The Battle of Kursk was the largest tank battle in history and a turning point of World War II. In July 1943, German forces launched a massive attack that aimed to pinch off a bulge in the Soviets’ front line and regain the strategic upper hand on the Eastern Front after their disastrous defeat at Stalingrad. By the time the battle ended in Soviet victory six weeks later, more than 6,000 German and Soviet tanks had blasted each other near what is now the border between Russia and Ukraine. Most accounts of the Battle of Kursk focus on the armor clash at Prokhorovka – which military historian Christopher A. Lawrence has chronicled definitively in an earlier book – but pivotal fighting also took place west of Prokhorovka, where Soviet tanks counterattacked and stymied the German advance. Until now, this tide-turning episode of the Battle of Kursk has never received the attention it deserves.

In a book ten years in the making, Lawrence reconstructs the action west of Prokhorovka and offers an entirely fresh look at the Battle of Kursk. A week after the Germans attacked, the Soviets struck back, taking advantage of a gap in the German line near the Tolstoye Woods. The Germans paused their advance and desperately attempted to counterattack and encircle the Soviets. They failed. They would not reach Kursk; they would not close off the salient. The Germans would never again hold the strategic initiative against the Red Army.

Lawrence relies on unit records from both sides and fleshes out his meticulous narrative with firsthand accounts from German and Soviet soldiers. Combining detailed analysis with colorful eyewitness descriptions, this book covers the battle from the bottom up and the top down, highlighting strategic decisions, operational maneuvers, and tank-versus-tank contests, where soldiers inside Panther, Tiger, and T-34 tanks fought for their lives – with the outcome of World War II hanging in the balance.