The Forgotten Battle of the Kursk Salient

7th Guards Army's Stand Against Army Detachment Kempf'

Valeriy Zamulin, Stuart Britton

• Publisher: Helion and Company
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781913118204
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Russian History
• Index: History

Using the Russian Ministry of Defense's archives and Western sources, the author has produced a companion work to his masterful study of II SS Panzer Corps' offensive and the culminating clash at Prokhorovka. He lays out the German and Soviet plans for the battle; the forces arrayed for it and the extensive Soviet defenses; and then goes through a meticulous examination of the course of the fighting, as III Panzer Corps suffered initial setbacks in its attempt to link up with the right flank of II SS Panzer Corps (then extemporized on the battlefield to get the offensive going and to complete the linkup), while the Soviet side fought valiantly to prevent this (according to the plan of the Voronezh Front Commander-in-Chief, N.F. Vatutin).

1

“We didn’t anticipate even a quarter of what the Russians had prepared here”

The above quote is what the command of Army Detachment Kempf’s 19th Panzer Division wrote in its account of Operation Citadel regarding the fortified lines of the 7th Guards Army. The decision by the Stavka of the Supreme High Command1 to go over to a pre-meditated defense and created deeply-echeloned belts of field fortifications for the two fronts [Central and Voronezh Fronts] that were holding the Kursk salient, together with the formation of a major strategic reserve – the Steppe Military District, later Steppe Front – were the most important factors that enabled the Red Army to stop the Wehrmacht’s final strategic offensive on the Soviet-German front. Thus the first chapter of this work will be dedicated to the place of Shumilov’s 7th Guards Army in the plan of Voronezh Front’s Kursk defensive operation, the system of defenses built by its troops in April-June 1943, and the process of restoring the combat capabilities of its subordinate formations after the winter campaign.

The stabilization of the Soviet-German front in the southwestern sector arrived around 27 March 1943. By this time the opposing sides had exhausted their potential for active operations, and the weather to a significant degree contributed to this. The spring thaw took over, and flood water covered all the roads and fields and filled the ravines and balkas; the European part of the Soviet Union turned into a sea of mud. On this same day, a notable event took place in an ordinary village hut in Oboian’, 60 kilometers north of Belgorod, where the headquarters of the Voronezh Front was established: in place of Colonel General F.I. Golikov, the new Front commander-in-chief General of the Army N.F. Vatutin arrived and assumed command. Nikolai Fedorovich took over at a time when the subordinate troops were in a difficult situation. In the course of the Khar’kov offensive, and later the defensive operation its formations had suffered heavy losses and were extremely depleted. Over the last month they’d been forced to fall back to the east with bloody fighting, abandoning to the enemy Ukrainian territory that they had already liberated. By the end of March 1943, the main forces of the Voronezh Front were digging in along new lines, but Red Army troops and commanders, in groups and alone, were continuing to make their way out of deep enemy encirclement even in the middle of April. Opposite the center and left flank of the Voronezh Front (in the Tomarovka – Belgorod area), an enemy panzer group was operating, and no continuous front line had been able to be created, because a significant portion of the rifle divisions of the 21st and 64th Armies, which were arriving from Stalingrad and beginning to take up combat sectors here, was still on the way. Even so, by this time the Germans had become played out. Together with their own rather heavy losses, the spring thaw underway was bogging them down. Thus three exceptionally complex tasks, which demanded an immediate resolution, were now confronting the new Commander-in-Chief of the Voronezh Front.

First, he had to organize the gathering and assembly of the personnel and equipment of the rifle divisions (of the combined-arms armies that constituted the Front’s main force) that were arriving from the territory of Khar’kov Oblast, and have them dig in along the current line, including with the deployment of minefields on the tank-vulnerable directions and the construction of elaborate field fortifications in the sectors they were holding. Second, he had to determine the adversary’s immediate objectives and taking into account the Front’s capabilities, in the shortest possible amount of time devise a plan for a stubborn defense and begin to implement it without delay. Third, he had to work out a complex program of measures to rebuild the forces through the arrival of Stavka reserves and to evacuate the population from the territory occupied by the Front, primarily from areas of Kursk Oblast.

At the end of March 1943, the Voronezh Front’s forward edge ran through: Snagost’, Bliakhova, Alekseevka, Molotov State Farm, Volkov, Bititsa, Ol’shanka, Dibrova, Glybnia, along the right bank of the Syrovatka River as far as [excl.] Krasnopol’e, [excl.] Novo-Dmitrievka, Vysokii, Zavertiachii, Nadezhda, Novaia zhizn’, Trefiliovka, Berezovka, Trirechnoe, Dragunskoe, Zadel’noe, [excl.] Blizhniaia Igumenka, Staryi Gorod and further along the left bank of the Northern Donets River as far as First Sovetskoe, with a total length of 245 kilometers (following the trace of the frontline). Its boundary lines on the right (with Central Front and 60th Army): Staryi Oskol, Dezhevka, Verkhnii Reutets, Lokinskaia Station, Kornevo, Krovolets (all for the Voronezh Front); on the left (with Southwestern Front and the 57th Army): Volokonovka, Volchansk, Khar’kov. Thereby, its troops were taking on the defense of the southwestern, southern and southeastern parts of the Kursk salient.

