Hitler's Last Chance?: Operation Citadel, May 1943

[History Learner]

One of the great "What Ifs" of WWII is the Battle of Kursk, arguably the largest land battle of the war and the second largest tank (by raw numbers) engagement after the Battle of Brody in 1941. Despite some tactical success, by the time the operation kicked off in July the Soviets were too prepared, resting in heavily defended positions and with a material as well numerical superiority over their attackers that precluded the hoped for strategic success. Given that, almost since the Battle itself ended, there has been a long running dispute between the men who were there and historians over whether success was possibly, usually in the context of an earlier offensive. Increasingly, I am convinced of the merits of this argument in that an earlier offensive would've yielded the Germans their operational goals for the most part.

To begin with, here is a chart of Soviet strength circa April, 1943 taken from Kursk: A Statistical Digest -

And here is another, taken from the Germany in the Second World War (Volume VIII) series concerning German front-wide strength at the start of April -

While not totally comparable, given the former focuses in on Soviet defenses in and around the Salient while the latter gives a front wide picture, it is useful to show the total availability of AFV strength and total strength for the Army Groups that did ultimately participate in Citadel historically at this time. We can, however, further it by expanding into citations from other sources, in this case being Kursk: The German View, concerning the German 9th Army of Army Group Center:

Two months later, when Operation Citadel belatedly commenced on 5 July, how much stronger and better prepared was Ninth Army to achieve the objectives set for it? The army's combat strength had risen from 66,137 to 75,713 (a gain of 9,576), but this increase was deceiving. More than two-thirds of the additional strength (6,670 men) resulted not from replacements or reinforcements to the existing divisions but as the result of the addition of the 6th Infantry and 4th Panzer Divisions to the Ninth Army's administrative reporting system; only 2,906 new soldiers and returning convalescents had joined the ranks in the intervening two months. When the four divisions of XX Corps, which were assigned to hold Model's far right flank and take no part in the initial breakthrough phase of the battle, are discounted, Ninth Army jumped off toward Kursk on 5 July with a combat strength of only 68,747 troops.13

Further:

Ninth Army's transport situation improved only slightly between May and July. Model appears to have received about 1,200 additional motor vehicles in two months. Many undoubtedly were not new but stripped away from other units on Army Group Center's defensive fronts. Although the figure looks impressive at first glance, the actual gain in tactical mobility was only about 4-5 percent in each division. Calculated another way, each of the infantry divisions gained fewer than thirty vehicles; each of the panzer divisions received about 120.16

Finally:

To evaluate whether these increases were sufficient to warrant the repeated delay in launching Operation Citadel, inquiries must also be made into the extent to which the Red Army had reinforced opposite Ninth Army and—equally important—the success that the Germans had in recognizing that buildup. According to later intelligence reports, Army Group Center believed that the Soviets had increased their infantry strength north of Kursk from 124,000 to about 161,000 during the eight week hiatus.18 The overall quality of the new troops (many of whom were recent conscripts) was doubtful but, that caveat aside, these estimates meant that relative German combat strength had declined significantly due to the postponements of the attack. In May Ninth Army's combat strength by its own accounting was roughly 53.4 percent of that arrayed against it; by 4 July German strength as a percentage of Soviet numbers had dropped to just 47 percent. From an infantry perspective, attacking at a later date was a losing proposition.

Neither had Ninth Army's artillery buildup, as impressive as it may have seemed at the time, materially improved the odds of the offensive. The two armies holding the first defensive system immediately in Model's front (Thirteenth and Seventieth Armies), contained fewer than 3,000 guns and mortars as the Soviets enumerated them, the entire Central Front deploying less than 8,000. By 4 July, however, the Thirteenth and Seventieth Armies boasted 4,592 pieces of artillery, and Central Front's batteries had swollen to 12,453. Stated in the simplest terms, during the eight weeks in which the Germans moved up 362 new guns, the Russians brought forward 1,500 in the front line and 4,500 overall; as weak as Ninth Army had been in early May, it would have enjoyed far better prospects then for ultimate success.19

