The Battle of Kursk in July 1943 is known for being the largest tank battle in history. A Russian victory, it marked the decisive end of the German offensive capability on the Eastern Front and set the scene for the Soviet successes that followed. While many have focused on the tank engagements, especially the Battle of Prokhorovka, there was an intense air battle going on overhead that was bigger than the Battle of Britain. As part of the German offensive, the Luftwaffe’s VIII Air Corps deployed around 1,100 aircraft in the south alone, while the opposing Soviet Second and Seventeenth air armies initially deployed over 1,600 aircraft. There was a similar effort surrounding the German attack in the north. The battle in the south began with a Soviet air strike on German airfields and a fight for control of the air that continued throughout the day across the front. On the first day of the battle, 5 July 1943, the Germans flew at least 2,387 sorties in the south while the two Soviet air armies flew 1,688 sorties. That first day of battle resulted in 19 to 27 German planes and 189 Soviet aircraft shot down. This was an aerial engagement like no other ever seen before. Involved on the German side were the 52nd and 3rd Fighter Wings. The 52nd Fighter Wing was the most accomplished fighter wing in history and many of its top aces were involved in the combats over the Kursk battlefield. These included Walter Krupinski (197 claimed kills in the war), Günther Rall, the third highest scoring ace in history (275 claimed kills), and the highest scoring ace in history, Erich Hartmann (352 claimed kills). Opposing them were what were to become three of the top five Soviet aces: Kirill Yevstigneyev (53 claimed kills), Nikolai Gulayev (55 claimed kills) and the top scoring Allied ace of the war, Ivan Kozhedub (62 claimed kills). This was indeed the battle of the aces. But there was also the massive ground attack effort by both sides, including the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka fitted with 37mm anti-tank guns flown by the man who would become most decorated soldier of the Third Reich, Hans-Ulrich Rudel. The aerial battle involved hundreds of Soviet Sturmoviks, or IL-2s, Stalin’s armored ground attack plane. The battle featured the famous attack by Luftwaffe Hs-129s and Fw-190s on Soviet armor on 8 July 1943. Aces at Kursk is not just a war story, but a revealing investigation that analyses the entire air battle that turned the tide of the war on the Eastern Front.

A ground-breaking new study that transforms our understanding of one of the most famous battles of the Second World War, widely mythologized as the largest tank battle in history. Today in Russia there are three official sacred battlefields: Kulikovo, where the Mongols were defeated in 1380; Borodino, where Russian troops slowed Napoleon's Grande Armée before Moscow in 1812; the third is Prokhorovka, where the Soviet annihilation of Hitler's elite SS Panzer force on 12 July 1943 in the largest armoured clash in history has traditionally been described as a key turning point in the war. The Panzers of Prokhorovka challenges this narrative. The battle was indeed an important Soviet victory, but a very different one to that described above. Based on ground-breaking archival research and supported by previously unpublished images of the battlefield, Ben Wheatley argues that German armoured losses were in fact negligible and a fresh approach is required to understand Prokhorovka. This book tackles the many myths that have built up over the years, and presents a new analysis of this famous engagement.

Second issue, the level is even higher than in issue 1, with 104 pages dedicated to more amazing armor, with reference sections, specialized techniques, product map, and our famous school of techniques. A must have magazine for lovers of military and civilian vehicles and for modellers who love quality modelling.

After the defeat at Stalingrad, Hitler had lost his momentum and was looking for a way to regain it. Operation Citadel was the intended means to fulfill that objective. If successful, a number of Soviet armies would be destroyed and the front line shortened, allowing for a better disposition of troops and a chance to rebuild Germany's exhausted reserves. This book provides comprehensive coverage of the operational events on both salients. It also includes critical analysis of both sides that points out errors of judgment or application that collectively had an important impact on campaign results. The book is highly annotated to give the reader additional sources to study and to provide additional perspectives to gain as complete an understanding of this critical campaign as possible. Besides an extensive text, the book's key strength is its mapping - 32 full-page color maps are accompanied by 7 large foldout sheets of maps, also in color. Together these specially commissioned maps provide a remarkably detailed guide to the combat operations. Thunder at Prokhorovka is destined to become an important reference to the Battle of Kursk.

