Kursk (by popular demand!)

Very true, Erich!

If I am going to face some Germans better be with a filthy tanks as the Lee than nothing...

 

talking about those panthers and numbers...

In Guderian´s book " Panzer leader " something quite interesting comes sup o p.310:
This is june 1st 1943.

" Meanwhile the OKW had had the bizarre idea of sending the 1´st panzer division to greece to guard against possible English landings in Peloponnesos.The division had just been brought up to strength and equipped with the first completed Panther battalion.It provided our strongest reserve.Now it was to be wasted in this extraordinary fashion. "

He continues that he on his own iniative prevented the Panthers being sent there though, but the 1st panzer division went to Greece instead of a mountain division.

On p 308 Guderian says that industry had promised 324 panthers instead of 250 tanks promised earlier by may 31st. Anyone got ideas on these? I think it was some 180 panthers that arrived at the front and some 40 that went into action, finally.What happened to the rest? promises? Waiting to be sent to Greece after all?

On ferdinand tanks the number 90 units is mentioned and confirmed on p 299.

 

Hmmm, Kai- I wonder about Guderian's info there. I've read in all my sources that all the new armor produced in spring 43 was slated to go to the Kursk offensive. I know Hitler was concerned about allied landings in Italy, but I haven't read about him wanting to divert the Panthers.
hmmm...
On the Panther production figures, the german armaments companies often under-estimated the time it required to produce certain things. I would guess the Panthers are an example of this. Keep in mind what condition they were in when they DID reach the front- the mechanical difficuties seem to have taken out at least 50 tanks right off the bat.

On the lend-lease tanks, the russians hated the M3 Lee. They called it "the grave for seven brothers"... not only was the Lee incredibly easy to take out and cause to burn, but it required a crew of seven.
The biggest thing lend-lease provided for the russians was logistics- trucks and jeeps. In june 1943 alone, the US sent over 90,000 trucks to russia (I have to check my nuber at home on this one, but I'm pretty sure it's accurate). The american and british tanks and guns made up a relatively small part of the shipments- not only did the russians dislike the allied tanks, but the allies weren't producing as many as the russians. We need to remember Stalin's economic moves here... when Stalin switched much of russia's industry to producing farm tractors and heavy machinery, he perfectly equipped the russians to produce tanks. We all know about the T-34... BUT, russia did not have the infrastructure to produce large amounts of trucks and smaller vehicles. Even more, the trucks they did have/produce were of markedly inferior quality to those of the US. So the allied shipments of trucks and jeeps made it possible for the russians to truly mechanize their forces.

Carl, I would tend to agree about the recoiless weapons against lighter targets. I wonder about heavier targets though- I don't think the recoiless weapons the germans used had enough power. I've seen one of the 7.5cm weapons at Aberdeen- it dosen't look long enough to take an especially powerful shell, and it does look like the recoiless weapon (don't remember exact name) would take longer to get into action than, say, a Panzerschrek.
But more to my point, I was more wondering about overall performance... How did the units perform at Kursk? Were they mainly an anti-tank unit?

 

Carl's OOB posts for Kursk (great job, Carl!) made me think of another area... Army detachment Kempf. This major group seems to get little mention in many accounts of Kursk... How significant a part did Kempf play in the battle?
From what I've read, the delays encountered by A.D. Kempf played a major part in slowing the progress of the IISS Pz Corps. Especially SS Tot. had to divert many of it's own tanks to guard the flanks that Kempf was supposed to hold.
I'll look into this more... any thoughts on this one?

 

Recoiless guns at Kursk ? I thought these were only issued to Fallshirm truppen in Sicisly and the Italien fronts..... ? Hmmmmm this is interesting.

For Das Reich, and slightly off topic here....

