What really happened at Prokhorovka??

[lucaswillen05]

Mote a;so that Rotmistrov might be the original source of the Soviet era myth. He was culpable as commander of 5th GTA for what happened to his command evenm though Commissar Khruschev bullied huim into a premature counter offensive. His position and likely his life depended on being able to give a good explanation to Stalin for what happened. It is not known exactly what was said at the meeting between Stalin and Rotmistrov but Stalin seems to have accepted the explanation that 2nd SS Pamzer Corps haf hundred of Tigers and Panthers. We now know from Nipe's research into the Corps archives that there were no Panthers and only a handful of Tigers/ Had the SS really had Tigers and Panthers in the numbers claimed by Rotmistrov and based on the Soviet losses inflicted on the day 5th Guayurds Tank Army would not have simply been eviscerated with thr loss of at least 400 tanks. They would have been virtually annihilated Nipe analyses this in detail and Zamulin's work corroborates hs analysis ftom a more honest Russian perspective

 

[ObssesedNuker]

And 4th Kharkov was decisive.

Decisive how? The Germans survived to fight another day and heavily bloodied Soviet troops. The Soviets failed to destroy AG-South, which had been their primary goal. Indeed the Germans also failed to check the Soviet advance, but nothing decisive was achieved, the front pulled back to the Dniepr, both sides recovered to a point, and the fighting went on. Decisive would be the Soviet 1944 offensives, which actually wiped out entire armies.

From the most strictest interpretation of the term, neither any of the battles of Kharkov, Kursk, or any of the 1944 Soviet campaigns meet the definition of "decisive". Indeed, there is no battle in WW2 that meets the definition, simply because the way war between great powers had evolved had largely rendered the concept of the "Decisive Battle" obsolete.

 

[alexmilman]

Mote a;so that Rotmistrov might be the original source of the Soviet era myth. He was culpable as commander of 5th GTA for what happened to his command evenm though Commissar Khruschev bullied huim into a premature counter offensive. His position and likely his life depended on being able to give a good explanation to Stalin for what happened. It is not known exactly what was said at the meeting between Stalin and Rotmistrov but Stalin seems to have accepted the explanation that 2nd SS Pamzer Corps haf hundred of Tigers and Panthers. We now know from Nipe's research into the Corps archives that there were no Panthers and only a handful of Tigers/ Had the SS really had Tigers and Panthers in the numbers claimed by Rotmistrov and based on the Soviet losses inflicted on the day 5th Guayurds Tank Army would not have simply been eviscerated with thr loss of at least 400 tanks. They would have been virtually annihilated Nipe analyses this in detail and Zamulin's work corroborates hs analysis ftom a more honest Russian perspective

True about Rotmistrov. He ended up blaming Soviet tank designers for not producing an upgraded version of T34 (T34/85) in time for Kursk. Greater Soviet tank losses are not surprise because the older version of T-34 since the late 1942 had known problems with inability to penetrate armor of the upgraded German tanks (Panzer IV with 75mm gun) beyond few h7ndred meters while the German guns had been effective against T34 from a distance of over 1km.

However, the point remains that Prokhorovka was mostly an over advertised tactical event which was, on a Soviet side, a stop gap measure with a purpose to stop German advance in a specific sector. Even a tangible German success there would mean little because ambitious Manstein’s plan of encirclement already failed and a greater success in this sector would create a deeper salient with all related problems. Unlike the Germans, the Soviets had plenty of the strategic reserves for a massive counteroffensive on both flanks.

 

[lucaswillen05]

True about Rotmistrov. He ended up blaming Soviet tank designers for not producing an upgraded version of T34 (T34/85) in time for Kursk. Greater Soviet tank losses are not surprise because the older version of T-34 since the late 1942 had known problems with inability to penetrate armor of the upgraded German tanks (Panzer IV with 75mm gun) beyond few h7ndred meters while the German guns had been effective against T34 from a distance of over 1km.