On this same day, 27 March 1943, N.F. Vatutin signed Order No. 0087, according to which his subordinate troops were to immediately begin fortifying the territory, reconnoiter the ground and create a system of defense. At this moment, the 64th Army, 38th Army and 40th Army comprised the Front’s first echelon. Within two months, the 69th Army would be deployed behind the boundary between the 64th and 21st Armies;2 at that moment, its strength was in fact equivalent to that of a rifle corps, even though formally it was considered an army. It was from this document [Order No. 0087] that the working up of a short-term plan for the Front’s actions (1 to 1.5 months) began. At the end of March, in order to assess the existing operational situation and prepare proposals for conducting the spring-summer campaign, the Deputy of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov and the Chief of the General Staff Marshal of the Soviet Union A.M. Vasilevsky arrived at Vatutin’s headquarters. Over the next several days they visited the front together with General of the Army Vatutin, inspected in detail the line of deployment of the 21st and 64th Armies, and listened to his proposals regarding the primary measures to erect a defense on the southern face of the Kursk salient. The opinion and assessments of the Marshals of the Soviet Union on the key questions that formed in the course of these trips, the reports from the commands of the Central and Voronezh Fronts, as well as reports from front and strategic intelligence lay at the basis of the three principal decisions taken at a conference with I.V. Stalin on 12 April 1943:

1.The Kursk salient was recognized as the most suitable sector of the Soviet-German front both for the enemy’s summer offensive and for the following counteroffensive by the Red Army.

2.The Central and Voronezh Fronts were supposed to go over temporarily to a pre-meditated defense, to begin planning the defensive operation quickly, and to initiate the construction of belts of defense with an intricate and dense system of artificial obstacles and fortifications. Whereever it was impossible to do this work because of the spring thaw, they were to conduct promptly the mining of tank-vulnerable sectors and concentrate anti-tank means along the main roads.

The first three lines of defense, called respectively the main, second and rear defensive belts, were to be prepared by the forces of the armies of the first and second echelon, while the construction of the third, rear defensive belt would include the local population. In addition, it was also planned to throw up a Front-level defensive line and a State-level defensive belt along the Don River, which were to be built by the engineers of the Fronts, the Steppe Military District and the commands of defensive works construction. Taking into account the preliminary analysis of the condition of the enemy’s forces and the short time thought possible before they would go on the offensive, deadlines for completing the primary fortification work was set for 15 April 1943 (in fact, this work continued until the end of the month). This related to the construction of the main defensive fortifications, which secured a system of fire and the combat dispositions of the troops on the occupied line (rifle pits, trenches, earth-and-timber bunkers, mortar and artillery sites, and so on), as well as the mining of the main tank-vulnerable directions. Fortunately, Order No. 0087 gave artificial obstacles particular attention, and just a bit later, on 9 April 1943, as work was already underway, a follow-on, special order was signed “On the creation of practical obstacles on the Front’s territory”. In part, it stated: “… in addition to the zones of minefields connected with the defensive belts, the creation of obstacles and demolitions in important populated locations, and on rivers and roads in the interval between the belts, which have as their aim the restriction of the enemy’s operational maneuver and the slowing of his advance into the depth of our defenses.”

3.To continue to assemble the Stavka’s strategic reserves, consolidated into a Reserve Front,3 in the rear of the fronts that were holding the Kursk salient. The Reserve Front was created on 6 April 1943 and it consisted of six combined-arms armies and one tank army. It was centered on Voronezh. This strategic front was given an assignment: in the event of a breakthrough of the lines of the Central or Voronezh Fronts, it was to occupy a defense along the Kshen’ and Oskol Rivers between the towns of Livny and Novyi Oskol and prevent the enemy from advancing into the depth of the country, as had happened in the summer of 1942.

When planning the Kursk defensive operation, which, I will mention, was shared by both the Central and Voronezh Fronts, N.F. Vatutin had to resolve several extremely difficult tasks. First, he had to determine the directions of the enemy’s main and secondary attacks, and second, he had to devise a framework for assembling his forces and creating defensive lines to block them. At the end of March 1943, immediately after assuming command and familiarizing himself with the state of affairs in his subordinate forces, he sent a directive to the headquarters of the armies: Within two weeks, to present the plans for fortifying their own lines of defense for the spring-summer period and an assessment of the operational situation and the enemy’s intentions once the ground and roads dried out. I will cite an excerpt from 69th Army’s plan of defense. This document is interesting for the fact that already on 14 April it was confirmed by the Voronezh Front’s Military Council practically without any changes, which means N.F. Vatutin fully shared the proposals regarding possible enemy actions that were expressed in it:

1.The most likely operational objective of the enemy in the forthcoming spring-summer offensive should be considered the encirclement and destruction of the Kursk grouping with a subsequent emergence on the line of the Don River.