The story was much the same for armored fighting vehicles (AFVs). Contrary to German intelligence estimates, the Soviet Central Front had deployed only about 1,000 tanks and assault guns in late April-early May, rather than 1,500. This was a critical misinterpretation that explains much about Model's insistence on delaying the offensive. With 800 AFVs facing 1,500, the army commander had a legitimate case for arguing that additional panzers, especially Panthers and Tigers, were absolutely necessary for the assault. Had Model realized that Russian armored superiority was only about 200 vehicles, he would have been far more willing to proceed. By waiting, Ninth Army augmented its AFV holdings by about 25 percent, but the Soviets nearly doubled theirs. In early July, Central Front's advantage in tanks and self-propelled guns had increased from 200 to 700.

The overall conclusion must therefore be that the two-month delay materially contributed to the early failure of Ninth Army's attack. In all three critical categories—combat troops, artillery, and armor—the modest gains in strength that the Germans managed were more than offset by Soviet reinforcements. Model diminished his own army's chance of breaking through Central Front's defenses by convincing Hitler to postpone Operation Citadel. Given the faulty intelligence estimates with which he was working, however, the army commander's reasoning appeared to have merit, and in late spring 1943 few German officers yet realized the depth of Soviet resources.

From this, we can thus firmly state that 9th Army was not essentially different from its July state in May of 1943 and, relative to the reduced Soviet position in May, would be definitively much stronger in a relative sense as it would be facing less Soviet opposition historically. This is important to note, as the Northern Pincer was the one that struggled the most historically, almost immediately breaking down into static fighting because of the concentrated Soviet opposition blocking its advance. Likewise, from the same source, we can also make a rough estimate of overall German AFV readiness by May:

This chart, which comes from Page 413, adds further context to overall German AFV strength about an earlier offensive. The earlier citation of said German strength was dated as to April 1st, and thus is overall more comparable to the March figure since the improvements of April overall had yet to happen. By May, as the figures show, the Germans were about as ready as they would later be in early July when the offensive kicked off. Utilizing the May figure, we thus find that of the total AFV count of 1,326 in April between Army Groups Center, South and A, that roughly 1,100 would be ready in May. Please take in note, this figure does not include delivery of fresh units in April or in the first portion of May.

Finally, I turn to Could Germany Have Won the Battle of Kursk if It Had Started in Late May or the Beginning of June 1943? which is an article by Valeriy N. Zamulin. Now, in the interests of intellectual honest, I want to state for the record Zamulin has taken the position, in this article, that he does not believe an earlier offensive would've made the difference. I fundamentally feel, however, that this is wrong based on the numbers he presents and then comparing them to the rest of the literature, in particular the facts I have already cited. Allow me to now quote from the article as to why I feel the numbers presented agree with my contention more than Zamulin's:

The replenishment of Rokossovsky’s and Vatutin’s forces with tanks didn’t go so smoothly or swiftly. On 3 May the Central Front had 674 tanks and 38 self-propelled artillery vehicles, or 40 percent of their availability on 5 July, while the 13th Army had 137 tanks,11 or 64 percent of the number it had by the start of the battle. However, the situation with armor on the southern shoulder of the Kursk bulge at this time was significantly better.

Further:

Thus at the beginning of May, the Central Front was substantially weaker than its neighbor: On 15 May the Voronezh Front had 1,380 serviceable tanks and self-propelled guns, or 76 percent of that number that it would receive by the start of the Battle of Kursk, while the Central Front had twice fewer.

