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MAY 2025

The Unknown War: The World’s Greatest Tank Battle

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The Unknown War is an American 20-part series that documents the World War II conflict between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

Today, SouthFront shares the 7th part of the series titled “The World’s Greatest Tank Battle”. In July 1943, the largest tank battle in history took place in Kursk. 1000 Soviet and German tanks clashed during the battle.

The Wehrmacht began to concentrate its forces for the battle, including its latest Panthers and Tigers tanks, early in the year. The Russians observed and counted the concentration of Nazi troops: 900,000 soldiers, 2,700 tanks, 10,000 guns, 2,000 airplanes.

Stalin appointed Marshals Zhukov and Vasilevsky to lead the offensive on the Nazi group in Kursk. The Russians concentrated one million 300,000 soldiers, nearly 20,000 guns and mortars, and over 3,600 tanks.

On the eve of battle, Hitler announced, “Soldiers of the Reich, you must take part in an offensive of great importance, the entire future of the war may depend on its outcome. More than anything, your Victory will show the world that resistance to the might of the German Army is hopeless.”

The Unknown War: The World's Greatest Tank Battle

The Unknown War: The World's Greatest Tank Battle

German tank column, June 1943.

On July 5, the Germans launched their first offensive with a force of about 1,000 tanks. Many Nazi tanks found their deaths in the first half mile of minefields. Russian batteries shot them down in minutes. It was a bloodbath.


The Unknown War: The World's Greatest Tank Battle

Soviet infantry. Battle of Kursk, 1943

The Unknown War: The World's Greatest Tank Battle

The Unknown War: The World's Greatest Tank Battle

Retreating under the relentless Soviet onslaught, the Germans destroyed everything they left behind.

For 50 days the Soviet Army brought the Wehrmacht losses of half a million men, 1,500 tanks, 3,000 guns, more than 3,700 airplanes. At Kursk, the Red Army put an end to the vanity of Hitler and Germany itself. It did not just destroy equipment and troops, it cut short the Nazi dream of a thousand-year Reich.


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Dunk

why is it called the “unknown war ” because the “almighty usa ” censored the soviet union fighting and beating 65 % of all german forces if they didnt america/uk would not have got off the french beaches.

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Europa The Last Battle

they never censored this. they merely omitted it from their retelling of history. their exaggerated roles in ww2 began to change when dozens of books came out about the subject, taken from information in government archives. the american military historian david glantz had mentioned most of what you did in the video below.

– “the soviet-german war, 1941-1945: myths and realities” by col (ret) david m. glantz’ uploaded by ‘the usahec’.

Last edited 15 hours ago by Europa The Last Battle
Europa The Last Battle

other youtube videos:

– ‘why germany lost the battle of kursk 1943 (ww2 documentary)’ uploaded by ‘real time history’.

– ‘tank battle of dubno-brody. 1941 [the largest tank battle in history]’ uploaded by ‘історія україни і волині | ukraine & volyn history’.

Last edited 15 hours ago by Europa The Last Battle
Europa The Last Battle

battle of kursk army sizes:

germany: 900,000 troops; 3,900 panzers; 8,300 guns (incl. howitzers, assault guns, anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft guns) and 1,800 aircraft.

soviet union: 2,600,000 troops; 8,900 tanks; 47,400 guns (howitzers, assault guns, anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft guns); and 5,900 aircraft.

Xsayarsa

sources? glantz, wehr? your own inventions?

Europa The Last Battle

battle of kursk casualties:

germany: 203,000 troops; 1,200 tanks; 650 aircraft.

ussr: 1,200,000 troops; 7,000 tanks; 3,000 aircraft.

Xsayarsa

so why they attacked the superior force both qualitatively and quantitatively?

Europa The Last Battle

files released under the usa’s freedom of information act: https : // x . com / palsvig / status / 1883964926877741453

according to us military police headquarters in vienna, 1948:

the jews lied about being gassed, and anyone who claim poison gas was used to gas jews will be taken to court charged with perjury.

Last edited 15 hours ago by Europa The Last Battle
Europa The Last Battle

the person who posted this was sarcastically inquiring if trump and kennedy will admit to this. he knows they will not.

ChatGPT

soviets didn’t do much. it was thanks to western forces n@zi germany was beaten. later ruzzia turned out to be just as much of a n@zi as germany was during hitler’s reign.

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Dunk

it seems sf doesn’t like me criticising chatgpt-yet not one word was a swear word or low grade comment.

Dunk

ah !!!! his pseudonym is an american ai company –figures !

Europa The Last Battle

the soviet union relied heavily on the west when building up their civilian industry and war production capabilities throughout 1930-1940. the united states of america was especially important in the early phase of soviet industrialization and military modernization.

– the t-26 was based on the british 6 ton vickers e variant.

– the bt-2, bt-5, bt-7 tanks were based on the american m1931 christie tank which later influenced the design of the t-34.

Last edited 16 hours ago by Europa The Last Battle
Europa The Last Battle

stalin: “without american aid via lend-lease, the ussr would have lost ww2.” i am paraphrasing.

https : // history . state . gov / historicaldocuments / frus1943cairotehran / d353

https : // history . state . gov / historicaldocuments / frus1943cairotehran / d375

Clyde

you’re paraphrasing in order to regurgitate a propaganda trope. nice work.

