THE BATTLE OF KURSK 1943

The Battle of Kursk in July 1943 was the greatest clash of armoured forces yet seen in the History of warfare. It was between the 18th of February and 18th of March, Von Manstein's effective counteroffensive destroyed the Soviet Spearheads and subsequently a pause descended over the Easter Front as the exhausted combatants rebuilt their shattered forces for the Summer campaign. The origin of this German Offensive (Operation Citadel) .

PanzerKampfwagen V Panther Medium battle tank.

The Panther was built as a direct response to encounter the Soviet t-34 along with Tiger during 1941. The MAN-produced Panther owing its slope armour to the Soviet T-34 but maintained the German tradition of superbly designed,expensive and complex engineering, It's High velocity 75mm gun had excellent armour-perceing capabilities and proved very well-protected. It was deployed first at Kursk. although these early models were plagued with automotive problems. It is an impressive Tank having speed, mobility, power and armour all together, It was one of the favorite tanks of the germans. The British find this as a problem and yet again fail to catch up with German Tanks. The American believe this as not a significant threat until 1944 at Anzio Italy where they found it very lethal in terms of power and armor, along with the Russians in Kursk it was all the way impenetrable to almost all of the Soviet tanks and in equivalent to their T-34 85 heavt tank.

AFTERMATH AT  KURSK

All thing considered , Citadel was a dire German strategic defeat, although it was tactically a draw but it spelled that Germany could no longer launch a massive attack in the Eastern front ever again, but it opened the fact that Germany had superior tanks nut in the end it was all the matter of quantity rather than the Germans have of quality, Despite their huge concentration of force all the Germans gained was an advance never deeper than 40km through insignificant terrain, for heavy casualties ,Indeed, all Citadel accomplished was to shatter the German strategic armor reserves, thus making it easier for the soviets to achieve rapid operational success with their counterattacks. In fact Kursk rather than Stalingrad was the turning point of the war in the Eastern theater, which ensured the Third Reich defeat,