![]() ![]() ![]() It would be better if we exhaust our enemy with our defenses, destroy their tanks and then, introducing fresh reserves, transition to a general offensive and finish off the main group of the enemy’s forces…” In the report to Stalin from April 8, Marshal Georgy Zhukov informed: “I consider the transition of our troops to the offensive in the coming days with the goal to pre-empt our enemy inexpedient. Having achieved a number advantage over the enemy in all respects, the Soviet military command, nonetheless, decided to act defensively. By the beginning of the large-scale battle in the region of the bulge, it had concentrated 1,3 million soldiers (with 600,000 more in reserves), more than 26,500 guns and mortars, more than 4,900 tanks and self-propelled artillery units and about 2,900 aircraft. Kursk is an expert account of the moment when the Nazi state lost the initiative against the USSR and how then the course was set for the eventual destruction of Nazi Germany.The Red Army didn’t sit idly. ![]() In addition, there are 16 pages of colour artworks of tanks, aircraft, small arms and uniforms used at Kursk, as well as 150 black-and-white photographs. The book's authoritative text is complemented with detailed maps explaining the troop movements and appendices with information on orders of battle, losses and equipment. The final chapter discusses the full implications of the battle for the Germans and Russians. The Red Army of 1943 was very different from the force that reeled before the German onslaught in 1941, and its newfound professionalism and greater numbers wore down the attackers until all their momentum was lost. Kursk shows how a bitter struggle developed between the German and Soviet forces which sucked in huge numbers of tanks and men into a small area, becoming the greatest armoured battle of the war. Once that initiative was lost, the course was set for the eventual destruction of the Nazi state by a vengeful Red Army. Kursk - The Greatest Tank Battle is a comprehensive history of the last time that Germany held the strategic initiative in the war against the Soviet Union. In July 1943, the German Army launched what proved to be its last great offensive on the Eastern Front. ![]()
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