Tank Ditch at Prokhorovka

Recently got a request for a better map of the tank ditch at Prokhorovka. This request was in response to this post: Tank Losses on 12/13 July 1943 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Instead of a map, Eugene Matyukhin provided me the following annotated aerial photographs taken at the time:

A few blog posts related to this subject:

The Importance of the Tank Ditch | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Basis of the Tank Ditch Story of 12 July 1943 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Was the Tank Ditch encountered in the morning, the afternoon, or both? | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

Meanwhile back at the Tank Ditch | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)

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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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One comment

  1. I decided to put it here, rather than on your original post…

    C.A.L: “…One notes that Ribbentrop, in his account, does not have any Soviet tanks driving into the tank ditch…”

    -Ribbentrop might have been assuming. If some did drive into the ditch, there are any number of reasons he simply wouldn’t have seen it happen. Roes would have been better positioned to witness the T-34s driving over the edge if he were defending the other side. I’m guessing he was a PzKw IV tank gunner?

    C.A.L: “I am not sure how accurate that last description was as later he says, ‘Now our tank was no longer combat ready and I decided to take it out of operations, i.e., to cross the bridge over the tank ditch and drive to the rear…’”

    -1) What was the time interval between the CF at the bridge and him deciding to withdraw using that bridge? I assume he could only be referring to one bridge.

    C.A.L: “He describes several Russian tanks driving full speed into the tank ditch. The T-34s were able to continue moving after this, but certainly the shock of such a fall seriously rattled the crew inside. He then states that as they came out of the ditch on the other side…”

    -14 feet? I’m a little surprised they were still operable, and I’d hate to be one of the crew. If only there were an account from their perspective… Sigh.

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