However, the point remains that Prokhorovka was mostly an over advertised tactical event which was, on a Soviet side, a stop gap measure with a purpose to stop German advance in a specific sector. Even a tangible German success there would mean little because ambitious Manstein’s plan of encirclement already failed and a greater success in this sector would create a deeper salient with all related problems. Unlike the Germans, the Soviets had plenty of the strategic reserves for a massive counteroffensive on both flanks.

Yes, on an operational level the Red Army achieved the objective of exhausting II SS Panzer Corps and gaining time. Nipe in particular details the strategic reserves available
Renewing the drive on Kursk with those strategic reserves on the right flank/rear of the attack would have been dangerous and foolhardy.

 

[lucaswillen05]

Wiking

You remain reliant on posting Wikipedia links to support your arguments. Wikipedia is, at best, an introductory source and not always reliable. You would be better off going to the actual text books ef Glantz, Zanulin, Nipe, Schrank, Lawrence, Newtton. It would be safe to assume that most informed people will have at least some of them!

 

[alexmilman]

From the most strictest interpretation of the term, neither any of the battles of Kharkov, Kursk, or any of the 1944 Soviet campaigns meet the definition of "decisive". Indeed, there is no battle in WW2 that meets the definition, simply because the way war between great powers had evolved had largely rendered the concept of the "Decisive Battle" obsolete.

Indeed. Decisive battle is just a battle in which a definite result is achieved. It was achieved at Kursk: the Red Army liquidated the Kursk Salient and the German failed in their attempt to conduct a major encirclement. How much more definite the results could be?

It can be argued that this was not a decisive victory for the Soviets (What would qualify as “decisive victory”? Taking Berlin?) but, if we use definition saying that it should resolve an objective, ending one stage of war and moving to another, it would probably qualify as well: the stage of the major German offensives on the Eastern front was over.

 

[lucaswillen05]

Indeed. Decisive battle is just a battle in which a definite result is achieved. It was achieved at Kursk: the Red Army liquidated the Kursk Salient and the German failed in their attempt to conduct a major encirclement. How much more definite the results could be?

It can be argued that this was not a decisive victory for the Soviets (What would qualify as “decisive victory”? Taking Berlin?) but, if we use definition saying that it should resolve an objective, ending one stage of war and moving to another, it would probably qualify as well: the stage of the major German offensives on the Eastern front was over.

I would suggest to you that it was the outcome of the summer 1943 fighting on the Army Group South sector. If we define thee Battle of Kursk as the action between 4 July and 17 July this in itself was only the Soviet defensive phase and was not the decisive battle though the repulse of Operation Citadel was not the decisive phase of the summer campaign

Several further Soviet offensive operation occurred in the Army Group Centre and Army Group South sectors

1 Operation Kutuzov. The elimination of the Orel Salient 12 July - 18 August
2 The Donbass Stategic Offensive 17 July - 12 September. This included the Mius River battles 17 July - August 1943
3 Operation Rumantsyev (the Belgorod - Kharkov Operation aka 4th Battle of Kharkov

Arguably it was the latter that should be viewed as the real decisive battle. It was only after the German defeat at Kharkov that Manstein was forced to concede and withdraw to the line of the River Dnieper.

While the age of strategic German offensives was indeed over agter the summer of 1943 the Whermacht was still able to undertake najor operational offensives after the sunner of 1943 such as the Zhitomi-r Berdichev Operation. Operation Konrad, Operation Spring Awakening right up to March 1945. These were majoroperational offensives in their own right. Kursk might be seem as the last strategic offensive although that view has recently been reconsidered. It has been argued that Citadel was more of an operational line straightening offemnsive. That would make Operation Blau the last real strategic level offensive, not Citadel.

 

[lucaswillen05]

Note I will be getting a copy of Christopher A Lawrence's book on Kursk (the big 1600 page version) for my birthday on Saturday after which I will be able to offer some comment on this source and his views on Prokhorovka. The next Kursk titlr I am likely to obtain will be Zamulin's The Battle of Kursk: Controversies and Neglected Aspects (having this author's other two books). At the very least this title would appear to offer a detailed analysis of the historiographical issues fora Russian perspective https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31498972-the-battle-of-kursk

 

[alexmilman]

I would suggest to you that it was the outcome of the summer 1943 fighting on the Army Group South sector. If we define thee Battle of Kursk as the action between 4 July and 17 July this in itself was only the Soviet defensive phase and was not the decisive battle though the repulse of Operation Citadel was not the decisive phase of the summer campaign.

