(03-14-2010, 07:53 AM)Bear Wrote: One potential fallacy of this report/study is that it relies mainly on German counts of tanks lost. I.e. the "Elefant" AG was involved at Kursk yet there is no reported losses. This alone creates a gap in the credibility of the report.
As is the usual case when studying/assessing Orders of Battle and losses etc in the War in Russia. It is safe to take the numbers offered by the Germans and Russians and find the mean difference or simply average them to come to a relative conclusion.
I often use Karl Schultz aka Paul Carell's trilogy:
- Hitler's War on Russia
- Scorched Earth
- DER RUSSLANDKRIEG, Fotografiert von Soldaten
As the most reliable source and/or cross reference.
Have a great day!
Uhhh, where do you get that these numbers reflect just german accounts??? This report is based on german strength and loss reports for the german numbers and soviet strength and loss reports for the soviet numbers. No fallacy there. These are the numbers as reported by the respective formation commanders at the time. And they are the numbers for the battle at Prochorovka (and the days before and after), not the numbers for the whole of the Kursk campaign.
Your remark on the 'Elefant' illustrates the point of the myth perfectly. There were no Ferdinands (Elefant btw was the name given to the variant of the vehicle which appeared after Kursk) at Prochorovka. Prochorovka was purely a matter of the southern german pincer and all the Ferdinands were assigned to the northern pincer. So any report which mentions Ferdinands at Prochorovka can be dismissed out of hand. Similarly there were no Panthers at Prochorovka either. While those were part of the southern pincer, they were all attached to the Gross Deutschland division which never even came close to Prochorovka. So any report which mentions Panthers at Prochorovka can likewise be dismissed out of hand.
The sources listed at the bottom of the essay are extensive studies done using primairy source material to get the real numbers (from both sides), not just repeating what others wrote about the battle. The are NOT just the german numbers for the battle.
Narwan