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This talk page is becoming very hard to read. I take the liberty of rearranging and providing some headlines.--itpastorn 15:15, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 General comments 2 Irrelevant 3 Decisive? 3.1 Shoddy work 4 Guderian-Hitler conversation 5 Significance of the battle 6 Result 6.1 Fantasy 7 Factual errors or inconsistencies 7.1 Casualties 7.2 Casualty figures are a mess 7.3 Boundaries 8 Prokorovka 9 individual issues 9.1 Großdeutschland Division or Regiment? 9.2 Significance of Lend-lease? 9.3 Change of objective: sentence removed 10 Using the word "propaganda" is not POV 11 German tactical victory 12 .......... 13 Propaganda 13.1 From facts to insult 13.2 OK, we are discussing facts 14 Examples of propaganda 15 Intel 16 Casualties 16.1 Proposed casualties information 17 Dunn's Kursk: Hitler's Gamble 18 "Myths" of Kursk? 19 I want to add a part but I dont know where to put it 20 German and Soviet Casualties 21 Tanks, Planes, and Material Are Not REPEAT Not Casualites 21.1 Aircraft losses: where are the figures from? 21.2 Preliminary Actions 21.3 Preliminary Actions 21.4 Battle Ends 21.5 Removing POV about expected success of offensive 21.6 wording re: definition of a defensive attack 21.7 July 12 21.8 Duration and Casualties 21.9 January 23 2007 edits 21.10 Casualties, again 21.11 Disputed - casualties 21.12 German Casualties...again 21.13 Endless Arguments about Casualties 21.14 Germany 21.15 battle of kursk 21.16 German article

[edit] General comments

[edit] Irrelevant

The allied invasion of Sicily does not belong into the article about the Kursk battle. Much less deserves it a paragraph of it's own just before the outcome of Kursk, as if it were some contributing phase of the Kursk battle, vital for the Soviet victory. This practice of subtle selling irrelevant sideshow skirmishes outside of the Eastern front as "descisive battles" is regrettable. Therefore I've edited the article to that effect. Cheers. - curious reader

A FEW UNWELCOME BUT ILLUMINATING INSIGHTS.       

as for german casualties, I again emphasize that the absurdly low figures provided by both Glantz and that hapless swedish gruesome twosome-frankson and Zetterling, less than 50,000 are inherently false. both are based on losses reports submitted by german army and army-group commands. such reports were ivariably mendacious, deflating the losses since german commanders were loath to admit heavy losses, especialy from the "subhuman" soviet opponent, as these were taken as proof of professional ineptitude. real losses can only be deduced from subsequent requests for replacements. kursk is a case in point. when hitler first recieved the casualties reports he was pleased, thinking that a major tactical victory had been won. when he recieved the susequent requests for replacements he was horrified, as he realised that a disaster had befallen his army. accordingly when discussing german casualties, let us not consider contemporary german casualties reports, submitted immediatly after the battles, or sources based on them, only requests for replacements submitted shortly after the battle, or subsequent casualties estimates compiled by higher headquarters-O.K.W and O.K.H-this is of course frustrating, and cannot provide a precise ascription of losses to specific battles or periods but there is no intelectually acceptable alternative, insupport of this argument Irefer to the work of Rudiger Overmans and others.

Nice choice. You can't go wrong with Glantz.

Very nice article, very readable Ping 05:14 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Good work, folks. The article is better than it was the last time I visited it. I remember it back then presenting the Allied assault in Italy as the chief reason of German withdrawal. This point contradicted even the article itself, but the headlines made it look so.

Now, the article has reached such a level of impartiality that I, a non-chauvinistic and only mildly patriotic Russian, can agree with it.

--Mzabaluev 16:01, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

what about Decisive Soviet Victory vs. just a Soviet Victory

Can I get enough people on board about changing that?

Decisive Soviet Victory seems fine to me. With respect, Ko Soi IX 06:04, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

When the week of combat around Kursk had ended, the perceived infallibility of blitzkrieg was destroyed, along with the future hopes of the German Army for victory or even stalemate in the east....Kursk stands like an object lesson to those who would stand in awe and fear of current offensive threats. Kursk announced to the world that for every offensive theory, there is a suitable defensive one available to those who devote the requisite thought necessary to develop it.

Glantz, Colonel David M.. "Soviet Defensive Tactics at Kursk, July 1943". U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Soviet Army Studies Office Combined Arms Center Combat Studies Institute (CSI Report No. 11). 68.60.68.203 13:06, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Decisive?

I believe the battle was a Decisive Soviet Victory, because from that moment on the Germans couldnt not mount another large scale offensive and they lost the cream of their eastern front panzer armies. This is just my opinion

I agree. Operation Citadel, for all intended purposes, was Germany's final attempt to recapture strategic initiative on the Eastern Front. It failed, and it cost Germany dearly in terms of resources. After Kursk, instead of conducting the war on their terms, the Germans were forced to take increasingly reactive measures against Soviet advances, until it could do nothing to stop the on-slaught of the Soviet juggernaut.

[edit] Shoddy work

The article overestimates Soviet casualties, underestimates German ones, and inaccurately labels the battle as "indecisive". The use of the term "Soviet propaganda" is also inappropriate. I edited the article but someone edited it back. Kazak

Nonsense. There were huge amounts of propagande concerning the battle of Kursk coming from Stalin's staff, especially when it comes to Prokhorovka. For more than half a century the world - through this very propaganda - was led to believe that it was an even battle. Just as some people did believe, and some still do, that there was a german super-sniper named Heinz Thorvald (aka Koenig) in Stalingrad. His scope was even on display in a museum! Face it, Stalin was a liar!itpastorn

[edit] Guderian-Hitler conversation

• Can someone provide a citation to a reliable source concerning the conversation quoted at length between Hitler and Guderian concerning the wisdom of pushing for Kursk?

no such citation exists. the only source reporting it is Guderian himself(in his memoires titled "Panzer Leader")and he was repeatedly untruthful in his account.

Can you give some examples of proven untruths in Panzer Leader that would put doubt on his account with regards to Kursk? 1337n00blar 22:27, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Significance of the battle

And had the Germans commited XXIV pz. koprs in the south, they would have won Kursk, and saved themselves ALOT of trouble in the future. Possibly war winning.(Stan)

I do not agree with Stan that there could have been any outcome of the battle of Kursk that could have turned the table altogether. Had the Germans won it would merely have prolonged the war. Just like if the Japanese had won at Midway or Guadalcanal. No amount of bravery or strategic expertise could for ever postpone the axis defeat in a war of attrition - as it had become - over the combined resources of Russia and USA.itpastorn

itpastorn, surely you must mean resources of The Soviet Union, not Russia? Thought so. (Dynamok)

[edit] Result

Yes, Kursk was indeed a indecisive battle.

Consider that Nazis did not even come close to their goals (which is taking Kursk, enveloping and destroying Soviet Armies), they also lost Kharkov, Belgorod, and Orel as a direct result of the Battle. No matter what this cost to the Soviets, it was a decisive strategic loss by Nazis. (Igny 23:03, 18 May 2005 (UTC))

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How can the outcome of a battle between two forces be a clear defeat to one side, yet not a clear victory for the other? Give credit where it's due.

Actually, that's a pretty good summary. Both sides suffered heavily, but the Germans were fast running out of men and (to a lesser extent) quality equipment. For the Germans, Kursk was a loss they simply could not afford. Even if they had won, their loss-replacement situation was such that it still might have counted as a strategic loss. The Soviets, on the other hand, could afford to take it on the chin and just keep coming: they were bringing more and more soldiers into action with each passing month; their industrial production was turning out massive numbers of modern, effective aircraft, artillery, and tanks; and they were growing in both confidence and tactical skills.

For the Soviets, Kursk was not a decisive victory. But it weakened the Germans substantially and thus prepared the ground for the series of decisive Soviet victories that followed. Tannin

---

Right now the battlebox says that kursk was a "Strategic German loss". I think that sums it up well.

• Whatever the reason, the German advance was halted and Kursk was never turned into a sack, as Hitler had hoped. That saved a bundle of Red Army lives.
• Even if the Germans had mounted a stronger attack than the Red Amy had expected and they had to reallocate soldiers to the defense that had originally been kept in reserve for the counteroffensive, they still had enough of them to make that offensive really successful, taking most of Ukraine in the months that followed.
• The German losses were considerably lower than the Soviet ones. But the ratio was nowhere near as high as it needed to be. The allies outproduced the Axis something like 3.5:1 in 1943 (according to P. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers). In 1944 that discrepancy would increase further.

On the less important tactical level it was not a clear German loss. They had inflicted more damage than they had taken. Mansteins gains in the south against a well dug-in and fortified enemy who knew what was coming can be seen as remarkable achievement. But on a larger scale, so what?--itpastorn 15:15, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps it should be edited to a Phyrric Soviet victory? After all the USSR did lose more men and materials than the Nazis but won the battle at any rate, such a loss however would have been extremely difficult to compensate for. BritBoy 00:19, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

It's 'pyrric' and no, the Germans got their clocks cleaned. The measure of tactical success is whether the mission was accomplished. No major German unit accomplished their mission. The achievement of the Red Army in stopping an Army Group-level German armored attack and counterattacking decisively was a first in WW2. DMorpheus 04:14, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with DMorpheus. The Soviets decisively stopped the Germans from taking the Kursk salient, while suffering losses that they could easily bear.Nick227 19:05, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fantasy

Bobby D. Bryant, to say that Kursk may have been an indecisive battle is "someone's fantasy" is disrespectful and unhelpful--it's a common opinion when viewing the battle as simply involving the German offensive. You say it is a decisive Soviet victory because the German Army permanently lost the initiative, but that discrepancy just comes from including the Soviet counteroffensives or not. Personally I wish battleboxes would dissapear; if casualties and results of battles are being changed on a whim, it's a more complex topic than that box and it's one-liners can accommodate. 119 08:05, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Kursk was made to be a deliberate defensive battle by the Soviet STAVKA, to say that the battle can be explained as a indecisive defeat for the Germans is wrong, not only due to their huge losses but also because the Soviets were in control of the battle, they fought on their own terms and even with mistakes that might have been made during the battle/predeployment they achieved a decisive victory.

[edit] Factual errors or inconsistencies

The Kursk article was horrible. Its reference at the bottom of the page said Glantz and House's book on Kursk. This is supposed to be were they got their information.

However, it is not. I have the Glantz Kursk book, and what the article says and what the book says are VERY different. Here are the major ones:

"In total they assembled some 2,700 tanks and assault guns, 1,800 aircraft and 900,000 men."

Glantz does not use these same personnel figures of 900,000. Pg. 338 shows clearly in a chart that the German forces taking in part in Citadell only had 780,000 men.

"By this point overall German casualties may have been as high as 500,000 killed or wounded."

Again, in the appendix, pg. 338, Glants has a chart on German army losses from the offensive, and total casualties are only 49,822. The number above was used by Red Army commanders to make them look big to Stalin, pure Soviet propaganda. Glantz even agrees with 49,822 total casualties himself in the conclusion sections.

"The Soviet casualty figures were not released until the end of the communist regime, and comprised 250,000 killed and 600,000 wounded."

What is being referred to here is the official numbers by Krivosheev, who led a group that investigated through loads of Red Army papers to find out casualties. In it, they say at Kursk, the Soviets lost 70,330 irrevocables, 107,517 wounded for a total of 177,847 casualties.

Those are only a few areas where this article is clearly wrong. Overral, this article is horrible sourced, should not be read, and it appears the author did not read the source he/she uses.

And had the Germans commited XXIV pz. koprs in the south, they would have won Kursk, and saved themselves ALOT of trouble in the future. Possibly war winning.

Feel free to fix the article! I added the Glantz ref recently as a bread crumb so that someone could go back and cross-check the existing material - I don't know where it comes from, but old sources are likely to be wrong. Since you're clearly up on the details, you're the best person to turn this into a correct article - if it requires discarding the whole thing and starting over, that's certainly acceptable. Stan 02:34 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Casualties

A good old anti-Soviet propaganda at work here: German casualties are given for the battle, but Soviet ones "plus months of the subsequent offensive". Fixing, according to all the above discussion at this page to more reasonable numbers. Mikkalai 04:45, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I put the tank losses for both sides at 300, but this only takes the Prokhorovka battle into account. Kazak

Se above (under the heading "Shoddy work") for a refute of this nonsense.