This is a definition issue: in the Soviet/Russian (and seemingly generally accepted) definition the “Battle of Kursk” is a whole set of the defensive and counteroffensive operations between July 5 and August 23.
I don’t see any reason to narrow it down artificially. After all they do have “proprietary rights” to the battles they fought. The battle was decisive because the Germans failed in achieving their intended goal. You may argue that it was not a decisive Soviet victory just because the Germans were not totally annihilated but, following the generally available definition, the post-Kursk war entered a different strategic stage: Germans went into the defensive.

 

[lucaswillen05]

This is a definition issue: in the Soviet/Russian (and seemingly generally accepted) definition the Battle of Kursk is a whole set of the defensive and counteroffensive operations between July 5 and August 23. I don’t see any reason to narrow it down artificially with a seemingly only purpose to prove that the Soviets did not win at Kursk.

I agree with you.Some do narrow it down to the 4 - 17 July time frame/ Many books on Kursk do take that approach concentrating solely on the German offensive operations. It can and has been narrowed down to just Operation Citadel's Southern sector, Perhaps referring to the Battle of Kursk as the time frame 5 July - 23 August is the problem. Perhaps instead taking into account the duration and scope of operations and the fact that several major battles were fought it should be referred to as the Kursk - 4th Kharkov campaign,

Nobody is arguing tha the Soviets did bot win at Kursk. They did win even if we did narrow it down to the battles fought for the Kursk Salient 4 - 16 July. What I am saying is that the Soviet victory here was not the decisive victory of the Kursk - 4th Kharkov Campaign. I am saying that 4th Kharkov was the decisive engagement of the Summer 1943 Campaign, not Kursk.

 

[hwyl]

From the most strictest interpretation of the term, neither any of the battles of Kharkov, Kursk, or any of the 1944 Soviet campaigns meet the definition of "decisive". Indeed, there is no battle in WW2 that meets the definition, simply because the way war between great powers had evolved had largely rendered the concept of the "Decisive Battle" obsolete.

Well, I would call Bagration pretty devastating, a death blow.

 

[alexmilman]

I agree with you.Some do narrow it down to the 4 - 17 July time frame/ Many books on Kursk do take that approach concentrating solely on the German offensive operations. It can and has been narrowed down to just Operation Citadel's Southern sector, Perhaps referring to the Battle of Kursk as the time frame 5 July - 23 August is the problem. Perhaps instead taking into account the duration and scope of operations and the fact that several major battles were fought it should be referred to as the Kursk - 4th Kharkov campaign,

Nobody is arguing tha the Soviets did bot win at Kursk. They did win even if we did narrow it down to the battles fought for the Kursk Salient 4 - 16 July. What I am saying is that the Soviet victory here was not the decisive victory of the Kursk - 4th Kharkov Campaign. I am saying that 4th Kharkov was the decisive engagement of the Summer 1943 Campaign, not Kursk.

Well, it is not that I completely disagree with your point but changing terminology retroactively produces little by confusion. It is fine to talk strictly about Citadel (which makes sense from the German perspective) and more narrow time frame. But “Battle of Kursk” is a different definition that describes events from the Soviet perspective and has a different scope.

 

[Cryptic]

I have seen it refered to as the "Death ride of the German Panzers" but it would seem that the major Soviet achievement was not a crushing victory over the Germans but the blunting of their attack

I think that is a very good summary of the whole battle. The Germans were winning, but needed to dominate 1941 style. Soviet quantity and Soviet quality improvements prevented the Germans from leveraging their remaining quality advantage to battle field dominance. So... the Germans broke off the attack.

Kursk was, however, a huge and dominating morale victory for the Soviets: For the first time, rested, fully equipped with the best Germany could produce German ubber A team formations fighting in the summer and led by select generals and well.... sans any type of excuses were blunted by the Soviets.