So Central Front is missing 60% of its AFVs and Voronezh Front is missing 24% of its AFVs, compared to the historical start date. These are serious, major lackings in combat formations that can have drastic impacts on the battle. It has already been shown, for example, that on the Northern Flank the Germans are much stronger, relative to historical levels, to Central Front and overall the AFV balance appears to be a tie in early May. Now, lastly, we must also cover defenses because historically the Soviets constructed a formidable, layered defense that helped to dissipate the German strength, leading to the overall Soviet success in the Battle:

It was not only the condition of our forces in the Kursk area that notably contributed to the failure of Operation Citadel, but also the skillfully constructed, deeply echeloned defenses. Although the German general and Western scholars almost never point to this factor as the decisive one in the Wehrmacht’s failure, I nevertheless consider it important to stop here and give it brief consideration. If the main efforts of both N. F. Vatutin and K. K. Rokossovsky in May–June 1943 are analyzed in detail, it is clear that they were directed toward improving the defensive lines and training the troops to use them effectively. There were also serious objective reasons for this. For example, as the inspections conducted in the first half of May by commissions sent from the General Staff testify, almost all the work on the first and second lines in the armies’ main belt of defenses in the Voronezh Front’s sector had been completed. As concerns the second and third belts, here the commissions found substantial, although not critical, shortcomings in their construction and layout (light mine laying in the zone between the belts, shallow trenches, poor camouflage, etc.), which had already to a significant degree been eliminated by the beginning of June. For example, prior to 5 May the 6th Guards Army had managed to deploy only 17 percent of its 90,000 anti-tank mines and 16 percent of its 64,000 anti-personnel mines, which nevertheless were all emplaced by 5 July. In the 7th Guards Army, the given indicators were also extremely low on 16 May, though higher than its neighbor’s: Approximately 22.4 percent of its 65,000 anti-tank mines and 16.9 percent of its 84,000 anti-infantry mines had been laid.23 Yet by 5 June, this situation had also sharply changed: the 6th Guards Army had carried out 50 percent of the plan regarding anti-tank mines and 62 percent of the plan regarding anti-personnel mines. The corresponding figures for the 7th Guards Army were 46.2 percent and 35.7 percent respectively.

Thus, we find decisive evidence that, in early May when the German attack was supposed to go forward originally, most of the defenses were not completed and still in poor shape, with mine laying significantly-around 80 or less-below the historical July state. It is worth noting that only the defenses the Germans historically broke through in July were completed by May, with the following belts which brought the Germans to a halt having not yet been finished and indeed, in many aspects far from it. I now ask the audience to ponder what that means when the Germans, with a tie in AFVs, break through said defenses and now have free reign in the Soviet rear without prepared defenses to halt such an action.

I thus fundamentally believe that, in such conditions, the Germans would've achieved their operational goal in terms of collapsing the Kursk Salient and mauling-if not destroying-all three Fronts contained within it. Such an action would serve to reduce the German front line in the East significantly, to the tune of freeing up 20 Divisions for the creation of a strategic reserve and allowing for a more compact, stable defensive line to emerge. While this would not have presented a decisive defeat to the USSR in terms of being a war winning blow directly, it would've established for the Germans the necessary strategic conditions to enforce a stalemate, preventing the Soviets from recovering the vital manpower and food resources of Ukraine, compounding the disaster from beyond the direct casualties inflicted upon them.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

It's possible an earlier offensive would have made a difference, but could the Germans have mounted one? I'm not so sure.

I think, IIRC, the best outcome would be to refrain from launching the offensive at all. Instead, stay on the defensive and grind the Russians down.

Chris

 

[Charles EP M.]

It's possible an earlier offensive would have made a difference, but could the Germans have mounted one?

Seems they could, just not the one they were starting to think they might need as Soviets built up defences. Since the Soviets kept building up and Sicily happened the same week, they do seem better off attacking earlier or not attacking at all.

 

[History Learner]

It's possible an earlier offensive would have made a difference, but could the Germans have mounted one? I'm not so sure.

To what extent? The logistics situation for the forces arrayed against Kursk favored the attackers more than the defenders; at this time, the Soviets were limited to one railway that could only run 40 to 45 trains a day for moving in forces and supplies. If its the question of forces, the Northern Sector was about as strong as it would be in July but the Soviet forces it would be facing were significantly weaker.

