Talk:Battle of Kursk

German casualties. Do Secondary sources use the Primary source cited and how do they interpret them?

Would anyone care to begin? Simon Adler (talk) 04:53, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

For the beginning, can anybody provide a good link to the Bundesarchive document (a primary source) and explain how was the figure of 52000 KIA/MIA was obtained? It does not seem obvious to me, and we need to see a procedure to decide if that was an original research.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:54, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

This figure is obtained by adding up the casualties of 9th Army between 1 July and 30 August 1943. There is no need for a link that currently works because it is already archived on webcitation and that is what webcitation is for. Kges1901 (talk) 00:16, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

While the German medical data has been considered reliable by many works, there's still an error in the infobox. According to Germany and the Second World War Vol. VIII p. 200 : The German offensive, Operation CITADEL, together with the two Soviet counter-offensives, lasted for some 50 days. [...] German losses in the course of these three operations (over the period 5 July to 23 August) amounted to approximately 170,000 men, of whom 46,500 dead or missing.

As detailed above, the Germans incurred the following losses during the individual operations: CITADEL: 54,182, of whom 11,023 dead or missing; Orel offensive: 86,064, of whom 25,515 dead or missing; Belgorod–Kharkov Offensive: just under 30,000, of whom approx. 10,000 dead or missing. Dircovic (talk) 00:44, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Exact German casualties for the Belgorod-Kharkov Offensive Operation can be found on p. 197: [FN] See the statistics of the OKH medical officer in BA-MA RW 6/v. 558. According to the 10-day reports for the two periods 1 to 10 August and 11 to 20 August, the total losses of the two German armies amounted to exactly 25,068 men, of whom 8,933 dead or missing. To conclude, German casualties for Operation Citadel are 54,182, of whom 11,023 dead or missing, and 111,132 men, of whom 19.956 dead or missing for the Battle of Kursk. Dircovic (talk) 01:13, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

In that case, I suggest that Frieser's figures replace the 52,000 total that is already there as they are isolated for the specific operations. Kges1901 (talk) 01:20, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

@Kges1901: Should that be sufficient diff? Cheers! Dircovic (talk) 01:42, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

That is satisfactory. Thanks, Kges1901 (talk) 01:58, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Re: "While the German medical data has been considered reliable by many works..." I see no problem to use the sources that use German medical data. However, the way the archival data are used in this article is unacceptable: first, the casualties figures have been extracted from these archival data according to some non-transparent and non-trivial procedure, which is an original research; second, the reference to some blog is unacceptable (if these data were taken from some archive, provide the archival document's number; third, the link is dead, the reference to WaybackMachine discredits Wikipedia. I remove this reference, please, do not restore it in this form. If a reference to this archival document is still needed, add a correct reference.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:51, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Taking into account that a good secondary source has been added recently, the reference to archival documents is redundant. Please, do not re-add it: we need to be very cautious with primary sources, and we should avoid them.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:56, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

So, have we reached consensus that Frieser's secondary source is an acceptable interpretation of the primary sourced medical records and should be used? It seems ok to me. Simon Adler (talk) 02:31, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

I haven't studied this question in details (there may be some more recent source that questions Frieser), but I see no formal reason to object.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:42, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

~100,000 German casualties (including wounded) for a whole battle not possible. Germans lost over 100,000 killed in July-August 1943 https://www.feldgrau.com/WW2-Germany-Statistics-and-Numbers It looks like a confusion or an anti-Russian falsification. Publish another estimates. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.252.52.68 (talk) 18:26, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Recent edit

Preserving here by providing this link; my rationale was: "undue claims from Mainstein's self-serving memoirs". --K.e.coffman (talk) 23:30, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

• Adding more Lost Victories material; this needs a secondary source. --K.e.coffman (talk) 23:48, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

8/23/23 - Why is this a GA?

The lede is a bloated 550-word, 4-paragraph mess that doesn't meet WP:GA standards. J. Harrington Inchworm III (talk) 19:58, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Red Army armour strength

The paragraph regarding Red Army armour strength alleges that the Soviets fielded an IS-3 prototype, but the source cited does not support this. The IS-3 was not developed until the following year. It's possible that an IS-2 prototype participated (and an IS-2 is displayed at the diorama of the battle in Belgorod), but the source does not appear to specify this. 24.16.132.126 (talk) 16:20, 12 April 2024 (UTC)