The enemy’s main directions [of the offensive] might be:

a.Belgorod – Kastornoe (an outer enveloping attack), Belgorod – Kursk (an inner enveloping attack);

b.Orel – Kastornoe (an outer enveloping attack), Orel – Kursk (inner enveloping attack).

2.The most probable operational directions for the enemy’s Belgorod grouping:

a)Tomarovka – Oboian’ – Kursk;

b)Belgorod – Skorodnoe – Tim or Belgorod – Korocha – Staryi Oskol;

c)Volchansk – Novyi Oskol or Volchansk – Volokonovka.

4.The enemy’s Belgorod grouping has essentially ended its operational deployment, and his offensive should be expected once the roads improve following the end of the spring muddy season, which means the end of April – first half of May 1943.4

Accordingly, for the Soviet command even at the army level, the objectives and assignments of Operation Citadel as set in Operational Order No. 6, which Hitler was to sign only on 15 April 1943, were fully obvious even before its official adoption. At the same time, the headquarters of the 69th Army accurately determined both the directions of the main attacks by Army Group South that opposed the Voronezh Front, as well as the time for the initiation of its active operations. I will remind the reader that in Order No. 6, Hitler directed that all the forces assigned to the operation be brought up to full combat readiness by 28 April 1943, and set the earliest time for the start of the offensive – 3 May. I am far from the opinion that the Soviet generals, and in particular the commander of the 69th Army Lieutenant General V.D. Kriuchenkin, supposedly had some special capabilities of clairvoyance. I believe that for a person familiar with the main principles of conducting major offensive operations and the capabilities of the German Army at this time (even if only in general outlines), the configuration of the front lines in the area of the Kursk salient and the conditions of the ground in front of the Voronezh Front were suggesting the most likely variants of developments at the moment the ground dried out. It was only difficult to determine on the fly whether Germany was capable (by virtue of its economic potential), and its leadership ready, to conduct a major offensive operation or whether a “defensive mood” predominated in Berlin, and if the former, what forces would be committed for an offensive.

When working out the plan for the defensive operation N.F. Vatutin also decided to take as a guiding principle the account’s conjecture that Army Group South’s main objective was Kursk, and the most suitable place for a breakthrough by the enemy’s armor on his Front’s sector was along the Belgorod – Oboian’ highway (the Oboian’ highway) and between the Northern Donets and Razumnaia Rivers. Thus, he expressed the opinion that most likely, Manstein would attempt to overrun the line of Lieutenant General I.M. Chistiakov’s 6th Guards Army (main attack) and Lieutenant General M.S. Shumilov’s 7th Guards Army (secondary attack, most likely out of the Mikhailovka bridgehead) with his panzerkiel [bell-shaped panzer formations]. Accordingly, the general width of the most probable (and essentially possible) sectors of the German offensive in the sector of the Voronezh Front might amount to 46% (100 kilometers) of its line of defense. Based upon this consideration, the General of the Army proposed the following option for allocating his strength. He calculated to direct his main efforts to strengthening the left flank (a sector of 164 kilometers), by deploying three combined-arms armies here, one rifle corps (in the second echelon) and all of the Front’s mobile and anti-tank reserves. Thereby, of the Front’s 35 rifle divisions, he was proposing to position 22 on the likely direction of Army Group South’s attack, plus his anti-tank and mobile (two tank corps) reserves. Both G.K. Zhukov and A.M. Vasilevsky approved this plan.

I will note that even though subsequently the plan of the Front’s defense underwent a number of changes and several options for it were devised due to the changing operational situation and incoming intelligence, nevertheless Vatutin never changed his opinion regarding the direction of Army Group South’s main attack right up until the start of the fighting, and this assessment remained the sole framework for arranging the primary scheme of the Front’s defense and for allocating his forces prior to the Kursk defensive operation.

There followed the need to resolve two more important questions. First: How to prevent a deep penetration in the Front’s def...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Photographs
• List of Maps
• List of Tables
• Introduction
• 1 “We didn’t anticipate even a quarter of what the Russians had prepared here”
• 2 In the shadow of the main attack – Army Detachment Kempf’s role in Operation Citadel
• 3 5 July 1943 – The beginning of the end of a tragicomedy
• 4 The 7th Guards Army’s main defensive belt crumbles
• 5 Breith’s III Panzer Corps reaches the line of the 69th Army, 7-8 July 1943
• 6 The fall of the Belgorod bastion, 9-10 July 1943
• 7 “The beast is badly wounded, but still very dangerous.” Breith’s III Panzer Corps’ dashing foray into the 69th Army’s rear
• 8 The pinning counterattack: 7th Guards Army and the events of 12 July
• 9 “The operation’s failure turned into a tragedy”
• Plate section