I think, IIRC, the best outcome would be to refrain from launching the offensive at all. Instead, stay on the defensive and grind the Russians down.

Chris

By June and certainly by July, I agree. In May, however, the correlation of forces and logistics favored the Germans much more than July did. In such a context, damaging and possibly destroying multiple Soviet fronts-ala Kharkov 1942-was always a good choice given exposed they were and even if that operational goal failed, pinching off the salient would reduce the front sufficiently to enable the Germans to create a 20 division reserve. Given how Smolensk went for the Soviets without said reserve for the Germans, it is likely that in such a context the Germans could've maintained a stalemate in the East for the rest of 1943.

 

[Torten]

I don't think a victory at Kursk would reduce the front enough to allow the Germans to create a 20 division reserve, given the general disparity of deployed manpower between the Germans and the Soviets at this point - the freed 20 divisions are probably used to reinforce the front in Ukraine. All it probably achieves is for the Germans to hold on to more ground during the Late 1943 offensives.

 

[Japhy]

I don't think a victory at Kursk would reduce the front enough to allow the Germans to create a 20 division reserve, given the general disparity of deployed manpower between the Germans and the Soviets at this point - the freed 20 divisions are probably used to reinforce the front in Ukraine. All it probably achieves is for the Germans to hold on to more ground during the Late 1943 offensives.

Yeah, the essential problem is that the Germans can't enforce a stalemate for more then a few months.

 

[Coiler]

Not that I'm saying that there'd be a rubber-banding effect when real conflicts don't work that way, but IOTL the Germans were lucky to avoid a lot of big encirclements in the 1943 Soviet offensives that wouldn't happen until the next year. There's a better-than-zero chance, especially if a victory makes them overconfident, that it wouldn't be the case in an alternate WWII.

Also I'm wondering what butterflies this hypothetical Kursk change would have on WAllied strategy. They had a (perfectly legitimate at the time) fear that the Soviets were on the ropes and that they'd need to take up the massive slack themselves. I can see them putting the Pacific on the back burner and trying to rush in a continental landing.

 

[Death's Companion]

Germany Infantry divisions tended towards understrength at this point in the war, hence the emphasis on Panzer divisions and when they noticed increased soviet forces they put their hopes on the Panthers to redress the gap. If they win at Kursk early they probably take moderate losses and inflict heavy losses on the Soviets (but not nearly as heavy as OTL) and gain some extra divisions but those units will then be engaged in the Soviet counter offensive or offensives elsewhere.


I think a German win at Kursk does them a lot of good in the short term, it does shorten their lines, eases their logistics and lets them keep their carefully rebuilt reserves in place. Sicily is still happening and probably ending the same way, they might have more forces to move to Italy but that's probably a net drain on them regardless even if they might actually be able to push the allies back into the sea at some points but not, harder and bloodier Italian campaign is quite possible.


In the East I think the biggest difference is the Germans have reserves and a coherent frontline, the Soviets probably are not shattering the Germans in a couple of campaigns as OTL but losses for both sides are going to be high and the Soviets have plenty of options. They'll be advancing West but more slowly. It might be 1945 before they are are advancing into Germany proper. Eisenhower might listen to Churchill and Montgommery about a push to Berlin if it seems they might reach it first, Czechoslovakia might seem more tempting.


War is probably months longer, death toll even higher though the exact differences are hard to pin down because well so much comes down to what happens after, what the offensive costs and how well the Soviets respond.

 

[Charles EP M.]

Also I'm wondering what butterflies this hypothetical Kursk change would have on WAllied strategy. They had a (perfectly legitimate at the time) fear that the Soviets were on the ropes and that they'd need to take up the massive slack themselves. I can see them putting the Pacific on the back burner and trying to rush in a continental landing.

