The goal was to break through to Caen so that it could be liberated. Operation Goodwood was a British offensive that was part of the Battle for Caen, one of the main inland targets that was part of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy. Thus, the momentum swung to the side of the Soviets, who eventually won the Battle of Kursk Operation Goodwood: July 18 – 20, 1944 The Germans were unable to take Prokhorovka, and although it was not destroyed (the original goal of the Soviets), the II SS-Panzer Corps was exhausted, and prevented from continuing their offensive. German tank losses were smaller by comparison, up to 80 tanks and assault guns destroyed. The Soviets lost around 400 tanks, more than half of their force. The fighting was some of the most intense in the history of armored warfare. The battle saw over 600 Soviet tanks from the 5th Guards Tank Army smash head on into around 300 German tanks from the II SS-Panzer Corps. It was long thought to be the largest tank battle in history, but according to the book Demolishing the Myth: The Tank Battle at Prokhorovka, Kursk, July 1943 by Valeriy Zamulin, a Russian military historian, that is not the case.īut that is not to say it was small or insignificant.

The Battle of Prokhorovka took place during the larger Battle of Kursk. With the Americans launching Operation Torch in November 1942, the tide against the Germans began to turn in North Africa. Five hundred German and Italian tanks, almost all of Rommel's force, were destroyed or captured. Rommel commanded a force of 116,000 German and Italian soldiers, and 540 tanks.Īfter days of hard fighting in the Egyptian desert, Montgomery was victorious. Montgomery assembled a force for a counterattack, including around 190,000 men and over 1,000 tanks. They were stopped at the First Battle of El Alamein, which, though technically a stalemate, did prevent the Afrikakorps from rolling through the rest of Egypt, and by extension the Middle East. Germany's Afrikakorps had to step in to prevent their defeat in 1941, and were able to push the British all the way into Egypt. North Africa had been a battleground since Fascist Italy's invasion of Egypt in 1940. The Second Battle of El Alamein saw two legendary generals, Britain's Bernard Montgomery, and Germany's Erwin Rommel - who was nicknamed the 'Desert Fox' - fight for the fate of North Africa.

Biggest tank battle ww2