Battle of Kursk that would be launched after the German offensive had halted. Soviet offensive operations for the summer of 1943 were planned to begin after the strength of the German forces had been dissipated by their Kursk offensive. As the German momentum in the north slowed, the Soviets launched Operation "Kutusov" on 12 July against Army Group Centre in the Orel salient, directly north of the Kursk salient. The Bryansk Front, under the command of Markian Popov, attacked the eastern face of the Orel salient while the Western Front, commanded by Vasily Sokolovsky, attacked from the north. The Western Front's assault was
Battle of Kursk retreat and increasingly lost tanks in combat as well as from abandoning and destroying damaged vehicles. Across the entire Eastern Front 50 Tiger tanks were lost during July and August, with some 240 damaged. Most of these occurred during their offensive at Kursk. Between 600 to 1,612 tanks and assault guns sustained damage in the period from 5 July to 18 July. The total number of German tanks and assault guns destroyed during July and August along the entire Eastern Front amount to 1,331. Of these, Frieser estimates that 760 were destroyed during the Battle of Kursk. Beevor writes that