He logged more than 2,500 combat missions during the war and is credited with the destruction of more than 500 tanks and 700 trucks.Įven in the hands of merely competent pilots, the Stuka, sometimes loaded with two 110-pound bombs beneath the wings, instead of the anti-tank cannon, and a single 550-pound bomb beneath the fuselage, was extremely effective against armor.

Although a leftover from the Spanish Civil War-and with fixed landing gear, slower than most other aircraft in the sky-the Stuka was a dangerous weapon, especially in the hands of ground-attack experts like Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

Key to the German effort was the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka, a gull-wing, two-place dive bomber that, at its most effective, punched through defenses with 37mm cannon mounted on pylons beneath its wings. Both German and Soviet attack aircraft flew combat missions at the request of frontline units and were controlled by ground liaison officers attached to armored forces. He called on one of his commanders, Konstantin Rokossovsky, for an account of the day’s action, but before Rokossovsky concluded his report, Stalin interrupted: “Do we have control of the air, or not?” Rokossovsky could only promise that tomorrow they would.Īt Kursk, both sides believed that ground forces alone could not win the day, and for the first time, each relied on masses of aircraft specially designed or equipped to destroy tanks. But at the end of the first day of combat-July 5-Soviet premier Josef Stalin was focused on another contest that he knew would affect the outcome of the battle for Kursk. So stupendous was the clash of armies around the Soviet city of Kursk in July 1943 that until recently historians focused almost exclusively on the actions of the famous Panzer groups and Red Guard units-German and Soviet tanks, artillery, and infantry-that fought the exhausting, weeks-long battle.

The battle of the tanks kursk 1943