[edit] Casualty figures are a mess

There's large discrepencies against the figures expressed here, and they are routinely being changed without referenceable cites. A recent change quadrupled German casualties from 56,000 to 210,000. Other online resources that do not refer to Wikipedia have a wide disparity. Somebody needs to confirm the potential range of casualties from reputable, citable sources and fix this article with cites to those references. As it stands now, I doubt anyone can put a firm finger on what the casualty figures really are for both sides. Until someone does the above suggested work, this article will continue to suffer from changes and reverts to these figures with no adequate concensus on the actual figures. --Durin 19:51, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

It depends on one's sympathies, I suppose. A fan of the Wehrmacht will naturally lower the German losses. Kazak 02:37, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yet again, nonsense. I am a swede and definately no "fan of the Wehrmacht". Nor are the two Swedes Niklas Zetterling and Anders Frankson who has studied this scholarly. The problem is how the Red Army reported enemy casualties. A "hit" was reported as a "kill", even if it probably was not. Fearful of repercussions most commanders tended to add some with every level the report traveled. When it finally reached the propaganda people they often added even more. Thus, what was reported as facts in Soviet press and books has been proven to be - thats right - exaggerated propaganda. Soviet sources for German losses simply can not be trusted. On the other hand, the Wehrmacht punished commanders who exaggerated enemy casualties. They were not nice people, but they had a better system for reporting what happened on the battlefield.--itpastorn 12:42, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

the wehrmacht may have had its professional strongpoints but accurate rporting of losses was practicaly never practised by its officers,at all levels, especially on the so-called eastern front. estimates of enemy casualties as well strenghes, , were astronomically inflated,with comically paradoxical results, while, and here it becomes curious, own losses were grossly deflated in order to aggrandise one's performance, even though this undermined requests for reinforcements. vanity overrode the priority of survival. personnel losses lighter than fatalities and invalidities were rarely counted,making it often an insurmountable difficulty for commanders requesting replacements to explain where have all their men gone, whereas tanks and planes damaged but not destroyed were merly recorded as undergoing running repairs. leaving an overly credulous future reader of the records with the impression that the wehrmacht's maintainance was the worst since the extinction of the neanderthals. the soviet system was disgraceful in so many ways but the red army's wartime reporting of enemy losses was much better than that of the allies' and certainly much better than that of the wehrmacht, though the latter is to say less than nothing. they had learned its importance the hard way! as for soviet reports of own losses. sadly perhaps heavy losses did not always prove a source of shame as long strong enemy resistence could be proven and the obgective achieved consequentially it tended to be accurate.

I have changed soviet losses figure to: personnel-177,847 tanks-1641 aeroplanes-459. these include losses of all types( killed,captured,wounded andsick for personnel and damaged or destroyed for equipment).my source is G.F. Krivosheev's figures as cited in "When Titans Clashed" my personal intuition is that this figures are slightly on the high side but they are generally acknoledged as the most reliable. before any revertions take place please examine your sources carefuly and critically

Sorry, guys but I have to tell that russian main archive sources give us following figures of Soviet losses during the battle: 863000 KIA, MIA and wounded (from which 254000 KIA and MIA), 6064 tanks, 5244 guns, 1637 combat aircrafts during the period between 5 of July and 23 of August. (Гриф секретности снят. М., 1993.) And german tanks number is not 2700 at the beginning of the battle: ~2150 tanks and self-propelled guns (Мюллер-Гиллебранд. Сухопутная армия Германии. М., 2003. This is only a russian translation of originally German work, so you can read German version in order to ensure in these figures.) Manchjurshi.

[edit] Boundaries

There is a real need of defining what are the boundaries of this single battle. Geographically and chronologically. Unfortunately I have not a copy of Niklas Zetterling's and Anders Frankson's book of my own. It should probably be the best source of information however.

[edit] Prokorovka

Well written article, but it suffers from the same misinterpretation of the 12 July Battle of Prokorovka as many earlier pieces. Research in the past few years looking at original records of the German and Soviet units clearly shows that 12 July was, at the tactical level, a massive Soviet disaster. They lost over 350 tanks destroyed (nearly 50% of 5th Tank Army's strength) while the Germans lost around 50. Personnel casualties in the three SS divisions were considerably less than in each of the first three days of the Kursk offensive when they were attacking through prepared defenses.

At the tactical level, II SS Panzer Korps' defensive achievement on 12 July was nothing short of astonishing. They were tired after a solid week of hard fighting, their units somewhat understrength from the past week of combat, were about to renew their own attack (and were thus not in prepared defensive positions), and were then struck unexpectedly by a totally fresh, full strength, Soviet Tank Army with some 850 tanks.

They totally defeated the Soviet attack, killing tanks at a rate of at least 6-to-1. In terms of personnel, recent data shows that the Soviets fighting Army Group South suffered about 19,000 casualties (dead, wounded, missing) on 12 July (the overwhelming majority around Prokorovka), whereas the Germans suffered about 2,000. Tactically, it was a massive Soviet defeat.

At the operational level, however, that battle helped finally break the momentum of the German offensive. That was very important. Whether the committment of Manstein's reserves (23rd Panzer Division and the SS Wiking Division) would have then turned the tables will never be known, of course.

The point is that too many people who write about Kursk in general, and Prokorovka in particular, still have considerable misconceptions about what happened.

John Gordon

Unfortunately, most data about casualties is strongly distorted by either Germans or Russians. I do not think that any information about one side suffering 10 times more casualties than the other is credible.

Agreed. The article now states that the 5th Guards Tank Army (5GTA) lost 822 tanks, which contradicts other sources. Since 5GTA entered the battle with about 850 tanks that seems just a wee bit high. It should also be stated that half their tanks were T-70s. DMorpheus 20:43, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

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I have started making some changes using a well-researched swedish book as my source. So far the text concerning battle of Prokhorovka has been altered.itpastorn (long time ago...)

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I have updated the text on Prokhorovka once again. To claim that a battle is a "draw" when one loses 5 times more men and equipment then the enemy, nor holds the ground evenly by the end of the day is absurd. It was a decisice German tactical victory.

It was not a Strategical victory either for the Soviets, as that kind of evaluation belongs to the intermediate level, the "operative" one.

I have also changed the wordins about the German reserves. There never was an option to have any reserves at this point in the battle. If they had spared som divisions earlier on they'd never have reached the point of an eventual breakthrough in the first place.

--itpastorn 11:34, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I may have to change my mind about the reserves. According to this article [1] Manstein had actually held reserves that he was not allowed to commit. The article is a bit speculative as to the German ability to actually win though.

--itpastorn 11:21, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

http://historynet.com/wwii/blkursk/index.html

[edit] individual issues

[edit] Großdeutschland Division or Regiment?

...At the same time the Großdeutschland Panzer Grenadier Regiment attacked Butovo in torrential rain...

Any reason why the Großdeutschland is listed as a regiment rather than a division? The Grossdeutschland article says it was a division. --kudz75 01:17, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It was established as a motorized infantry regiment in 1939, increased to a division in April 1942, and re-designated a panzergrenadier division in June 1943. Its establishment strength was far greater than that of regular divisions, and was closer to a panzer corps in size and strength. --ArminTamzarian 01:16, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I just now clarified that in the Grossdeutschland article, and in fact took the liberty of using your words above as the basis for the text. — B.Bryant 22:28, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Significance of Lend-lease?

Right now the section on "After the battle" reads:

..as well as the substantial aid from the American lend-lease programme, including jeeps and trucks that were of significant help during the counter-offensive at Kursk. The Germans never regained the initiative after Kursk.

Aren't words like "substansial" and "significant" too strong? I'm sure the jeeps and trucks came in handy, but (comparred to the size and numbers involved in this battle), were they really of that significant help?

I'm not an expert on this battle, but reading the othervise very good article, that section just looked to me like something an American sometime had inserted to emphesise that the US helped on the eastern front, too. Which they did, but AFAIK not in that high numbers to make a significant effect. Shanes 13:53, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

I found this section suspect too, so I request either more references or toning down of the influence American help. Thanks. Andries 13:46, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

The assesment that the lend-lease materials was a requirement for the counter offensive comes from Anthony Beevor. One can look at pages like http://www.o5m6.de/ and http://www.wargamer.com/articles/lldocefx.asp for numbers (for the war in total). One can also read http://vn.vladnews.ru/Arch/2005/ISS462/News/upd13_1.HTM as well as do some usenet searches on Google.

--itpastorn 15:09, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

I read that the effect of the lend and lease act only became signicant in 1944.Source the book Barborassa by Alan Clark 1965 ISBN 030435864. (I have to re-check, incl. the page nr.) Besides, the most significant aid were trucks and because the distances in this battle were not big and because the Soviets were dug in in their prepared defenses, I suspect that the Soviets needed only few trucks and that the lend and lease act was not important in this battle, at least not in the part where the Soviets were on the defense. Andries 17:43, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Which is what I said: "during the counter-offensive..."

We probably need more detailed statistics for the lend-lease article as such.

--itpastorn 11:28, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I think you should consider the fact that the Soviets were able to build up their forces within the Kursk salient faster than the germans, and the 500.000 US trucks could here have proved valuable. Secondly lots of the Lend Lease were supplies, such as food etc. Not to mention all the tech. gear such as radios with more.

By July 1943 the Red Army had received about 183,000 US trucks (this figure includes jeeps). This was about 25% of their total truck strength at the time. Needless to say they were also by far the *best* 25% of their trucks. There's no way to calculate the actual contribution of these trucks but it had to have been considerable. Think of all the mines, towed guns and construction material that had to be moved into the defensive zones. DMorpheus 20:49, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Change of objective: sentence removed

I took out the sentence

[The Germans has good knowledge of the extensive Soviet defense measures] "Why they did not then switch targets remains a mystery."

It is not a mystery, according to Alan Clark's it had to do with stupidity, personal ambition, and internal politics in OKH, and OKW. But I need time to write this down in a good, accurate way. Andries 08:38, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

It maybe so according to Alan Clark, but there is another plausible explanation. With the new German armour the Axis achieved a technological edge and altered their tactics somewhat. The Soviets at that time had few weapons that could efficiently counter the new German tanks and assault guns. Thus if the Germans managed to break thru, it would be better for them to have more Russians defending. With respect, Ko Soi IX 06:16, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Using the word "propaganda" is not POV

All nations who fought in WW2 had their own propaganda. Some propaganda involves lying, some propagande involves using only those facts that support ones case while ignoring others, some forms of propaganda has more to do with creating an atmosphere. Case in point: In the movie Pearl Harbour the american who volonteer to fight the Battle of britain is hailed with the words "If there are more like you we pity the nations who make war against you" (or something like that. In the sceene where general Doolittle inspects his personel before the raid he praises the men, claiming that the war will be won because of men like theese.

This is of course not the truth. It is perhaps not state-run propaganda, but deceitful propaganda it is. America had its heroes, as did all participants, but won because of one thing: Industrial strength. The allies simply outproduced the Germans and the Japanese. That is the not so sexy single most important factor of how the war was won. (See table on my talk page.)

However, in an article about Kursk american propagande is not that much of an issue. Soviet propaganda is. To a very large extent the traditional view of the battle has been taken from communist-era Soviet sources. Prokhorovka being the foremost example. But why are some people so afraid of admitting that the traditional view is propaganda. It is actually very informative to say so. It is a valuable lesson for the history student. --itpastorn 10:57, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

All nations who fought in WW2 also had the history books. Claiming that historians are liars without actualy proving that is strongly POVed. Wikipedia has to neutrally describe all cases without ignoring others, but calling one of the views "propaganda" without supporting the claim is a POV. The fact that all nations had propaganda does not mean "everything and every little detail in their history books" was propaganda. If you have examples (like Prohorovka) you should look into sources and find the actual facts contradicting the traditional view. Sentences like "this article is proven to be propaganda" is not acceptable in wikipedia. Igny 03:12, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] German tactical victory

The battle was German tactical victory, just as the Battle of Jutland (ect) during First World War was. Germans failed to achieve their objective during both battles, but caused much greater casualties to their opponent during both battles.

This is not clear yet. The casualties for Soviets include both the defence and the counteroffensive, while the German losses are for their attack on Kursk only. In battle of Jutland, both sides claimed victory as that was a matter of their pride and prestige (and both were right for different reasons). I haven't actually heard that Germans claimed victory for Kursk, or did they?. As I see it, it is clearly a subjective interpretation of the statistics, which may be skewed to prove any point (Igny 14:38, 31 August 2005 (UTC)).

