Panzer Ausf D of Panzer Abteilung 52 attached to 48th Panzer Corps serving with 4th Panzer Army.
Regarded by many as the finest of all of Germany’s senior commanders, Erich von Manstein commanded Army Group South during Zitadelle and oversaw the operation in the south of the salient. He was recognised early on in his career as possessing a remarkable grasp of strategy. Manstein was responsible for the plan behind the German invasion of France in 1940. Although not a tank general, he nonetheless demonstrated a consummate grasp of the principles of mobile warfare when commanding the 56th Panzer Corps during the invasion of Russia. Appointed commander of 11th Army in the Crimea, Hitler made him a Field Marshal after the capture of Sevastapol in July 1942. He was then given command of Army Group Don and led an abortive attempt to relieve Sixth Army in Stalingrad. Thereafter, he masterminded the German retreat from the Caucasus and managed, in March 1943, to retrieve and stabilize the situation by a counteroffensive victory at Kharkov. By that date, he had been made Commander of Army Group South. After Kursk, relations between Hitler and Manstein steadily declined and in March 1944, having presented him with the Swords to his Knights Cross, the Führer dismissed him from his command.
Generalfeldmarschall Erich von Manstein.
Affectionately known as ‘Papa’, the diminutive Hermann Hoth was promoted to Major-General and divisional commander in 1935. He took command of XV Motorised Corps and led it in the Polish campaign. Raised to full General in July 1940, it was during Barbarossa, when he commanded 3rd Panzer Corps as part of Army Group Centre, that he came to prominence. In October, he took command of 17th Army and thence 4th Panzer Army in 1942. He led this formation into the suburbs of Stalingrad and also as the centrepiece of the abortive attempt to relieve the encircled Sixth Army in the city in December. For the Kursk offensive, 4th Panzer Army provided the primary striking force in the southern sector of the salient. In its aftermath, he continued to command 4th Panzer Army in its retreat westward until relieved by Hitler in November.
Colonel-General Herman Hoth.
Werner Kempf began his Second World War career as Generalmajor and the commander of Panzer Division ‘Kempf’ in the invasion of Poland. He succeeded to the command of the 6th Panzer Division, leading it in the invasion of France. He was promoted thereafter to Generalleutnant and was awarded the Knights Cross. On 6 January 1941, he was appointed commander of 48th Panzer Corps and on 1 April General der PanzerTruppen. Following Hitler’s dismissal of General Lanz in February 1943, he appointed Kempf to take the latter’s place with his command being known as Army Detachment Kempf and served at Kursk. From May to September 1944, he commanded the Wehrmacht in the Baltic and was then transferred to the leadership reserve.
General of Panzer Troops Werner Kempf.
Assuming the post of Commander of Army Group Centre in December 1941 after Hitler sacked his predecessor, von Kluge was to remain in post until he was badly injured in October 1943. Kluge had commanded the Fourth Army in Poland, and led the Sixth in the Battle for France, for which he was rewarded by being promoted to Field Marshal. He commanded Fourth Army as part of Army Group Centre under the command of Field Marshal von Bock during Barbarossa. He oversaw the weathering of a number of Soviet offensives directed towards the destruction of his command and though he was unwilling to aid von Manstein using his own mobile forces to destroy the Kursk salient in March, he was a strong and unrelenting supported of Zitadelle. He took his own life in August 1944, when he was recalled to Berlin from his role as commander of German forces in Normandy on suspicion he had been involved in the 20 July Bomb Plot to kill Hitler.
Generalfeldmarschall Gunther von Kluge.
Hitler was to call Model ‘mein bester FeldMarschall’. His wartime career began in the rank of Generalmajor serving as Chief of Staff to IV Corps in Poland and Sixteenth Army in the French Campaign. He was appointed to command of 3rd Panzer Division in November 1940. Allocated to Second Panzer Group for Barbarossa, Model ruthlessly drove his well-trained division and it had reached the Dnieper by 4 July. It was in the winter of 1941–42 that he emerged as a defensive specialist. In January, he was appointed to command Ninth Army. It was then that he came to Hitler’s notice. In the winter of 42/43, he defeated Zhukov’s massive attempt to destroy the Rzhev salient. With the decision to abandon the salient so as to release Ninth Army for offensive operations in the summer, Model conducted an extremely successful withdrawal in March 1943. Ninth Army was allocated the responsibility for attacking the north of the salient in Operation Zitadelle. Following the failure of Zitadelle, his reputation survived and grew as he conducted successful defensive operations. He was entrusted with greater command responsibility by Hitler, who made him a Field Marshal in 1944. Model was employed on both the Eastern and Western Fronts in effect as the ‘Führer’s fireman’ from July 1944. He committed suicide on 21 April 1945.
