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 On this day in engineering history, armies from the Soviet Union and the Nazi Germany clashed in one of the
largest tank battles of World War II . During the spring of 1943, the Red Army amassed
1.3 million troops and 3,600 tanks near Kursk,
Russia. Although
the Nazi invaders had collected a numerically smaller force, their 900,000 soldiers
and 2,700 tanks still posed a formidable threat.
Operation Citadel
After twice delaying the start of battle to await the
arrival of new weaponry, German Chancellor Adolph Hitler concluded that his army
now had enough tanks to launch Operation Citadel . Designed to counter the
Soviet T-34, the new Panzer V tank combined
speed and mobility with firepower and protection. What Hitler and his generals
failed to realize, however, was that while the Fuhrer had twice delayed the start of battle, over 300,000 Soviet
civilians had helped lay a massive array of tank traps and minefields.
The Soviet T-34 Tank
 Built at the Kharkov Steam-Engine Factory in Ukraine, the
Soviet T-34 was termed the "best tank in the world" by German General Gerst von
Runstedt. Inexpensive to produce and easy to repair, the T-34 was small and
relatively light. Although a frontal assault from its 76-mm gun couldn't
destroy a thickly-armored German Tiger tank, the T-34 could achieve a top speed
of 51 kilometer per hour (kph) – over 15 kph faster than the Tiger. The T-34's
water-cooled diesel engine also increased the tank's radius of action and
decreased the risk of fire from an enemy attack. Sloped armor and a superior
welded construction deflected shrapnel and prevented penetration.
The German Tiger and
the Panzer V
 Named by automotive engineer Ferdinand Porsche, Germany's Tiger
tank emphasized firepower and protection at the expense of mobility. Armored
with thick, interlocking plates, the Tiger tank could destroy bridges that it was too heavy to cross. Even worse, the tank's heavy weight put severe stress
on its suspension, causing breakdowns and complicating maintenance activities.
 Like the Tiger, early versions of the Panzer moved at relatively slow speeds and suffered repeated
breakdowns. Although German tanks could outrange the T-34's smaller and shorter
gun, Nazi strategists worried about the speed of Soviet armor. Equipped with a
592-hp Maybach V-12 engine, the Panzer V
featured speeds of 46 kph with a governor and 55 kph without.
The Battle of Kursk
 On July 4, 1943, Hitler's army launched a blitzkrieg which ultimately lacked the
critical elements of shock and surprise. Thanks to Allied intelligence and Russia's own
"Lucy" spy network, Marshall Georgy
Konstantinovich Zhukov knew the locations of the planed German attack. While
Hitler had delayed Operation Citadel for almost four months, Soviet civilians
helped the Red Army lay a million land mines and dig 5000 km of anti-tank
trenches to a depth of 175 km. Soviet military engineers also laid 500,000
anti-tank mines and 400,000 anti-personnel mines.
Although some
historians describe the Battle of Prokohorovka as the triumph of faster Soviet
T-34 tanks over slower Tigers and older Panzers,
the mythology of a Soviet victory obscures the reality of what happened on the ground. In the end, the
largest tank battle of World War II ended in a draw. In short, anti-tank
fortifications trumped sophisticated weaponry. Still, Mother Russia's belief in
a Soviet "victory" ensured that the strategic initiative would remain the Red
Army for the rest of the Great Patriotic War.
Resources:
http://zhukov.mitsi.com/Kursk.htm
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/row/t-34.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panther_tank
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_I
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Prokhorovka
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Re: July 12, 1943 – The Tiger, the Panzer, and the T-34