Europa The Last Battle

khrushchev also recorded in his memoirs that without american support the germans would have won the war.

Divius

he also said that on the finnish front they lost a million men. i wonder what is the real total amount of lost soldiers of the jew ussr bolshevik armies. 15 million at least. 20 million ?

Europa The Last Battle

i think 15-20 million is too high. it is estimated the soviet union suffered 11 million military casualties in total, compared to 3.5 million german military casualties if we exclude the pows that were executed after the war. the soviet union’s total casualties used to be measured at 20 million people.

this was inflated to 30 million people. it’s similar to how the total number of casualties was originally counted as 50 million people in total before it was inflated to a total of 70 million.

Last edited 13 hours ago by Europa The Last Battle
Europa The Last Battle

finland only suffered 82,000 military casualties in both the winter war and continuation war combined.

Clyde

yep, they lost 20 000 000 men. maybe they used the german technique for corpse disposal that left no trace. thanks for derping. you

Scrupulus

do you expect anyone to argue with you? well, intelligent people don’t stop to argue with idiots.

Revolutionary vs Colonists

you’re full of shit. 💩💩💩

Europa The Last Battle

kursk was not the biggest tank battle in history. the biggest tank battle was the battle of dubno-brody that lasted between june 23 and june 30, 1941. germany inflicted much higher losses on the soviet side in both battles.

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Europa The Last Battle

youtube videos:

– ‘why germany lost the battle of kursk 1943 (ww2 documentary)’ uploaded by ‘real time history’.

– ‘tank battle of dubno-brody. 1941 [the largest tank battle in history]’ uploaded by ‘історія україни і волині | ukraine & volyn history’.

– “the soviet-german war, 1941-1945: myths and realities” by col (ret) david m. glantz’ uploaded by ‘the usahec’.

Last edited 16 hours ago by Europa The Last Battle
Europa The Last Battle

battle of kursk army size:

germany: 900,000 troops; 3,900 panzers; 8,300 guns (incl. howitzers, assault guns, anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft guns) and 1,800 aircraft.

soviet union: 2,600,000 troops; 8,900 tanks; 47,400 guns (howitzers, assault guns, anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft guns); and 5,900 aircraft.

Europa The Last Battle

battle of kursk losses:

germany: 203,000 troops; 1,200 tanks; 650 aircraft.

ussr: 1,200,000 troops; 7,000 tanks; 3,000 aircraft.

Divius

the jew led bolshevik hordes lost much more than the germans in troops, tanks , planes. the real number of lost men is over 15 million. and withouth the jew led britain and jew led murica the situation would have been different. without lend lease germany would have won in less than a year. too bad hitlerwas such a humanitarian he did not authorize the use of sarin germany had so much off. now we have to live in a jewish shithole for him being too fucking nice.

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Clyde

so the americans determined the battles around smolensk in ‘41? who knew?

the narrative

kursk the battle that decided ww2 never made it into cia / military / hollywood indoctrination war movies . after that russia grinded it’s way to berlin . while the west jumped in to keep some presence . this presence brought us the rise of nato mafia klan inducing the ukraine war

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Dunk

does the usa nsa/cia controll sf ??? now three posts censored after presenting real /true historical facts from american media not russian.

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Scrupulus

don’t be surprised if something doesn’t fit the narrative, it won’t be tolerated. everything is permitted that is not forbidden, that’s what democracy and freedom of speech are all about.

Robot

hardly unknown many documentaries on this battle in the west. studied heavily in western military academies etc.

just because europe in particular tries to talk up their role does not mean spinning your own shit makes it batter. the greatest joke is how france gets mentioned when they were run over and a total non entity apart from providing the landing beaches for d day. and regardless of what you think moving that many troops etc was a feat.

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protectourfreedumbs

i think there has been a lot of myth making over kursk. clearly it was not a german victory, but it was not such a disaster as some people would have us believe. soviet losses were substantially higher than german, maybe as high as 5:1. permanent losses of german tanks may have been as low as 350. their losses have certainly been exaggerated. the climax of the battle came around prokhorovka in the south, when the ss panzer corps broke through in the south into open country.

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protectourfreedumbs

the red army committed rotmistrov’s tank army with 500 tanks. the conventional history has it that t34s rammed german tanks and german forces were routed. in actual fact rotmistrov bungled the attack, got bogged down in his own minefields and blundered into anti tank ditches, with all his tanks being picked off at long range. casualties are disputed, but as many as 400 russian tanks and as few as 17 german may have been lost. stalin wanted to have rotmistrov shot.

protectourfreedumbs

but instead turned it into a propaganda victory. german commanders protested that hitler was throwing away a hard earned victory when he called off the offensive. but allied forces had just landed in sicily and hitler needed to send troops there. prokhorovka was a large battle but hardly the largest in history.

rasputin

this was operation zitadelle (citadel) that was postponed for months from german side which gave 300.000 russian citizens time to dig 10 defense lines and the red army created large mine fields. the wehrmacht reached the 6th line, was stopped and had to retreat until the battle for berlin.

Last edited 9 hours ago by rasputin
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