Colonel-General Walter Model.
It was his Polish origins that had led to the arrest, imprisonment and torture of Rokossovsky as a spy in 1937. Until then, he had risen through the ranks of the Red Army and had in the early thirties even commanded Zhukov. In 1940, he was rehabilitated and released from prison – albeit minus nine teeth and his fingernails – and appointed Colonel. With the onset of Barbarossa he was commander of the 9th Mechanised Corps and in September, Stalin appointed him commander of 16th Army – the first composed entirely of soldiers serving in penal battalions. His career flourished, and as commander of the Don Front, led the north wing in the offensive that encircled Sixth Army in Stalingrad at the end of November 1942. Appointed commander of the Central Front he oversaw the construction of the defences, the strategy and the successful operations of the Soviet forces in the north of the Kursk salient. Thereafter he held senior commands, being promoted Marshal in 1944. In November he was made commander of the 2nd Belorussian Front. At the end of April 1945 his Front joined up with the forces of Montgomery in northern Germany. He had a significant post-war career.
Army General Konstantin K. Rokossovsky.
Nikolai Vatutin was regarded as one of the brightest of the younger cadre of commanders to emerge in the first years of the war. Prior to the German invasion he had held mainly staff posts and lacked command experience. At the end of June 1941 he was appointed as CofS of the North Western Front. In January 1942, he achieved the first encirclement of enemy forces by trapping two German corps in Demyansk. Between May and July he served as Deputy Chief of the General Staff after which Stalin despatched him as Stavka representative to the Bryansk Front. This was then renamed the Voronezh Front and Vatutin was appointed its commander. In late September he was transferred and given command of the new South-western Front and played a major role in the planning and execution of the defeat of Sixth Army in Stalingrad. Thereafter, he helped push the Germans back into the western Ukraine but his overextended forces were defeated by Manstein in his counteroffensive in February/March 1943. Stalin promoted him to the rank of Army General and gave him command of the Voronezh Front at the end of March. He then oversaw the construction of the defences in the south of the salient. His fondness for attack saw him try and convince Stalin on a few occasions before July to attack the Germans rather than await their offensive. He died in March 1944 following wounds received in an attack by a Ukrainian nationalist force.
Army General Nikolai F. Vatutin.
When war broke out in June 1941 Konev had already held a number of high military commands and was appointed to command the 19th Army. He played a major role in the counteroffensive before Moscow as commander of the Kalinin Front for which he was promoted to Colonel-General. In August 1942, he assumed command of the Western Front and in March 1943, the North-western Front. With Stalin’s decision to create the Steppe Reserve – the largest such formation created by the Red Army during the war – Konev was moved once more to take command of this massive formation. Renamed the Steppe Front, Konev was involved in the major counteroffensive operations that followed after the German defeat at Kursk, including the final recapture of Kharkov and the crossing of the river Dnieper. Renamed once more as the 2nd Ukrainian Front, Konev was involved in Red Army offensive operations in command of this formation through to war’s end including the Red Army’s last major operation of the conflict, the capture of Prague at the beginning of May 1945. He and Zhukov were seen by others and saw themselves as rivals. He remained a high-profile figure post-war and commanded Soviet forces in the suppression of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956.
Colonel General Ivan S. Konev.
Unsurprisingly German troops wore a variety of uniform during the course of the battle. While some landsers were still to be seen in feldgrau, the more common summer wear was the M1940 reed-green fatigue twill tunic with others dressed in the 1942 pullover style cotton shirt as outer clothing. The newer M1942 reed-green herringbone twill tunic with similar colour trousers was only appearing in quantity by the time of Kursk. Becoming more common by this date were lace-up ankle boots that were replacing the leather jackboot. In combat, infantry wore the M1935 steel helmet in its standard greenish-grey colour to which could be added webbing or a camouflage cover. A variety of Y-straps were employed attached to the belt to which were attached leather pouches carrying ammunition/magazines for either the Kar98 rifle or MP 38/40 machine pistol. Percussion and stick grenades were carried on the belt. When so armed, a pistol holder would be on this belt. The bayonet and an entrenching tool were worn behind the left hip. A gas mask container was carried on a diagonal slung strap. Although there were regulations to be adhered too, the strain on supply saw a variety of mix and match amongst officers and other ranks in all arms so it is impossible to define a prescribed uniform. Many tank crewmen still wore the distinctive black tunic top and trousers whilst others used just the black top with reed-green panzer fatigue trousers.
