never have dared to hope. Russia has held, Egypt for the present is safe. There is a hope of clearing North Africa of Germans in the near future Russia is scoring wonderful successes in Southern Russia. Although a stretch, it could be argued that the fate of Stalingrad and the fate of Europe were one and the same.
Following on from the previous scenario, Stalingrad has fallen with little loss of German life, the Caucasus oilfields have been taken intact and Russia has sued for peace freeing up a vast amount of German troops to head for other fronts, including North Africa. Soon Egypt falls, cutting Britain off from its vital Mediterranean transport route. Read more on related topics:. The writer, Sven Felix Kellerhoff, argued that the evidence of Soviet humiliation at Prokhorovka was so convincing that Russia ought to tear down its memorial there, which celebrates the heroism of Soviet tank crews on 12 July.
Russia's ambassador to Germany, Sergei Nechayev, said Kellerhoff's idea was "beyond comprehension". The Battle of Kursk. There were angry words for Die Welt too in the Russian parliament. A defence specialist in the Duma lower house , Alexander Sherin, called on the German authorities to prosecute Die Welt's editor. Soviet heroism in World War Two has become a theme of Vladimir Putin's presidency, as he strives to boost national pride.
But there is no doubt that Soviet forces suffered heavily at Prokhorovka, even though they were making progress in other sectors of the Kursk front.
Soviet accounts spoke of Soviet tanks destroyed, along with 14 self-propelled guns, Isayev said. But he also said the Germans could have withdrawn their own damaged tanks from the battlefield after 12 July but before the aerial photos were taken. In that case, they would not show up on the photos studied by Wheatley. Wheatley's research suggests that, on 12 July, in the area covered by aerial photos the Germans had a maximum of 27 tanks either destroyed or damaged.
The rugged T tank was no doubt an impressive Soviet invention, the backbone of the Red Army. But Soviet troops were outgunned at Kursk by the heavy German Tiger tank, clad in 12cm-thick 4. War photographer Anatoly Yegorov was in the thick of the fighting at Kursk. His nephew Mikhail Yegorov spoke to the daily Moskovsky Komsomolets , recalling what Anatoly told him about his work there. Actual losses were somewhat heavier, the discrepancy due to the gain of repaired tanks returned to action.
Closer study of the losses of each type of tank reveals that the corps lost about 70 tanks on July In contrast, Soviet tank losses, long assumed to be moderate, were actually catastrophic. In , a history of the Fifth Guards Tank Army written by Rotmistrov himself revealed that on July 13 the army lost tanks to repairable damage.
He gave no figure for tanks that were destroyed or not available for salvage. Evidence suggests that there were hundreds of additional Soviet tanks lost.
Several German accounts mention that Hausser had to use chalk to mark and count the huge jumble of 93 knocked-out Soviet tanks in the Leibstandarte sector alone. Other Soviet sources say the tank strength of the army on July 13 was to , a loss of about tanks.
Those losses brought a caustic rebuke from Josef Stalin. Subsequently, the depleted Fifth Guards Tank Army did not resume offensive action, and Rotmistrov ordered his remaining tanks to dig in among the infantry positions west of the town. Another misconception about the battle is the image of all three SS divisions attacking shoulder to shoulder through the narrow lane between the Psel and the rail line west of Prochorovka. Only Leibstandarte was aligned directly west of the town, and it was the only division to attack the town itself.
The II SS Panzer Corps zone of battle, contrary to the impression given in many accounts, was approximately nine miles wide, with Totenkopf on the left flank, Leibstandarte in the center and Das Reich on the right flank. In fact, only Leibstandarte actually advanced into the corridor west of Prochorovka, and then only after it had thrown back initial Soviet attacks. Early on July 12, Leibstandarte units reported a great deal of loud motor noise, which indicated massing Soviet armor.
Soon after 5 a. Waves of T and T tanks advanced at high speed in a charge straight at the startled Germans. When machine-gun fire, armor-piercing shells and artillery fire struck the Ts, the Soviet infantry jumped off and sought cover.
Leaving their infantry behind, the Ts rolled on. Those Soviet tanks that survived the initial clash with SS armor continued a linear advance and were destroyed by the Germans. Michael Wittmann, the most successful tank commander of the war. The Soviet charge, straight at the Tigers over open ground, was suicidal. The frontal armor of the Tiger was impervious to the 76mm guns of the Ts at any great distance.
The field was soon littered with burning Ts and Ts. None of the Tigers were lost, but the st Tank Regiment was annihilated.
Late in the day, Rotmistrov committed his last reserves, elements of the V Mechanized Corps, which finally halted Leibstandarte. Battle groups of 20 to 40 Soviet tanks, supported by infantry and ground-attack planes, collided with Das Reich regimental spearheads. Rotmistrov continued to throw armor against the division, and combat raged throughout the day, with heavy losses of Soviet armor.
Das Reich continued to push slowly eastward, advancing into the night while suffering relatively light tank losses. The fighting, characterized by massive losses of Soviet armor, continued throughout July 12 without a decisive success by either side—contrary to the accounts given in many well-known studies of the Eastern Front, which state that the fighting ended on July 12 with a decisive German defeat.
These authors describe the battlefield as littered with hundreds of destroyed German tanks and report that the Soviets overran the SS tank repair units. In fact, the fighting continued around Prochorovka for several more days.
Das Reich continued to push slowly eastward in the area south of the town until July
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