On JUly 4th 43, Das Recih had 48 Pz III, 30 Pz IV's (one quarter with short barrels) 12 Tiger 1's, 8 panzer III command tanks, 18 T-34's, 33 Stug's and 10 marders. The 5th of July the Tiger 1's destroyed some 23 Soviet tanks in 6 hours of fighting neare Beresoff and hill 233.3 to the north. the 6th of July, Tiger 1's destroyed 10 Soviet tanks of the 2nd Guards, but Pak fire killed 6th Kompanie Kommandeur Worthmann. dieter Kesten took over command of 6th komapnie. By July 13th hans Mennel in Pz. IV # 621 had destroyed 24 tanks in the Citadel campaign. From July 5th to the 16th, Das Reich accounted for 448 Soviet tanks and SU's losing a total of 46 panzers and assault guns destroyed. Before the end of citadel on the 28th, 1st SS handed over to Das Reich 9 Tigers, 39 Pz. IV's and 4 Pz. III's. Das Reich had already fit for service : 33 Pz. III's 17 Pz. IV's, 2 T-34's and 2 Tiger 1's.
From July 30th to August 21st opposing the Soviet counterattacks on the Mius, Das Reich destroyed 391 Soviet tanks and SU's. It's Oanther Abteilung first saw combat on August 22nd, around Starja-Ljubotin and Kommuna, knocking out 53 Soviet tanks.
From Armor Battles of the W-SS / Will Fey......

E

 

Erich, according to the numbers Fey supplies, 2SS lost 10 Tiger Is during the Kursk battles. This seems like a higher number than many other claim... makes me wonder.

I think this is also near Cherkaskoye- I'll check my maps. That would make sense though- the battle around Cherkaskoye cost the germans a lot of tanks destroyed during the first day...

 

The info was quoted from the back of the book under Das Reich war diary. When I get the 43-45 text book on Das Reich from Weidinger it may have different info. I have only cheked this one source only and not T in C 2 yet which may prove useful. I'm right in the middle of some deep doo doo for two books and I have to concentrate on this for the time being......

E

 

Thanks Crazy... I plan to continue doing Orbats when time permits. I used several books and sites to gather all I did for the two Kursk Orbats. I plan on adding a kind of after thought on Kursk, naming the men and their units they were in at the time, who became Knights Cross Recipients.

 

That would be a great idea... The Knight's Cross winners, besides just being really interesting info, might also show something about which units had the higher degrees of success at Kursk.
I'm still waiting for a good amount of time to get some more info on some of the units as well...
Definetely still wondering about those recoiless weapons, if anyone's found anything. My sources don't even seem to mention them...

 

My gut reaction about recoiless weapons remains the same......equipment of the Fallshirm units, but heck if I am wrong that is alright, as I would love to learn whom else might have operated these little almost unknown weapons.
Crazy, do you have any of Wolfgang Schneider's Tigers in combat books ? I can't remember what your response was......

E

 

Erich, on the books- I have one Armor volume of Tigers in Action- don't remember the author though. I'll check tonight. I do have Schneider's "Rarities of the Tiger Family"...
He seems rather knowledgeable on Tigers/ armored combat, yes?

I've also read about recoiless weapons being used by the Falshirmjager- relatively light and easy to carry among a three man team... So I wonder what the deal is with the units using recoiless weapons at Kursk. Carl's OOB obviously points to some units being equipped with the weapons at Kursk. I wonder- were those units "transplanted" Fjgr units, or regular army? Which recoiless weapons did the units use, 75 or 105mm? Units' effectiveness?
I share your curiousity about their deployment at Kursk... I'm sure one of us can come up with something...

(later)
I can't even find much at all on the internet about these weapons in action. Found some general stuff (quoted from websites)...

the Germans perfected the method of diverting rearwards some of the high-velocity gas from the propellant charge in order to balance the recoil. These were all effective devices, limited principally by the low velocity which gave them a steep trajectory and an effective range against moving targets of around 100m.

Wheeled recoiless guns were developed for airborne use and came in many calibres such as the 75mm, 105mm and 150mm. They were widely used and made their first appearance in Crete in 1941.
The only dis-advantage of the recoilless gun was the huge muzzle flash and smoke plume during firing.

nothing specific though...

