Summer, 1943 plans: Season 3 opener, Episode 51

Beyond Barbarossa:

(Originally posted 22 June 2024)

Three seasons! 51 episodes!

This season begins with a catch-up on the Eastern Front, and the planning that led to the biggest battle in the history of warfare: Operation Zitadelle and the Battle of Kursk.

Map: The Kursk salient, spring 1943

Source: Wikipedia

Production and loss tables

Table 1: Comparative armaments production, January 1941 – December 1942

1941 1942 Germany USSR Germany USSR Rifles 1,359.000 2,421,000 1,370,000 4,049,000 Machine guns 96,000 149,000 117,000 356,000 Artillery 3,800 41,000 41,000 128,000 Tanks + self-propelled guns 8,400 6,600 6,200 24,700 Combat aircraft 12,400 11,600 21,700

German and Soviet war production. 1942–1944 (thousands of units)

1942 1943 1944 Germany USSR Germany USSR Germany USSR RIfles + submachine guns 1,602 4,619 2,509 4,801 3,085 3,006 Machine guns 117 356 263 458 509 439 Artillery 41 128 74 130 148 122 Tanks + self-propelled guns 6 24 11 24 18 29 Combat aircraft 12 22 19 30 34 33

Soviet tank and self-propelled gun losses

1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 Tanks and self-propelled guns available 28,200 35,700 47,900 59,100 48,900 Losses Heavy tanks 900 1,200 1,300 900 900 Medium tanks 2,300 6,600 14,700 13,800 7,500 Light tanks 17,300 7,200 6,400 2,300 300 Self-propelled guns 0 100 1,100 6,800 5,000

Source: Mawdsley, Thunder in the East, 2016

Images:

The German Tiger tank,Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger Ausf. E

Tiger tank in Kharkiv, 1943

The German Panther tank, Panzerkampfwagen V Panther

Source: Wikipedia.

Sources:

Antony Beevor, The Second World War. London, UK: Little, Brown and Co., 2012.

Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941–1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.

Anthony Tucker-Jones, Slaughter on the Eastern Front: Hitler and Stalin’s War 1941–1945. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2017

Wikipedia: The Battle of Kursk.