Kursk Aerial Photos

Tank Fields of Prokhorovka, 16 July 1943 (page 599)

I did include in my Kursk book 32 aerial photos taken by the Germans in June and July 1943 (pages 569-600), in what was called the “Photo Reconnaissance Section.” I considered them useful for examining the terrain and a nice supplement to the 1:5000 scale maps I included in the book. I also included 12 such photos in my Prokhorovka book, pages 189-202. It is a nice, large and untapped collection at the National Archives. You can tell when archives files have been heavily used. These looked untouched. I was directed to these files by John Sloan about 10 years ago.

Apparently a British historian by the name of Ben Wheatley tapped into the pictures of the battlefield taken on 14-16 July. He was able to see in some of them the destroyed tanks on the battlefield. It resulted in this article in BBC (it is nice that they pay attention to history): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48963295

That article was posted in a message to this blog by David Carr. Ben Wheatley paper is here:                                                                          .  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16161262.2019.1606545

The real story at Prokhorovka has been known for a while, so surprised that this has been getting such attention. The BBC article states that the Germans lost 5 Pz IVs at Prokhorovka while the Soviets lost more than 200.

This is probably a little more certainty about the figures than I have in my books. So over the next couple of posts, I will be exploring what those figures may be. The first problem is the definition of the battlefield and who is on it. The next problem is what tanks were lost on what days. There is also an issue with defining what a loss is.

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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.
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Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.
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His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) , The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019), The Battle for Kyiv (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2023), Aces at Kursk (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024), Hunting Falcon: The Story of WWI German Ace Hans-Joachim Buddecke (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024) and The Siege of Mariupol (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2024).
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Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

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6 Comments

  1. “these looked untouched. I was directed to these files by John Sloan about 10 years ago.”
    Major John Sloan Brown?

  2. If we consider the battle under Prokhorovka zerg-rush of the 18th and 29th tank corps on the LSSAH, the loss ratio is 5: 138.
    Moreover, if you carefully consider the second figure, then it will probably be less. After 1100 on July 12, part of the irretrievable losses could have been inflicted by Totenkopf tanks and aviation.
    If we take Prokhorovka as the actions of all five corps of the 5th tank army, then the loss ratio is less disastrous. In addition to 5-6 tanks of irretrievably lost LSSAH, one must take into account the irretrievable losses of Totenkopf and Reich tanks.

  3. Objective Ponyri! The Defeat of XXXXI. Panzerkorps at Ponyri Train Station by Martin Nevshemal has some nice aerial recon photos of the action in the north.

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