Sure, there were some lop sided tank on tank kill ratios, but there was no Soviet retreat, let alone panic. Instead, the Soviets stood- and then eventually hit back with a blitzkrieg of their own that at the strategic level, was every bit as skilled as previous German advances.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Well, I would call Bagration pretty devastating, a death blow.

As smashing as a victory as Bagration was, it still falls short of constituting a “Decisive Battle”. The Soviets only conceived it as but one part of a much larger planned sequence of campaign plans. What it wasn’t was something that won the war in a single stroke right there-and-then, which is the definition of “Decisive Battle”. It still took almost another year after Bagration and millions of German and Soviet (and other Eastern European citizens) lives until Germany finally capitulated.

The WW2 battle that really comes closest to fulfilling the strict definition of “Decisive Battle” is Germany’s 1940 campaign in France. In the summer of 1940 the Allies had the advantage over Germany by all conventional means. They had more people, a larger combined economy and individually healthier economies, access to more international markets, and at worse numerical parity in soldiers and weapons on land, with gross numerical advantage in naval power. They were producing weapons in increasingly greater quantities than the Germans, and had the situation continued without change for another year the Germans would have been at a unbeatable disadvantage.

Instead in May of 1940 the Germans attacked. In no more than three days of battle, from 13 to 15 May, the bulk of the German panzers broke through the French line on the Meuse river between Dinant and Sedan, and within a week had encircled the best of the Allied armies, destroying them or putting them to flight. Although it would take several more weeks for the Germans to finish crushing the French Third Republic, the war had been decided.

Except it hadn't been. Only the battle was decided. Britain fled the continent, but remained in stubborn opposition off the coast of Europe. Indeed, had French PM Reynaud gotten his way the French government would not have surrendered but would have fled into exile in Algeria and continued the war from the colonies. The Germans had executed one of the most brilliant battleplans ever devised, applying all the usual maxims about concentration of force and minimization of friction like masters, but it had still failed to win them the war. Worse, the Germans had been so focused on the immediate battle with France they had made no plans for the prosecution of the war after winning it. This left them unable to effectively follow up against the UK, and contributed to the German High Command's willingness to blunder into Russia (in addition to Hitler's desire for eastern expansion, many German generals believed defeating Russia would force Britain to negotiate peace), and their ultimate defeat.

The battle of France was about as decisive as a battle can be, taking a side at a disadvantage and then reversing that situation in one transcendent blow. And yet Germany was still unable to use it to win the war. That suggests that the concept of the decisive battle is inadequate, and one needs more than just winning battles to win a war, particularly if one is the weaker party. Weaker nations have certainly defeated more powerful ones several times in military history, but (certainly in modern times) they rarely do it through winning a decisive battle. More often victory comes through the manipulation of multiple elements of the situation, in which battle often turns out to be one of the less important ones.

 

[lucaswillen05]

I think that is a very good summary of the whole battle. The Germans were winning, but needed to dominate 1941 style. Soviet quantity and Soviet quality improvements prevented the Germans from leveraging their remaining quality advantage to battle field dominance. So... the Germans broke off the attack.

Kursk was, however, a huge and dominating morale victory for the Soviets: For the first time, rested, fully equipped with the best Germany could produce German ubber A team formations fighting in the summer and led by select generals and well.... sans any type of excuses were blunted by the Soviets.

Sure, there were some lop sided tank on tank kill ratios, but there was no Soviet retreat, let alone panic. Instead, the Soviets stood- and then eventually hit back with a blitzkrieg of their own that at the strategic level, was every bit as skilled as previous German advances.

The Germans could no longer do that though. Arguably the Germans already tried that and failed with Operation Blau in 1942 and failed. Some look upon Citadel as being much moor of a line straightening operation to remove the salient left after the winter campaign and not in fact an attempt at another strategic offensive. Robert M Citno Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War 1943 seems to take this view

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Some look upon Citadel as being much moor of a line straightening operation to remove the salient left after the winter campaign and not in fact an attempt at another strategic offensive.

