Battle of Prokhorovka
The Battle of Prokhorovka was fought on 12 July 1943. It was part of the wider Battle of Kursk. Both sides failed to achieve their objectives. The Soviets seized the strategic initiative on the Eastern Front, which it was to hold for the rest of the war.
About Battle of Prokhorovka in brief
The Battle of Prokhorovka was fought on 12 July 1943. It was part of the wider Battle of Kursk. The 5th Guards Tank Army of the Soviet Red Army attacked the II SS-Panzer Corps of the German Wehrmacht. The battle was one of the largest tank battles in military history. Both sides failed to achieve their objectives. The Soviet Union seized the strategic initiative on the Eastern Front, which it was to hold for the rest of the war. The German high command cancelled Operation Citadel and began redeploying its forces to deal with new pressing developments elsewhere. The Red Army went on a general offensive, conducting Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev on the southern side and continuing Operation Kutuzov on the northern side. After a week of fighting, the Soviets launched their counteroffensives. The Soviets succeeded in preventing the German forces from capturing Prokh orovka and breaking through the third defensive belt – the last heavily fortified one. The two spearheads destroyed the Soviet forces in the base of the salient. The Germans were able to drive northward, destroying the Soviet base in the process. German forces were unable to capture the city of Pskov. They were forced to retreat to the Crimea, where they were defeated by the Soviets. The Battle of the Bulge was won by the Red Army in May 1944. The Russian Red Army was victorious in the Battle of Stalingrad in July 1944. It won the battle for the Donets in November 1944, ending the German campaign in the east of the country.
The war ended with the defeat of the Germans on the Western Front in May 1945. It also ended the Soviet Union’s involvement in the Second World War, which had been in decline since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1941. The Russians were to take control of most of the Baltic states and parts of the Caucasus in the early 1950s. They also took control of the Black Sea region in the late 1950s and early 1960s, which they held until the end of the Cold War. The battles for Psk orov and Pskorov were the last major battles of the conflict, and the Soviets won all but one of them. It is estimated that more than 100,000 Soviet troops died in the battle, including more than 10,000 tanks. The loss of the city was the largest loss of armoured fighting vehicles in the history of the Russian Army. The fight was also the deadliest tank battle in Soviet history, with the loss of more than 1,000 vehicles. It took place on the eastern flank of the KursK salient, 87 kilometres (60 miles) southeast of Kursesk. It occurred as the German leadership began preparing for Operation Citadel, with an objective of enveloping and destroying the Soviets in the salient from both north and south. The attack was delayed several times due to the vacillation of the leadership and the addition of more forces and new equipment. On 5 July 1943 the Wehr macht launched its offensive.
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This page is based on the article Battle of Prokhorovka published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
