Schematic plan · World War II (Eastern Front)

Battle of Kursk Counteroffensive (Southern Sector)

3 August 1943
USSR
Victory for USSR

A schematic plan, generated from the statistics of the CAA Database of Battles: the armies' size and width, the hours of fighting, the plan of attack and the outcome are as recorded; the ground and the positions are not.

USSR (Sov Voronezh Ag(+), 980,600 men under Gen Vatutin) attacked Germany (Ger 4th Pz Army(+), 280,000 men under Gen Hoth) in USSR. The CAA Database of Battles records 480 hours of fighting on a front of 250 km, a frontal attack, double envelopment against prepared defense and fortified defense, and that USSR won. Losses: USSR 117,700 (12%), Germany 39,500 (14%).

This plan is generated from those figures. It shows the shape of the battle the database describes: the size and width of the armies, the plan of attack and the outcome. It does not show where the units actually stood.

The armies

USSR

Gen Vatutin

Unit	Arm	Men
USSR left wing	Infantry	210,200
USSR centre	Infantry	280,267
USSR right wing	Infantry	210,200
USSR reserve	Infantry	175,167
USSR artillery (6,220 guns)	Artillery	93,300
USSR armour (2,293 tanks)	Armour	11,465
Gen Vatutin	Commander	—
In this plan		980,599

Germany

Gen Hoth

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	60,720
Germany centre	Infantry	80,960
Germany right wing	Infantry	60,720
Germany reserve	Infantry	50,600
Germany artillery (1,600 guns)	Artillery	24,000
Germany armour (600 tanks)	Armour	3,000
Gen Hoth	Commander	—
In this plan		280,000

What the sources report

	USSR	Germany
Strength, this plan	980,600	280,000
Losses, this plan	117,700	39,500

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 498, “Kursk Counteroffensive (Southern Sector)”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 480 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense, Fortified defense
Front width: 250 km (attacker), 250 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USSRattacker	980,600	117,700	0	6,220	Frontal attack; Double envelopment; Breakthrough
Germanydefender	280,000	39,500	0	1,600	Defensive/offensive plan; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · morale +2 · logistics +2 · momentum +1 · intelligence +2 · initiative +2 · air superiority +1

CDB90 (US Army Concepts Analysis Agency, 1990), tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold; data under ODC-BY 1.0.

Notes

On this reconstruction

Generated automatically from the statistics in CDB90. Frontages, depths, distances, the order of events and the terrain are schematic: they follow the recorded strengths, front widths, hours of fighting, tactical plan and outcome, not maps or accounts of the battle. The sources give no hours; the timing is conjectural.

Sources

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 498 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.

Facts gathered from Wikidata (CC0), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Wikimedia Commons (licence per file); the plan and its text are timeastra’s own.