By David M. Grants, Jonathan M. House
Translation: Sun Bo, Zhao Guoxing, Zhang Junming
Although the Battle of Kursk is usually reminiscent of the Tiger and Leopard tanks, the Iii (in the background of the photo) and the Iv (in the foreground of the photo) were the main forces that formed the German tank army in 1943.
Gunter von Kluge was right about one thing, and that was that the German Army at this time really needed a complete break. After successive battles from June 1942 to March 1943, most of the German troops were exhausted.
What is most urgently needed now is manpower. Ironically, the totalitarian dictatorships of the Third Reich were much slower to mobilize their people than the Western democracies and the battered Soviet Union. Adolf Hitler was adamantly opposed practices that would seriously disrupt the daily lives of Germans, such as reducing the supply of consumer goods and increasing the number of women working in factories. By January 1943, however, he had to appoint a three-man commission to recruit 800,000 recruits for the army, half of whom were recruited from non-industrial factories. Keitel Field Marshal, Martin Bowman and civilian Hans Ramers represented the army, the Nazi party and the government, respectively.
In consultation with Albert Speer and others, the committee found a way to replenish the army without affecting wartime production, namely, to operate anti-aircraft guns with 15-year-old students in Germany itself, to free up more soldiers to the front, and to redefine the Volksdeutsch of German occupation as sufficiently reliable military personnel. Of these newly discovered reinforcements, 1 million were sent to Western Europe to replenish the German forces rebuilt after the Battle of Stalingrad. In any case, this enormous task increased the total strength of the German armed forces to 9.5 million by May 30, 1943, the largest they had in the entire war.
German Panzer IV at Kursk in 1943.
In February 1943, Hitler recalled the out-of-favor Heinz Guderian to oversee the reconstruction of the mechanized arms (everything depended on it). Guderian created the German Panzer Corps in the 1930s, and now he has to shoulder this responsibility again as Director of the Panzer Corps. Despite the constraints of the Bureaucracy of the Third Reich, which siphoned off resources from each other, Hitler's support and Speer's cooperation, he was able to perform miracles in production, organization, and training. As soon as the muddy season ended active combat operations, Guderian began to replenish large numbers of personnel and equipment to the armored divisions on the Eastern Front. Most of these divisions would withdraw from the front and be given a period of rest to replenish. Although Guderian never achieved his goal of having each panzer division with 400 tanks, by June 1943 many had 100-130 tanks again, essentially restoring the combat effectiveness of previous years.
Guderian also sought to increase the production of assault guns, which could provide armored support to infantry at a lower cost, and semi-track armored vehicles, which were essential equipment for scouts and infantry in mechanized divisions. Since the newly produced tanks required a large amount of high-quality steel, it meant that some assault guns could only use slightly inferior quality materials.
These specialized equipment can rarely be replenished to ordinary infantry divisions, or even armored divisions. The infighting among the various political factions in Germany was also reflected in the competition among elite troops, most importantly the several divisions of the Waffen-SS. The actual strength of these divisions varied frequently, but their quantity and quality of armament would be generally superior to that of regular divisions of the German Army. In 1943, a typical Waffen-SS division generally had more than 150 tanks, including the new tanks mentioned below. In addition, SS divisions usually had an assault artillery battalion, and their half-track armored vehicles were sufficient to carry most or all of their infantry and scouts. The "Großdeutsche Bahneradier Division", which was not part of the Waffen-SS, received the same priority in the areas of assault guns and armored personnel carriers. In contrast, the average panzer division usually had only one company of assault guns and one or two companies of half-track vehicles, while other soldiers could only ride on less protective trucks. One such panzer division had two to three battalions of Panzer III and IV medium tanks, five battalions of infantry and three battalions of towed medium artillery, plus a number of specialized detachments of combat engineers, anti-tank artillery and signal troops. The normal strength of the 1943 panzer division should have been 13,000-17,000 men, but even with Guderian's best efforts, the average strength of each division could only be roughly close to 10,000 or 11,000 men.
The infantry divisions, which formed the main force of the German Army, were in decline due to the lowest priority when replenished. In the spring of 1942, 69 of the 75 infantry divisions of Army Group North and Army Group Center had to be reorganized due to heavy losses. The nine infantry battalions within each division were reduced to six, and the artillery company of each battalion, which originally had four guns, was now reduced to three. So, simply put, these infantry divisions would accomplish the same task with two-thirds of their original combat effectiveness. By the spring of 1943, such downsizing had become almost common on the Eastern Front, with a relatively well-placed infantry division with only 8,000 effective combatants, plus as many as 1,000 unarmed Russian "auxiliaries." Due to the dwindling number of horses and cars available, the mobility of these infantry divisions was greatly reduced compared to 1941. The Soviets were sometimes able to wipe out German artillery companies in attacks, simply because the artillery could not be moved, and the German infantry units had to use bicycles for reconnaissance and local counterattacks.
During the Battle of Kursk, the main tank of the Red Army was the 1943 T-34. Since the Soviet strategy was to reduce modernization improvements in exchange for maximizing production
Compounding the problem, the German infantry division was almost helpless against the concentrated use of Soviet armor. The 37 mm anti-tank gun they used when they first entered the Soviet Union is now virtually powerless against the Soviet-style T-34 medium tank. In 1942, most infantry divisions received a limited number of new 75 mm anti-tank guns, but often lacked corresponding shells. As a result, the German infantry division had become a passive player, with limited offensive and defensive capabilities to hold the long trenches on the front line.
This article is excerpted from the Battle of Kursk