Well, the two are not mutually exclusive. Had Citadel worked out exactly as the Germans intended (as ASB as that was), then the losses that entailed would have excluded the Soviets from mounting any offensive offensives of their own in 1943 and 1944 while simultaneously straightening the line. The destruction of your enemies offensive potential for 1-2 years isn't the biggest of strategic results, but it's still a strategic result and hence makes Citadel a strategic offensive... just a smaller one then either Blau or Barbarossa.

 

[Cryptic]

The Germans could no longer do that though. Arguably the Germans already tried that and failed with Operation Blau in 1942 and failed. Some look upon Citadel as being much moor of a line straightening operation to remove the salient left after the winter campaign and not in fact an attempt at another strategic offensive. Robert M Citno Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War 1943 seems to take this view

I need to admit that I am not familiar with German goals for Kursk and am looking forward to reading the 400 page definitive. But dry book by Robert Glantz that is coming in the mail to me. That aside, I think the Soviet blunting of the German attack at Kursk went beyond German lack of success in Operation Blau:

• Operation Blau- German units still advance hundreds of miles against Soviet forces in the summer. Sure, the Soviets win a dramatic winter victory at Stalingrad, but the victory is aided by weak German allies (Romanians) on the flanks and Don (Italians), obsolete German tanks, and by Hitler’s refusal to withdraw. Later, the arrival of all-star German units lead to the inevitable dominance and the destruction of Soviet forces opposing them. Kharkov is re-captured by the Germans.

• Kursk: Copious quantities of All-star German units? The Soviets can now cope with them. There may be a good amount of tactically lopsided kill ratios, but all-star German units no longer inevitably produce German battle field dominance. In addition, summer offensives don’t inevitably result in huge German advances. Germans can’t fall back on weak allies an uncooperative Hitler or obsolete equipment excuses.

In short, Stalingrad showed that the Soviets could force a draw on eastern front. Kursk showed that the Soviets would win the war. Not even ideal conditions, all-star casts, top quality equipment and a cooperating Hitler could produce German dominance- and without dominance, they were doomed.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

I need to admit that I am not familiar with German goals for Kursk and am looking forward to reading the 400 page definitive. But dry book by Robert Glantz that is coming in the mail to me. That aside, I think the Soviet blunting of the German attack at Kursk went beyond German lack of success in Operation Blau:

• Operation Blau- German units still advance hundreds of miles against Soviet forces in the summer. Sure, the Soviets win a dramatic winter victory at Stalingrad, but the victory is aided by weak German allies (Romanians) on the flanks and Don (Italians), obsolete German tanks, and by Hitler’s refusal to withdraw. Later, the arrival of all-star German units lead to the inevitable dominance and the destruction of Soviet forces opposing them. Kharkov is re-captured by the Germans.

• Kursk: Copious quantities of All-star German units? The Soviets can now cope with them. There may be a good amount of tactically lopsided kill ratios, but all-star German units no longer inevitably produce German battle field dominance. In addition, summer offensives don’t inevitably result in huge German advances. Germans can’t fall back on weak allies an uncooperative Hitler or obsolete equipment excuses.

In short, Stalingrad showed that the Soviets could force a draw on eastern front. Kursk showed that the Soviets would win the war. Not even ideal conditions, all-star casts, top quality equipment and a cooperating Hitler could produce German dominance- and without dominance, they were doomed.

You're missing a few key points that have little to do with the Eastern Front: the Luftwaffe was mostly fighting the Wallies as of Summer 1943, 90% of twin engine fighters and 75% of single engine fighters were not on the Eastern Front. Tunisia had cost 40% of the November 1942 Luftwaffe and 300k men, not to mention a lot of irreplaceable equipment. The Mediterranean was sucking in several German divisions as well, including a number of Panzer divisions, while the Battle of the Ruhr and the start of USAAF bombing of Germany in January 1943 had started to severely cripple German industry (see Tooze and the results of the Battle of the Ruhr as well as the book "How the War Was Won" which points out that the Germans lost many more tanks destroyed in bombing by the Wallies than were lost during Citadel). Plus now thanks to Operation Torch Vichy was effectively disbanded and Germany had to occupy all of France, while Mussolini was deposed in May and Hitler kept a large reserve to occupy Italy when it proved necessary.