Losses have nothing to do with the evaluation of the outcome, unless these losses are so significant as to influence the final outcome of the war, which was clearly not the case. mikka (t) 15:47, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

"Tactical Victory"? What semantical meatgrinder do you put your thought through?

At Kursk, the Germans: 1. Attacked a heavily defended region with enormous force 2. Suffered enormous losses which they could not replace while dispensing somewhat higher losses on the enemy. 3. Were unable to take the objective territory. 4. Were thrown back in disarray by the counterattack. 5. Were never able to mount another significant offensive again in the theatre.

Please tell us what victory, defeat and tactical mean. I guess I'm all confused by common words.

(BTW Jutland was more or less a draw, but it did convince the Kriegsmarine not to risk open battle for the rest of the war.) - Petrol

Here is Guderian's take on it: "We had suffered a decisive defeat". DMorpheus 21:14, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ..........

[quote]Suffered enormous losses which they could not replace[/quote]

Germans did not produce 500 tanks and 200 planes after Kursk?

[quote]while dispensing somewhat higher losses on the enemy.[/quote]

Somewhat?

[quote]Were never able to mount another significant offensive again in the theatre.[/quote]

Incorrect.

[quote]Kriegsmarine[/quote]

....

There was no "Kriegsmarine" during First World War. German Navy was named Kaiserliche Marine.

---

Casaulty figures are ridiculous! An OUTNUMBERED army charged over an OPEN field into a MULTI-LINED and ENTRENCHED defence manned by an army COMPARATIVELY equipped and trained (see the articles on Tiger and Panther tanks describing how undertrained their crews were for this battle!) whose commanders KNEW about the attack in advance and yet mannages a 7:2.5 kill ratio in men and 3:1 in tanks (despite the fact the Soviets held the ground and were able to repair their damaged tanks whereas Germans had to leave theirs to be captured. A pro Soviet-book "Kurska bitka" (Battle of Kursk in Serbian) written by Yugoslav author Branko Kitanovich in 70-ies (using mostly Soviet sources) I read states that the Germans lost half a million soldiers (KIA, WIA, POW), and that Soviet casaulties were "lower". While you may express doubt in this (I dont consider theese figures completely accurate either) they are still certainly closer to real figures than those numbers stated here.

Veljko Stevanovich

[edit] Propaganda

An OUTNUMBERED army

Being outnumbered doesnt nessecarily mean anything. Germans, whos number was 500000 caused nearly one million casualties to Soviets at Kiev in 1941, while their casualties were 100000. Or are these numbered also ridiculous?

they are still certainly closer to real figures than those numbers stated here.

You consider a pro-Soviet book made in 1970s using Soviet sources to be reliable source?

The Soviets claimed that the Germans sufferred more than 500,000 casualties . This again has proven mere Soviet propaganda. The official Soviet casualty figures did not emerge until after the end of the communist regime.

Battle of Kiev (1941) was a poor argument. In Kiev, 1941 the Germans actually managed to encircle Soviet Armies (which had the order to hold and never retreat). In Kursk Germans managed to advance some 30 km (at the best). Did they kill at the rate of 30000 per kilometer? (Igny 15:43, 3 September 2005 (UTC))

I agree 100% that Battle of Kiev was a bad example. It should be also noted that the dispairity in battle experiance was then much greater. I already stated that I do not consider the 70-ies book compleatly accurate! It strikes me, however, that many people think that it was only the Soviets who engaged in propaganda. Western authors (especially in works written during the Cold war) were as happy to exeggerate the Soviet casaulties, as the Soviets were happy to conceal them, because the Soviets were then a real enemy that should be discredited. Also I should note that I don`t find any statements of declassified WESTERN (British or US) figures, so what makes their authors an unquestionably reliable source? Everyone writes history the way it sutis him. And so far I saw the "reliability" of many casaulty figures just to be a matter of whom you belive. But theese are the facts: Kursk was a major Soviet victory, the Germans never again mounted a major offensive on the east and all that A YEAR before the D-Day! If those casaulty figures were correct the Germans would be STRONGER (relative to the strength of the Red Army)THAN THEY WERE BEFORE THE BATTLE: roughly the strength ratio of armies was 2:1 favouring the Soviets, and the casaulty ratio: 3,5:1!!! If you explain me why was the Wehrmacht constantly on retreat after Kursk from such a badly mauled army and why it did not succeed to stop it even beheind such a fine defensive obstacle as the river Dnepr I`ll beleve theese figures. If not, please do find accurate numbers and correct that mistake!

Veljko Stevanovich

To Veljko et al.

Why is it so hard to admit that Stalin was a liar sitting on top of a regime of propaganda? We know that casualty figures were badly skewed to keep morale up. Real figures emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union. The archives were to a large extent opened and the lies were exposed. Besides, this wiki is not about original research. Go by yourself a copy of "Kursk 1943 : a statistical analysis" by Niklas Zetterling and Anders Frankson (2000) ISBN 0714650528 It is not written during the cold war and it is not written by someone from a NATO country.

--itpastorn 16:43, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

"Zetterling and Frankson" does not sound like someone from Warsaw Pact either. I don't have the book, so my question is where they got the "real numbers". Did they cite and quote Soviet archives (supposedly open after the fall of Soviet Union)? I tried to search internet for Soviet archive documents, but failed. All Russian sources (dated after 1990) had information quite different from what Wikipedia says and not a single one of them called Kursk battle "German tactical vistory". Probably, by "real numbers emerge" you meant "numbers skewed by 'notorious liar', Stalin, were skewed back in opposite direction". You may ask why? Because this tactics is very popular among revanchists, who rewrite the history to further their nationalist agenda. Needless to say, it is very far from NPOV. (Igny 19:15, 3 October 2005 (UTC))

"Zetterling and Frankson" are Swedes. They have had access to a both German and Soviet archives. And if going 5:1 in losses and holding the ground by the end of the day is not a tactical victory, what is? It was an operative loss though, because the intention had not been to throw back an enemy attack (which the Wehrmacht did), but to advance (which they did not). --itpastorn 19:11, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

itpastorn
Being outnumbered doesnt nessecarily mean anything. Germans, whos number was 500000 caused nearly one million casualties to Soviets at Kiev in 1941, while their casualties were 100000. Or are these numbered also ridiculous?
I love all those zeroes there...
Why is it so hard to admit that Stalin was a liar sitting on top of a regime of propaganda?
Why? Because that is your biased opinion, which has no place in an encyclopedia. From what you say you are obviously not neutral. Therefore, you should probably not be editing this article at all. I'm sure there are plenty of political forums out there where you can condemn Stalin, the Red Army, or Russia as a whole all you want. Why must you do it here?
Kazak 03:16, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Kazak, you're in the wrong place. Hurry over to the article on Stalin because there people describe how he developed a cult of personality, sent people to Gulag, initiated mass arrests and executions, deported people en masse, persecuted christians, etc. Obviously the whole article has been written by people who use nothing but their "own biased opinions", otherwise such nonsense would never have entered the article, right? He probably never waged war against Finland and Poland in 1939 either? And the communists mostly from the Swedish town of Kiruna who emigrated east to the Soviet union in search of the true communistic paradise really found it. Not one of then got executed or sent to a labour camp. And while we are at it we should probably stop blaming Custer and Sheridan for their alleged injustice to the indians, and Genghis Khan for his alleged brutality as well. And all those German nursery rhymes concerning Swedish murderers in the Thirty Year's War came into being because all people in Germany had an irrational hatred for Swedes. NOT!

Seriously, what is the issue? Yes, this is an Encyclopedia, and it's articles should present facts and reasonable deductions from these facts. The talk pages OTOH may permit more opinions. What edits have I made that are POV? My edits are based upon well researched sources, but some facts are not in line with what the Soviet regime told it's people and they are not in line with some forms of Russian nationalism today. Too bad. --itpastorn 16:04, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

So, according to your logic, everything the Soviet government said between 1929 and 1953 was a lie? Kazak

No, according to my logic it was a lie, when it differed from the truth! And unfortunately that happened a lot. Some events were altered (such as Prokorovka being a melée), other things were withheld or very rarely spoken of (such as there were large numbers of people from the Soviet Union, including russians, actually figthting against the communist regime or that the Communist regime brutally invaded Finland and Poland in 1939) and some things are just made up (such as the duel between Zaitsev and a German super sniper in Stalingrad). If ones only source is Soviet official communiqués then there is good reason for doubt. If a communiqué is confirmed by other indipendent sources there is good reason to believe it might be true. If the sources differ, they must be evaluated. OTOH it seems to me that you and a few other people seem to believe that the mere mention of Sicily is an insult or that well researched numbers by neutral historians, such as Zetterling and Frankson, can be dismissed as anti-russian bias. --itpastorn 11:40, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

When exactly does the estimate stops being "propaganda" and become "neutral"? What worries me is the trend when higher soviet and lower german casualties means more neutral or better informed or less biased or just better. With this trend, the number of soviet casualties in Kursk will climb into millions easily, and "the neutral historians" would justify that by claiming "we are just fixing the soviet propaganda!". Zetterling and Frankson were not neutral by any means. (Igny 15:38, 10 October 2005 (UTC))

Please provide proof that they have distorted the material found in archives. Please provide proof that they are biased. --itpastorn 10:23, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I did not say they distorted the truth. I actually meant they did not know the truth. What they provided in their book was an estimate and the estimate is not the truth. The estimates may be lowered (for example for propaganda purposes), but they may be too high also. I think Zetterling's estimates were too high, and the actual number will be somewhere in between. The estimate is very much prone to errors, faults in assumtpions, wrong data. Base the estimate on average size of Soviet battalion, for example, and you would easily get an error of +-30%. Get wrong number of formed divisions, and the error would only rise. I don't trust any statistics, but if I were forced to believe different assumptions made by a Swedish or Russian historian about Soviet Army structure, I would choose the Russian.

I would suggest changing Soviet losses (currently 860370, a ridiculous number) to, say, 500000-900000(estimates vary), and I am being generous to both sides here. Same applies to the Germal losses. (Igny 14:35, 12 October 2005 (UTC))

[edit] From facts to insult

Itpastorn, please resist for a moment the natural impulse to stand with your Germanic brothers. Think logically: the Wehrmacht, outnumbered, was attacking a well-entrenched enemy that knew the time of the attack to the hour. And yet, here you are assuming that the Red Army suffered a 2/3 casualty rate - including reserves - while the Germans lost only a fourth of their force. Pray tell, why then did the Germans lose? Did they simply become weary of slaughtering those silly human-waving Russians and go home to drink some good beer and record their accomplishments on Wikipedia? Because if we are to believe you, by the end of the battle the Germans actually outnumbered the Soviets. Of course, it is entirely possible that the noble Wehrmacht saw the errors of the ways of its Nazi leaders and decided to lose Germany the war so freedom could ring from sea to shining sea, isn't it? Or maybe, just maybe, you're full of nonsense? No. You're right. Let's just go all out and put the Soviet losses at 300 million, because Stalin probably sacrificed every Soviet man, woman, and child in the battle and then lied about it - for propaganda purposes, of course. Kazak 02:28, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Kazak seems to belive that I have some kind of bond with all "Germanic brothers". I take that as an insult. I have a long history of anti-racism, anti-fascism and anti-communism. In fact I am pro democracy, pro freedom of speach, pro religious liberties and pro truth. I resent being described as having a "natural impulse" towards some kind of ethnic group whatsoever. I have in other places repeatedly spoken against even Sweden when we have behaved badly. I have harboured political and religious refugees from Latin-America and Asia, to keep them from being sent back into prison or being subjected to torture in their homeland. I have repeatedly defended arabs, jews, blacks, turks and slavs(!) from slander and other forms of depreciation.