Rushed landing in France, or Churchill jabbing at the Italy plans and saying "DID I MENTION THE SOFT UNDERBELLY OF EUROPE" loudly?

 

[Death's Companion]

Rushed landing in France, or Churchill jabbing at the Italy plans and saying "DID I MENTION THE SOFT UNDERBELLY OF EUROPE" loudly?

Sicily was happening regardless for logistics and air base reasons. I think Italy still happens, purely because the Soviets will need some pressure taking off them and knocking Italy out of the war is a fairly important objective and the forces are right there. But the Americans will still be pushing a 1943 landing but realities against that remain so Churchill might still win that argument.


Though...the Italian campaign had some quite dodgy moments OTL, ITTL it may be a bloodier and closer run thing I think the Allies still get a toehold but they will be going even slower than OTL. Churchill might be viewed even more critically for the soft underbelly nonsense if the campaign goes even worse than it did OTL.

 

[History Learner]

I don't think a victory at Kursk would reduce the front enough to allow the Germans to create a 20 division reserve, given the general disparity of deployed manpower between the Germans and the Soviets at this point - the freed 20 divisions are probably used to reinforce the front in Ukraine. All it probably achieves is for the Germans to hold on to more ground during the Late 1943 offensives.

It basically works by shortening the length of the front you have to defend; if you need 50 Divisions to defend, say, 200 miles of front, if you shorten your length of front by 100 miles, do you still need 50 divisions to defend 100 miles or, rather, you can now make do with 25 guarding the 100 mile front. The Germans did this in the Spring of 1943, before Kursk, by evacuating the Demyansk and Rzhev bulges, which freed up IIRC ~30-40 divisions all together.

Yeah, the essential problem is that the Germans can't enforce a stalemate for more then a few months.

That I am not sure of, as the historical irrecoverable casualty rates for the Soviets in 1943 was 3,698,697. Leaving aside the question of higher casualties for the Soviets as a result of loosing Kursk, total Soviet force growth without the recovery of the occupied territories would be 3,243,347 along with an indefinite number of comb outs through the USSR itself. Thus, the Red Army would be growing weaker as long as the front isn't moving. Indeed, this was a serious concern for the Soviets:

This is not to say that the Red Army did not try to make use of the manpower that could be found in the Caucuses and Central Asia - it just didn't work out. Language barriers represented a formidable obstacle to integrating non-Russian speaking populations into the Red Army. The Red Army raised twenty-six rifle or mountain divisions from the Caucuses, Central Asia, and Baltic states, but almost none of these were deployable against the Germans. Though four Armenian rifle divisions saw combat, as well as the majority of Georgian units, those cases proved the exception rather than the rule. For instance, only three of fifteen Uzbek units saw combat and the Chechen-Ingush cavalry divison never came close to a battlefield. The loss of population in Western Russia, Belorussia, and the Ukraine therefore had an outsized impact on Soviet military potential as a whole. Moreover, there is a strong argument that that had the Germans, even in failing to meet the goals of their 1941-1942 campaigns, merely been able to hold onto the Soviet population centers captured in 1941-1942 that the Red Army may have been in deep trouble. That's because as early as January of 1943 a key component in the Red Army's ability to rejuvenate its strength would be its ability to move west and recapture land and population lost to the Germans. For evidence as to that we need look no further than the Voronezh Front's experiences early in 1943 as it pursued German forces withdrawing from Southern Russia as the German pocket at Stalingrad was slowly being reduced.​

​

From January 13th to March 3rd 1943 the Voronezh Front's pursuit operations further beat up the Axis armies in Southern Russia but at a cost of 100,00 casualties (this included 33,331 irrecoverable losses) from the front's total initial strength of 350,000 men. To help ameliorate these losses the front received nearly 50,000 replacements during January and February. However, less than 10,000 of these replacements represented trained manpower released from the Stavka reserves. The largest single category of replacements comprised 20,902 men press-ganged into service from recaptured territory as the front moved west. The remainder consisted of front reserve units, previously sick or wounded men released from hospitals, liberated prisoners of war, penal troops (men released from the gulag and prisons) and the like. This meant that forty percent of the Voronezh Front's replacement manpower only came about because the front was able to move west. Nor was this situation unique. At this point in the war the Red Army was running short in the trained reserves needed to replenish the massive losses still being incurred while it also built up a strategic reserve and created new units.​