In Summer 1942 none of the above was true as about 60% of the Luftwaffe was in the East, nearly all the German mobile divisions and Panzers were too, while strategic bombing was only just starting to become a threat and defensive resource sink, but by Summer 1943 Germany had lost the war. All Kursk helped decide was how fast that defeat would be; even if by ASBs Germany won it still wouldn't have changed the outcome thanks to the Wallies. It wasn't the Soviets that had changed, in fact some Soviet historians argue, using primary documents, that the Soviets were still making many of the same mistakes of 1942 and hadn't really learned lessons like they should have, especially top level commanders, but by 1943 the Wallies had changed and were changing the entire nature of the conflict, which prevented Germany from being able to concentrate in the East and get decisive results.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13518046.2016.1232563

 

[Deleted member 1487]

BTW I will start back-filling the earlier post later tonight, but can you first post what your comments were in response to? It is hard to formulate a reply without that context.

From the most strictest interpretation of the term, neither any of the battles of Kharkov, Kursk, or any of the 1944 Soviet campaigns meet the definition of "decisive". Indeed, there is no battle in WW2 that meets the definition, simply because the way war between great powers had evolved had largely rendered the concept of the "Decisive Battle" obsolete.

I don't know...I'd consider Uranus to be decisive, same with Bagration. They fulfilled their goals completely and resulted in destroyed enemy armies. They weren't 'decisive' in that they ended the war, but they completed their goals and resulted in a major strategic victories. Kharkov (except the 2nd) and Kursk didn't, they pushed the enemy back and resulted in heavy attrition, which seems like the opposite of decisive. Of course you can run into situation where enemy armies are destroyed and certain objectives met, but still not have it be decisive, like the Smolensk pocket, as Soviet forces survived and retreated in part, while it bought time for reserves to be brought up and check further advances.
Wikipedia actually has a pretty good definition for decisive victory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decisive_victory

A decisive victory is a military victory in battle that definitively resolves the objective being fought over, ending one stage of the conflict and beginning another stage. Until a decisive victory is achieved, conflict over the competing objectives will continue.

Kursk did not, nor did Belgorod-Kharkov or Orel. Certainly the Germans lost the battle, which they could not have won in the originally planned sense (cutting off the bulge and pocketing 1 million Soviet soldiers), but the Soviets didn't really win their, as their objective was to suck the Germans into the battle and destroy them when ensnared in the Soviet defenses, especially around Orel where they thought the main attack was coming from, when you factor in the Soviet historiography that looked at the entire fighting in the region from July-August. I mean they did win in the sense of preventing the German ultimate goal and pushing them back, but failed in their goal to destroy German forces, which to me would have been a decisive victory. I certainly understand if you don't agree with my interpretation and there are valid arguments against my view.

Well, the two are not mutually exclusive. Had Citadel worked out exactly as the Germans intended (as ASB as that was), then the losses that entailed would have excluded the Soviets from mounting any offensive offensives of their own in 1943 and 1944 while simultaneously straightening the line. The destruction of your enemies offensive potential for 1-2 years isn't the biggest of strategic results, but it's still a strategic result and hence makes Citadel a strategic offensive... just a smaller one then either Blau or Barbarossa.

Even if the Soviets had lost a million men at Kursk in a pocket (there were initially about 1.3 million Soviets within the bulge not counting deep reserves) that wouldn't have stopped their offensive potential, as they did after all suffer nearly 8 million casualties in 1943 anyway (per Krivosheev, which some Russian historians say under counts losses at Kursk) of which at least 850,000 during Kursk-Orel-Belgorod/Kharkov, perhaps over 1 million by some estimates. Straightening the line means the Soviets also need to keep fewer men on line as well and their Smolensk offensive forces were still intact, as were the Mius area forces. It certainly blunts their ability to attack and make serious advances, which means likely much reduced gains in 1943 and conscription potential from the OTL liberated territories from July 1943-1944.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

BTW I will start back-filling the earlier post later tonight, but can you first post what your comments were in response to? It is hard to formulate a reply without that context.