As for the facts: Wikipedia rules state that no original resarch is supposed to happen here. We should base our articles on the best sources available. The best sources indicate that during most battles the Wehrmacht performed much better on the tactical level, basically because they had a much more flexible and decentralised command structure. This has been studied extensively after the war and is a well established fact. So why did they loose the war. Well, according to my opinion because:

1. They were outnumbered.
2. They were outprodiced, because:
   1. They went into "total war" too late (1943).
   2. They refused to use women in factories.
   3. They had a shortage of natural resources (it takes 10 times more people produce synthetic gas than regular gas)
   4. They got bombed quite a lot! If not for the bombings they would have been able to crank up volume more than a few notches. (AAA also tied up perhaps 90 % of all 88mm guns!)
   5. Their tanks and planes were too complicated, too many parts, too many hours to build.
3. They had a very small percentage of mechanized forces.
4. They were led by Hitler, the worst strategist of all time.
   1. They constantly neglected logistics throughout the war.
   2. The were given impossible and stupid orders repeatedly.
   3. Hitler often cut a division in half and thought that "now I have two", etc.
   4. Significant transporting capacity were used for "the total solution", which apart from being the worst crime ever committed reduced their military capacity.
5. They could not stop the convoys in the Atlantic or the Pacific.
6. They lost the spy-war totally. The only spies they thought worked were in fact misleading them. The Soviet Union had the best spies, no doubt.
7. They lost the crypto-war totally. The English read their enigma-transcripts just as fast as they did themselves.
8. They lost all good-will that they had in Ukraine, because they behaved like evil bastards. Had they treated the people of Ukraine as equals they'd might have won the war?! (But then there probably never had been a war...)

And perhaps because: The Nazi regime was the most evil in the entire history of mankind and all evil sooner or later gets destroyed.

However, this does not alter the fact that German losses were rather low at Prokorovka. OTOH I would not believe German propaganda on how many tanks the Red Army lost in 1944-45 either.

--itpastorn 10:23, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

That was very detailed, but Hitler's overall incompetence does not explain how the Germans could, all at once:

1. Attack the Red Army whilst being outnumbered 2:1
2. Inflict four times (!) as many casualties as they sustained
3. Destroy thousands of Soviet tanks while losing only a few hundred themselves (and, we must not forget, the battleground at Prokhorovka was gained by the Soviets, making extraction and repair of German vehicles impossible)
4. By the end of the battle outnumber the Red Army by a significial margin

AND YET

1. Lose all gained ground
2. Lose several key cities around the salient
3. Never be able to launch a major offensive in the East again
4. Lose strategic initiative in the war as a whole

Can you explain? Because, if we are to believe you, that is exactly what happened. And here, to prove my general point, is a nice little Pentagon report on the Battle of Kursk. (It's authentic - check stormingmedia for it.) Go to "General Conclusions" for casualty information.
Mine and Countermine Operations in the Battle of Kursk

Kazak 01:05, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Numbers from Frankson and Zetterling

1. At Prokhorovka the Red Army lost fewer than 400 tanks - not thousands.
2. During the period 22 june 1941 to 31 may 1943 Soviet losses were 25 million ded, wounded and MIA. German losses were 4 million. German allies (Italians, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, etc) would probably make that number go up by 50-100 %
3. On the 4th of July 1944 the Germans had 330 000 men and 1500 tanks on the southern sector of the battle. The Red Army had 625 000 and 1700 tanks. During the battle they got reinforced by 300 000 men and 2900 tanks.
4. On the northern flank the Germans did not achieve the same kill ratio as in the south, nor did they take as much ground.
5. The kill ratio for Prokhorovka was indeed 5:1 in tanks, less in infantry. That was however not the kill ratio for the entire battle of Kursk.
6. During the Soviet counteroffensive the Red Army still had not learned the art of combined forces. Tanks operated on their own causing a high losses.

What was the main tactical advantage of the Wehrmacht. One word: Initiative. They had a very different way of commanding their forces. Initiative was in the hands of the platoon leader or even the individual soldier. When Hitler micro-managed they lost badly. When he did not, they really did have sensational tactical results - which is true, but not something I would wish for. I am GLAD they lost!

--itpastorn 08:05, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

During the period 22 june 1941 to 31 may 1943 Soviet losses were 25 million ded, wounded and MIA. German losses were 4 million. German allies (Italians, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, etc) would probably make that number go up by 50-100 %
Soviet losses were 8668000 dead and MIA, and another 15 million wounded to various degrees. The Germans lost 4 million dead and MIA, with about 8 million or so wounded (check Feldgrau if you don't believe me). You're right about the other Axis countries - I think they lost about 2 million dead and MIA. Plus, we must not forget that 80% of Soviet POWS died in German camps, whereas the mortality rate in Soviet camps was about 15% (since deceased POWS are included in dead/MIA statistics). Thus we can assume that the losses overall were almost equal, with a small discrepancy in the Axis' favor caused by the disasters of 1941. Kazak 23:40, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

kazak and itpastorn are both wrong: A) the german did not suffer 4,000,000 LIA and MIA. they suffered nearly 4M KIA,alone, and additionaly, nearly 3M in MIA that is POW. these add up to nearly 7M B) while the figure of 500,000 german casualties is plainly absurd, far exceeding the soviets's own estimate. frankenson and zetterling's figure of some 47,000 casualties along with glantz's similiar number, much trumpeted by itpastron, are equally incorrect. they are taken from the initial german casualties repots, which if remotely true would have indeed made Kursk a wehrmacht tactical victory. they certainly delighted Hitler who, by then, should have known better. it was only over the coming days and weeks as german forces reported crushing shortages in both men,tanks and planes that poor hitler realised that he had been had again. that losses, as too often, had been enormously heavier than initially rported. wehrmacht officers at all levels hated to report heavy losses as this were taken as proof of professional inadequacy. they would deflate losses, then astonish both hitler and the OKH, by requesting huge amounts of replacements. exact german losses cannot be accurately established. german casualties reports are next to useless. they can only aproximated throuh suspicious crosscomparison of engagements and needed replacements figures. it can be reasonably estimated that in kursk they were somewhat, but not very much, lower than the initial soviet estimate

[edit] OK, we are discussing facts

Kazak linked to Feldgrau, which is a new page to me but seems worth reading.

However I found the following numbers there:

German KIA, Eastern Front 1941 - 11.30.44:      1,419,728
German MIA, Eastern Front 1941 - 11.30.44:      997.056
German WIA, Eastern Front 1941 - 11.30.44:      3,498,060

The total sum of casualties on the eastern front is 6 million for the period 1941 to (and including most of) 1944. Frankson and Zetterling says 4 million from 1941 to 31 may 1943. So these sources do not seem to contradict each other. 2 million lost during the rest of 1943, including Kursk and being driven out of Ukraine and during 1944 including Bagration actually seem a bit low to me!

Moving on to 1943 specific numbers we get the following from Feldgrau:

'''KIA/MIA 1943'''
January 1943    37,000  | 127,596
February 1943   42,000  | 15,500
March 1943      38,115  | 5,208
April 1943      15,300  | 3,500
May 1943        16,200  | 74,500
June 1943       13,400  | 1,300
July 1943       57,800  | 18,300
August 1943     58,000  | 26,400
September 1943  48,788  | 21,923
October 1943    47,036  | 16,783
November 1943   40,167  | 17,886
December 1943   35,290  | 14,712

These are the German losses (excluding wounded) on all fronts. According to these numbers May (the surrender of the Africa corps) was worse than July. August was also worse. January was the worst (Stalingrad). What's notable is that Kursk barely registers. July is just a little bit above the average. The operational pause (on all fronts) in June is also striking of course. If one would believe that the Germans lost at least a few thousand troops on Sicily between 10 July and 17 August as well as a couple of thousands on other parts on the eastern front, German KIA and MIA during Kursk must have been no more than 100,000 going on mathematics alone.

In closing: I can't see that Feldgrau is contradicting Frankson and Zetterling at all.

Soviet losses, OTOH, admittedly is a tricky subject. Who was a civilian and who was not. Should jews be included or counted in a separate column? Ukrainians and people from the Baltic states who fought on the German side, either as gerilla or as auxilliary troops for the Wehrmacht, in what column should they go? They fought against the Soviet union, but they were (at least the Ukrainians) from it. Some Ukrainians also fought against both Hitler and Stalin! So definition plays a part as well, not only the actual number of dead people. One entire division of Ukrainians fought in Normandy in 1944 (on the German side), how do we count them?

Kazak also previoulse linked to Mine and Countermine Operations in the Battle of Kursk. I quote:

"Losses on both sides during the battle were enormous. A German historian has put the total losses of the two German army groups involved in the battle at 3,300 killed and 17,400 wounded and missing. Losses were especially heavy among officers and infantrymen. --- Soviet losses were even higher. Recent Russian historians with access to the military records state that the three Fronts involved in the Battle of Kursk lost a total of 70,330 men in irrecoverable losses and 107,517 in sick and wounded, as well as 1,614 tanks and self-propelled guns."

Can't see that this contradicts Frankson and Zetterling either. Total losses are stated as 1:8. Considering that the Wehrmach suffered it's worst losses the first days (5th to 10th of July) when they attacked through the minefields and the fortifications makes my take on Prokhorovka (1:5 kill ratio) seem even more reasonable. Especialliy when one is considering that it was a battle not against dug in Soviet forces but a mobile battle, where the Germans excelled.

One should note that these numbers do not seem to include anything but the actual "battle of Kursk" and therefore do not include the Soviet counteroffensive and the battle of Kharkov. This Wikipedia article however includes all fighting until August 22.

--itpastorn 14:24, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

1. The Axis' permanent casualties at Kursk were around 100,000, just like the Soviet ones. That's what we're getting at here. German losses were less, but not by that much. There's little question as to the German losses - it's the Soviet one's that need to be established. Kazak

I've continued this discussion under the heading Casualties.--itpastorn 11:57, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Examples of propaganda

Examples of misinformation that persist even today.

Quoting http://www.vor.ru/55/Monument/Mon_eng.html:

[quot]On July 12, 1943, near Prokhorovka more that 1,200 tanks and self-propelled guns on both sides engaged in a tank battle, the greatest in history. Soviet tankers destroyed nearly 400 enemy tanks and won the battle.[/quot]

In an earlier version of the article I attempted to use the Belgorod Diorama as an example of propaganda. One can look at parts of it at this address: http://www.angelfire.com/nm/duga/duga.htm Notice how the battle is depicted as a melee!

From http://newsfromrussia.com/science/2003/08/23/49504.html

[quot]But, in a nearly two-month operation the Soviet army routed 30 German divisions. It was the decisive victory for effecting a drastic turning-point in the war and finally sealing the strategic initiative for the Soviet army.[/quot]

And in the longer version the Wehrmacht lost "jets" (sic!). N.B: German losses are inflated in this article dated 2003 and Soviet losses are not mentioned at all! http://english.pravda.ru/science/2003/08/19/49398.html Also notice that the article gives an impression that most German soldiers fought with the latest equipment, when it has been proved they did not. (Other Soviet sources I've seen repeatedly exaggerates the amount of new equipment, such as T-34/85, in their own ranks.)

--itpastorn 18:54, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Intel

The stuff about the Soviet spy network "Lucy" needs to be downgraded. The real source of intel was from the British, using Ultra intercepts. This was the source where Stalin was convinced about German plans at Kursk. Also, Soviet Military planners studied and planned for operations near the Kursk salient as early as March. --Pelladon 00:56, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Casualties

An anon added the following piece in the irrelevant "Sicily" section. Also, his data somewhat mismatch the article. Please experts make use of this.

German losses in the 2 weeks battle for Kursk were about 2.000-3.500 men per division (about 30 were involved)(Stephen Newton, David Glantz). These losses were among the combat troops of the divisions, which is quite high for only 2 weeks of battle. The total losses were about 80.000 and includes the KIA, MIA and WIA. German losses in tanks were about 500 total losses. Almost all of the many Panthers stricken in the minefields had to be blown up. Only a dozen Tiger I's were lost (Thomas Jentz). The German "Panzerwaffe" was at his highest level in WW2 and on average knocked out 10 times their number when they got their chance. The big loosers in the battle of Kursk were in fact the Russian tanks which were totally shot up in many tank battles.

Soviet losses were about THREE TIMES AS HIGH: 240.000 and about 2.000 tanks (final total losses after recovery). mikka (t) 20:35, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed casualties information

See above in several places for discussions concerning casualties. I am trying to put it all together.

We have at least four ways of defining the "battle":

1. Operation Citadelle (4 July - 12 July).
2. Operation Citadelle and Soviet counteroffensive near Kursk.
3. The above plus the last battle of Kharkov.
4. (Pseudo-definition) Prokhorovka

As an example. The related Soviet attack west-northwest from Kirov on 22 August, should it be included or not?

