Battle of Kursk (1943): Citadel opens · 522

Operation Citadel opened on 5 July 1943 against the Soviet-held Kursk salient, after months of delay that the Red Army used to pack the bulge with mines, guns, and reserves. Model attacked from the north, Manstein's wing from the south. The German strategic aim -- to pinch off the salient and regain initiative after Stalingrad -- failed within two weeks.

Prokhorovka (12 July) became the named armour clash of the south, later inflated in Soviet and popular accounts into the "greatest tank battle" with tidy integers the archives do not support. Casualties on both sides run into the hundreds of thousands across July-August when the Soviet counteroffensives (Orel, Belgorod-Kharkov) are included -- a campaign, not a single afternoon.

Kursk ended German hopes of a 1943 summer decision in the east. English memory is thinner than Stalingrad or Normandy; wargamers and tank books over-weight Prokhorovka. For this atlas it is the high-intensity sequel to the Volga pocket -- and a reminder that "largest tank battle" is a caption to handle with ranges.