Kursk: Burning Tigers
Scenario Preview, Part Three
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
May 2023

Panzer Grenadier games are all about tank battles, and with Panzer Grenadier: Kursk, Burning Tigers, we get right to the heart of World War II armored combat. There were two battles of Kursk, fought simultaneously about 400 kilometers apart as the Germans tried to envelop a large Soviet salient in their lines with a twin-pincer attack. Kursk: Burning Tigers includes the fighting on the northern flank plus the actions of German regular army units on the southern flank (the sister game, Kursk South Flank, is all about the offensive by the Waffen SS armored divisions).

The offensive at Kursk did not in any way resemble German armored operations of the first two years of the Great Patriotic War. It was a grinding, close-range battle that involved many tanks, but those tanks did little racing about. Instead, they found the enemy immediately and commenced to fighting him, man-to-man and tank-to-tank. The fighting was as intense as anything from Verdun in 1916, carried out for possession of very small pieces of ground.

While that doesn’t make for the most stirring narrative, it does make for a fascinating wargame study. You get to deploy a lot of force in a relatively small space, and there’s no mystery about finding the enemy. You know right where he is, and he knows right where you are.

So let’s have a look at the third chapter, the German attack at Teploye where they deployed armor in the first rank. It didn’t go well.

Chapter Three
Stubborn Defense at Teploye
To the west of Ponyri Station, Walter Model of the German Ninth Army assigned the initial assault to his infantry divisions, heavily reinforced with combat engineers and additional armor to break through the first line of Soviet defenses. Just one of his six assigned panzer divisions would begin the battle in the front lines, with the others held back to exploit through the expected breakthroughs.

Prisoner interrogations gave Soviet intelligence a good idea of the German offensive’s starting time, and their own artillery pre-empted the German initial barrage with one of their own. The Germans then duly opened fire at the appointed time, with many of their batteries and gun crews disrupted or even wiped out. The Soviets then followed with a second bombardment.

The offensive was off to an inauspicious start.

Scenario Ten
The Lead Panzers
5 July 1943
The one armored division assigned to the first wave, 20th Panzer, would strike at the boundary of two Soviet armies. Engineers would first clear paths through the thick minefields laid in front of the forward Soviet lines, with the tanks following along the paths. Once through the minefields, the panzers would have to content with carefully-sighted anti-tank guns and a steady rain of artillery fire.

Conclusion
While some panzer divisions had been built up in preparation for the great Kursk offensive, 20th Panzer Division still fielded two platoons of obsolete Czechoslovakian-made light tanks and possessed only 40 long-barreled Panzer IVs. In addition, the panzer grenadiers processed no halftracks in which to ride into battle; the “rubber grenadiers” depended on unarmored trucks. Nevertheless, they rapidly tore a gap through the defenders and, acting on information from a prisoner that Bobrik was lightly held, modified their plans to secure the village. However, once they seized the town the newly-arrived 6th Guards Rifle Division pinned them in place.

Notes
This is one of the few small scenarios in Burning Tigers, with just one mapboard in play. So while the German armored force isn’t huge, it’s concentrated in a small space and the Soviets have no tanks and only one 76.2mm battery. They’ll need to get the Guards reinforcements into play quickly to use their good morale to assault the panzers when possible.

Scenario Eleven
Capture of Teploye
7 July 1943
When the infantry failed to create the desired breakthroughs, XXXXVII Panzer Corps committed all three of its panzer divisions to the effort. And when those failed, Model sent in the 4th Panzer Division from Ninth Army’s reserve. Lt. Gen. Joachim Lemelson’s division had been virtually destroyed in 1942 and never withdrawn from the front; instead, it had received a steady trickle of new men and weapons through the first half of 1943. Now the rebuilt division struck at the juncture of two rifle divisions, seeking to capture of the heavily-fortified village of Teploye.

Conclusion
The 2nd Battalion of the 33rd Panzer Grenadier Regiment suffered almost 100 casualties before securing Teploye. Despite the losses, Lemelson sent the battalion to assist in driving the rapidly reinforcing Russians off the hills just to the south. Joined by the halftrack battalion and additional panzers they moved out. Heavy artillery fire soon put the Germans to ground and neutralized their antitank guns. Every effort of the panzers to work their way free of the killing zone came to naught. Finally, three panzers managed to overrun a Soviet strongpoint inspiring the grenadiers to follow. When that attack stalled the 2nd Battalion drove the defenders off the hill but could not hold it against determined counterattacks.

Notes
This is a somewhat smaller scenario, with the Germans forced to come to the Soviet defenses with a well-balanced force of tanks and infantry sporting very high morale. But the Soviets have almost as many tanks, if less enthusiasm, and waves of reinforcements to set things right if the Germans do break into their fortified line.

Scenario Twelve
Relief of Teploye
8 July 1943
Three days of heavy fighting had done little to dent the Soviet defenses. Fourth Panzer Division’s capture of Teploye had only resulted in leaving the 2nd Battalion of the 33rd Panzer Grenadier Regiment trapped behind enemy lines. Now on top of meeting the advance’s objectives, Model had a lost battalion that needed to be freed. To accomplish this, he committed Panzer Brigade 21 and its fifteen obsolete Mk. III's, most of them early models equipped with a short-barreled 50mm gun. They would reinforce 20th Panzer Division, relieve the men struggling at Teploye and then subdue Samodurovka.

Conclusion
Under a scorching sun the grenadiers came on and the waiting Soviets hacked them to pieces. “German infantry,” a Soviet assessment reported, “despite fire from defending units, stubbornly attempted to advance behind tanks to the hill. By 1700 the enemy had successfully occupied it.” But this pyrrhic success in no way offset the horrendous casualties suffered.

Notes
This is a big scenario, with all four mapboards in play and covered in combat units. The Germans are strong, well-balanced, and feature cutting-edge armor on their cutting edge. But the Soviets are pretty determined, and they have the big guns to shoot big holes in all those shiny new tanks rolling towards them.

And that’s all for Chapter Three. Next time, we charge into Chapter Four.

You can order Burning Tigers (Playbook edition) right here.
Please allow an extra three weeks for delivery.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and new puppy. He misses his lizard-hunting Iron Dog, Leopold.

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