[ 27 August 2002, 11:56 AM: Message edited by: CrazyD88 ]

 

The LG 40 7.5 was introduced in 1940 and saw action first at Crete in May of 41. Barrel life was 10,000 rounds. rate of fire was 6 rpm. 450 weapons produced. Used by the Fallshirm, in Russia, Afrika and Italy.
10.5 LG 40/2 saw limited service starting in 1941. 10,000 rounds barrel life. rate of fire 7 rpm. Ok, one book says this : Limited numbers of these weapons were built as it had been decided to adopt a standard 10.5cm calibre gun. this was basically an up-dated LG 40 called the LG 42 and the LG 42/1. this gun had the required light-alloy carriage. considerable numbers of this weapon served from 1943 onwards with the Fallshirmjäger.
There were various ways for the airborne troops to land the 75 and 105mm guns. First and the most commonly employed method was by air-dropping in several loads in containers suspened from parachutes. Well trained crews could have the gun assembled and in action within two minutes ! A second method was to suspend the guns under tubular steel frames underneath the aircraft's wings. They could either be landed or, if a lnading-stips were not yet available, dropped via large parachutes. the large gliders, such as the Go 242 could carry a gun along with the Kettenrad tractor........sorry, this being a little off topic.
Crazy, I'll try and hunt down the day to day on the Das Reich diary, from the Tiger 1 Kompanie, and will list the S numbers of each tank. wish I had each kommandeur, but maybe I will try and ask author mark yearger about this.

E

 

Nice stuff, Erich- good info on the guns (and far less off-topic than some of the stuff I've seen!). For some reason I was under the impression that the guns were referred to as "RFK##". Not sure where I got that though...
Keeping on the general topic of these recoilless weapons, I wonder why they would still be in regular service by 1943- I'd assume the Panzerfaust and Panzerschrek were far more effective...
And this gets us back to their use at Kursk... why, who, and in what manner... I would tend to guess that at Kursk, considering the more effective anti-tank methods available, that the LG weapons were used more as portable light artillery. Maybe this would explain their deployment with regular army units...

Back to the Tigers... Although Fey's numbers do seem higher than some more recent sources, I would actually tend to believe the actual figures are in fact closer to Fey's numbers. Tigers were great tanks, but at Kursk they could not generally be used effectively. Tigers were intended for long-range combat against other tanks; at kursk, the Tigers fought often at close range under very heavy fire. I would tend to think that many were lost...

I think one thing about the "numbers game" is becoming clearer to me... divisional returns and other pre or post battle reports provide most of the numbers we use. And these numbers often do not note, or at least do not specify, vehicles that are truly knocked out versus vehicles that are down but can be repaired. Many of the hits taken by a tank that would disable it would not actually destroy any aspect of the tank. Tracks being the perfect example- a tank that has its tracks knocked out is disabled as far as combat is concerned, and would probably be abandoned. BUT, depending on battle conditions, this tank could relatively easily be recovered and repaired. Mechanical difficulties would aslo fall under this category- things which could be repaired within a few days, and more importantly, things that could be repaired IN THE FIELD. I think this would explain many of the discrepancies we see in the numbers from Kursk (and many other battles as well).
The 200 Panthers deployed at Kursk provide another good example- we can pretty safely guess that 200 were initially deployed. And we can clearly figure out that many were lost on the first day, with as few as 40 Panthers remaining OPERATIONAL at the end of 5 July. But then info gets spotty- how many Panthers were the germans able to repair? And what was the timeframe- were most of these Panthers repaired July 6 or 7, or did some of them take longer? So we do not have a clear picture of what happened after initial deployment.

 

Intersting my last message this morn went into cyberspace or the toilet, take your pick ! Must be the Platonic sphere that my town sits on that everyone outside my community keeps telling me.......enough of this nonsense.

found a diary of sorts on Das Reich covering the introduction of the 14 Tigers into 8th kompanie which then became the Schwere Kompanie of the Division during Kursk. This started at the end of May when the Tigers were given the code Capital S then a two digit number.
S01 and S02 for stabkompanie
S11 S12 S13 S14 for the 1st zug
S21 S22 S23 S24 for the second kompanie
S31 S32 S33 S34 for the third kompanie.
The diary lists at least 3 different kompanie commanders as they were all killed in action. It does list some kills as a total and goes through the Mius fighting in august of 43. I'll see if I can post nd it will make itself clear in the text about the unusual losses reports, with one/two days of no operational Tigers, then 4, 6 and so on. The mechanics must have done some brilliant feats during the course of the battle and under hot harsh conditions.

