page_title: Battle of Prokhorovka
section_title: Soviet
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Prokhorovka / Casualties and losses / Soviet
context_page_description: The Battle of Prokhorovka was fought on 12 July 1943 near Prokhorovka, 87 kilometres southeast of Kursk in the Soviet Union, during the Second World War. Taking place on the Eastern Front, the engagement was part of the wider Battle of Kursk, and occurred when the 5th Guards Tank Army of the Soviet Red Army attacked the II SS-Panzer Corps of the German Wehrmacht in one of the largest tank battles in military history.
  In April 1943, the German leadership began preparing for Operation Citadel, with the objective of enveloping and destroying the Soviet forces in the Kursk salient, by attacking and breaking through the base of the salient from north and south simultaneously. The German offensive was delayed several times due to the vacillation of the leadership and the addition of more forces and new equipment. The Soviet high command, Stavka, had learned of the German intentions, and therefore used the delay to prepare a series of defensive belts along the routes of the planned German offensive. The Soviet leadership also massed several armies deep behind their defences as the Stavka Reserve.
context_section_description: A document prepared on 17 July 1943 by the 5th Guards Tank Army headquarters summarised the combat losses incurred by the formation from 12 to 16 July inclusive for all of its five corps, as well as smaller units directly subordinated to the army headquarters. The document reported the following irrecoverable losses: 222 T-34s, 89 T-70s, 12 Churchills, 8 SU-122s, 3 SU-76s, and 240 support vehicles. The document reported damaged vehicles still under repair as 143 T-34s, 56 T-70s, 7 Churchills, 3 SU-122s, and 3 SU-76s, with no figures for support vehicles. The document reported personnel casualties as 2,940 killed in action, 3,510 wounded in action, and 1,157 missing in action. This totals 334 irrevocable losses in tanks and self-propelled guns, with another 212 tanks and self-propelled guns under repair, and 7,607 casualties. The historian Karl-Heinz Frieser argued that the majority of the losses reported in the document must have occurred on 12 July.
  Soviet personnel losses at Prokhorovka for 12 July were estimated by the historian Christer Bergström to have been as high as 5,500 men. For equipment damaged or destroyed, David Glantz and Jonathan House estimate that the whole 5th Guards Tank Army lost at least 400 tanks in its attacks on 12 July. The Soviet historians Grigoriy Koltunov and Boris Soloviev estimate about 300 tanks and self-propelled guns of 5th Guards Tank Army were damaged or destroyed on 12 July. The study by the US Army's Center for Strategy and Force Evaluation reports that the 2nd Guards, 18th and 29th Tanks Corps altogether permanently lost 144 tanks on 12 July, not including self-propelled guns. George Nipe estimates that 600–650 tanks of the 5th Guards Tank Army were damaged or destroyed while fighting both the II SS-Panzer Corps and III Panzer Corps on 12 July.
caption: Destroyed Soviet T-34, 1943
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