This is the first article I have finally finished translating and arranging. I have to warn the reader, though, I am native speaker of Russian not of English.

         "The Unknown Battle of the Great Patriotic War."

Written by V. Zamulin Tankomaster #5, 1999.

Translated and adapted by [email protected]

Part 1.

         More than half a century separates us from the Prokhorovka battle, yet the interest to it is not diminishing. With the opening of the monument complex "To Victory" on the tank field and the foundation of a museum-park in 1995, a new interest towards this major event of the past war has arisen among historians and journalists.
         The battles of July 1943 that took place near a town called Prokhorovka about 30km from Belgorod are recognized in the military history as the largest tank battle of the Second World War (Great Patriotic War).
         Nonetheless, throughout all the post-war years there has not been taken a major investigation, which would clearly and accurately determine the chronology, the course of the battle, fully and objectively assess the scale, the precise number of the armor used, and its losses on both sides.
         In the literature published up until now all these questions were usually answered without proper analysis and references to the participating units' battle reports . At the best, the authors defend their points of view by presenting the opinions of the participants without critical assessments. A considerable confusion with the numbers and facts was added by the large amount of articles published for the memorial dates. Some journalists did not even bother to seriously and thoroughly approach these questions. Thus, as the time went on the history of the battle was surrounded by a large number of inaccuracies and myths, which turned into a legend.
         In the following article the author has attempted, based on the documents that became available in the last 2-3 years, to present the true story of the battle, and concentrate on a few particularly disputed aspects.