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[w]

I opened my FMB Kursk map for the first time today and became curious;
I'm not the worlds best researcher, however after looking at 4 reputable sources briefly at dinner, I am perplexed as to the outcome of Kursk/Zitadelle.

Theses numbers are about 90% accurate when compared to each other. Their average values being used as a quantitative statistical baseline,
The margin of discrepancy was less than 10% for each source one "official" Russian, German and U.S. War Dept.
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Kursk/Zitadelle Summer 1943


Total human combatant loss German : 54,182 killed & wounded.
Total Armor & Artillery loss German : 252 tanks & guns


Total human combatant loss Soviet : 863,303 killed & wounded
Total Armor & Artillery loss Soviet : 760*


* Frieser quoting 2002 Russian sources gives the number of 1,331 tanks destroyed for the entire Eastern Front for July and August.  (  Holy F!)
 Frieser estimates the number of tanks destroyed during the Battle of Kursk as 760.
 Frieser explains that many of these tanks were beyond repair and abandoned.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Q: I guess I'm missing something.--

  EVEN with a margin of error of 10% -- How the F did the Germans "loose"  this engagement?

The Krauts killed or knocked out of action 508 more enemy armor units than they lost
so that's ..... almost 3.4 to 1 kill ratio. That the most lop sided number in the history of tank war fare.


  I can only assume that the number of German losses of Armor and Men represented more than 50% of total German East Front available strength.

  Soviet losses while catastrophic to the point of inconceivable, amounted to less than 50% of total Soviet East front available strength.

Any 'experten' out there can help me understand how those numbers = loss ? or did I answer my own question?

 

[OberstDanjeje]

As far as I know the kill ratio on the ost front was 6 to 1 but they were outnumbered 1 to 10, so such kill ratio was not enough

There is an interesting book: "da Capo - Kursk - The German View"

[RGA]

Well, I'm no expert either, but some points should be emphasized:

1. Loss means nothing in war as long as you can replace it. Western historians tend to emphasize too much (as much as Soviet historian tend to neglect it) the huge human loss and suffering during the war, with obvious political reasons. Well, let's put the debates of human right and so on aside.

2. Eastern Front was never a war of attrition. Your target was not "to bleed enemy to death", but to outmaneuver him. The main objective of Operation Zitadelle was encirlement of huge Soviet armies at the bulge of Kursk, as revenge for the disaster in Stalingrad. The OKW believed that, using a classical Blitzkrieg attacks from north and south, they could break through the Soviet defense line, much like what they have done in Kiev in 1941 or Kharkov in 1942. It was a surprisingly simple plan, as Soviet generals later said.
In Soviet Union, there was a big debate about the 1943's actions. Some wanted to attack, some wanted to defense until the German was exhausted. The battlefield was all clear: Kursk salient, where both armies concentrated all of their men and tanks. At last, Zhukov's defense strategy prevailed and the Soviet began to build the strongest defense line the world had ever seen. The main objective was equally simple: hold the line at all cost and counter-attack when the German was exhausted.

3. The German attack was at such slow pace that one German officer admitted:"this is no attack. 3km in one day. In 1941 we attacked the enemy line and broke through it in one hour. In the afternoon we were 20km further. That was how one attacks.", with tremendous losses on both sides and huge stress on soldiers. One may never understand the stress of 7 days of continuous attack (or defense) without break, without sleep and even without eating or drinking. And the Soviet line held firmly. When the Soviet turned to counter-attack, they quickly seized all lost territories and kept going further. To put it simply, the Soviet succeeded doing what they wanted to do, while the German failed.

4. After Kursk, the biggest lost of Wehrmacht was its inititative. Never again was the German allowed to concentrate such a huge force like in Kursk. Contrary to popular belief, the German Panzer force was much alive after Kursk, only went down forever when US and RAF bombers destroyed German oil refinery factories.

[w]

I see your point.

Jerry could not replace the losses.

I continued reading the translated declassified Soviet era report on true losses
during the "Great Patriotic War"  as the report calls it until 2am.

Simply put the Russians didn't always count their dead or did not do it in a
way that resulted in accurate numbers, Russian Military officers did, but apparently the Commissars
attached to certain Russian Army units "discouraged such practices as bad for morale".

Taken at face value and assuming there are large voids in the numbers the total is staggering.

Soviet cold war claims about the Russian dead during WW2 were huge but not unrealistic,
the Russian civilian dead numbers could be somewhat accurate, but what was
always understated was the number of military units and personnel that were lost.

These were understated because many of the officers who fought during WW2 were now, in the 1960-80's high ranking party officals
and they kept a "lid on the numbers" so to speak on Russian military defeats in the field to a min.

One of the reports typical NKVD suppressed translated stories went like this:


4 KM south east of a T-34 final fitting out facility, 35 new T-34's
were driven to rail yard, women comrades were driving our new tanks to the yard!
During lunch we saw a wretch in a spotter plane circle us once, dropping papers that fell on
the village, moments later........
many Fascist two engine aircraft discovered our women comrades.
believing they were safer, not in open road, our tanks were driven into a village with a long row of grain silos to hide.
The Capitalist butchers descended on us. Goering killers first collapsed the set of silos behind our position
and another the silo in front, we fled into the irrigation levy for cover,
many bombs were dropped, their guns firing so close strafing, shell casings fell on to our heads.
Evey tank was destroyed in the potions we left them in, every one.
 
A few of our fighting women were wandering around a pasture, un responsive to our calls,
their ear drums shattered and blood in there eye sockets and streaming from their ears.
The Fascist bomb sound shock was so great that dogs, cats and livestock died where they stood with out a mark upon them!
I head a single shot crack over my shoulder, a Commissar has pistol shot the village school master!, for the school master
had obtained one of the Fasicst paper messages from a tree in his yard, and had run into the fields to hide, I was told,
the message in Russian said : Good people, Farmers of the Land flee today this is a fighting area.

Perhaps a half hour later the same wretch in the spotter plane came again
this time lower, in a circle flying on his side, he was filming our misery!, the days murderous events
for his Fascist masters to delight over dinner.

[LuseKofte]

By the time kursk great tank battle came along the Red army intelligence was very active and they knew what was coming. The German suply`s was as alway`s not enough The German soliders was still better equipped, But since the zitadell was delayed awaiting the new wondertanks. The russians had a enormous army in frontline and almost the same number in reserve in the right place when the attack finally came. The German solider`s was still in good quality but against Red army might too few

[Juri_JS]

Here two interesting articles on the Battle of Kursk:

http://www.historynet.com/the-battle-of-kursk-clash-of-the-tanks.htm

http://www.historynet.com/battle-of-kursk-germanys-lost-victory-in-world-war-ii.htm

[mandrill]

David Glantz, the leading English-language authority on the Ostfront, gives the total Soviet losses for Zitadelle at 177,847. This includes 107,517 guys who could be patched up and returned to their units at some point later. He gives total German losses as 49,822. This is an indicator of continuing tactical superiority in the Germans' favour, but is nowhere like the 16:1 mentioned above.

If the losses were 16:1, the Germans would have broken through.

[razor1uk]

16:1?? 6:1 & 1:10 are the only ratios mentioned so far... please explain the 16:1.