The Battle of Germany saw the most advanced tanks of the Allies pitted against the remnants of the once-formidable Panzerwaffe, now exhausted and lacking many of the essentials of armored warfare, but equipped with the biggest and most powerful tanks they would ever field. The crossing of the river Rhine marked the beginning of the end of the Third Reich, but the Wehrmacht would fight ferociously on its home soil until the fall of Berlin. This battle was also between the Germans and the Soviets, but on this occasion, the Germans were the victors.A new study and analysis of the final months of tank warfare in World War II, as the Allied armies rolled into Germany and fought the Wehrmacht's tanks on home soil. Interesting fact: The battle around Prokhorovka has often been described as the biggest tank battle in history, but Russian military historians with access to recently-opened archives claim the title belongs to another World War II confrontation, the Battle of Brody, which took place in 1941. It was the Soviets' success here that effectively ended the German offensive. It was here that Russia's 5th Guards Tank Army clashed with the tanks and artillery guns of Germany's II SS-Panzer Corps. In the south of the Bulge, despite huge losses, the Soviets prevented the Germans from capturing Prokhorovka, 50 miles southeast of Kursk. The Red Army prevented German tanks from making headway in the North of the Kursk Bulge. The Germans then made their own assault on the northern and southern parts of the Kursk Bulge salient, followed by infantry strikes supported by aircraft. However, he did delay the operation, waiting for better weather conditions and delivery of some new, state-of-the-art tanks.īlitzkriegs depend on the element of surprise, but by the time Hitler gave the go-ahead, the Germans had lost that advantage.īefore the Germans could strike, the Soviet troops unleashed a bombardment. Hitler was determined to move forward despite warnings from some of his senior strategists that the operation should be abandoned because of the Red Army's huge fortifications. The Red Army dug in and amassed its own formidable arsenal of around 1,300,000 men, more than 20,000 guns and mortars, 3,600 tanks, 2,650 aircraft, five reserve field armies of another 500,000 men and 1,500 additional tanks. However, delays to the blitzkrieg (shock campaign, or lightning war) offensive allowed the Soviets plenty of time to prepare for the battle. Germany amassed more than 500,000 men, 10,000 guns and mortars, 2,700 tanks and assault guns and 2,500 aircraft to mount an attack on the Kursk Bulge and take the city. Germany's original invasion of the Soviet Union had created a salient – an outward bend in a battle line where troops have advanced – known as the Kursk Bulge because Kursk lay at its centre. It was part of Operation Citadel, the Germans' final effort to regain dominance on the Eastern Front following huge losses in the Battle of Stalingrad and other major engagements. The Battle of Kursk took place in July and August 1943 around the Soviet city of Kursk in western Russia. The Battle of Kursk – The Russians won one of the biggest tank battles in history against the Germans
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