Waffen SS troops wore much of the same weaponry and variety of uniform as did the Heer, although their infanterie and panzer grenadiere were easily distinguishable by their camouflage smocks and helmet covers.
Senior German officers still had reason to believe that the effectiveness and quality of their troops remained superior to those of the enemy in the summer of 1943. But if the Red Army was a very different institution from that of two summers before, the same was also true of the Wehrmacht. Whereas the former was demonstrating improvements in all aspects of its performance, the latter was on a downward spiral, it was a lesser force than it had been when it invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941.
In 1943, the OKH had been obliged to introduce a new divisional structure that was governed by the reality of declining manpower. Whereas in 1939, an infantry division had an establishment of 17,734 men, this now fell to just 12,772 troops. Although retaining the same structure of three infantry regiments and one of artillery, each was reduced to just two battalions of 700 men. Even then, this was a paper establishment because such was the scale of losses that few divisions even possessed this level of manpower. Even Ninth Army, in the days before the launch of Zitadelle, reflected this reality. Only one of Model’s infantry divisions was described as being of the ‘highest offensive level’ with another four being fit for only ‘limited offensive action’.
Whilst Kursk is forever linked with the clash of armour, the deterioration of the German Army is best exemplified by the state of its primary arm – the infantry. This appears to be paradoxical inasmuch as there were 51 more infantry divisions in service in 1943 than two years before, when at the launch of Barbarossa, the Heer was fielding 175 divisions. This expansion was illusory; as we have already seen, the great losses in the infantry arm since 1941 had both substantially reduced divisional establishments and also seen a decline in the quality of replacements.
Historically, the Russian soldier has always been known as incredibly hardy and in the Second World War the German experience of the Red Army soldiery was no different. Although poorly trained compared to the German landser, the ordinary Soviet ranker at Kursk functioned within a ferociously hard and disciplined structure. He (and she) was nonetheless patriotic, stubborn, existing on little and prepared to die in the service of the Rodina (motherland) – which in this battle they were to do in their thousands.
The most apparent signal of the many changes affecting the Red Army in 1943 was the reintroduction of the pre-revolutionary shoulder boards and coloured piping representing different arms of service. Stalin was prepared to eschew ideology to foster a genuine sense of patriotism in the decision to reach back to the army of the old regime and its military heroes for new awards. Alongside this went the reduction in the powers of the political commissar who no longer had the power to override the professional military.
The basic component of the field uniform was the gymnastiorka – a simple blouse that looked like that worn by most peasants. Of the two issues, that worn by infantry at Kursk would have been for the summer and was made of cotton. Some pictures from the battle show soldiers wearing the padded telgroika jacket. By 1942, acute shortages of materials and dyes would have seen a profusion of hues of khaki and a wide variation in the quality of the clothing. Officers also wore the blouse. Both rankers and officers wore shovari, which resembled riding trousers and flared from the hip. A black belt was worn – rankers with an ordinary buckle whereas officers wore a Sam Browne belt and a more ornate brass buckle stamped with a Soviet Star. Footwear again was dependent on rank – officers wore black leather boots while ordinary ranks had low boots with puttees or high boots of lesser quality. Rain capes wear also issued and razvedchik troops wore camouflage smocks coloured khaki and black. Many soldiers wore their greatcoats even in high summer, especially at night. Headwear was primarily the steel helmet but many soldiers photographed in the battle are wearing khaki side caps. As with German soldiers, there were many variations that were a product of supply problems.
It was hoped that the introduction of many more and improved automatic weapons would serve to raise the volume and effectiveness of the firepower of the infantry in compensation for its smaller manpower level. Greater numbers of MP40 machine pistols were issued alongside the new MG42 heavy machine gun that supplemented the older MG34. Heavier mortars – the largest being the 120mm sGrW, which had been copied from a Soviet weapon of the same calibre – was serving alongside larger numbers of the 75mm Pak 40 anti-tank guns.
