Battle of Prokhorovka

Battle of Prokhorovka
Part of the Battle of Kursk on the Eastern Front of World War II
Soviet and German deployments near Prokhorovka on the eve of the engagement of 12 July. Positions of the II SS-Panzer Corps are in blue; the red dashed line shows the position of Soviet forces directly opposing the SS-Panzer Corps. The black dashed line is the railway running from Prokhorovka southwest through the Psel corridor (the strip of land between the Psel River and a tributary of the Northern Donets River).
Date 12 July 1943[a] Location Prokhorovka, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union 51°2′11″N 36°44′11″E / 51.03639°N 36.73639°E / 51.03639; 36.73639 Result See § Outcome
Belligerents
Germany	Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
Hermann Hoth Paul Hausser Otto Deßloch	Nikolai Vatutin Pavel Rotmistrov Aleksey Zhadov Stepan Krasovsky Vladimir Sudets
Units involved
II SS-Panzer Corps 1st SS-Panzergrenadier Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler 2nd SS-Panzergrenadier Division Das Reich 3rd SS-Panzergrenadier Division Totenkopf	5th Guards Tank Army[b] 29th Tank Corps 18th Tank Corps 2nd Guards Tank Corps[c] 2nd Tank Corps[d] 5th Guards Mechanised Corps[e] Other units 33rd Guards Rifle Corps[f] 10th Tank Corps[g] 31st Tank Corps 23rd Guards Rifle Corps[h] 48th Rifle Corps 95th Guards Rifle Division[3][4][5]
Strength
294 tanks and assault guns[i]	616 tanks and self-propelled guns[i]
Casualties and losses
on 12 July[j] 43–80 tanks and assault guns destroyed or damaged 842 men killed, wounded and missing 19 aircraft destroyed or damaged[6]	on 12 July[j] 340 tanks and self-propelled guns destroyed or damaged[7] 3,563 men killed, wounded and missing[7] 14 fighter aircraft[6]
class=notpageimage| Location of Prokhorovka within European Russia

The Battle of Prokhorovka was fought on 12 July 1943^[a] near Prokhorovka, 87 kilometres (54 mi) southeast of Kursk, in the Soviet Union, during the Second World War. Taking place on the Eastern Front, the engagement was part of the wider Battle of Kursk and occurred when the 5th Guards Tank Army of the Soviet Red Army attacked the II SS-Panzer Corps of the German Waffen-SS in one of the largest tank battles in history.^[k]

In April 1943, the German leadership began preparing for Operation Citadel, with the objective of enveloping and destroying the Soviet forces in the Kursk salient by attacking and breaking through the base of the salient from north and south simultaneously. The German offensive was delayed several times because of the vacillation of the leadership (Hitler repeatedly delayed launching the attack so that more Tiger tanks could be delivered to the front, hoping that a technical advantage would help him win the offensive) and the addition of more forces and new equipment. The Soviet high command, Stavka, had learned of the German intentions and so used the delay to prepare a series of defensive belts along the routes of the planned German offensive. The Soviet leadership also massed several armies deep behind their defences as the Stavka Reserve. The army group, the Steppe Front, was to launch counteroffensives once the German strength had dissipated. The 5th Guards Tank Army was the primary armoured formation of the Steppe Front.

On 5 July 1943, the Wehrmacht launched its offensive. On the northern side of the salient, the German forces bogged down within four days. On the southern side, the German 4th Panzer Army, with Army Detachment Kempf on its eastern flank, attacked the Soviet defences of the Voronezh Front. They made slow but steady progress through the Soviet defensive lines.

After a week of fighting, the Soviets launched their counteroffensives: Operation Kutuzov on the northern side and a coinciding one on the southern side. On the southern side of the salient near Prokhorovka, the 5th Guards Tank Army engaged the II SS-Panzer Corps of the 4th Panzer Army, resulting in a large clash of armoured fighting vehicles. The 5th Guards Tank Army suffered significant losses in the attack, but succeeded in preventing the Wehrmacht from capturing Prokhorovka and breaking through the third defensive belt, the last heavily fortified one. Having failed to achieve his objective, Hitler, despite the advice of his commanders, cancelled Operation Citadel and began redeploying his forces to deal with new pressing developments elsewhere.

The Red Army went on a general offensive by conducting Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev on the southern side and continuing Operation Kutuzov on the northern side. The Soviet Union thus seized the strategic initiative on the Eastern Front, which it held for the rest of the war.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).