Battle of Kursk: Largest Tank Battle in History
The Battle of Kursk (Jul-Aug 1943), which involved nearly 6,000 tanks, was the largest tank battle in history and ended in a decisive victory for the Red Army in WWII (1939-45). Two Axis armies had attempted to cut off a Red Army bulge in the Eastern Front but were defeated due to the Soviets possessing pre-battle intelligence, excellent ground defences, and superior numbers. The Soviet victory at Kursk, which includes for some historians the taking of Orel (Oryol) and Kharkov (Kharkiv) immediately after, was "the decisive turning-point of the German-Soviet war, the point after which the Soviet forces permanently held the initiative" (Dear, 516).
The German-Soviet War
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), the leader of Nazi Germany, had launched Operation Barbarossa, the code name for the attack on the USSR, on 22 June 1941. Early victories such as the Battle of Kiev in 1941 led to great territorial gains and the capture of some 2 million Red Army soldiers, but still the Soviet Union fought on. Joseph Stalin (1878-1953), the Soviet leader, reacted to the initial defeats and brutal nature of the campaign by declaring this a 'Patriotic War' where everyone must offer nothing less to the enemy than a 'relentless struggle'. The Red Army won its first victory at the Battle of Moscow in January 1942, successfully held out in the siege of Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), and destroyed Hitler's Sixth Army at the Battle of Stalingrad (Volgograd) in February 1943. As the Axis invaders were pushed back westwards, the Red Army struck again in the summer of 1943, this time in the largest tank engagement in history.
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⇒ Battle of Kursk: Largest Tank Battle in History