Such had been the losses in artillery in the previous two years that German forces at Kursk found themselves heavily outnumbered by the Red Army in this arm. The types of artillery pieces in service were no different than those with which the German Army went to war in 1939, nor was their organisation. In addition to conventional artillery there were the Neberlwerfer Abteilungen equipped with multi-barrelled rocket mortars as well as the new self-propelled artillery. Although these served in small numbers with panzer divisions, these saw standard artillery pieces mounted on full tracked chassis. The Wespe mounted the 105mm light field howitzer on a modified Panzer II chassis, the Grille mounted the 150mm infantry gun on an adapted Panzer 38(t) chassis and the 150mm heavy field Howitzer was mounted on a stretched Panzer III/IV chassis and named Hummel. All three saw service at Kursk for the first time.
It was the panzers operating en masse at Kursk that the Germans were reliant upon to be the primary instrument of the rapid victory demanded by Hitler. By the launch of Zitadelle, 70 per cent of the total armour available to the Ostheer had been allocated to the offensive. 85 per cent of the tanks and assault guns committed were of Panzer III, IV and StuG IIIs with the remainder comprising the Tigers, Panthers, Ferdinands and Brummbärs.
Not one of the German army tank divisions deployed the paper strength of the two-battalion regiment of 160 panzers. Other than the Grossdeutschland division and the three panzer grenadier divisions of II SS Panzer Corps, whose tank establishments were higher in consequence of their elite status, the panzer divisions disposed of an average of just 70 machines for the battle. Between the beginning of April and 22 June, 699 panzers and 318 assault guns were despatched eastward.
To ensure that the panzer and assault gun formations earmarked for Zitadelle were equipped for the task, the bulk of the rising numbers of both, in addition to the totally new designs leaving the production lines, were allocated to service the offensive.
The second most numerous panzer employed at Kursk was already being phased out of production in Germany. The limitations in the armour and firepower of the 22-ton Panzer III had been rudely exposed by encounters with the Red Army’s superior T-34 and KV tanks in the early days of Barbarossa. Although up-gunned with a longer 50mm L/60 gun, it remained deficient. Nonetheless, 668 served in the battle.
Assuming the role of the Mark III as the main tank in the panzer divisions was the 25-ton Panzer IV, whose turret ring was wide enough for it to be up-gunned with the long barrelled 75mm L/43 and L/48 weapons. While 1942 production of this type was still low, by 1943 it had risen to take the place of the Panzer III as the primary tank employed by the panzer divisions. 702 Mark IVs were available on 5 July.
The Panzer Mark III was obsolete by the time of Kursk but many served in the battle. This image shows the side skirts (schurzen) worn by many in the battle.
The most numerous German tank in the battle was the Panzer IV. This example is a Model G, without schurzen.
Representing a gun/armour combination which at the time of Kursk the Red Army could not match, the 57-ton Tiger 1 heavy tank had already proven itself a formidable tank killer. Its 88mm gun could penetrate all Soviet tanks. Its frontal armour was impervious at battle ranges to all Soviet anti-tank guns. Tiger tanks were allocated to special heavy tank battalions although just two of these – schwere Panzer Abteilungen 503 and 505 – served at Kursk, the three Waffen SS Panzer Grenadier divisions of the II SS Panzer Corps each fielded their own Tiger companies, as did the elite army division Grossdeutschland. 147 Tiger 1s would see action at Kursk with 102 of those serving in the south of the salient.
The Tiger 1 was the most powerful panzer to serve at Kursk.
The battle winner for Hitler: the new Panther medium tank seen loading up for transport to Russia to see service for the first time at Kursk.
Seeing service for the first time in the offensive was the 44-ton Panzerkampfwagen V Panther medium tank. Arising out of the need for a tank that could both defeat and be superior to the Russian KV and T-34, it drew on the latter in its use of sloped armour. Although its frontal armour was as heavy as that of the Tiger, that of its flanks was thinner. It mounted a 75mm L/70 high velocity gun that could take out a T-34 at long range. Its Achilles heel, due to premature commitment to combat, was its mechanical unreliability with a tendency for its engine to catch fire. Nonetheless, it took a heavy toll of Soviet tanks in the battle even though deemed to have been less than a success. 200 Panthers were allocated to the offensive.
The third most numerous type of German AFV at Kursk was a turret-less assault gun – the 23-ton Sturmgeschutz (abbreviated to StuG) – based on the Panzer III chassis and mounting the same 75mm gun as the Panzer IV. Other than Grossdeutschland and the Waffen SS divisions which had their own organic StuG units, all others were manned by members of the artillery and operated in StuG battalions (Abteilungen) of 31 machines. The bulk of these were attached to a panzer division or a corps for the offensive. 463 StuGs, including those mounting the 105mm howitzer for infantry support, were available for the offensive.
