As a result, by the end of the day on July 7th the Germans managed to capture the village Greznoe and the eastern boundary of the v. Malye Mayachki. But most importantly - the enemy reached a narrow sector of the rear defensive line, which stretched along the left bank in the bend of the river Psel. Disregarding this, the commander of the Army Group South General-Feldmarschal Erich von Manstein still considered the Oboiani direction as the most important and concentrated his main efforts there. In order to lower the pressure on the defenses of the 6th Guards Army and push back the enemy forces, which penetrated along the Prokhorovka direction, the commander of the Voronezh Front General N.F. Vatutin decided to conduct a counteroffensive with four tank corps and parts of the 69th and 40th Armies. This counteroffensive was unsuccessful.
The enemy managed to preempt our offensive. As a result, the 10th TC of Lieutenant-General V.G. Burkoi, parts of the 183rd Rifle Division of Major-General A.S. Kostitzin instead of counterattacking were forced to defend against the German attempts to break through towards the river Psel. The 2nd and 5th Guards Tank Corps, having started the offensive at different times, and having met strong enemy counterattacks, were forced to retreat to their starting lines.
One of the reasons for the
failure was that the offensive was prepared hastily under the strong pressure
of the advancing enemy. Coordination of efforts among the participating units
was worked out poorly. Not all the tank units reached the starting positions
on time. Thus, the 99th Tank Brigade of the 2nd TC of Major-General A.F. Popov
received the order for the offensive by radio, being on the march 20km from
the front line on midnight of July 8th. That order informed only of the direction
and the time of the offensive - 10:00 of July 8th . The tankists were not given
appropriate information about the general situation and the disposition of our
units. As a result of this, a tragedy occurred in the sector of the 183rd RD.
Here is an excerpt from the
battle reports of that division:"8.07.1943. At 1600 along the road from village Prokhorovka in the direction of the hill 241.6 we heard engine noise. Those were our tanks, they spread and opened fire at our positions, anti-tank rifle companies and headquarters sustained losses. The tanks then turned and advanced towards Vasilevki, opened artillery and machine gun fire, set fire to several houses, and started suppressing the positions of the 1st and 3rd rifle battalions. Worst hit were the 3rd, 4th and 5th rifle companies, the tanks went on a rampage without any leadership; we tried to stop them, but they continued ironing our trenches. We tried to contact the tankists by radio, but they had the orders to advance in the region of Vasilevki, where the positions of the 285th Rifle Regiment were. These were the tanks of the 99th TB of the 2nd TC. The commander of the corps is Major-General Popov. I have casualties by the fire of our tanks. Killed - 25 men. Wounded - 37 men. Some of our troops were crushed by tracks, two tanks were lost when they blew up on our mines."
July 9th was the decisive day for the subsequent battle operations in the region. During the first four days of the offensive the German forces failed to reach the town of Oboiani and exploit their success on the Korochan direction. The commanders of the AGS realized that the plan of a quick encirclement of the Soviet forces in the Kursk bulge was failing. Nonetheless, E. Manstein did not lose hope in achieving success. Because of that, on July 9th the following decision was made: without stopping the advance towards Oboiani along the Belgorod-Kursk highway, to redirect the spearhead towards the Prokhorovka direction and attempt to reach it through the bend of the river Psel. This was done because here was achieved the deepest advance into our defenses in the region of v. Ilinsky - state farm "Komsomolets" with the width of 12-13km. The divisions of the 2nd SSPzC reached the rear defensive line of the Voronezh Front. However, they did not manage to create a continuous line of advance. Instead, each of them, having created its own gap, attempted to advance northwards around the main defenses of the 6th Guards and 1st TA's, sustaining serious losses by the flanking fire of our artillery.
Analyzing the current situation, General N.F. Vatutin and representative of Stavka Marshal of the Soviet Union A.M. Vasilevsky already on July 7th asked I.V. Stalin to bring forward for the strengthening of the Prokhorovka direction the 5th Guards Army of Lieutenant-General A.S. Zhadov, which at that time was deployed at the rear defensive line near the town of Staryi Oskol - village Skorodnoe and the 5th Guards Tank Army of Lieutenant-General P.A. Rotmistrov from the region of the town of Ostrogozhska.
By the end of July 9th the
5th GTA was concentrated mostly in the region of Bobryshovo - Strednyaya Olyshanka
- Marino - Prokhorovka and received the order to strengthen the defenses of
the rifle units. The "Topenkopf" division is pulled out of the region Shopino-Visloye
to the Prokhorovka direction, "Das Reich" transferred its region up to Luchki
and concentrated in the region of Teterevino - Kalininskaya - Kalinin - Iashnaya
Polyana. This way, by the end of the day the entire 2nd SS PzC was concentrated
in this direction. Preparations were also taken in the region of Melikhovo for delivering a blow towards Prokhorovka from the south through Rzhavetz-Vyvolzovka. Here behind the 6th and 19th Panzer Divisions was concentrated the 7th PzD of the army detachment "Kempf."
That evening the commander of the 4th PzA Colonel-General H. Hoth signed the order #5, in which army's objectives for July 10th were laid out. The 2nd SSPzC had the following mission: "2nd Panzer to destroy the enemy forces south-west of Prokhorovka and pushing them eastwards, to capture the heights on the both sides of the river Psel north-west of Prokhorovka."
