What if operation citadel

Despite it all, Hitler yearned to go back on the offensive in Russia as soon as possible, hoping to seize the initiative and somehow turn things around.

By the spring of , he had massed a half-million soldiers near Kursk, located in the Eastern Ukraine. Facing them was a Russian force twice as large, including the Red Army's most experienced troops, along with the same units who had just beaten the Germans at Stalingrad. Undaunted, Hitler eyed a daring plan for a Blitzkrieg attack reminiscent of the early days of Operation Barbarossa when huge Russian formations had been surprised by motorized German troops and tanks, then surrounded and captured.

Called Operation Citadel, the new plan involved a two-pronged attack against the expansive Russian bulge in the lines west of Kursk. The two armies would slice through the bulge, meet up in the middle at Kursk, then turn westward and smash the now-isolated Red Army units.

But there were some big problems for Hitler at this point. First, the element of surprise was gone. The Russians were now watching Hitler's every move. They also benefited enormously from good intelligence including the decoded messages of the Army High Command, passed on to them by the British who had broken the Wehrmacht's secret cipher code. This meant that all of the radioed instructions from the High Command to German field commanders at Kursk and elsewhere were known to the Russians.

The Germans had also misjudged the capacity and quality of Russian war production. As a result, wide-eyed German field commanders watched in amazement as fresh divisions streamed into battle alongside powerful new T tanks with sloped armored plating that caused German anti-tank shells to bounce off harmlessly. Moreover, the Germans found the Russians could produce huge numbers of the tanks, along with state-of-the-art warplanes, top notch artillery and highly effective mobile rocket-grenade launchers.

Additionally, the Russian Army command staff of was a far cry from the disorganized rabble the Germans had nearly beaten two years earlier. Russian generals such as Georgi Zhukov had now proven they were a match for any of Hitler's commanders. They had learned how to win. In the meantime, Stalin had learned to trust the judgment of Zhukov and other similarly-successful Russian commanders, allowing them to make important strategic decisions on their own.

By contrast, Hitler had his hand in nearly all aspects of every decision, unwisely functioning both as Supreme Commander of the German Armed Forces and as Commander-in-Chief of the German Army, responsible for day-to-day operational command of his troops on all fronts. And it was evident to those around him that he had taken on too much. He was plainly worn out by the burden, and by the unimagined consequences of piloting the German Army into one costly failure after another, ultimately endangering the very survival of his thousand-year Reich.

The magnitude of that stress had begun to show. Nazi political cronies from the old days, upon seeing Hitler now, were shocked by his stooped, ashen-faced appearance. He looked like a man in his sixties, instead of 54, his actual age, with hands that trembled so badly at times that his tea cup clattered loudly against its saucer plate. His generals knew of course that he didn't like to hear their opinions but they provided them to Hitler anyway, mindful of their frontline soldiers.

When they examined the Kursk scenario they saw great danger and even suggested postponing the offensive altogether. Any difference in the war?

What it do anything besides postpone the German defeat and just cause more death? Post by Ordnancebob » 01 Apr There is also a train of reasoning that had Hitler not called of Zitadelle after the Allied landing on SicillyZitadelle would have in the end been sucessfull. While manpowere losses were not insignifigant the German were pretty much thriough the Russian defences which would have made Ztadelle ultimately into a Kesselschlacht.

German tank losses were not that great a Kursk if one looks at vehicles completely destroyed. Many German vehicles were recovered and repaired during the battle. By withdrawing after Sicilly these vehicles became lost to the Germans forever.

Post by Conacher » 01 Apr The vehicles were not withdrawn to Italy. Post by Nucleicacidman » 02 Apr Had the Kurks offensive been cancelled the Germans would have been able to defend against the Russian offensive after the battle. The frontal armor of the Tiger was impervious to the 76mm guns of the Ts at any great distance.

The field was soon littered with burning Ts and Ts. None of the Tigers were lost, but the st Tank Regiment was annihilated. Late in the day, Rotmistrov committed his last reserves, elements of the V Mechanized Corps, which finally halted Leibstandarte. Battle groups of 20 to 40 Soviet tanks, supported by infantry and ground-attack planes, collided with Das Reich regimental spearheads. Rotmistrov continued to throw armor against the division, and combat raged throughout the day, with heavy losses of Soviet armor.

Das Reich continued to push slowly eastward, advancing into the night while suffering relatively light tank losses. The fighting, characterized by massive losses of Soviet armor, continued throughout July 12 without a decisive success by either side—contrary to the accounts given in many well-known studies of the Eastern Front, which state that the fighting ended on July 12 with a decisive German defeat.

These authors describe the battlefield as littered with hundreds of destroyed German tanks and report that the Soviets overran the SS tank repair units. In fact, the fighting continued around Prochorovka for several more days. Das Reich continued to push slowly eastward in the area south of the town until July Those successes were not exploited, however, due to decisions made by Adolf Hitler.

After receiving the news of the Allied invasion of Sicily, as well as reports of impending Soviet attacks on the Mius River and at Izyum, Hitler decided to cancel Operation Citadel. Manstein argued that he should be allowed to finish off the two Soviet tank armies. He had unused reserves, consisting of three experienced panzer divisions of XXIV Panzer Corps, in position for quick commitment. That corps could have been used to attack the Fifth Guards Tank Army in its flank, to break out from the Psel bridgehead or to cross the Psel east of Prochorovka.

All of the available Soviet armor in the south was committed and could not be withdrawn without causing a collapse of the Soviet defenses. Manstein correctly realized that he had the opportunity to destroy the Soviet operational and strategic armor in the Prochorovka area. Hitler could not be persuaded to continue the attack, however. On the night of July , the corps withdrew from its positions around Prochorovka.

Thus, the battle for Prochorovka ended, not because of German tank losses Hausser had over operational tanks on July 17 but because Hitler lacked the will to continue the offensive. The SS panzer divisions were still full of fight; in fact, two of them continued to fight effectively in southern Russia for the rest of the summer. Those two divisions and the 3rd Panzer Division, which replaced Leibstandarte , were transferred to the Sixth Army area, where they conducted a counterattack from July 31 to August 2 that eliminated a strong Soviet bridgehead at the Mius River.

Without pause, the three divisions were then transferred to the Bogodukhov sector in early August During three weeks of constant combat, the four divisions played a major role in stopping the main Soviet post-Kursk counteroffensive, Operation Rumyantsev. By the end of the month, Rotmistrov had less than tanks still running.

Katukov had only tanks still in action by the last week of August. While at no time did any of the German divisions have more than 55 tanks in operation, they repeatedly blunted the thrusts of the two Soviet tank armies, which were also reinforced by several rifle corps.

After Kharkov itself fell, however, the German front gradually collapsed. The Soviets regrouped, committed additional strong reserves and renewed their attack toward the strategically important Dnepr River. Army Group South was subsequently forced to abandon much of southern Ukraine in a race for the safety of the Dnepr.

It is apparent from their operations during the late summer that the SS panzer divisions were not destroyed at Prochorovka. To what extent the course of events in Russia would have been changed is, of course, unknown, but it is interesting to speculate.