E

 

Crazy--it also will point out units I missed as well as all those books and sites missed as well. If I can get a complete list--or near as complete as possible, then this site here will have the most complete list of German units at kursk as there is to my knowledge. ((If I have thought of it--I KNOW someone else has already done so)). I just havent seen or found their work yet.

 

Here you go!

http://www.geocities.com/armysappersforward/kursk.htm

 

(OK, I'll try this again, and maybe the gremlins will leave it here!)
Erich, the mechanics you mention did play a huge role at Kursk. Glantz claims that german repair/recovery units were at one of their high points during the battle for Kursk. there were plenty of recovery units, mostly with all the equipment they needed, including heavy prime movers (think about towing a tiger tank...). Two main reasons accounted for the high level of recovery units... First, the amounts of armor deployed at Kursk naturally led to a correspondingly heavy deployment of recovery units. But more important, the delays imposed on the operation actually had a beneficial effect on the recovery units. Recovery units were often deployed later than the frontline untis; but the delays at Kursk allowed for a large number of recovery units to make it to the front before the battle actually started.
This would likely explain some of the fluctuations in numbers of available tanks...

 

For Das Reich.....for starts.....

20.5.43 9 tigers, the tanks receive the S marking
30.5 8 tigers
10.6 8 tigers
30.6 12 tigers
01.7 12 tigers
02.7 12 tigers
03.7 Assembly area 20km west of Tomarowka
04.7 12 operational tigers south of the road Tomarowka-Bykowka near hill 222.3, later near hill 228.6
05.7 The Kompanie knocks out 23 Soviet tanks near Beresoff, hill 233.3 and north of it. 2 Tanks are immobilized by mines.
06.7 Near Lutschki 12 T-34's are knocked out by the Tigers. A Russian armored train enters the battle, causes some losses and is set ablaze by the Tigers.
10.7 9 Tigers operational
11.7 The company commander is wounded in the arm. Hauptsturmführer Lorenz takes over command. 10 Soviet tanks are knocked out. At 12.00 hours the new commander is killed in action, the Tiger is destroyed. Obersturmführer Theiss is now in charge. 13 Tigers operatioanl
12.7 No Tigers operatioanl
13.7 Breakthrough to Winogradowka-Iwanowka
14.7 Assaul of the armored group to the east, Iwanowka is taken. Further attack on hill 234.9 4 Tigers operational, shopot-out with enemy armor south of hill 242.1 Later capture of the height 2km north-east of Leski.

more to come, as my hands are ready to fall off.....E

 

Good show Kai, and MANY THANKS for this link. Im going to check my Orbat with theirs in the next day or so.

 

CrazyD88:

About those Ferdinands again....How do you feel after this?

For many years it was thought that most of the Elefants were lost because they had no machine guns, but this not true. Many of them were lost due to damage or a lack of fuel, not because of the deadly shooting from enemy guns or infantry. The Elefant was an offensive weapon, so during the retreating combat it had less
chance of fighting successfully and many of them had to be abandoned on the battlefields with only minor damage, like this one here."

During the battle of Kursk the Elephant was the heaviest AFV in service. In the time following the war the Elephant was described as unsuccessful and basically inefficient in combat. This is based on one statistic - the number of these lost, which was only 39. The losses were in fact heavy but they were only about half of Jagdpanzer Regiment 656 (Pz.Jag.653 and PZ.Jag654 ).

This was about the same percentage of the losses of the Tiger units involved in Kursk also. The Elephants exacted a heavy toll when they could during the 22 days of battle, the were responsible for the destruction of 502 tanks and other weapons

http://www3.sympatico.ca/admfisher/html/elefant.html