The Sturmgeschutz III – assault gun, or StuG. By summer 1943 it had acquired a reputation as a formidable tank killer.
Serving only with Ninth Army were 90 Ferdinand assault gun/heavy tank destroyers equipping two out of three battalions that formed PanzerJäger Regiment 656. Mounting an immensely powerful 88mm PaK 43 cannon, this machine was named for its designer Dr Ferdinand Porsche. Very thickly armoured and extremely heavy – weighting in at some 65 tons – Hitler expected much of it. But it lacked a machine gun for close-in defence and its novel electric drive – with each track being driven by a separate motor – was complex and prone to breakdown. Its weight made recovery difficult.
A line-up of the new heavyweight Ferdinand heavy assault gun before the battle; Hitler expected much of this machine. It only operated with Ninth Army.
The third battalion of PanzerJäger Regiment 656 was also equipped with a new type – the 45 Brummbären of Sturm-Panzer 216. Employing a Panzer IV chassis this assault tank mounted a 150mm heavy infantry howitzer in a fixed, heavily armoured superstructure. The 28-ton Brummbär had also been built without a machine gun for close-in defence that would have enabled them to deal with Soviet tank hunting teams.
Although not panzers, the one and three-ton half-track SPWs carried the panzer grenadiers that operated with the panzers and played a major role in German mobile warfare. They were also employed in many other roles and were vital components of the all-arms combat formations employed by them.
Tank/StuG/Pjag/SPG Strength of 4th Panzer Army – 5/7/1943: 1153
Tank/StuG/Pjag/SPG Strength of III Panzer Corps – 5/7/1943: 358
Tank/StuG/Pjag/SPG Strength of Ninth Army – 5/7/1943: 821
By the summer of 1943, the armament of the infantryman had improved substantially from that of earlier years. The basic weapon was the same as that of the First World War – the 7.62 Moisin Nagant Model 1891/30 with modifications. The most common sub machine gun was the PPsh with its distinctive drum magazine and wooden stock. Standard machine gun was the 7.62mm Degtyarev DP, nicknamed the ‘record player’ because of the large circular magazine it employed. The primary infantry anti-tank weapon was the anti-tank rifle, which although regarded as passé was employed with great effectiveness in its thousands in the battle, with, for example, troopers being told to target the vision blocks on the cupolas of German tanks.
Most other, non-tank Soviet armies encountered by the Germans in the battle contained either two or three rifle corps of between seven or twelve rifle divisions, with each deploying four artillery regiments equipped with 152mm heavy guns, 76mm divisional guns, 37mm AA guns and 122mm mortars. This gave each Army 1250 guns and mortars. These could be augmented at the behest of the Stavka to 2700 pieces. The measure of the growth of the size of these formations was that they were raised from 40,000 to 130,000 men.
In the absence of machines such as the German SPW to carry troops to operate alongside tanks, infantry had to be carried into battle by the desant method. Red Army infantry would mount the hull of a tank and then hold on to the railings that had been welded onto the hull and turret for this purpose. Unwilling to produce specialist machines like the German infantry half-tracks at the expense of tanks, it was only in 1942 and especially 1943, with the supply of many thousands of lorries from the US, that the Red Army began to acquire a degree of mobility that matched the Ostheer. The battle of Kursk witnessed the first massed employment of these machines.
‘I recorded a conversation with a Russian correspondent who had just been to Kursk. He said the Russian equipment there was truly stupendous; he had never seen anything like it. What was going to make a big difference this summer was the enormous number of American trucks; these were going to increase Russian mobility to an enormous degree. The Russian soldiers were finding them excellent.’ Alexander Werth
The Soviet artillery arm saw a formidable expansion in its destructive capabilities. The role of artillery had always had a special place in Red Army doctrine and the changes introduced in the first half of 1943 saw the new formations added to the order of battle to play an integral role. The primary artillery formation at the end of 1942 was the division, of which there were eleven, each fielding a maximum of 168 guns and mortars. In the months prior to Kursk a new formation was introduced, the purpose of which was apparent from its title. The Penetration Division could deploy 356 guns and mortars and when two were combined with a guard’s mortar division to form an Artillery Penetration Corps, it could deploy unprecedented firepower of no less than 712 guns/mortars and 864 Katyusha launchers. A similar expansion and organisational change occurred with anti-tank artillery when the artillery destroyer regiments, of which there were 240 at the end of 1942, were grouped into the larger brigade five months later. By the time of Kursk, 20 tank destroyer brigades had been created, with each deploying up to a maximum of 72 anti-tank and divisional guns of 45 and 76.2mm calibre (the 57mm coming into service by Kursk) serviced by 1850 troops.
