Prokhorovka

Prokhorovka 

an urban-type settlement and administrative center of Prokhorovka Raion, Belgorod Oblast, RSFSR. Railroad station on the Belgorod-Kursk line, 56 km north of Belgorod. Prokhorovka has a poultry combine, a butter factory, brick and asphalt plants, and a people’s amateur theater.

On July 12, 1943, during the battle of Kursk, the region west and south of Prokhorovka was the site of the largest tank meeting engagement of the Great Patriotic War (1941–45). The engagement involved an attacking fascist German tank grouping, consisting of the II Panzer Corps of the SS and the III Panzer Corps (about 700 tanks and assault guns), and the counterattacking Fifth Guards Tank Army and three tank and mechanized brigades (about 800 tanks and self-propelled artillery guns). In bitter fighting that lasted the entire day, the enemy lost more than 350 tanks and assault guns and more than 10,000 men and was forced to pass to the defensive. The Fifth Guards Tank Army lost about 300 tanks and self-propelled artillery guns.