The largest tank battle occurred not on the Kursk Dug near the village of Prokhorovka, as for some reason it is considered.
Such a battle occurred between June 23 and June 30, 1941, at Dubno-Lutsk-Rivne. Such a long name at the battlefield because the armada of the battle tanks simply did not fit in a single city. True, sometimes they also write for the sake of brevity the "Battle of Brody", and this is generally accepted.
Five mechanized corps of the Red Army (2803 tanks) of the South-Western Front met against the four German tank divisions (585 tanks) of the Wehrmacht of the Army Group "South", united in the First Tank Group. Subsequently, another tank division of the Red Army (325 tanks) and one tank division of the Wehrmacht (143 tanks) joined the battle.
In total, 3128 Soviet and 728 German tanks met in a counter tank engagement.
A fatal decision on a counterattack against the Germans was made on June 24 by the headquarters of the front in conjunction with the representative of the Stavka GK "marshal of victory" Zhukov.
The sensible proposal of the Chief of Staff of the South-Western Front, General Purkaev, to withdraw to the line of the old state border of the USSR and from there to counterattack was ignored.
As a result of illiterate tank attacks with a complete loss of command and control, the Red Army suffered enormous losses and lost the battle.
• Losses on June 30, 1941, SWF: 2,648 tanks (85%) against the German 260 vehicles. And if the Germans had the opportunity to repair their cars and had trophies (using them under the white crosses), the Soviet losses were irretrievable. During the 15 days of the war, losses amounted to: 4381 tanks from 5826.
• German losses by September 4, 1941 (1st Kleist Tank Group): 222 machines repairable + 186 non-returnable.
"The commanders of brigades-divisions-corps are not in a position to solve operational tasks. In particular, this applies to the interaction of various types of armed forces ... " This was stated during interrogation, who was captured by Senno, the commander of the howitzer battery of the 14th Panzer Division, Captain Ya.I. Dsugashvili. He was the eldest son of IV. Stalin, the future generalissimo.