In one post you just contradicted yourself. Kill Hitler and Manstein, no Kursk.
I actually was inquiring, since my memories a bit hazy. I know Hitler was there to be meet with him would not be on the plane. In any case, Wiking clarified in the thread he posted on the other forum: Manstein wasn't on the plane.
But if Manstein is killed, you are likely correct that there is no Kursk... because there is no Third Kharkov. The Soviets are able to cut off and destroy a healthy chunk of AGS in the Donbass, seize all of Ukraine east of the D'niepr river, and establishes a number of bridgeheads across it.
However, IOTL Hitler and his Generals vacillated about Kursk.
Myth. Hitler had doubts about Kursk, but not enough to overrule it. The bulk of his generals were for it and those who were not for Kursk were not against it because they thought it would fail. It is only
after the war that several German generals wrote a series of scathing critiques of the Kursk offensive, and blamed everything on Hitler. David Glantz argues that these formerly accepted truths need to be challenged, being historical distortions or even outright false. The traditional view on Kursk put forward by writers like von Manstein and Heinrici rests on the following points:
1.) Citadel would have succeeded had it been launched in spring of 1943.
2.) When it was launched in July, Citadel was destined to fail.
3.) German adoption of a mobile defensive strategy at Kursk and thereafter would have produced either German victory or stalemate, or, at least delayed German defeat.
4.) Hitler, and Hitler alone was responsible for the failure of Citadel
[Glantz, "The Battle of Kursk," p.261]
Glantz then challenges, or outright demolishes each of these assumptions. Firstly Glantz states there is "absolutely no basis for assuming that Citadel would have succeeded had it been launched in the spring of 1943." [p.261] Glantz points out that what Manstein (who was the main advocate of this immediate attack) did not know is that the Soviets had been preparing massive spring offensive operations of their own, and had cancelled them and rushed ALL their reserves to Kursk after Manstein's brilliant successes at Karkhov. The ratio of forces at Kursk in March of 1943 was staggeringly against the Germans, and was actually redressed somewhat by the delay into July, which allowed the Germans to bring up more troops and reconstruct their battered Panzer divisions.[p.262]
Secondly, no German general at the time assumed Kursk, which was a limited offensive, would fail. Up to that point the Germans had always been able to shatter Soviet defenses in the tactical and operational depths, and the Soviets had only every succeeded in stopping them over strategic distances. There was near universal agreement among the generals that the offensive at Kursk would punch through the immediate defenses with relative ease. Hitler's input was to limit the strategic goals of the operation, which was sound given that strategic over extension had led to disaster for the German offensives in '41 and '42.
Thirdly, the concept of mobile defense was still in its infancy at Kursk, and had not yet gained much credence with the military leadership. The professional debate in the spring/summer of 1943 was not on what type of defense to adopt, but what type of attack. At that point the German military leaders were still playing to win, not delay their defeat.[p.263]
Finally, Glantz points out that at Kursk Hitler nearly always followed the best advice of his professional soldiers, despite his own misgivings. In fact, Hitler saved the German forces conducting the offensive from an even greater disaster by calling it off early (the right decision made for the wrong reasons in this case), when Generals like von Manstein were still pushing for the attacks to continue. When the Soviet counter-offensive broke Hitler followed his natural reaction to order the troops to stand fast, but in each case soon acquiesced to the demands of his generals to withdraw, and even authorized the pre-emptive evacuation of the Orel salient to re-create a strategic reserve, which Glantz states was "undoubtedly the best precaution to deal with the threats in both Italy and Kharkov." [p.264] It was the defeats of 1944 that created the deep rift between Hitler and his generals, and in the summer of 1943 the disputes were still minor. Hitler still listened to the advice of his Generals (particularly at Kursk) and they still respected his direction and uncanny foresight.
-This means 1943 is bloodier for the Russians (being that the cream of the German army is not attacking into a carefully laid trap like IOTL). Futher, Russia probably cannot cross the Dnieper because of this.
Hardly. Even if the Germans adopt a defensive stance, the Soviets are under no obligation to attack where the Germans expect them too. What likely happens is that the Soviets use a decoy offensive action at Kursk (which is where the Germans were expecting any Soviet offensive to materialize pre-Citadel) to draw the Germans in and then hit them somewhere else, like the Mius or by Smolensk, with the main blow and in doing so inflict a staggering defeat. Then afterwards we have a profusion of memoirs by German generals talking about how Goering squandered the advantage by going on the defensive in '43 when just one more German offensive could have won the war...