My proposal is as follows:

1. We summarize Prokhorovka in the text and leave the details to it's own article.
2. We include all casualties for the entire period 4 July - 23 August in the sidebar, as well as in the article text, for both sides.
3. We count the following casualties:
   1. Soldiers KIA, MIA and WIA.
   2. Tanks and other armourde vehicles that had gun, excluding self-propelled howitzers, destroyed (beyond repair if possible) or captured.
   3. Planes shot down or destroyed on the ground.

--itpastorn 11:55, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Not to kick a dead horse, but David M. Glantz, one of the listed references, puts total Soviet personnel strength at 1,910,361. 1,426,352 were actual combat personnel. He also states that there were a total of 27,663 combat guns and mortars, as well as 4,938 combat tanks and SP Guns. Of this, he states Red Army Personnel Losses were at 70,330 irrevocable, and 107,517 medical, coming to a total of 177,847 - not the 800,000 argued to be by the battlebox. I'm sorry to say, but those casualties are over the line. The battle box implied that the Soviets suffered 61% casualties. Furthermore, he puts German strength at a total of 780,900, with 2928 tanks and assault guns. Fo this 4,759 were killed, 23,356 were wounded, 987 were missing, thus coming to a total of 49,822. In terms of Red Army Tank Losses he puts them at 213, with 138 as irrecoverable. He then offers figures for the Orel Offensive (10 July), which I will provide because they are relevant to the 'Soviet Counteroffensive'. He puts total strength for that at 927,494 combat personnel, with 112,529 irrevocable losses, for a total of 429,890 losses. The Germans had a grand total of 475,000 personnel, and Glantz states that German losses are unavailable. In his summary table for the 'Kursk Operation' he puts total Soviet strength at 2,500,000 committed, not 1,300,000, and 863,303 lost (including WIA), while 7,360 tanks were committed with 6,064 lost. In terms of believability I won't glorify David M. Glantz, but he is one of the few authors which can prove that he does hold most available sources into account, and he undisputably makes the most out of recently declassified information in Moscow. Just my two cents. Catalan 06:56, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

General Krivosheev (with access to archives) gives the Soviet losses as follows:

Kursk Strategic Defensive Operation: 70,330 killed | 107,517 wounded
Orel Strategic Offensive Operation: 112,529 killed | 317,361 wounded
Total (July 5 - August 18):         182,859 killed | 424,878 wounded

These are the Soviet archival figures. Now we need the German casualties for each Soviet operation (not by dates, because the two operations overlapped). Failing at that, someone needs to bring by total German losses for July 5-August 18 but only for the Kursk-Orel area. I also propose that we remove the tank/aircraft strengths and losses altogether, as they make everything far to confusing. Kazak 00:11, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I cannot for the life of me fathom why my introduction of material losses was met with such furious opposition,given their great significance to both sides, but let it be so. if some deranged souls are put into an amok of deletionism by their appearence, I shell forebear not to have them indicated, untill SUCH fragile psyches adapt to the idea. however I insist that soviet casualtis figure remain the one provided by Krivosheev, namely, 177,847!!!

[edit] Dunn's Kursk: Hitler's Gamble

I would like to quote review of Dunn jr., Walter S. Kursk: Hitler's Gamble, 1943. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997 ([[2]]).

Of even more interest is Dunn's interpretation of the famed tank engagement at Prokorovka. Most previous historians have treated this rather like the ride of the Valkyries, and almost all use the same terms for the 12 July action: "a head-on collision of armor." Robin Cross describes "a confused free-for-all...like knights on a fifteenth-century battlefield." John Erickson speaks of a melee "at point blank range" where "burning Soviet tanks rammed the Tigers." Alan Clark calls it "the Death Ride of 4th Panzer Army" and describes the "clouds of dust" at Prokorovka. Actually, Dunn tells us, the facts were a little different. In the first place the day was damp and rainy. The engagement was not so compressed as usually cited: "It was not a battle with tanks charging on one huge field, but rather a series of attacks and counterattacks across a stretch of countryside ranging in an arc about 20 km wide south and west of Prokorovka, from the village of Ivanovka on the south to the south bank of the Psel River on the north." He estimates there were rather fewer AFVs on each side than usually reported. In addition, most of the earlier historians of the battle have passed along estimates of losses from unreliable sources. In particular, German losses were not as great at Prokorovka as generally reported and in fact were considerably lighter in the mobile fighting than in the grinding battles at the prepared positions.

In his conclusions, Dunn quantifies how the iron laws of time and space dictated from the first day of the offensive that the Germans could not win. The time required to chew through each Soviet position was simply more than the attackers could afford, providing ample opportunity for the Soviets to deploy strong reserves in new positions behind threatened sectors. The preponderance of Stalin's manpower and material was more than Hitler could realize or admit,

Why do we attribute this to "iron laws of space and time" rather than better planning and execution on the Soviet side? No one would, for example, state that the "iron law of space and time" caused the British losses at the Somme...I have always thought that lousy British tactics and strong German defenses had something to do with it.

Wouldn't it be equally accurate to state the same facts thusly: "The depth and strength of the Soviet defensive positions atritted the German assault units to such an extent that they called off the offensive." ? DMorpheus 22:22, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

and Manstein's assertion that he could still win a battle of attrition seems wildly naive in light of what Dunn reveals about the depth of the Soviet position and the availability of fresh men and machines. Dunn also downplays the effect of the Allied landings in Sicily on 10 July upon Hitler's decision to halt the attack, pointing out the much greater threat of the newly unleashed Soviet offensives. Perhaps the most important outcome of Kursk was what must have been for Josef Stalin the highly gratifying proof that his Red Army was now a sufficiently potent weapon to defeat Germany even without assistance from the Western Allies.

I don't have the book, but it seems to me that adding information from that book will bring Battle of Kursk closer to NPOV. (Igny 19:48, 3 October 2005 (UTC))

I am one who says that Sicily should be mentioned, not because it was decisive, but because it affected the chain of events. The mere mention of Sicily is not an insult to the Red Army. The fact that "iron laws" made a Soviet victory inevitable has been one of the things I've been trying to say all along. The Red ARmy would have won the war sooner or later even if Hitler had taken Moscow in 1941 or stopped operation Uranus in 1942. In 1943 there definately was only one possible outcome left. I do note that we seem to reach some agreement on Prokorovka, though.--itpastorn 19:05, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

I strongly agree that Sicily should be mentioned. I have read Sicily several times in the descriptions of the decisions by Hitler with regards to the battle, though I forgot where. Andries 19:02, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Myths" of Kursk?

I reverted the following edit on Feb 11 2006: "Myths of Kursk There is a significant amount of false claims about the Battle of Kursk (some of that information included within this very article, in fact). This is largely due to the fact that most of the information the general public knows about the battle comes from Soviet propaganda. The fact of the matter is, Kursk was not the largest tank battle in history, with the total number of operating vehiclese coming closer to 500 in all. More information regarding the myths surrounding Kursk can be found here. http://www.uni.edu/~licari/citadel.htm" Could the editor who inserted this kindly explain why this was deemed appropriate? If we're questioning the number of tanks involved, surely we should discuss it here first. There are plenty of sources that will show that the number of tanks in this battle was far greater than 500. One Soviet unit, the Fifth Guards Tank Army, had over 800, and they weren't even committed to the battle until the 7th day. But that's not even my main issue with this edit. Placing a statement in the main article that questions the rest of the article doesn't seem appropriate to me. DMorpheus 02:13, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I took a look at the web site you referenced. First, it's largely arguing a straw man. That is, Martin Caidin's work does not, as far as I can tell, form the basis for any part of this article. I agree with the site's author that his book on Kursk is garbage. But that is a pointless argument anyway. The rest of the article is using many of the same sources as here. But it's claim that "everyone" is learning from "soviet propaganda" is just silly. DMorpheus 02:19, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

The 500 tanks operating should be exclusively referred to the Battle of Prokhorovka in any case, at least according to Glantz, who this article refers to. In any case, care to share what tank battle operated more tanks? IIRC, there are none, regardless of the sizeable decrease of vehicles that actually operated at any one time during the zenith of Kursk. That said, the only tank battles that are known that operated large amounts of tanks were during the wars in the Middle East, between Israeli and Arab armour, and they never exceeded this number. That said, Kursk would still be the largest tank battle in history. JonCatalan 06:57, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I want to add a part but I dont know where to put it

This is what I want to add

Much of the German equipment was new and untested, with undertrained crews. The new tank hunter units, though sporting a highly effective 88 cannon, had no hull mounted machine gun to protect against infantry, and were quickly targeted by the Soviet anti tank guns, which were positioned in hemispherical concave bulges, forming semicircles of high velocity crossfire. Moreover, these positions were protected by small two-man foxholes armed with limpet tank mines, machine gun nests, and mortar fire, ensuring than the Wehrmacht infantry could not effectively defend the tanks.

But I am not completely certain where it belongs, so some direction would be appreciated (Deng 14:39, 7 April 2006 (UTC))

My suggestion is, don't put that paragraph anywhere. It's not particularly accurate, as we have discussed on other pages.

1. *Most* of the German equipment was not new.

2. *Most* of the Panzerjager units (which were not themselves new) were equipped with vehicles other than the Ferdinand. There were lots of Marders, which were not new. There were only about 90 Ferdinands. If you want to link to the Ferdinand page that might be a good idea. The Ferdinands did not operate alone, so the lack of a hull MG, while it is a factor, is not itself the reason why so many were knocked out.

3. How exactly did the Soviet infantry employ naval limpet mines?

4. How were small two-man foxholes "armed with" mortar fire?

It might be more productive to toss that paragraph aside and write a few new ones about low-level tactics at Kursk if that is the content you want in the article. As part of that you might want to add that the Soviet artillery was the main way the German infantry was suppressed.DMorpheus 15:13, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Change most to some, how exactly they were employed -- dont know ask the original poster. 2/3 of ALL german casulties on the eastern front were because of artillery so it is given that artillery was the main way the german infantry was suppressed.(Deng 08:28, 11 April 2006 (UTC))

[edit] German and Soviet Casualties

I changed the German casualties figure to 49,822. The 500.000 figure is greatly suspicious especially when considered in relation to the Soviet losses. From what I can see this was the consensus a few months ago although I am not certain how the numbers balooned again (becasue no such account exists in the discussion page). TSO1D 00:17, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Wrong, there was never a consensus on the German casualties in this discussion. (Igny 02:44, 12 April 2006 (UTC))

So now it appears we have an edit war going on with back-and-forth edits of this number. Maybe everyone could agree to sincerely discuss the next edit here rather than just revert each other?

For what it's worth, Glantz and House (The Battle of Kursk, 1999) provide the following.

Soviet losses: 70,330 'irrevocable', 107,517 'medical' total 177,847. They work from Krivosheev's figures.

German losses: 49,822 KIA, WIA and missing.

