SILL NAZI GAIN AT AWFUL COST

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 162, 10 July 1943, Page 5

SILL NAZI GAIN AT AWFUL COST

OH SMOKING STEPPES

Russian Tactics Defeat All Enemy Efforts N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. noon. LONDON, July 9. Dozens of miles of the Kursk steppes are smoking as von Kluge's armies swept into the fifth day of the offensive against the Red Army, which knocked out 1843 tanks and 810 planes in four days and held the lunging enemy columns almost in their tracks, reports the Associated Press Moscow correspondent. Von Kluge persisted in hurling mechanical battering rams, led by the Tiger tanks, against narrow sectors on the 125-mile wide Russian salient, but succeeded nowhere except in two places in the Byelgorod area. At the bottom of a 60-mile bulge in the enemy lines the panzer columns managed at awful cost to wedge in there and advance slightly. Defenders Master Tigers The battle was resumed in the Orel-Kursk area yesterday, when the Germans hurled three tank and three infantry divisions, protected by hordes of planes, against one narrow sector. About 250 German tanks participated in the attack, but not one penetrated the Russian line. In this sector some of the sharpest tank and air blows were struck against Russian populated points and the railway, but the attacks broke against the deep defences. The Russians are using tried battle tactics. The infantry cut off German infantry from the tanks and then engaged the enemy infantrymen, whiTe the artillery to the rear engaged the German tanks. Battie experience is proving the vulnerability of the German Tigers to heavy artillery and anti-tank fire. Soviet airmen are attacking the Junkers 52 and the giant gliders by which the Germans are flying m reinforcements, and are also attacKing German lorry convoys bringing up.reserve troops.

"Flying Fence" Fails ■ During the first day of the offensive Luftwaffe fighters attempted to establish a "flying fence" between the Russian planes and the German bombers, says the Associated Press. Groups of 60 to 80 Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs hung over Russian soil six to ten miles behind the front line, but the manoeuvre failed when the main group of Russian fighters outflanked the Luftwaffe fence. Over 100 German planes were destroyed in the resulting action ana many more damaged. The second day the Luftwaffe attempted to build up the fence to a still greater strength, but the fence was dissolved before a concentrated attack from Russian fighters. The Germans lest another 80 planes. The Soviet pilots have won the initiative in the air, and the Germans now keep away. German Losses Soaring The British United Press Moscow correspondent reports the Russians are using "fire bags"—closely cooperating grotips of tanks and guns —against the German tanks. In one case the Russians allowed the head °t an advancing German column, comprising 40 tanks, to advance. •Then a fire bag, comprising a tank unit and artillery, closed, in and wiped out the enemy. .German losses are still soaring. One German infantry regiment witndrew after a day's fighting with 2000 men tjued and 60 tanks destroyed. . The chief reason for Hitler's failure to achieve not only strategic but even important tactical gains is the fact that the Russian air force is stubbornly holding the initiative

on the entire Kursk salient, although the Luftwaffe is making a reckless bid for air mastery by bringing up reserves from Western Europe, the Kuban and southern Ukraine, says the Exchange Telegraph Moscow representative.

The Berne correspondent of the Evening Standard says neutral correspondents in Berlin report the Germans no longer hide the fact that the battle of the Orel-Byelgorod sector "has now reached such a point of intensity that both, sides must fight on either to victoi-y or overwhelming defeat." The Germans admit they were forced to pour in all available reserves early on Tuesday last in order to stem the Russian counter-offensive. The mechanised battle at present under way in the Byelgorod semi-circle far outweighs in quantity and material engaged any other battles fought on the Russian front.