The author of Case White offers an extensive history of German and Soviet armored warfare toward the end of World War II. By 1943, after the catastrophic German defeat at Stalingrad, the Wehrmacht’s panzer armies gradually lost the initiative on the Eastern Front. The tide of the war had turned. Their combined arms technique, which had swept Soviet forces before it during 1941 and 1942, had lost its edge. Thereafter the war on the Eastern Front was dominated by tank-led offensives and, as Robert Forczyk shows, the Red Army’s mechanized forces gained the upper hand, delivering a sequence of powerful blows that shattered one German defensive line after another. His incisive study offers fresh insight into how the two most powerful mechanized armies of the Second World War developed their tank tactics and weaponry during this period of growing Soviet dominance. He uses German, Russian, and English sources to provide the first comprehensive overview and analysis of armored warfare from the German and Soviet perspectives. This major study of the greatest tank war in history is compelling reading.

The story of history's largest armored battle Descriptions of Tigers, Panthers, and T-34s in combat Based on declassified Russian documents and captured German records A significant turning point of World War II, the battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943 was the Germans' last major offensive on the Eastern Front. Marked by pitched clashes between German Tiger tanks and Soviet T-34s, the engagement began well enough for the Germans, but the Soviets delayed them long enough to bring their reserves forward, counterattack, and force Hitler to call off the attack. Hundreds of thousands lay dead or wounded on both sides, but the Soviets won the battle and seized the initiative for the rest of the war.

Inspired by the online game World of Tanks, two tank crews-one German, one Soviet-fight for survival in the mighty Battle of Kursk, in this action-packed story of armored combat in World War II. A Russian tank crew begins an unwelcome mission in a very unwelcome Matilda tank, and soon find themselves at odds with both the war and each other. Meanwhile, two German tankers find themselves deep behind enemy lines--cut off, on their own, and without their beloved Panzer IV.

“Comprehensive scholarship and convincing reasoning, enhanced by an excellent translation, place this work on a level with the best of David Glantz” (Dennis Showalter, award-winning author of Patton and Rommel). This groundbreaking book examines the battle of Kursk between the Red Army and Wehrmacht, with a particular emphasis on its beginning on July 12, as the author works to clarify the relative size of the contending forces, the actual area of this battle, and the costs suffered by both sides. Valeriy Zamulin’s study of the crucible of combat during the titanic clash at Kursk—the fighting at Prokhorovka—is now available in English. A former staff member of the Prokhorovka Battlefield State Museum, Zamulin has dedicated years of his life to the study of the battle of Kursk, and especially the fighting on its southern flank involving the famous attack of the II SS Panzer Corps into the teeth of deeply echeloned Red Army defenses. A product of five years of intense research into the once-secret Central Archives of the Russian Ministry of Defense, this book lays out in enormous detail the plans and tactics of both sides, culminating in the famous and controversial clash at Prokhorovka on July 12, 1943. Zamulin skillfully weaves reminiscences of Red Army and Wehrmacht soldiers and officers into the narrative of the fighting, using in part files belonging to the Prokhorovka Battlefield State Museum. Zamulin has the advantage of living in Prokhorovka, so he has walked the ground of the battlefield many times and has an intimate knowledge of the terrain. Examining the battle primarily from the Soviet side, Zamulin reveals the real costs and real achievements of the Red Army at Kursk, and especially Prokhorovka. He examines mistaken deployments and faulty decisions that hampered the Voronezh Front’s efforts to contain the Fourth Panzer Army’s assault, and the valiant, self-sacrificial fighting of the Red Army’s soldiers and junior officers as they sought to slow the German advance and crush the II SS Panzer Corps with a heavy counterattack at Prokhorovka. Illustrated with numerous maps and photographs (including present-day views of the battlefield), and supplemented with extensive tables of data, Zamulin’s book is an outstanding contribution to the growing literature on the battle of Kursk, and further demolishes many of the myths and legends that grew up around it.