I addressed this in what I have written up for the post so far, but anyone can click on the link in the first quote and see the conversation.

They weren't 'decisive' in that they ended the war,

That means they weren't decisive by the textbook definition of the term.

Wikipedia actually has a pretty good definition for decisive victory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decisive_victory

Very first paragraph of the main article:

The phrases "decisive battle" and "decisive victory" have evolved over time, as the methods and scope of wars themselves changed. More modernly, as armies, wars and theaters of operation expanded — so that the gestalt (i.e., a result which is greater than the sum total – see synergy) of the overall venture was more definitive — the phrase "lost its meaning." The meaning is ephemereal, like the difference between “strategy” and "tactics”.

As I said, the definition had became useless in the modern era.

Kursk did not, nor did Belgorod-Kharkov or Orel. Certainly the Germans lost the battle, which they could not have won in the originally planned sense (cutting off the bulge and pocketing 1 million Soviet soldiers), but the Soviets didn't really win their, as their objective was to suck the Germans into the battle and destroy them when ensnared in the Soviet defenses, especially around Orel where they thought the main attack was coming from, when you factor in the Soviet historiography that looked at the entire fighting in the region from July-August. I mean they did win in the sense of preventing the German ultimate goal and pushing them back, but failed in their goal to destroy German forces, which to me would have been a decisive victory. I certainly understand if you don't agree with my interpretation and there are valid arguments against my view.

The Soviets very much won their battle and the destruction of the German forces was not the sole objective or even the sole primary objective of these operations. I go into more of that with what I have written up addressing what you've written previously, just waiting for you to backfill there. I do agree that the Soviet victory wasn't decisive, but it remained a major and significant victory with the two main Soviet offensives being successes.

Even if the Soviets had lost a million men at Kursk in a pocket (there were initially about 1.3 million Soviets within the bulge not counting deep reserves) that wouldn't have stopped their offensive potential, as they did after all suffer nearly 8 million casualties in 1943 anyway (per Krivosheev, which some Russian historians say under counts losses at Kursk) of which at least 850,000 during Kursk-Orel-Belgorod/Kharkov, perhaps over 1 million by some estimates. Straightening the line means the Soviets also need to keep fewer men on line as well and their Smolensk offensive forces were still intact, as were the Mius area forces. It certainly blunts their ability to attack and make serious advances, which means likely much reduced gains in 1943 and conscription potential from the OTL liberated territories from July 1943-1944.

The complete destruction of the Voronezh, Central and Steppe (which would have been sent forward to try and avert catastrophe) fronts would have cost the Soviets nearly 2 million men in and over 5,000 armored vehicles in irrecoverable losses (not just total casualties, as approximately 75% of those 8 million you mention were merely wounded and hence mostly were able to return to service within several months at most), including some of the Soviet Union's most skilled commanders and the preponderance of their most skilled troops. In the summer of 1942, the loss of 600,000 men between June and July dealt the Soviet main front of 5 million men a heavy blow and allowed the German advance deep into the Caucasus. Although the main front was larger in 1943, with 6.5 million men and nearly 10,000 tanks, this loss would have dwarfed the losses of 1942 both in absolute and relative terms, costing the main front nearly a third of its men and half its armor. It would have been the single most catastrophic defeat in the history of warfare and certainly would have gutted the Red Army's offensive potential. The Soviets would have been thrown back completely on the defensive, and the Germans might even have been free to pursue other limited offensives.

Certainly there would be no Bagration or any of the other associated operations under the aegis of the Soviet 1944 Summer Offensives the next year. Beyond just the raw numbers, the Soviets would need time to replace all the skilled commanders and men the catastrophe at Kursk would have cost them, and simply wouldn't have the experience remaining to conduct maneuver warfare like that.

But it's rather a moot point since there is no conceivable way the Germans could have realistically achieved this kind of result against the Red Army of 1943, their own delusions not withstanding.