Oberst Kristen Shubert had passed an uneasy night, his well-trained ear certain that he could hear the dull rumble of distant vehicles moving in the night. He asked for the latest Luftwaffe recon report, but learned that no enemy forces had been seen on the roads to the north that day. Yet he could not shake the feeling of inner anxiety the morning, after a fitful and restless six hours of sleep. So he resolved to visit the forward edge of the town, touring the bunkers and having a look for himself. It was not long before when he saw the dark lines of Russian infantry emerge from the misty steppe land north of the city, and immediately ran to the nearest command bunker to get to a radio.
“Artillery!” he shouted. “There are swarms of Red infantry coming at us!”
The code word launching the attack was very simple that morning, and it was sent in the clear on the radio: “Red, Red October!” It was more than a battle cry hearkening back to the Revolution. In fact, it was announcing the names of the two villages singled out as breakthrough zones. The enemy coming at Schubert was the 5th Shock Army, meant to be the eastern pincer for this initial operation aimed at eliminating the Prokhorovka strongpoint, and 5th Guards Army was moving up to begin the attack to the west at Krasny Oktyabr.
The Pioneers had no organic artillery of their own, and nothing more than mortars, which were already starting to pop off and range in on the advancing enemy. But Schubert put in a call to 2nd Army Artillery, which he knew was positioned in range. Soon the rounds of 10.5 and 15cm guns were starting to fall, mostly on the 24th Rifle Division. Then calls came in from 10th Luftwaffe Field Division, positioned just outside the town to the west. They wanted help, and Schubert knew this attack was more than a simple poke and prod against the line when stragglers from that unit began filtering into the town near his bunkers. There was power behind this operation. He could feel it in the rumble of the earth, hear it in the dull growl of heavy engines, and the movement of many trucks. The woodland to the north was suddenly teeming with enemy infantry.
That power was the entire 5th Shock Group under General Rokossovsky’s Voronezh Front. Wherever a breakthrough was needed, Zhukov called on the Rock. He would lead with a strong attack from 5th and 15th Guards Rifle Corps, six guards rifle divisions in all, and this was only the leading edge of the storm, meant to find, engage and fix the positions of the enemy on the line. Behind them came the breakthrough wave, Kortzov’s 5th Shock Army, and behind it was Rybalko’s 5th Tank Army, with three tank corps. This last army was not moved up to the front until the night before the attack, and every effort was made to conceal the buildup in the dark woodland east of Prokhorovka.
There were two other Soviet armies in this sector, Kharitonov’s 6th Army to the west covering the German fortified town of Oboyan, and Kazakov’s 69th to the southeast. These forces were mainly to be tasked with holding the shoulders of the breakthrough zone, but they were strong formations, particularly the 6th, with six rifle divisions and a number of independent brigades and cavalry units. It would begin making attacks along the lines of Model’s 5th Korps to keep it from maneuvering to oppose the breakthrough sector. The rifle divisions made attacks all along the line, as far west as Oboyan, which had been a fortified strongpoint held by the Germans all winter. Once a breakthrough was obtained near Prokhorovka, the main axis of the attack was to be southwest, skirting past Belgorod, and then on to Kharkov. In making this maneuver, the Russians would be threatening all the divisions in Model’s 2nd Army to the west, which was now on the line in a wide arc above Belgorod, stretching all the way to Sumy like a great steel shield.
As Zhukov had explained, the attack was intended to seem like an isolated event. And it wasn’t Model that Zhukov was really threatening, but 4th Army under Heinrici. Only the western pincer would launch from the vicinity of Prokhorovka. The real danger would come when the second pincer launched from the Oskol, on the southern end of 4th Army, a much stronger attack. At the same time, a second operation dubbed “Operation Comet” would make a strong spoiling attack on the Middle Don to hopefully pull in mobile units behind the front there, and prevent them from moving northwest against Operation Red Star.
There was no question that the little town of Krasnoye would fall, as it did on the morning of April 10th when Oberst Schubert and his pioneers were forced from their nest as the heavy guns of the 5th Tank Destroyer Brigade began pummeling their positions with 122mm HE rounds. Falling back from the village, they soon were met by elements of the German 305th Infantry, which had been posted as local reserves. Schubert’s little Kampfgruppe was well scattered now, but he learned his second pioneer battalion had not yet been attacked.
Krasny Oktyabr also fell just before dawn, and that became the most serious breach in the line. The 24th and 25th Tank Corps were waiting to push through, and the growl and rattle of the tanks joined the boom of artillery as they attacked. A frantic call came in from General Oppenländer of the 305th Infantry to his 5th Korps commander, General Siebert at his HQ, and it was necessarily brief—Russian tanks had broken through west of Prokhorovka and his HQ at Komsomets was being overrun. That was 10 kilometers behind Prokhorovka, where the rail line snaked its way northeast towards the town. (See map for 5th Shock Group Operations).
“They hit us on both flanks! Word is that we’ll have a breakthrough on the right as well. I must go, they are right on top of us!”
Siebert knew Oppenländer to be a steady hand, which was why his division had been posted in that fortress town, but it was clear that this was something more than anyone expected that morning. He barked orders to get any local Korps assets moving to Komsomets, then he got on the telephone to Model.
Reports kept migrating up the chain of command, and eventually went directly to Manstein, who was busy looking over maps on the battle for Groznyy when the signal came in. Initially, he was not overly concerned, since the action seemed confined to the vicinity of Prokhorovka, and appeared nothing more than chest thumping from the other side. Yet the question always lingered when a quiet sector of the line suddenly became active. Was this something big, or merely a local head butting as often happened along the extended front?
Reports began to come in, slowly filling out the details of what was happening. It looked like an operation to pinch off one of the dimples in the line. That could mean the Russians were trying to tidy up the front, which meant Oboyan might be next. Seeing that Model’s 5th Korps under Siebert was involved, he decided to get on the telephone and contact the 2nd Army Commander at his HQ.
“Model? What is happening up there? Are the Russians trying to spoil my party?”
“Someone rang the doorbell early this morning,” said Model. “A strong attack has developed since. They overran Schubert’s KG this morning, right on the edge near the Army boundary with Heinrici. Now they have their foot in the door and a strong right shoulder pushing hard.”
“Tanks?”
“At least three corps reported. One is trying to get around Siebert’s flank near KG Schubert, and two more have broken through west of Prokhorovka. They’ve reached the rail line and spoiled Oppenländer’s breakfast.”
“Then you believe they are just trying to isolate the bastion at Prokhorovka?” Manstein probed for Model’s assessment of the situation.