​

The manpower problems facing the Red Army proved a constant throughout the Second World War. Even December 1944 revisions to the shtat of rifle divisions (when the Red Army was otherwise knocking on Germany's door) saw the number of rear-area personnel assigned to a rifle division cut in half compared to where it had been in June of 1941 (1,852 to 3,359 such personnel). At the same time the Red Army had spent 1944 making strenuous efforts to locate and press into immediate service (i.e. without training) men as old as 45 from the recaptured territories in the Western Soviet Union. By 1945 the Red Army was even taking Soviet citizens and POW's found on the march into Germany. These people, who had previously been rounded up by the Germans for service in the Third Reich's factories, were being sent to flesh out front-line ranks even though most were hardly in the physical condition needed to perform adequately in combat. Going back to early in 1942 we find entire rifle divisions being manned by far from inexhuastible sources of manpower. For instance, in April of 1942 the 112th Rifle Division was manned by Siberian Russians and penal troops.​

 

[History Learner]

Germany Infantry divisions tended towards understrength at this point in the war, hence the emphasis on Panzer divisions and when they noticed increased soviet forces they put their hopes on the Panthers to redress the gap. If they win at Kursk early they probably take moderate losses and inflict heavy losses on the Soviets (but not nearly as heavy as OTL) and gain some extra divisions but those units will then be engaged in the Soviet counter offensive or offensives elsewhere.

1943 was actually the Post-Barbarossa height of the German Army's infantry divisions, averaging IIRC 80-90% of their doctrine requirements. Enduring the Whirlwind by Gregory Liedtke is a good read on the subject; on the Northern side of Kursk, the main striking power of 9th Army against Central Front was not AFVs but actually infantry.

I think a German win at Kursk does them a lot of good in the short term, it does shorten their lines, eases their logistics and lets them keep their carefully rebuilt reserves in place. Sicily is still happening and probably ending the same way, they might have more forces to move to Italy but that's probably a net drain on them regardless even if they might actually be able to push the allies back into the sea at some points but not, harder and bloodier Italian campaign is quite possible.

Historically, they sent one division to Italy and it fought partisans in the North for a few weeks before transferring back East.

In the East I think the biggest difference is the Germans have reserves and a coherent frontline, the Soviets probably are not shattering the Germans in a couple of campaigns as OTL but losses for both sides are going to be high and the Soviets have plenty of options. They'll be advancing West but more slowly. It might be 1945 before they are are advancing into Germany proper. Eisenhower might listen to Churchill and Montgommery about a push to Berlin if it seems they might reach it first, Czechoslovakia might seem more tempting.

War is probably months longer, death toll even higher though the exact differences are hard to pin down because well so much comes down to what happens after, what the offensive costs and how well the Soviets respond.

Mostly agreed, although I think the timing of the end of the war is delayed by many months, possibly into 1946.

 

[History Learner]

Mostly agreed, although I think the timing of the end of the war is delayed by many months, possibly into 1946.

Having learned more data about the importance in the recovery of the occupied territories from 1943 onward for the Red Army since this, at a minimum you can say it will significantly extend the course of the war:

Also of note, possibly as a stand alone PoD too, is that an industrial accident at NKB Plant No. 15 in early 1944 reduced planned Soviet explosives output from 32,000 tons to 15,500 tons in the first quarter of the year. The damage was still being felt in the second quarter of the year, as only 3,000 tons of output was achieved as compared to a goal of 27,800. Without recovered manpower and low explosives, the ability of the Soviets to pierce the Dnieper line sans a general German collapse can be rated as low.