If you are student of the Battle of Kursk, is it almost certain that you have come across the work of Christopher A. Lawrence before. In March of 2021 this blog looked Lawrence’s 665-page “short” version of their Kursk tome in The Battle of Prokhorovka: The Tank Battle of Kursk, The Largest Clash of Armor in History (Stackpole Books, 2019). As I wrote in the BLUF for that posting:
Looks bigger than it is. The Battle of Prokhorovka is largely a textual retelling of the extensive database collected by The Dupuy Institute on the battle. Many details but best parts may actually be the sidebar texts that cover a myriad of associated issues in a short, succinct manner.
About Christopher A. Lawrence
CHRISTOPHER A. LAWRENCE is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience. His published works include the 1,662-page Kursk, papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, as well as over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. (“About the Author” courtesy Pen & Sword)
Aces at Kursk is nowhere near the size of The Battle of Prokhorovka but still weighs in at a respectable 400 pages. The core ten chapters deliver 285 pages of content, mostly focused on a statistical tracking of which units were located where and in what strength. Although Lawrence tries to present a balanced accounting, it appears that the majority of the data used (or at least the more complete data) is derived from German sources; the Soviet situation is present but in seemingly lesser detail.
The ace factor
The narrative in Aces at Kursk also tend to be heavy on a explaining the data. For example, read this extract from the accounting “Air Support Over the Tank Fields at Prokhorovka” which is part of an extended text call-out box detailing the events of July 5, 1943:
So, 654 German sorties flown minus a guesstimated 60 flown to the west of Prokhorovka (half assumed to be ground support attack type sorties) and minus at least 74 flown south of Prokhorovka (at least 68 ground attack sorties) would equal maybe 520 sorties flown over and around the Fifth Guards Tank Army. Most of these were probably in the area of the attack by XVIII Tank Corps and XXIX Tank corps. Of these 520 sorties, then maybe 313 were ground attack type sorties. Probably less than half of them were stuka sorties and the rest were Fw-190 ground attack sorties. This is still a significant amount of air support, but nothing like some Soviet-influenced accounts have implied or indicated.
On the Soviet side we are looking at 769 sorties flown by the Second Air Army, including 302 ground attack type sorties. We are looking at 118 sorties flown by the Seventeenth Air Army, including 52 ground attack type sorties. The Seventeenth Air Army sorties clearly operated well to the south of the Prokhorovka battlefield, as they had been during the entire battle. According to the Second Air Army records, the I Assault Corps (142 Il-2 sorties), the 191st Air Assault Division (78 Il-2 sorties) and the I Bomber Corps (82 Pe-2 sorties) all bombed to the rear of the front line and appears to have favored operations in the German XLVIII Panzer Corps area. That leaves only the IV and V Fighter Corps flying over the battlefield area, and neither were heavily engaged this day (14 engagements reported and 12 planes lost). It would appear that there was little direct support over the tank fields of Prokhorovka. According to some sources, there were no Soviet aircraft flown until after 1000 (Moscow time).
Lawrence, pp. 228-229
For a book titles Aces at Kursk the amount of discussion of actual aces is somewhat limited. The majority of the discussion of the aces is found in “Appendix II – Air Campaign Statistics” which provides claimed kill numbers and narratives of some aces, both German and Soviet. The narrative, again, is heavy on statistics and short of compelling accounts, coming across more as an encyclopedia entry than an insightful account of why or how they fought so successfully in the air.
Wargaming data mine
For a student of the Battle of Kursk, the sheer amount of data presented in Aces at Kursk is bound to be useful in studying the battle. For hobby wargamers, Aces at Kursk is a gold mine of order of battle information to be mined for wargame scenarios at the campaign or operational level of conflict. What Aces at Kursk does not effectively deliver is insight into the many decisions taken before and during the battle, nor does it delve deeply into the tactics of the combatants. If one is serious about wargaming the Battle of Kursk then Aces of Kursk should be in your collection, but recognize that the plentiful data supports designing the broad framework of any game and not necessarily the discreet game mechanisms used.
Recommended but with caveats (good data but with little compelling narrative).
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