Zhukov was appointed personally to coordinate the defence of Kursk, and he was given unlimited resources to do the job. Unknown to the Soviet commander, his biggest help came from his British allies, who for three years had been reading all of the Third Reich's secret radio communications traffic. The British had broken the Germans' Enigma code using an early form of computer, but they were unwilling to reveal to Stalin the full extent of their code-breaking success, and so created a convoluted means to pass so-called "Ultra" material to Moscow. This involved establishing contact with a ring of Soviet agents in Switzerland, codenamed Lucy, and drip-feeding them Ultra decodes relevant to the war in Russia. The Lucy agents were convinced they were receiving documents from disgruntled German officers within Hitler's inner circle. The result was that within days Moscow had verbatim transcripts of high-level orders being sent from Hitler's headquarters to his senior commanders on the Eastern Front. These included all the plans for Operation Citadel, including details of units, objectives, logistic information and, crucially, the date for the start of the offensive. Hitler's desire to micro-manage the war down to the lowest level played into the Soviets' hands. They knew every move of almost all German units, often before the commanders of those units themselves. Indeed, Manstein's success during the Kharkov offensive has been attributed to the fact that he did not consult the Führer on many of his moves, so they were not compromised by the Lucy Ring and thus caught Red Army commanders by surprise.

A death trap for tanks

With this vital information to hand, Zhukov was able to plan his defence in a methodical way. The key to his plan was the need to prevent the German panzers from breaking free and manoeuvring against the Soviet rear areas. He recognized that Soviet units were inferior to the Germans when it came to mobile warfare, and he wanted to close down the battle into a series of local set-piece actions. A network of strongpoints, each reinforced with scores of anti-tank guns, was built around the Kursk salient. Each strongpoint was mutually supporting, so once the Germans attacked one they would be raked by well-aimed fire from another. The Germans were to be given no chance to put their mobile Blitzkrieg tactics into action, especially rampaging into the rear of Soviet positions. Zhukov wanted to capitalize on his soldiers' dogged determination in defensive operations. He wanted to trade their lives and their anti-tank guns for panzers. Russia had a massive supply of men and hardware at this stage of the war. This was to be the Verdun of the Eastern Front - a battle of attrition rather than a fast-moving tank battle.

For three months the Russians poured men and machines into the Kursk salient to build a string of defence lines almost 48km (30 miles) deep. Millions of mines were laid along the length of the salient, and behind them thousands of anti-tank guns and artillery pieces were sited in hundreds of strongpoints. Positioned between the defence lines were tank brigades, ready to launch immediate counterattacks, and behind the four main defence lines were tank corps held in reserve to seal any German breakthroughs. Hundreds of kilometres to the rear was the Fifth Guards Tank Army, Zhukov's strategic reserve, which was being held ready to deliver the coup de gr‰ce. Once committed, the Soviet strategic reserve would decide the fate of the war on the Eastern Front.

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