By the time of Kursk, the Soviets were able to call on the influx of equipment streaming from their factories beyond the Urals and deliveries from the US and UK via Lend Lease. It was the tank formations that provided evidence that the Red Army was gearing up for massive offensive operations. The Tank Army was introduced to become the core Red Army formation with five established by order in January 1943 – all of which would be engaged within the salient and in the counteroffensive operations. Each comprised on paper two tank and one mechanised corps fielding about 800 tanks with integral artillery, katyusha, SP gun and other supporting regiments. The massive expansion in tank output also saw armour distributed to separate tank brigades and regiments that were increased in number and size, the latter fielding 66 T-34s and 21 T-70s. There was also a smaller number of ‘heavy’ KV-1 and KV-1S tanks serving in ‘penetration regiments’.
One of the primary weaknesses of Soviet tanks that superior German command and control had been able to exploit was their limited number of radios. By the summer of 1943, these were far more common with large numbers of American sets delivered via Lend-Lease being fitted into T-34s, enabling formations to function with greater direction and coherence.
The high level of productivity lends strong credibility to the case that it was the Red Army that benefited in every respect from the long delay by Hitler in launching Zitadelle. The mass of T-34s produced between April and the end of June permitted the Soviets to build up superiority in numbers in and around the salient and mass such a huge reserve beyond it that even when large numbers were destroyed during the course of the limited German advance, those available for the counteroffensive operations were so numerous and operated over such a wide area that they overwhelmed all German attempts to contain the Red Army post-Kursk.
The mass-production of the T-34 and its ubiquity on the battlefield at Kursk (and beyond) came in many ways to epitomise the Soviet way of war encapsulated in a saying from Lenin, wholeheartedly endorsed by Stalin: ‘Quantity has its own quality.’
By spring of 1943, 2000 T-34s were being produced a month on the production lines in the factories beyond the Urals. Life expectancy for a new T-34 at this time was about one week.
It was the appearance of the Tiger and intelligence acquired of the specifications of the new Panther that finally prompted development of a larger turret with an 85mm gun on the T-34 chassis, but this would not enter service until early 1944.
By the summer of 1943, the T-34 had become the predominant tank in production and in service with the Red Army, with all medium tank formations being equipped with it. Although by then, the 26-ton T-34 no longer retained the technical edge over its opponents, this was compensated for by the far greater numbers of this machine available. Although the limitation of the 76.2mm main armament had been recognised in 1942, when the Germans introduced the up-gunned Stug III and Panzer IV, the decision was taken to retain the gun so as not to interfere with production. This, by early 1943, was running at 2000 tanks per month in the factories beyond the Urals.
The second most numerous tank used by the Red Army at Kursk was the T-70 light tank. Weighing 9.5 tons and manned by a crew of two it had a main armament of a 45mm gun. Many were lost in the battle and post-Kursk, the decision was taken to phase out the light tank altogether although the chassis was retained as the basis of the Su-76M SPG, which also saw service for the first in the battle.
The KV-1 heavy tank, which had made such an impression on the Germans in 1941 was a declining asset two years later. Although strongly armoured, it carried the same gun as the T-34 and cost nearly three times as much to produce. A lighter variant called the KV-1S but still mounting the same gun, had been introduced towards the end of 1942. It was this variant that was mainly encountered by the Germans at Kursk. An assault gun, designated the SU-152, was developed very quickly employing the KV-1 chassis and mounting a 152mm gun to counter the Tiger and Panthers at Kursk. Only a few saw action in the battle.
Central Front: 318 Tanks/SUs 9th, 19th Individual Tank Corps
600 – 2nd Tank Army
Voronezh Front: 634 Tanks/SUs – 1st Tank Army
696 Tanks/SUs – 2nd, 10th, 2nd Guards, 5th Guards Individual Tank Corps
Steppe Front: 850 Tanks/SUs – 5th Guards Tank Army
Few KV-1 heavy tanks saw action at Kursk. The few that did were organised into independent tank units.