Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front 1943-1945: Red Steamroller

While the Germans were preparing for their offensive, the Red Army was also busy preparing a warm welcome for them in the Kursk salient. At the beginning of April, Rokossovsky had Rodin’s 2TA with about 200 tanks left and a number of tank brigades, but his total armoured strength was no more than about 300–400 tanks. Despite the arrival of several tank corps from the RVGK to stop von Manstein’s final push into Belgorod, General Nikolai F. Vatutin’s Voronezh Front was in even worse shape with only a few hundred operational tanks.[18] Katukov’s 1st Tank Army (1TA) arrived during the lull, raising strength up to about 500 tanks. Initially, Stalin wanted to resume the offensive to recover Belgorod and Kharkov as soon as the weather improved, but the Stavka – chastened by von Manstein’s ‘Backhand Blow’ – urged caution. Zhukov and Vasilevsky advised Stalin that the Germans were likely to attempt a pincer attack against the Kursk salient and they recommended that the best course of action was to create a very strong anti-tank defence in the salient to break the German Panzer-Divisionen, then follow up with major counter-offensives against Heeresgruppe Mitte and Heeresgruppe Süd. Intelligence from both the Lucy spy ring in Switzerland and Allied-provided signals intelligence reports supported the Stavka’s assessment of German intentions for their summer 1943 offensive. For once, Stalin allowed himself to be persuaded and directed both the Voronezh and Central Fronts to create an impregnable defence around the Kursk salient, while a large operational reserve would be concentrated in the vicinity to conduct the counter-offensive once the German attacks had been defeated.

During the lull, the Red Army emplaced 503,663 anti-tank and 439,348 anti-personnel mines in the most likely sectors where the Germans would attack and dug three layers of entrenchments for their infantry.⁷⁸ For the first time in the war, the Red Army was able to emplace up to 1,600 mines per kilometre in the expected enemy armoured mobility corridors.⁷⁹ The Soviets also took the time to train their guards rifle units to withstand tank attacks through drills where T-34s ran over or near trenches filled with infantrymen; this time, the appearance of German tanks was not going to panic the front-line troops. Live-fire training was also conducted to improve tank-infantry cooperation.⁸⁰ In April 1943, NKO Order 0063 re-created Anti-Tank Brigades, each to be equipped with 20 45mm and 40 76.2mm anti-tank guns. These brigades provided the Red Army with the ability to mass anti-tank fire on a much larger scale than it had achieved in 1941–42.⁸¹ Anti-tank gunners were trained to refrain from firing until approaching enemy tanks were very close, in order to improve the probability of a first-round hit and to increase penetration at point-blank range. The amount of anti-tank firepower deployed in the Kursk salient was intended to ensure that all obstacle belts were covered by fire and that wherever the German armour moved, it would be hit by flanking shots from hidden AT guns.

Another important structural change that the Red Army instituted during the lull was the reorganization of their tank armies into homogenous formations by excluding non-motorized elements. Heretofore, Soviet tank armies in 1942 had often included rifle divisions that could not keep up with armour in the attack. The first of the new-style tank armies was the 5th Guards Tank Army (5 GTA), established in late February 1943.⁸² The Stavka’s intent was to build the tank armies up into powerful manoeuvre formations, designed to exploit the operational success achieved by front-level forces.