Kursk! Creating a Project

 Why it is Interesting to Wargamers

The pure scale of the battle.  

The Battle of Kursk is one of the largest single battles of WWII involving 2,000,000 troops, 6,000 armored fighting vehicles, and 4,000 aircraft.  It is difficult to place that in scale of how large a battle that was especially for those of us who grew up in the west.    The fighting on D-Day involved 200,000 men and the height of operations in the North West Europe Theater of Operations was a combined total of 2,750,000 men prior to the push into Germany in 1945.

The gamers belief that the German's were close to victory.   

Often when gamers look at large battles they key into small decision declaring "I would never do that, it cost them victory."  The Battle of Kursk, or rather the individual engagements offer plenty of those small decisions.  Some large ones as well.  

As an individual with a History Degree and reading five to many books on the topic, the Germans were never in a position to win the battle.  Even if they did it wouldn't really change anything.   They were grossly out numbered on multiple fronts and the American war machine was now in high gear.        

As an scenario designer it appears feasible to build multiple scenarios on both the northern and southern fronts that have opportunity for both sides to succeed and win.   

Tanks, Tanks and more Thanks.  

With over 6,000 armored fighting vehicles engaged, Kursk is the largest tank battle in history.   A gamers delight as it were.   

On the Western Front to adequately have a historic game you should have roughly 9 to 10 stands of infantry for every single stand of Armor.   Gamers "love" tanks and only begrudgingly play infantry, as a general rule of thumb.   So you usually see too much armor represented on the western front, from the Western Desert to Northwest Europe.   At Kursk depending on the exact engagement it is more of a one to one ratio at the platoon level.   .    

Kursk! - Creating a project

Background

Operation Barbarossa began on 22 June 1941 as the German Military and its allies began the invasion of the Soviet Union, creating the Eastern Front.  The onslaught of the German Military might continued for nearly 6 months as they pushed the armed forces of the Soviet Union back over 600 miles.   In December 1941 the German Offensive stalled and the Soviet Counter offensives began creating a war of attrition the Germans and their allies could not win.

In the spring of 1942 the Germans had stabilized the Eastern Front and began a new series of offensive attacks to defeat the Soviet armed forces.   The Soviets prepared for the summer offenses of the Germans by planning to defend Moscow at all costs.   The German offenses of summer of 1942 practically ignored Moscow as they targeted other strategic locations.   One of these German offenses targeted the Soviet city of Stalingrad in the Southwest of Russia.   Stalingrad was an essential transportation hub on the Volga river, connecting the greater Soviet Union to resources of the southern Russia, namely oil.   The Germans also saw propaganda in taking a city named after the leader of the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin.      

The battle of Stalingrad began in August 1942 and quickly turned into a grinding back and forth inch by inch battle.   As the calendar neared the end of 1942 the Soviet Army launched two offenses of their own near Stalingrad, Operation Uranus and Operation Little Saturn.    The conclusion of Operation Little Saturn saw the German Sixth Army surrounded and in February 1943 the German Sixth Army Surrendered.  

The loss of the German Sixth Army nullified much of the gains of the German Army and their allies had achieved in Caucus region of the Soviet Union during the summer of 1942.   In early spring 1943 the German Army planned a summer offensive which would isolate and destroy several individual Soviet Armies.  The plan was to allow the Soviets to reinforce a salient or outward bulge in the front lines of the Eastern Front near the Soviet City of Kursk.   

The Germans Wehrmacht (Army) were desperately under strength at this point, the average unit was between 33% and 50% undermanned.   This factor pushed the lead from the Wehrmacht's infantry divisions to the German Mechanized Panzer Divisions.     

In 1941 and 1942 the Military Intelligence of the Soviet Armed forces were virtually blind to the German Plans.   They made guesses based upon what the knew and were wrong more often then they were right.   In 1943 it was different story.   The British Intelligence agency was sharing decoded high level communications between the German Command in the field and headquarters in Berlin, they had cracked the enigma code.   The Soviet military planners planned a war of attrition using a defense in depth strategy.   With a defense in depth strategy the Soviet military planners also allowed for floating reserves giving local commanders the ability to commit these forces.   

The German offensive started on July 5 and lasts 11 days.   The Soviet counter offense begins on July 12 and lasts until August 23rd.   

The battle of Kursk, or battles if you'd prefer, took place halfway between the invasion of Soviet Union with Operation Barbarossa and the surrender of the German Armies to the Allies.   The result of the battle was a tactical stalemate for both sides, but a strategic victory of the Soviet Union.   The Germans for the first time did not break through the Soviet defenses.   The Soviet losses were horrific.   The cost of men and machine are still debated in academic circles today.