Even if they are off by a bit, it's a long way from these figures to a half-million.DMorpheus 02:53, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with you. TSO1D 02:54, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Upon consideration, I think you are right. The fight was just a push (~30km) and withdrawal lasting a few weeks, and 500k losses (~30k each day??) is likely an overestimate. And I agree that this variation by an order of magnitude in the reverts can not be acceptable for Wikipedia. Still I would be happier if Wikipedia provided several estimates from different reliable sources, not just Glantz, with analysis of different stages of the battle. (Igny 13:02, 12 April 2006 (UTC))

Agree, so let's see some other reputable estimates. DMorpheus 00:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

The sources given by the original creators are creditable and if you read the article you can see why the numbers are so high. The numbers are most likey from early july to late agust and the numbers that are refered to a few lines up most likely cover a smaller time frame. That said if someone can give multiple creditable sources that show losses for both sides during the same time period then any change based on those sources would be acceptable. (Deng 19:21, 15 April 2006 (UTC))

So what source actually exists that places German casualties at 500k? If none is provided the 49k datafrom the Glantz source should be used. TSO1D 02:36, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Go here and you will see that the 50k are only for the first 10 days http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/glabat.html and if you scroll up some on this wiki discussion page you will see this "When Hitler first recieved the casualties report he was pleased, thinking that a major tactical victory had been won. When he recieved the susequent requests for replacements he was horrified, as he realised that a disaster has befallen his army." (Deng 03:10, 24 April 2006 (UTC))

I think the confusion here has to do with lack of clarity of what the battle of Kursk actually was. The Germans narrowly restrict it to Zitadelle. The Soviets saw Zitadelle as the defensive phase, followed by Operation Kutuzov and Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev as an offensive phase. I seriously doubt that German losses to 22 August were only 50k KIA/WIA/MIA, but am willing to consider data provided on this. What clearly should not happen is a comparison of losses for all phases of Kursk for the Soviet side with just the losses of Zitadelle for the Germans. Either you take losses for the narrow definition for both sides, or for the wide definition for both sides. Until someone has the German losses for the post July 15 phase, I suggest going with the narrow for both, using the figures user:DMorpheus has posted above.Andreas 07:50, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

But we do have the figures for the wide definition. 500/607 (Deng 13:35, 24 April 2006 (UTC))

It depends on what this article should be - a discussion of the Battle of Kursk as the Germans saw it, or a discussion of the Battle of Kursk as the Soviets saw it? I would tend to go to the latter, and make Rumyantsev and Kutuzov sub-articles to show how things hang together. Then losses could be ID'd by phase. All of this would mean major re-writing though. Andreas 14:06, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I strongly agree with you, and frankly, including the Soviet counteroffensives makes much more sense on several levels. One, the 'backhand' approach was the basis for Stavka's strategic planning for the summer of 1943 anyway. Two, it is hard/impossible to understand the outcome of "Citadel" without reference to these operations. Three, the Soviets won. Finally, for what its worth, I have several French-language publications that do exactly as you suggest, treating the campaign as three phases. So at least the Soviets and some French authors already take the perspective you suggest. The re-write would be a lot of work, but that's why we are here. We needn't throw out very much of what is already done. DMorpheus 14:56, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Great minds obviously do think alike. :-) If you have more detailed information on Operation Kutuzov, that might really help. Andreas 15:09, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I can start working on that in a week or so - I have other committments till then. I see the article is a mere stub at the moment. One approach could be to work up the three articles to a high standard (Kursk is already pretty good IMO) and also do an overview article to tie the three together. Hopefully, if we can pull together data from the three phases, the 'summary' casualty figures, strategic effects etc. can go in the overview article. Agreed? DMorpheus 18:14, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I wanted to get a bit more work on it done, but that failed because the books are currently in storage. So I focused on other things during the last week. I agree that once the basic articles Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev, Operation Kutuzov, Battle of Kursk (with sub-article Battle of Prokhorovka) are in better shape, they could be developed into an article describing the whole summer fighting. Andreas 18:23, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Where are the casualty numbers coming from? Specially for the Germans. Usually the numbers in literacy are around 100 000. For that 500 000 the Germans would have lost all the attacking divisions to the last man and then some more.Turska 09:47, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tanks, Planes, and Material Are Not REPEAT Not Casualites

Please consult a dictionary.

Philippsbourg

I agree the term should be losses but the template was created that way and I did not want to either change the template or completely delete losses of planes and tanks. TSO1D 20:08, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aircraft losses: where are the figures from?

To me it seems highly unlikely that the Germans would have achieved 5:1 kill ratio. In 1943 the Soviets fielded excellent La-5 and Yak-9 fighters that were quite competitive with bf-109s and fw-190s on low to medium altitudes (common on the Eastern front). And as far as I know VVS pilots of the time were not the late 1944 Japanese-style novices. Stormoviks were also known for their strong armor. So where are theese (obviously very rounded) figures from?

On a separate issue, I really enjoyed the picture I found amoung those Kursk pictures from the Soviet perspective: a cannon with its crew sitting on it is being tractor towed over a snow-covered field (?!) The battle was in July, right? :-)

Veljko Stevanovich 30. 4. 2006. 23:25 UTC+1

Propably the Axis losses are only from what the Germans saw kursk as which they narrowly restricted to Zitadelle. The Soviets saw Zitadelle as the defensive phase, followed by Operation Kutuzov and Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev as an offensive phase.

So most likely the axis losses are only from Zitadelle and Soviet losses are from Zitadelle + Operation Kutuzov + Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev. We hade the same problem when it came to humans casulties but there it has been fixed. Scroll up some and you will see a similar discussion (Deng 03:16, 1 May 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Preliminary Actions

I know it's nitpicking but:

The article currently says 90 were at Kursk.

However the page for the Elefant says "All but one of the available Ferdinands were put to use in the Battle of Kursk, the first combat the Ferdinand saw. " (As only 90 were ever made, that would make the number deployed at Kursk 89, not 90).

Also, as the Ferdinand was named Elefant in February 1944, shouldn't the article refer to the name that it went under at the time of the battle?

Finally, that section of the article is disingenuous when describing the makup on the German Armoured forces. Focus is put on the '200 Panthers', '90 Elefants' and '270 Tigers', as well as 'late-model' Mark IVs. This gives a total well short of that stated of 2,700 tanks and assault guns.

The effect is to give the impression of a modern and cutting edge force, while glossing over the the mathematical implication that the vast majority of German armour at Kursk had to be of much older models. The article makes it sound like Kursk was to be a demonstration of the latest military technology Germany had to offer - in reality the numbers were the result of them scraping together everything they could, both old and new. - James

The total number is correct what you are refering to is just a mention of SOME of the tanks and SP-guns not ALL, if you want more details on ALL tanks and SP-guns then go buy/borrow some books ;) (Deng 04:37, 2 May 2006 (UTC))

I didn't make myself clear; the article focuses on the numbers of newer tanks, but glosses over the fact that they were not representative of the German forces as a whole. A casual reader could be forgiven for thinking that the Germans deliberately picked the best and newest for the Kursk offensive. The article needs to reflect the fact that the armoured numbers are the result of the Germans gathering *everything* possible for this one operation.

As it stands that part of the article is phrased to overstate the strength of the German armour by mentioning only the best and newest. It gives the impression of a shiny new army instead of a combination of some new and the vast majority old - James

While you have a point, your last para is overstating it. The numbers of completely outdated tanks present was small, just above 15-16% of the total force (these would be anything with a 75L24 gun, Panzer III 50L48, and Panzer 38(t) or Panzer II). That leaves the vast majority of the force with 50L60 armed Panzer III, Panzer IV lang, both of these types uparmoured, and the listed number of modern vehicles (e.g. 25% of the Panzers were Tiger and Panther models; almost 20% of the assault guns were Elefant). The attacking force was by no means composed completely of the most modern, but it was not a scraped together force fielding any outdated AFV on the eastern front to make up the numbers either. The numbers are e.g. in the appendix of Töppel's thesis, my guess is you'll find them in Newton or Zetterling too. Andreas 13:46, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Preliminary Actions

Changed "...from their espionage organization Red Orchestra [not chapel] with sources including..." to "...from their Red Orchestra [Rote Kapelle] espionage organization, which had sources including... " as I assumed that this is what the author actually meant. The remainder of the sentence is still very awkward: "including officers in the Nazi administration, among others in Goering's aviation ministry..." - does "officers in the Nazi administration" mean military officers who worked in in the Party hierarchy, or who were attached to the civil administration, or who perhaps were, as would be assumed, in the MILITARY apparatus or Defence Ministry?... My point being that, to me, the terminology seems a bit confused and needs clarification.Hi There 12:36, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Battle Ends

Put a POV-section tag at the top of the Battle Ends section because of the bolded text:

"Field Marshal v. Manstein believed the outcome of the offensive phase of Kursk to be much more grey than black and white. For although the Germans were forced to withdraw, the Germans "managed to, at least, partly destroy the mobile units of the enemy's operational reserves". This view is short-sighted and too narrow however, since it fails to mention that despite the losses suffered in the defensive phase of the battle of Kursk, the Red Army managed to go over to a very successful offensive within two weeks, pushing the Germans back to the Dniepr and towards western Ukraine." dreddnott 21:40, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

yupp Battle of the Dnieper Markewew 11:25, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

The language used, especially in the bolded portion of the referenced paragraph, is informal and entirely inappropriate to an encyclopedia. There is currently a POV dispute right here on the Talk page for Battle of Kursk, because I allege that at LEAST this particular section does not adhere to NPOV requirements. Please do not revert my edits. dreddnott 07:26, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removing POV about expected success of offensive

The paragraph I removed read "Simply put, Operation Citadel embodied a limited plan. However, there was no reason to doubt whether it would be successful. Until Kursk, no major WW2 German offensive had ever been defeated. It is only in retrospect that the outcome seems preordained; at the time, most leaders on both sides expected that the German attack would probably succeed, at least in the breakthrough stage." The above simply does not make sense. Among the German offensives that had been defeated till Kursk we can count the attempts to take Moscow, Leningrad, the Caucasus oil fields, Stalingrad and the attempt to relieve Stalingrad. To say that "leaders on both sides expected that the German attack would probably succeed" is definitely POV.

No SUMMER attack had faild and no Attack had Faild only after a few days, earlier faliures had come after some time. Weedro 22:34, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

The text made a blanket statement "no major WW2 German offensive", no clarification about whether summer or not. Anyway, you have to establish why summer is important. Also why is "only after a few days" relevant? Battles may not always be decided in a "few days". Also what is the "breakthrough stage"? Is that referring to encirclement? A few citations showing that "most leaders on both sides expected that the German attack would probably succeed" would be helpful. The Soviets knew the attack was coming and had created multiple layers of defense. I seriously doubt that their leaders thought that "the German attack would probably succeed". Jayanta Sen 23:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Try Glantz, The Battle of Kursk. That's where much of that paragraph is taken from - not all of it but most of it. I agree some of the wording is far less precise than it should be. What it should say, to be consistent with Glantz, is that no major German offensive had failed to achieve a tactical breakthrough. The breakthrough stage is the effort to penetrate the enemy tactical zone - that is, those areas defended by divisions or lower formations. Typically that's 10-15km of depth, although obviously it varies quite a bit. Most German offensives had broken into the enemy's operational depths. Glantz doesn't say anything about 'a few days'. His point (which I think is very important in this article) is that German confidence was not misplaced. It is only in retrospect that we all write things like "the plan was poor' or the 'attack was impossible'. Clearly, based on WW2 events up to july 3 1943 there was every reason to expect/fear german success *in the breakthrough stage*. Central Front's success in stopping the tactical breakthrough was thus quite an achievement. Whether you agree or not with this assessment it is what Glantz wrote. DMorpheus 18:11, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello Morpheus and thanks for the clarification. I am not quite able to follow Glantz's line of thought. If we go by the definition "penetrate the enemy tactical zone", it seems this fits Operation Winter Storm (which was prior to Kursk). I would think repeated German attempts to break the defenses in front of Moscow would qualify too. I seriously doubt that after Stalingrad the Soviets were lacking confidence. Also Hitler is reported to have said his stomach turned when he thought of the impending battle, hardly the words of a man sure of success. As you say, it is up to us whether to agree or disagree with Glantz. Regards, JS 20:56, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] wording re: definition of a defensive attack

I wonder whether

The defensive counter attacks retook Oryol (August 5), Belgorod (August 5) and Kharkov (August 23), pushing back the Germans across a broad front, the first successful major Soviet offensive during the summer since 1941.

is worded correctly. It seems to me that a defensive attack would not re-take ground the les allemande had seized. Would that not be a defense and subsequent offense? ... aa:talk 16:49, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree, that was a long-planned major counteroffensive. Calling it a 'defensive counterattack' smells like POV to me. DMorpheus 18:15, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I removed "defensive." ... aa:talk 21:41, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] July 12

I'm a sloppy reader, so frogive me if it's mentioned anywhere in the text. July 12 was the day of long-planned counteroffensive, yet the Soviets had (or chose) to commit the Steppe Front head-on against II SS Pz Corps etc. instead of executing any flanking or pincer maneuvers. Somewhere it is blamed on Stalin who was afraid of letting the Germans loose. It was mainly this decision (and the costly ordeal at Prokhorovka) that made the Fronts on the Southern face wait and recuperate until August 3 (that's a lot of time, Vatutin's front was very weak, and 5th GTA was decimated).

Also, it should be mentioned that US Army conducted a KOSAVE study (with the help of Russian officers) and quantified losses casualties etc. 62.118.129.104 19:11, 13 December 2006 (UTC) Dietmar

[edit] Duration and Casualties

It seems to me that this article is confused because of a failure to accurately define exactly what is the "Battle of Kursk" as opposed to the course of the general German-Soviet operations in this region. That leads to overlap with other Wiki articles and considerably confusion about casualties and loss rates.

The Battle of Kursk proper commences on 5 July and ceases on 20 July when the German forces cease offensive operations. Significant German forces were then withdrawn to deal with the Soviet offensive on the Mius River and the Allied invasion of Sicily.

