80th Anniversary of Victory at the Battle of Kursk
Selected Collection of German Soldiers II

At 21:40, the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht telegraphed that the action plan of the Central Army Group had been approved… The date of attack (X day, originally May 1) will be postponed by ten days God… The commander of the Ninth Army thought that the date of action was too early… The situation of our armored forces is not optimistic… The

world-renowned Battle of Kursk was originally scheduled to start on May 1, 1943, but due to various reasons, the German army The preparatory work has not been completed for a long time, and it has been delayed until July. On the one hand, this reduced the suddenness of the attack, and on the other hand, it gave the Soviet army sufficient preparation time. Although the Germans were unsuccessful in eradicating the Kursk Bulge, their armored units performed brilliantly during the campaign. In addition to the Tiger tanks that were previously in service, the Black Panther D tank and the Ferdinand self-propelled anti-tank gun have also withstood the baptism of war. There are so many legends and rumors about these three vehicles that people often It will be forgotten that they made up only a small fraction of the combat vehicles of the German army. It is the humble No. 3 and No. 4 tanks that really take the lead in the armored division.

During the Battle of Kursk, the 2nd Armored Division of the Wehrmacht assumed command of Model’s 9th Army. The 3rd Armored Regiment under the division is based in Austria. The emblem of the regiment is the double-headed eagle pattern of the Habsburg dynasty. The regimental emblem painted on the side of the turret gives their tanks a little “nobility”. From May to August 1943, the German armored forces on the Eastern Front were in a state similar to “lean and yellow”-there were too few Panther tanks and they were immature, and they could not take on the heavy responsibility of the main tank. The role of the No. 3 tank has changed from a main tank to a support tank. Its last long-barreled model, the No. 3 M, has been discontinued. The No. 3 N, which is equipped with a short-barreled 7.5cm gun, is still being produced and modified in small quantities. The Model Four G, which had a production cycle of more than a year, is about to be discontinued to make way for the new Model Four H. At the beginning of the Battle of Kursk, the 2nd Armored Division had 12 long-barrel Panzer III tanks, 20 Panzer III N-type tanks, and 59 long-barreled Panzer IV tanks