Let's try this with text.
1/35 Cyber Hobby Tiger I “Kursk”
Paints: AK Dunekgelb Modulation Set; Vallejo Model Colors; Revell Aqua Colors
Weathering: Artist oils; AK Streaking Grime; Iwata Com.Art Acrylics; MIG & Sennelier Pigments
I'm double dipping here. There's a “Steel Cats” Group Build going on and I've never built a Tiger or a Panther and thought it was time to try. Just so happened, though, that the kit chosen represents a Tiger that fought at Kursk and the ensuing mad German retreat to the Dnieper during 1943. I'm going to post a full build log in the armor section and anyone wanting to hear my tale of woe is welcome to check in.
Thought here that I'd share a couple thoughts about Citadel. I think it's safe to say that when people are facing extremely grim prospects that their ability to reason is badly jilted – they're almost forced to believe what they need to be true is the case regardless of how rational because the alternative is simply unthinkable. (Hope that makes sense.) And it doesn't help if one's army is run by a criminal lunatic. And by 1943 Hitler was running the Wehrmacht. Before Case Blue (the drive to the Volga and Caspian oil fields) Hitler normally acted as a kind of referee. He had rigged the system so there was no real equivalent of George Marshall, Alanbrooke or even Zhukov. But before the 1942 campaign Hitler typically watched a campaign develop and would weigh in when his commanders started squabbling. (Stopping before Dunkirk was a perfect example – so was the decision to turn Panzer forces toward Kiev and Leningrad instead of Moscow in August 1941.) Even Case Blue had serious support inside OKH. But as things went from bad to worse Hitler increasingly became the operational brain of entire German Army and when things got bad Hitler's uncanny ability to smell opportunity turned into rashness bordering on insanity. (Please tell, who did Hitler think was going to protect the northern flank of Sixth and Fourth Armies in the fall of 1942? The Italians and Rumanians? A child should have seen that a German withdrawal was needed in September.)
Yet the remarkable tactical skills of the Wehrmacht still existed and German war production was actually increasing, although not fast enough to face a war that was expanding. So Germany still had cards to play. But the Russians were clearly gaining the upper hand in the Ost as every month added to their supply of T-34s, IL-2s and allied Lend Lease was beginning to pay off seriously. And Rooskie generals were proving brutal but, on a good day, ruthlessly efficient. And then there were the Western allies that had, as Goebbels put it, inflicted a “Second Stalingrad” on the Axis in North Africa by early 1943 and were growing in power even more rapidly than were the Soviets.
The book solution was pretty simple and Guderian (now Inspector General of armored forces and not in active command) saw it. The Wehrmacht could have stood on the defensive in the East; gave ground when the Soviets made their inevitable attack and hope that superior tactics would bleed the Russian Army. Some of the powerful new units being created or veteran divisions rebuilt could have been deployed to the Mediterranean as it was very likely that the allies would strike somewhere. Considering how ragged allied operations were in 1943 it was a tempting idea and we can be glad there weren't a couple hundred Tigers on Sicily.
But Hitler and OKH head General Zietzler knew something well enough – if Germany gave up the initiative in the East, they would never get it back unless the Soviets fought as badly in 1943 as they had in early 1941. Highly unlikely that. And a major redeployment to the Med would have raised the possibility that the allies would have made a grab for Sicily or Sardinia and, under the umbrella of naval gun fire, kept it. If they thought the Germans were in strength in Italy, Marshall might have gotten his way and allied units would have been deployed in haste to the UK for a 1944 invasion that would have been supported by a timely attack on southern France.
So Hitler comes up with a bad compromise. Launch a “spoiling attack” on the Kursk bulge which would maul the Red Army and keep them quiet while the Wehrmacht shifted West. On the face of it, the idea of stupid. It was clear the Russians were glad to let the Germans have the first shot. There would be no surprise. Heavy losses were inevitable and the chances of closing the “sack” fast enough to trap whole armies was very remote. It was much more likely that the Germans would maul their jealously refurbished Panzer arm and Luftwaffe for little chance of victory. But it might work if the Russians had “lucked out” in 1942. Indeed, I think that Citadel was launched because Hitler believed there was a remote chance that the Red Army might “crack” and Citadel could turn into another battle for Moscow.
The course of Citadel itself does not show how badly Hitler, Zietzler and Manstein had gone astray. The Germans inflicted more losses than they suffered on the ground. The Tiger had performed quite well – far better than the Panther which proved a very bad idea all around. I've even seen Manstein defended for wanting to continue with his attack because he knew that there was no chance to move sizable forces West. This doesn't take into account the stunning blow launched by the Red Army against Model near Orel followed a few days later by a serious flank attack against Manstein's LOCs. The Red Army didn't fight a defensive battle at Kursk – they counter-punched. Zhukov and other Red Marshalls saw that once the Germans were committed a Russian envelopment of either German flank would lead to, at minimum, a breathless Nazi retreat. Better yet, there was a possibility that the Wehrmacht might “break” and the German position be shattered and their army driven into Poland by the end of 1943. It didn't work that way – but the Red Army had taken back most of European Russia by the end of 1943 and there would be no question of another German offensive in the East.
So the Germans fell between two stools – a huge blunder when the clearest thinking was required. Great news for the allies of course: the only down side was that the easy conquest of Sicily enticed the allies into a much larger Italian campaign than was needed. (Nobody fights a perfect war.) It was probably best for the Germans too. No sane government was going to make a separate peace with a criminal regime like Hitler's so even if the Germans had played their cards perfectly and pushed the war into late 1945 the ultimate result would have been an even greater debacle for the German people: they might have had the opportunity to suffer the first atomic bomb attack.
The Tiger is controversial. It was expensive and its size limited its deployment. Personally I think it was worth the candle. (The Panther was a serious mistake – its low serviceability would have made a much larger number of Stugs and Jagdpanzer IV a much better investment.) Soviet doctrine which they referred to as “deep war” or “operational war” depended above all on momentum. The one thing Tigers could do if properly supported was to blunt Soviet attacks and throw off their timetable. This was done often enough that even a small number of Tiger Is played a key role in saving the German Army from debacle in late 1943. If the Russians were unable to break the Vistula in 1944 it was because of Soviet armored losses and the ability of German strongpoints to slow the advance. Lord knows the beast caused the allies many headaches in Normandy. The strategic bombing offensive didn't perform as promised, but the allies can consider themselves lucky that Tiger production was seriously harmed by bombing in 1944. Tis true that the Tiger II was a waste, but the Tiger I was a very good tank. Years ago I played elaborate military board games. One postulated a Warsaw Pact assault on the Fulda Gap. The game designers claimed that the Tiger I was very nearly as good as any tank on the battlefield in 1965. And no matter how good the M-1 is today, we should remember that it carries a German gun. The good old days.
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Eric