The Battle is to be distinguished from the follow-up Soviet counteroffensives Operation Kutuzov to the North towards Orel and later in August, Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev towards Kharkov. While the Orel attack overlaps in time with the end of the Battle of Kursk it occurred further to the north and was between different Soviet and German units to those which had participated in the Kursk battler. Wikipedia quite properly has separate articles for each of these major Soviet operations which historians do not consider to be part of the Battle of Kursk itself, though they are part of the overall operations on the south-centre part of the Eastern Front. Thus while its proper to mention them as follow-up events to the successful Soviet defence which caused a halt to German offensive operations, they are not part of the Battle itself and deserve their own articles.

I have amended the date range for the Battle to correspond with what is the Battle of Kursk proper and included casualty figures for the Battle with citations to reliable historical works.

Armourhistorian 03:06, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

This article has had a lot of rancor and dispute over it for a long time. I'd suggest trying to build a consensus here for your proposed changes before making them. That's why Alex and I both reverted changes made by you or an IP which made edits similar to yours. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 12:26, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Before you mass delete changes that are backed up by numerous citations to authority, the lack of which has been a constant complaint with respect to this article (eg the current casualty figures have NO citations whatsoever), let alone go deleting things such as a reference to the most authorative modern Soviet authority on casualties, whose work is cited by every leading historian of the battle, I suggest you examine those changes and only delete those you believe, with reason, to be inaccurate.

Neither you nor Alex have ownership of this article and if you wish to delete changes you must have some proper basis to do so. The rancor may be because previous claims were made in a vacuum without citation, adding further information that is backed by citations to leading works is an IMPROVEMENT of the article.

Armourhistorian 15:15, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I have now edited the casualties section to include page number references for the citations, and added a fourth work as a reference, Mawdsley's recent book on the Eastern Front. I have added that book to the references list.

If we examine the "massive changes" I have made they consist of:

- defining the battle in the same way as it is defined by professional historians - from the start to the cessation of German offensive action in the Kursk salient, this makes the article consistent with the wiki articles on those counteroffensives which correctly treat them as separate Soviet operations and removes the ambiguity in the current article as to whether the counteroffensives are part of the battle or not

- included links to those wiki articles so that readers can follow up on the counteroffensives

- replaced the current casualty figures which are wholly uncited with figures from four different works and made it clear that they are for the period 5 to 20 July, even if you disagree on the duration of the battle the figures are accurate for the period defined and have been qualified that way in the text

- added two more references to works on the battle, including the leading Soviet publication on WW2 casualties

If you have a reasoned basis for considering some or all of these amendments to be wrong I am all ears.

Armourhistorian 15:40, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think you are seeing the point here. Neither Alex or myself are making any kind of judgement about your facts. The point is that this article has gone through many a battle, including extensive sockpuppet use, edit wars, etc, etc. We are trying to prevent this from happening again. Massive changes without consensus are not considered to be a good thing on Wikipedia when it comes to controversial articles because it leads to edit wars. Neither Alex or myself have a "side" so we cannot really be taking "ownership" of the article. We are both neutral admins attempting to curtail future difficulties. Honestly, I haven't even read all of what you've posted on the article. What you've posted is not the point. The fact that it's being posted without consensus is. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 10:41, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

In April 06 there was actually the beginning of a thoughtful discussion of this very issue - see talk above. I hope we can get consensus on it. For my part I believe much of the contention surrounding both casualties and the strategic outcome is based on underlying disagreement about the extent of the campaign. DMorpheus 16:03, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree, most of the confusion about casualty numbers is because people are talking about two different things - one is what might generically be called the Kursk Campaign (ie the actual Battle in the Kursk Salient from 5 to 20 July plus the two Soviet counteroffensives aimed at Orel (12 July to 18 August) and Belgorod (3 August onwards, but usually taken to end with the recapture of Kharkov on 24 August)) and the second is the Battle of Kursk itself which forms part of the overall campaign. That confusion is reflected in the first line of the article which assumes that the Campaign and the Battle are the same thing.

Those counteroffensives were extremely large battles in their own right - just look at the scale of Soviet casualties - according to Glantz the Soviets suffered about 180,000 casualties in the German offensive, but then 430,000 in the Orel counteroffensive and 255,000 in the Belgorod counteroffensive. Or to put it another way, of the total 865,000 Soviet casualties in the entire Kursk Campaign only 21% were suffered in the actual Battle itself. At the moment wiki has separate articles for those two counteroffensives but they are only stubs.

Ideally there should be an overall Kursk Campaign article that covers the entire fighting from 5 July to the end of August and then has under that umbrella three separate sub-articles covering the Battle and the Orel and Belgorod operations. Armourhistorian 11:10, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

As for German casualties, its this same issue that is causing the confusion between 50,000 (correct for the Battle itself) and much larger figures that include German losses during the counteroffensives. Glantz notes that German losses for the counteroffensives aren't available as separate figures but there are loss figures for the entire Eastern Front available on a month by month basis. Armourhistorian 11:14, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, the current status of the article is bogus. If that is not corrected, I will set a neutrality tag within the next days. According to the numbers presented, the German side lost 500000 (out of 800000 soldiers participating) in Soviet Kursk, and 450000 were lost in less than a month after the end of German Kursk. All this happens without quoting any reliable source. It just took some months of gifted editing to keep a Wikipedia article in this state. -- Zz 14:34, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] January 23 2007 edits

I just reverted a bunch of edits...and I'll apologize for doing so since I hate to roll back a single editor like this, but I reverted for three reasons:

a) These edits were unsourced, significant changes to strength and casualty figures, as well as to some of the artillery usage numbers.

b) All of these are contentious subjects and deserve some discussion before making these major edits.

c) Some of the edits strain credulity. For example, the number of Soviet artillery tubes in the 4 July preemptive barrage was 3,000 (from Glantz and House) and was changed to 13,000. The 'debut' of the SU-122 was not at Kursk but some months prior to that, probably around Nov 1942 (Zaloga and Grandsen); the SU-122 was not a tank but a mechanized gun. The Red Army did not plant a "half million" mines in the defensive phase; the number is quoted elsewhere at nearly one million and is sourced to Red Army engineering reports. The number of "Infantry" exceeds the number of "troops" which is impossible.

If we can discuss some of these other points we might make some progress. DMorpheus 19:45, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Casualties, again

The current casualty format needs to be redone, I can't make heads or tails of it. It seems to have something to do with how each side reported the casualties, but this needs some explaining, it is not clear in the least. 24.222.119.44 23:27, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

It may be because some casualty figures include wounded (along with killed, missing and POW) and some do not - I have seen figures done on both bases (ie with or without wounded) from this time period Armourhistorian 14:04, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Good work on the casualty figures Armourhistorian. Now they make much more sense as the Citadel offensive was only small part of a few huge battles. Altough the article is still kind of hanging on the "myths" of the battle. As the battle for Prokhorovka it wasnt that important part of the big picture as it was doomed to failure because of a more important actions earlier on both sides of the 2nd SS Korps wich failed by XLVIII.Panzerkorps and Kempfs Panzer Korps. Also for sources instead of using When Titans clashed by Glantz. I very highly recommend The Battle of Kursk by David M. Glantz and Jonathan M House. Easily the best book about the Kursk i have ever read. Turska 09:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disputed - casualties

According to the numbers given, the German losses at German Kursk were 50000, and at Soviet Kursk, they were 500000. 450000 losses in four weeks are nonsense. Even if we assume that there were other battles starting from July the 4th, a number ten times the amount of German Kursk is patent nonsense again.

The German army kept quite exact number of their losses, and it is typical that they have not been consulted. Instead we see stubborn editing and unsourced claims.

It has gone for too long anyway. The factual accuracy is disputed. Back to the sources, and reliable sources at that. Definitions must be cleared which battles exactly are referred to by Soviet Kursk. -- Zz 11:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know Zickzack, 450.000 casualties in four weeks does not sound like nonsense to me. We are talking here about THE major Sovjet summer offensive of 1943, which threw the Germans back many miles west, and casualties of half a million seem not unreasonable for being halfway overrun. thestor 08:36, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] German Casualties...again

The figures for total German casualties (killed, died of wounds, wounded, captured and missing) for the Battle of Kursk portion of the campaign are reasonably clear - 57,000 is the figure calculated by Zetterling and Franklin, 49,822 by Glantz and House.

What's not clear is how many casualties the Germans suffered in the succeeding portions of the campaign, Glantz notes in his book that no separate figures are available. Which makes me wonder where the figure of 450,000 in the article can come from (ie 500,000 minus the 50,000 suffered during the actual battle). However, there are German casualty figures available for the entire Eastern Front for each of the months of July and August 1943, Mawdsley cites a study by Overmans which gives figures of 71,000 and 59,000 for the number of deaths in each of those months. However death figures are not comparable with total casualty figures.

The rule of thumb applied by Mawdsley (and it seems reasonable looking at other figures) is that about 25% of casualties are deaths - which would imply that during the months of July and August 1943 the Germans suffered a total of about (71,000 + 59,000) x 4 = 520,000 casualties on the entire Eastern Front.

The problem is of course that you can't simply apply those casualty figures to the Kursk Campaign, because that campaign was not the only action going on on the Eastern Front in those months. Aside from the usual attrition constantly going on, during those months there were also major Soviet offensives against other sectors of the German Front:

- Soviet Southwestern and Southern Army Groups launched three offensives against the German positions on the Mius and Donbass

- Soviet Leningrad and Volkhov Army Groups launched an offensive towards Mga

- Soviet Western Army Group launched an offensive against Army Group Centre in August 1943 (Operation Suvorov)

The falsity of the unsourced figure of 500,000 for the Kursk Campaign is that it ascribes all 500,000 German casualties on the entire Eastern Front to that campaign alone, ignoring the fact that the Germans were suffering heavy losses on other sectors. As another illustration - in July 1943 the Germans suffered 71,000 deaths on the entire front, but only about 15,000 of those were at Kursk, deaths on other sectors in that month amounted to 79% of all losses.

Unless some figures can be obtained for German losses in the Soviet counteroffensives it may never be possible to say what they were, but they certainly weren't anywhere near 500,000. If you try to estimate loss rates as a fraction of the entire Eastern Front I suspect a figure closer to 200,000 would be more accurate.

Armourhistorian 02:38, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

You have no right to change the numbers to what feels right for you

German numbers are impossible to find out without an enormous effort because they always hide or misplaced or changed their numbers for example take the whole of the war, for a very long time the numbers of 1955 were the quoted one with 3.5 million military dead and 3.5 million dead, not until the year 2000 did someone point out that those were the 1937 border numbers and did not include 900k Austrians and ethnic Germans in annexed territory. That the Volkstrum had been counted as civilian casualties and that 400K non Jewish Germans killed by the Nazis them selves had been counted into the civilian death rates. The real number being 5.5 million military dead out of which 4.3 million in the east. All the numbers can be seen on the ww2 casualties page And do not forget about the Axis allies such as Hungary, Italy and Romania plus Waffen SS where are their losses during Kursk. The most interesting part is losses over the war years Total Soviet losses is about 10 million and total German about 4.3 million in the east now the soviets lost 3 million dead and 3 million captured during 1941 and almost all of the captured during 41 died in camps. That leaves 4 million to die in 42-45 the Germans on the other hand lost a few 100k during 41 which leaves 4 million to die 42-45 and some 300-400k Nazis died in camps compared to the 3-4 million Soviets. So if the Germans did suffer less during Kursk then they must have suffered more during other battles because they did lose about the same amount of men as the Soviets during 42-45. The German numbers are extremely hard to find but what is interesting to note is that when Hitler found out about how many reinforcements his generals demanded compared to the losses they had stated he exploded in anger, so the only way to come close to real German losses is to see how many reinforcements the generals demanded. And what about the Soviet numbers are they not a bit to high why is there on this like so many ww2 articles a bias towards that for every 1 German casualty there must be at least 10 Soviet ones. Which was right during 1941 but not 42-45 and certainly not Kursk 43 and it is possible that everyone who has given German numbers have given the 1937 border numbers which excluded some ss and ethnic Germans in annexed territories and Austrians

86.67.181.77 01:46, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

There are just some facts nobody seems to acknowledge:

1.) Each German mother or wife got a letter if her son or husband went KIA or MIA. The soviets did not have any system like that. As a registered member of the Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS each soldier possessed a “Soldbuch” and several files where opened on him. This was necessary just to ensure payment and so on. In this context it didn’t matter weather the soldier had lived inside German borders of 1937 or outside nor (for the SS) if he was German at all. Just for this reason it is obvious that the German military did not have much of a choice than handling obvious numbers when it came to their own casualties.

