Define rapid in this context. It took days to get disengaged and that was only after suffering significant losses, especially to infantry, as well as substantial armor losses, even if those losses weren't necessarily mostly permanent. In the end 9th Army, when it arrived, was poorly enough off that it required reinforcement from AG-South in the form of Grossdeutschland to make up for the weakness of 9th Army after Citadel. After all they faced the toughest of the Soviet defenses/counterattacks and suffered over 23,000 casualties and from what I could find quickly online seemingly about 200 AFVs destroyed and probably several hundred more damaged and out of action for repelling the Soviet offensive at Orel.
The section of the front Grossdeutschland propped up was held not by the 9th Army, but by the 2nd Panzer Army. It took only 1 and a half day between the opening of the Soviet offensive and the arrival of the first divisions from the 9th Army to reinforce the 2nd Panzer Army. And that they suffered 200 AFVs and several hundred more damage
failing to repel the Soviet offensive at Orel, and not in attacking at Citadel, is rather my point.
You're talking out of both sides of your mouth now. The comment you made originally was this:
Quite clearly you're talking about the fixed defensive lines, not the counterattack forces, which is what my comment is referring to. Now you're talking about the mobile counterattack as an integral part of the defenses, which was not the case for the Germans at Orel, as theirs were largely engaged by Citadel rather than being ready and waiting for the Soviet offensive as the Soviets were at Kursk.
So the Germans did break through the toughest of the prepared defensive lines as I said, the counterattacking forces were a different element.
I was talking about the entirety of the Soviet defense, fixed defense lines
and counter-attack forces. The Germans did not penetrate the defensive line: at the time of the end of Citadel, they were still bogged down within the
first Front defensive line. The Soviets at Orel, on the other hand, quite clearly managed to overcome the full depth of the German defenses, overcoming both the fixed defenses and the counter-attack forces, both those organic to the 2nd Panzer Army and the reinforcements they received from the 9th Army. Theirs was not a clean breakthrough, which allowed the Germans to withdraw in good order, but it was a breakthrough.
It isn't so much the length of the front, but the square mileage. Plus if the Soviets are fortifying two separate bulges neither is going to be fortified in depth. The problem, as alluded to in the last reply, isn't the strength of the fortified lines, but of the armored counterattack forces and artillery concentrations. Those were the elements that mattered and without enough of them, which would have to either be split off from Kursk or from the Mius Offensive forces to bulk out what was near Izyum, preventing either defensive/offensive abilities out of Kursk or the Mius Offensive.
The square mileage of the Izyum bulge is again about half that of the Kursk bulge, but again that is more then plenty. Your claim is grossly ignorant as to what will actually be happening IATL: The Soviets, given their intelligence superiority, will be able to tell that the Germans have shifted their offensive forces over against the Southwestern Front and can easily shift enough forces over in that direction to bog down the Germans against the Izyum salient while still having plenty left over to mount the Rumyanstev and Mius Offensives. Given the terrain multiplier provided by the rivers and the smaller frontage, they don't need quite as many forces to even defend the Izyum salient as they did to defend the larger Kursk bulge on the open and unobstructed fields north of Belgorod. In terms of artillery and armored strength, as it is the Southwestern Front is only about 2/3rds as strong as the Voronezh front in both of these and the difference can easily be made good by shifting around relatively few formations and units, whether from other fronts or from the Soviets strategic reserve.
I think you left something out here.
Ah, I was attempting to point out how the division of Army Group South's panzer forces for striking at Izyum would effectively cut the striking power of each pincer in half, since you two separate halves of AGS's forces striking at two different points on the Soviet line instead of the whole of AGS striking a single point. This makes the Soviet defenders jobs easier, as they have to defeat two weaker attacks instead of one stronger one. The logical way to make up for that would be to reinforce AGS with the panzer forces from AGC, but that means stripping out the Orel bulge so that it's even weaker in counter-attack forces then was the case at the start of Kutuzov IOTL.
Um...during Citadel they weren't in prepared defensive positions, they were attacking into Soviet defenses and getting counterattacked largely in the open. Yet they weren't pushed back significantly during the offensive, in the end they marched out; it was only after forces were stripped out and sent out of the area and Soviet losses replenished that weeks later the Soviets were able to break through a thin screen of poorly supported, depleted infantry units forward of their prepared defenses around Belgorod rather than their short line of prepared defenses closer to the city.
German infantry on the southern part of the Kursk bulge during Citadel weren't doing any attacking into Soviet defenses, that job fell to the panzer and panzergrenadier divisions. Instead, they were assigned to hold the flanks. And yes, there were multiple instances when said infantry was pushed back: on July 12th, the 5th Guards Tank Corps and 184th Rifle Division struck the 332nd Infantry Division holding the leftmost portion of the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps and almost destroyed the division outright. The situation was only salvaged by diversion of elements of the Grossdeutschland division who halted the Soviet counter-attack with their own counter-counter-attack, but this came at the cost of preventing the division, and the corps as a whole, from joining the rest of the panzers advance towards Prokhorovka. This is but one of innumerable instances during the course of the battle. Any analysis of Citadel pretty clearly shows the German infantry were not able to hold their own and only the repeated diversion of German armored forces salvaged their position... at the cost of sapping the main advance.
It depends on what sort of counterattack forces the Soviets had. Also it isn't as if rivers weren't an obstacle during Kursk, their defensive value depending on the defenses and forces defending them.
Reduced attacking forces are balanced by reduced defending forces and what is available to build up the defenses, as the Soviets would either have to forego investment in and around Kursk to also supply Izyum or would have to skimp on Izyum. You cannot expect that both would be fortified to the same extent as IOTL. If it was clear that the Soviets were prepping Izyum heavily, but Kursk wasn't as heavily defended they just switch up and attack there.
No, rivers weren't much of an obstacle during Kursk because the Germans didn't have to fight their way over any. There were some minor streams, but nothing on the scale or with the defensive value of the Donetsk river. The closest you get is the eastern fringes of the Psel and this indeed proved to be a major obstacle, with only a single bridgehead established by the 3rd SS Panzer division on July 10th which was swiftly contained and pinned in. And Izyum wasn't prepped quite as heavily as Kursk because they knew the Germans weren't going to attack there thanks to their intelligence. IATL, when their intelligence informs them that the Germans are switching over to Izyum, the Soviets will follow suit and stiffen the Southwestern Front enough to bog the Germans down, either with forces from their strategic reserves or from the Voronezh Front.
Only at the end of Citadel. 23rd Panzer was basically with 1st Panzer Army at the time and only later added to the XXIV PC during Citadel, but really never left the area of 1st Panzer Army, while the rest of the Corps only moved after Citadel was already cancelled, just prior to Operation Roland IOTL. Panther ITTL would largely remove the Mius Offensive, as it effectively eliminates the jump off points for the OTL Soviet Don summer offensive plan, while giving the Soviets the freedom around the Kursk bulge that the Mius offensive gave them anyway.
If the Germans attack at Izyum the Mius offensive isn't likely anyway, as the forces that attacked would probably if anything get fed into the counterattack forces for Izyum.
Best I can tell, both the 23rd Panzer and 5th SS were in the area of the 1st Panzer Army and 6th Army throughout the entirety of Citadel. And the Mius offensive is actually even more likely, as it represents a good way for the Soviets to strike the German forces in the flank and the Soviets are liable to reinforce the Southern Fronts accordingly. The jump-off points for the Southern Front would, after all, be unaffected.
