The Competition & Teaser Thread

[ComradeP]

Do you have Nipes BMSteel book?

Unfortunately, no. I have Robin Cross' book on the battle of Kursk and various German books covering operations of Army Group South, but no very detailed German book at the moment.

The Prokhorovka-Pokrovka railroad might be post-war, some of the RKKA maps depict it as being there but those might be post-war. The railroad also stops in the middle of nowhere after Pokrovka. The maps that were presumably drawn shortly after the battle don't show it.

I guess if it's an early counterattack, the Guards Tank Corps could still be the 2nd and 5th, as the 5th was pushed east by the SS. Exactly how or why they managed to then move across or north of the German route of advance to 1st Tank Army isn't clear to me at the moment.

Start of the German offensive in the south from the Soviet perspective:

The capital Western-style M indicates a mechanized unit, the "m" (or t) indicates a tank unit.

The reverse S and the...pretzel in front of the unit's size indication after its number indicate a Guards unit.



Later days:



Hmm, you might be right after all.

This map is titled "situation on the beginning of the 8th and planned counterblow of the front"



This is the end of the day map for the 8th:



Note that Teterevino is held only by a Guards Rifle Regiment, the 158th, of the 51st Guards Rifle Division. The 23rd Guards Rifle Corps of 6th Guards Army, which the formation belonged to, was probably one of the hardest hit formations during Zitadelle as it was hit by the full force of II SS Panzer Korps.

The 93rd Guards Rifle is in the south, the Cyrillic either says in Russian that it changes to 2nd Guards Tank Corps or that it replaces 2nd Guards Tank Corps, but that is less likely.

German sources only mention limited counterattacks that didn't really get anywhere or were scattered/shattered by the Luftwaffe.

How did I not see those maps the first time I browsed through the maps you ask? Well, to quote the laws of anime: "People never notice the little things, like missing body parts, or wounds the size of Seattle."