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

In planning Zitadelle, von Manstein displayed a certain inattention to details that would plague the operation from the start. Unlike Model, he failed to appreciate the depth of Soviet minefields and asked for no special engineering resources; Hoth’s 4.Panzerarmee (PzAOK 4) received no Goliath or BIV demolition vehicles or other mine-clearing equipment. Von Manstein’s operational plan was very basic, envisioning that Hoth’s 4.Panzerarmee, consisting of General der Panzertruppe Otto von Knobelsdorff’s XXXXVIII Panzerkorps (3., 11.Panzer-Divisionen and the Großdeutschland) and Hausser’s II. SS-Panzerkorps (LSSAH, Das Reich and Totenkopf) would form the main effort, while Armee-Abteilung Kempf would conduct a supporting attack with General der Panzertruppe Hermann Breith’s III Panzerkorps (6., 7. and 19.Panzer-Divisionen) and Generaloberst Erhard Raus’ XI Armeekorps (two infantry divisions and Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 905). Von Manstein believed that this mass of armour and troops, with over 1,500 AFVs and supported by Luftflotte 4, could blast its way through any defensive lines. Up front though, von Manstein violated the principle of unity of command by putting two Panzerkorps under Hoth and one under Kempf, when doctrine recommended that all three should have been under a single army commander. Consequently, Breith’s III Panzerkorps contributed little to its primary mission of protecting the right flank of II. SS-Panzerkorps and essentially fought an isolated and operationally pointless battle. Nor did von Manstein ensure that his subordinates had conducted detailed tactical planning prior to execution, which became immediately obvious in both the III. and XXXXVIII Panzerkorps sectors. Finally, von Manstein’s broad front implementation of Zitadelle left him with no operational-level reserves, other than General der Panzertruppe Walther Nehring’s distant and under-resourced XXIV Panzerkorps. After the war, von Manstein would claim that Nehring’s corps could have made a great impact upon the outcome of Zitadelle, but this formation had a total of only 171 tanks among its three mechanized divisions. Furthermore, Nehring’s XXIV Panzerkorps was the only mobile reserve belonging to the 1. Panzerarmee and stripping this resource would seriously weaken Heeresgruppe Süd’s right flank.

Facing Hoth’s 4.Panzerarmee, Vatutin had arrayed his Voronezh Front forces in great depth. General-leytenant Ivan M. Chistiakov’s 6th Guards Army (6 GA) was deployed in a two-up/one-back style echeloned defence across a 60km-wide front, with the 22nd Guards Rifle Corps (22 GRC) opposite XXXXVIII Panzerkorps and the 23rd Guards Rifle Corps (23 GRC) opposite the II. SS-Panzerkorps. In tactical reserve, Chistiakov had the 96th Tank Brigade (46 T-34s and 5 T-70) and the 230th and 245th separate tank regiments with a total of 34 M3 Grants and 44 M3 Stuarts. More importantly, Chistiakov had the 27th and 28th Anti-tank Brigades in general support, plus 10 separate anti-tank regiments which were attached to his rifle divisions, providing 6 GA with a total of 573 anti-tank guns.⁸⁶ However, Chistiakov’s sector only had half the density of mines that Pukhov’s 13th Army had on the northern front and, unlike Rokossovsky, Vatutin had not deployed an artillery corps to support the main defence. With fewer mines and less artillery support, Chistiakov’s front was not as dense a defence as Model had confronted in the north.

Behind Chistiakov’s 6 GA, Vatutin deployed the 69th Army in a third line of defence with five rifle divisions, the 35th Guards Rifle corps and General-leytenant Mikhail E. Katukov’s 1st Tank Army, comprised of the 6th and 31st Tank Corps and 3rd Mechanized Corps. Altogether, Katukov had 587 tanks of which 484 were T-34s – an unusually high proportion of medium tanks for the Red Army in mid-1943. Vatutin kept two more tank units, the 2nd and 5th Guards Tank Corps with a total of 410 tanks, under his control in front reserve. Vatutin’s intent was to use Katukov’s armour and the two separate tank corps to mount local counter-attacks to block any German breakthroughs, rather than as a masse de manoeuvre. General-leytenant Mikhail S. Shumilov’s 7th Guards Army (7 GA) opposed Armee-Abteilung Kempf with the 25th Guards Rifle Corps in a 2-up/1-back defensive echelon, supported by two tank regiments with 33 T-34 and 22 KV-1s.