2.) In comparison to the Red Army the Wehrmacht’s soldiers (at least until end of 1944) where quite skilled and well trained. To overcome this disadvantage Soviet troops often attacked en masse, misusing their human resources as canon fodder. An overall kill-ratio on the “eastern front” of 1:4 has therefore never been doubted by any serious historian.

3.) Hitler exploding in anger because of his generals does not mean anybody could draw conclusions out of this. As commander in chief and with the development of the war resting mostly in his own responsibility he was in desperate need for scape goats at almost all times. Not to mention his procedures of splitting one division into two and then thinking “now I have two divisions”.Of course each of the “new divisions” demanded reinforcements to become at least something like a division in such a situation: Destruction of shiny illusions always made Hitler furious (even when he had been a boy).

4.) Russian soldiers fallen into German hands have mostly to be counted as casualties. Even if those poor guys survived their times as POWs Stalin had most of them killed after the war because of “cowardice”.

5.)This brings us to an estimated 15.000.000 Soviet military personal dead during WWII. I’d like to mention those 25.000.000 civilian casualties as well (not part of the-kill ratio but includes also partisans!!). KIA Wehrmacht + SS “eastern front” 1941: 176.015; 1942: 506.815; 1943: 700.653; 1944: 1.232.946; 1945: not exactly known: ~ 550.000.↑ Milton Leitenberg: Death in Wars and Conflicts in the 20th Century [[3]] ↑ Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv Freiburg (Official military archives of German military forces (Frederal Republik of Germany and therefor free of propaganda and updated frequently, because Germany still does research on some individual MIA-Files but consideres most of them KIA or killed as POW anyway) [[4]]

5.1.) For “Unternehmen Zitadelle” German casualties KIA and MIA can be fixed as about 60.000 and 130.000 WIA(proven insufficient “allied” forces had not been drawn into this difficult and risky operation, which was opposed by many major German generals anyway). Soviet Casualties are only to be estimated because of communist propaganda and inefficient handling of archives. It has just occurred that some Russian boy-scouts undertook an archaeological digging on the battle field of Kursk. They found a mass grave of Red Army’s soldiers with somewhat dog tags on them: 30% of them had never been registered on files with the Soviet department of defence even when still alive! So many historians estimate Soviet casualties at least 800.000 KIA, MIA and WIA. But this number may be much higher in fact.Due to a more or not less not existing medical treatment for wounded soldiers in the Red Army WIA and KIA can not be separated as for the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS. Too often there was not much of a difference in between in the outcome.

Dionysos 04:36, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The dude above you told you the numbers for the whole war so it is mathematically impossible to have the 4:1 ration is total German casualties were 4.3 in the east and total Soviet were 10 million he also told you were to go http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties and like he I must add that Germany had many allies who lost about 1 million men so the total ratio for the whole war would be 2:1. And I am certain that any serious historian knows how to add, subtracted, multiply and divide, also if you look at what the dude said about 6 million dead in 41 and 4 million for the rest of the war that means they could not have used cannon fodder tactics. I think you are basing your facts on outdated information do not forget that the war is very young take ww1 only in 2002 were the 1922 figures updated. 87.122.4.246 15:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Yupp those German numbers are the 1937 border numbers that made by western Germans in 1956 that never said one bad thing about Hitler. You can read more about it on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties and in the footnotes you can read how in 2000 those numbers were changed, in this footnote I ctrl c ctrl v

Dr. Rűdiger Overmans of the German Military History Office in Postdam has provided a reassessment of German military war dead based on a statistical analysis of German military personnel records. Overmans concluded that these losses were 5.3 Million rather the previous balance 4.6 million. Total German losses did not change, 360,000 were previously listed as civilian losses in eastern Europe and 230,000 as paramilitary, Volksstrum or police forces fighting with the regular forces. Overmans lists the following losses- Africa 16,066; the Balkans 103,693; Northern Europe 30,165; Western Europe until 12/31/44- 339,957; Italy 150,660; against the U.S.S.R until 12/31/44- 2,742,909; final battles in Germany during 1945-1,230,045; other ( including air war in Germany & at sea ) 245,561; POWs 459,475- Grand Total 5.318 million. Overmans lists losses of 4,450,000 from pre-war Germany, 261,000 from Austria, 530,000 ethnic Germans from eastern Europe, 30,0000 French and 30,000 volunteers from western Europe. Included in the total of 5.3 Million war dead are 2.0 Million men listed as missing in action or unaccounted for after the war. For a critical analysis of the statistical methodology of Overmans see http://web.telia.com/~u18313395/overmans.pdf. In addition to these losses the Wehermacht reported the losses of Soviet citizens serving in the German military separately, these losses were not included in the Overmans analysis of German casualties. A Russian source, G. I. Krivosheev reported these losses as 215,000. In this schedule they are included with German military war dead.

And this link here form the casualty page shows that the 1937 numbers of Wehrmacht dead only involved the 1937 borders and only people who died directly on the field and where someone saw them die not those who died on the way back to get aid or those who died in hospitals or that were listed as missing but really had died etc. http://web.telia.com/~u18313395/overmans.pdf

And 15 million military dead and 25 million civilian for a grand total of 40, I have never seen such a high number ever. And the ww2 casualty page which has updated and modern numbers shows 10 million of each for a grand total of around 23 and I am certain that the people running the ww2 casualty page know what they are talking about, if you have any questions then talk with them. 88.74.40.215 10:18, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

"And do not forget about the Axis allies such as Hungary, Italy and Romania plus Waffen SS where are their losses during Kursk."

Waffen SS losses are included in German losses. Anyone with a passing familiarity with the campaign can tell you that there were no Hungarian, Italian or Romanian troops committed to the Kursk Campaign. Its interesting to discuss total German losses of WW2 but some sources for German losses during the Kursk campaign would be more relevant to the article. Armourhistorian 12:28, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

The assumption that "Russian soldiers fallen into German hands have mostly to be counted as casualties. Even if those poor guys survived their times as POWs Stalin had most of them killed after the war because of “cowardice”." is a myth. According to Krivosheev, out of 1836562 that returned from captivity 339 thousand were repressed, while the rest were not punished (http://www.soldat.ru/doc/casualties/book/chapter5_13_08.html). A sixth of a number hardly constitutes most of a number. With respect, Ko Soi IX 11:49, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

How many went to the Gulag, according to Krivosheev? -- Zz 15:42, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

All of the 339 thousand. With respect, Ko Soi IX 19:17, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Endless Arguments about Casualties

It appears that arguments about casualties of WWII battles began as soon as the articles were written, and will continue endlessly. Editors on both sides present "evidence" that they want everyone else to accept as "fact". A closer look at most evidence shows that they are usually based on someone's subjective opinion, or based on some facts that have been extrapolated beyond the sensible.

These arguments are merely a reflection of the biases that exist in the world outside Wikipedia, and thus there is really no hope that there will be any sort of consensus. It is as if the editors are fighting the battles all over again, with victory supposedly going to the one who can show his side to have suffered fewer casualties, until of course the next editor comes along and changes the numbers.

So is there any hope that the endless waste of energy on endless revisions can cease? A couple of suggestions: 1) Casualties be downgraded, put at the end of the article with disclaimers about the unreliability of sources. 2) The numbers "favoring" both sides be presented, for example: German estimates of casualties... and Soviet estimates of casualties.

The war is long over, tens of millions died, in reality no one won. Though the Soviets took Berlin I am sure they would have traded that victory for the lives of the 25 million Soviet dead. We should be able to stop fighting about what was really a tragedy for all concerned.

JS 20:06, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

We should also keep in mind that the purpose of wikipedia is not to engage in original research (see Wikipedia:No original research). The simple – and proper – solution is to state that there are conflicting reports/figures, listing some/all with the appropriate references (see Wikipedia:Citing sources).

Can I also ask that editors register as users (gives you more tools) and follow some basic guidelines on format guidelines for talk pages w.r.t. indentation, headings, signatures (see Wikipedia:Talk pages and Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines). Deon Steyn 11:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Deon, thanks. NN 19:46, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I do believe that it is incredibly important to have these numbers accurate. I find it very disapointing to see casualty numbers changed based on personal belief or opionion. I can for a FACT tell you that the War-tme German Casualty records were very well kept, and that Soviet records were incredibly poor. The "Overman claim" is completely unreliable, yet I find people changing casualty numbers to his estimated figures. I have read many credible reliable sources on the casualties of every major battle during WWII, and have done research on population changes during that period of time. I find these estimations to be accurate.

deaths x 1,000,000

German Military: 3.8 to 4.0 dead (Both German and Austrian soldiers combined) German Civilian: 1.5 to 3.8 dead (Includes Volksturm and Hitler Youth deaths)

Soviet Military: 10.0 to 13.0 dead Soviet Civilian: 12.0 to 17.0 dead (Includes Civilian Guards and Partisans)

Looking at the overal casualties during the war, it is clear that the Germans inflicted roughly 3 times the casualties than their own suffered.

-Tyler Feb 2nd. 2007

While in turn, I can for a FACT tell you that Soviet records from 1943-1945, under Krivosheev's assessment, are reliable. 1941-1942 period's records are less reliable. However, 10 to 13 million Soviet military dead is an exaggeration. Also, as far as I know, original research is not welcome here. With respect, Ko Soi IX 11:55, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

---

I apologize for the confusion. I did not clearly state that all my information provided on the subject were from reliable sources, and not of my personal investigations. In his book "Soviet Casualties & Combat Losses", G. Krivosheev states that 9 million Soviet soldiers and 18 million Soviet civillians were killed during the war. Krivosheev, an emeritus Red army colonel-general and historian, is the general editor of the opus, that he has written with a team of six researchers. Surely there could be no exaggeration in these figures.

-Tyler Feb. 4th 2007

Additionally, it would be wrong to use the average casualty ratio of the whole war for each of the battles since, as we all know, the Germans inflicted some 4 milion casualties to the Russians to the loss of 500.000 of their own (I think) in 1941. That means that the loss ratio of the reminder of the war is more favourable to the Soviets then the ratio of the whole war. But I would REEEALY like some references for the aircraft losses.

Veljko Stevanovich 8. Feb. 2007. 12:30 UTC+1

One more thing Tyler, comparing German and Soviet casualties on the Eastern Front to find the ratios is incomplete, as it leaves out other Axis participants. With respect, Ko Soi IX 19:20, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Germany

As stated previously on other pages, the official name of the country during WWII was Deutschland (Germany), or Deutsches Reich (German Reich), or in speeches Großdeutschland (Greater Germany) or Drittes Reich (Third Reich). Germany was governed from 1933-1945 by the Nazi party in dictatorial fashion; the Soviet Union was run by the Communist party from 1922-1991 in the same tyrannical way, yet that country is not labeled on this page as the Communist Soviet Union. The Swastika flag clearly identifies the Germany of 1933-1945.--Gamahler 21:45, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] battle of kursk

It's ironic that some analists belive that the battle of kursk ended without a clear result.The germans never recover after the battle.They enjoy overwhelming tehnical superiority in the form of the new generation of tanks such as tiger 1 and panther tanks wich were vastly superior to the soviet tanks t34 or kv1.The germans loses where far more important than the soviet loses because they were irreplaceable.In no other battle of the war the germans didn't enjoy so much technical superiority. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.137.115.186 (talk) 14:56, 8 March 2007 (UTC).

The Germans fought the battle with mostly older panzer models: PzIII and PzIV. Panthers were rushed to the battle from factories and they still had many teething problems wich werent fixed until later. Also the "Panther Brigade" spent initial phases of the German attack as stuck in to muddy minefield. Technical superiority aint really right description for the battle. Turska 12:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC) The germans tanks tiger and panther were by far the most performant weapons in the world in 1943 some 20 years more advance then the soviet tanks.The germans possessed large numbers of this weapons in the battle of kursk(100 tigers and 100 panthers).

[edit] German article

Does anyone know why the english article gives the number of the german troops as 800 000, while the german article gives the number of the german troops as 969 000? With respect, Ko Soi IX 00:58, 5 April 2007 (UTC)