MontyB
All-Blacks Supporter
This is a question I have been asking myself for quite a while now and since the forums are quiet I figured I may as well ask it here.
When you look at the maps of the Kursk Salient and read all the books you can find on the matter it strikes me that it was a doomed plan from day one but the thing I do not understand about the Battle of Kursk is why its goals were so small and continually made smaller as the battle unfolded.
Basically it seemed for some reason the Germans had decided to attack the strongest sections of a massive defensive position instead of following the more standard approach of going around the strong points and the way to achieve this in my opinion not to continually move the axis of advance north south but rather in an easterly direction, another words rather than having the pincers meet at Kursk they could have avoided the entire defensive position by meeting in the area of Voronezh.
Surely Manstein knew what he was facing as the Luftwaffe had air superiority at the time and was claiming to have photographed every inch of the battlefield and even if you take into account camouflage and deception the size and nature of the defences must have been obvious.
When you look at the maps of the Kursk Salient and read all the books you can find on the matter it strikes me that it was a doomed plan from day one but the thing I do not understand about the Battle of Kursk is why its goals were so small and continually made smaller as the battle unfolded.
Basically it seemed for some reason the Germans had decided to attack the strongest sections of a massive defensive position instead of following the more standard approach of going around the strong points and the way to achieve this in my opinion not to continually move the axis of advance north south but rather in an easterly direction, another words rather than having the pincers meet at Kursk they could have avoided the entire defensive position by meeting in the area of Voronezh.
Surely Manstein knew what he was facing as the Luftwaffe had air superiority at the time and was claiming to have photographed every inch of the battlefield and even if you take into account camouflage and deception the size and nature of the defences must have been obvious.