Quote:Prokhorovka and the Myth of the Largest Tank Battle

Published: 18 July 2017 by Ian Hudson

For decades the Battle of Kursk has been widely believed to be the largest tank battle in history.

In particular the fighting at Prokhorovka on the 12th July is often reported to have involved anywhere from 1200 to 2000 tanks clashing at point blank range, resulting in the destruction of up to 1200 vehicles.

However since the end of the Cold War extensive research by historians in the Soviet and German archives have analysed records of the units that took part.  As a result it’s now generally accepted that these numbers have been greatly exaggerated and that Prokhorovka wasn’t the largest tank battle.

This post gives a very brief overview of the results of this research.  The numbers presented here are taken from ‘Kursk 1943:  A Statistical Analysis’ by Niklas Zetterling and Anders Frankson and ‘Demolishing the Myth’ by Valeriy Zamulin.

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This research has also led to the numbers of lost tanks being revised drastically downwards.  Soviet records suggest that the 5th Guards Tank Army lost 359 tanks and assault guns on the 12th, of which 207 couldn’t be repaired.  German records suggest the equivalent figures for II SS Panzer Corps and III Panzer Corps are 193, with just 20 completely lost.  However different definitions of ‘lost’ between Soviet and German records make a direct comparison difficult.

Human losses are similarly difficult to determine.  The 5th Guards Tank Army lost 2240 men killed and 1157 missing (who would most likely have been killed) between the 12th and 16th July.  During the same period II SS Panzer Corps lost 503 killed and 57 missing.

Why then, did such exaggerated figures appear and take root?

They can be traced back to Soviet propaganda.  The Soviets knew they had taken heavy losses during the fighting.  Although the exact numbers were classified, there was still a need to make sure the population believed the casualties were justified.  Exaggerating the size of the German forces and their losses accomplished this and boosted morale.
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So if Kursk wasn’t the largest tank battle in history, what was?

It’s now generally accepted that it was the fighting around Brody and Dubno between the 26th and 29th July 1941, rather than Kursk.  This was part of the border battles fought at the beginning of the German invasion of the Soviet Union.  It involved up to 3500 Soviet and 750 German tanks.  The battle was a heavy Soviet defeat, they lost hundreds of tanks and thousands of soldiers.  Indeed by early July most of the units involved had been reduced to less than 10% of their tank strength.

Quote:THERE is no North Korean embassy in Canberra the reason has been the topic of speculation and myth for more than 40 years.

Most explanations centre around a shortage of vehicles on the showroom floor of a local car dealership, and one rebel theory highlights a thrown axe.

North Korea had a diplomatic post here from 2003 to 2008, when five staff were packed up and the offices in the Canberra suburb of O’Malley shut.

An official explanation was that the post, with a rent of $2000 a week, was too expensive for then-President Kim Jong-il’s liking. An unofficial explanation was that the expected revenue from smuggling drugs and other contraband into Australia through diplomatic channels wasn’t paying off.

The first North Korean embassy, opened in 1974, lasted just a year.

Famed Canberra Times columnist, the late Alan Fitzgerald, reported that in 1975 the envoys of the North had wanted to buy a stately Mercedes Benz for official business.

They went down to the local Merc dealer and found just what they were looking for on the showroom floor. However, there was a catch.

The dealer had to tell them the car had already been sold — to the Embassy of South Korea.

This was an insult too great for the men serving President Kim il-Sung and they swiftly left.

There is another account of the Mercedes story involving a road accident. A variation is that the original North Korean vehicle had been damaged in a crash and that’s why they needed a new one.

In 2000 the ABC’s Philip Williams outlined a different story with even greater diplomatic farce.

In 1975 the North Koreans packed up and were so reckless speeding to the airport they crashed their Mercedes. This happened outside the South Korean ambassador’s residence, or so goes the story, adding to the humiliation.

Why the haste?

According to Williams, a short time before the diplomatic departure, American troops just outside the demilitarised zone separating North and South Korea wanted to remove a tree blocking their view of opposing forces.

Someone was sent in with an axe to do the job, but things got out of hand as, apparently, did the axe. The North Koreans accused the woodsman of attacking their soldiers with the implement, and in turn they hacked him to death.

Part of this story is a claim the ill-fated woodsman threw the axe at the Northern folk, and that it was marked, “Made in Australia”.

Thus a major military and diplomatic incident involved Australia.

However, after some consideration a translation error was admitted. The axe had been made in Austria, but it was too late to halt the trail of North Korean envoys and wrecked vehicle in Canberra 10,000 kms away from the DMZ.

News & Views Down Under

Quote:The Silent Swarm

For five years, they moved in shadows, unnoticed. China’s Ministry of State Security had orchestrated a plan so subtle, so insidious, that even the NSA’s vast surveillance network missed it. Drones—small, unassuming, and disguised as commercial tech—trickled into the United States through ports, warehouses, and even hobbyist supply chains. They were smuggled in shipping containers, mislabeled as consumer electronics, or assembled in covert factories hidden in rural America. Each drone was a marvel of engineering: lightweight, modular, and equipped with AI capable of autonomous operation. They lay dormant, waiting for the signal.

By 2025, the U.S. was a house of cards, its infrastructure brittle from decades of underinvestment and political gridlock. The electrical grid, a patchwork of aging transformers and outdated substations, was a prime target. Pipelines crisscrossing the continent, carrying oil and gas, were equally vulnerable. The Pentagon, distracted by domestic unrest and geopolitical posturing, had underestimated China’s long game.

Phase One: The Blackout

On July 13, 2025, at 2:00 AM EST, the signal went out. Thousands of drones, hidden in forests, abandoned warehouses, and suburban garages, activated simultaneously. They swarmed power substations across the Midwest, Northeast, and West Coast. Each drone carried a small electromagnetic pulse (EMP) device, designed to fry transformers without explosives. By 3:00 AM, 60% of the U.S. electrical grid was offline. Cities plunged into darkness. Hospitals scrambled for backup generators. Communication networks faltered as cell towers lost power.

The drones didn’t stop there. Pipeline control systems, reliant on SCADA networks, were next. Drones equipped with hacking modules infiltrated these systems, overriding safety protocols. Valves shut down, pumps failed, and pressure surges triggered explosions along key pipelines in Texas, Oklahoma, and North Dakota. The U.S. energy supply chain was crippled in hours.

Phase Two: Crippling the Military

While civilians grappled with blackouts, China’s drones turned on U.S. military assets. AWACS planes at Tinker Air Force Base and C-17 Globemasters at Dover and Travis were targeted by swarms of kamikaze drones. These weren’t the crude explosives of past wars but precision machines that burrowed into avionics bays, detonating charges to disable critical systems. Tankers at Fairchild and McConnell Air Force Bases suffered similar fates, their fuel lines severed by drones that had infiltrated base perimeters months earlier, posing as maintenance bots.

Naval bases were hit hardest. Norfolk, San Diego, and Pearl Harbor saw coordinated attacks. Drones, launched from offshore containers disguised as fishing vessels, targeted radar arrays, communication hubs, and docked warships. The USS Gerald R. Ford, America’s prized carrier, was rendered inoperable when drones destroyed its satellite uplinks and fire control systems. The Navy’s Pacific Fleet, already stretched thin, was effectively blind.

Phase Three: The Taiwan Gambit

With the U.S. reeling, China moved. On July 14, 2025, the People’s Liberation Army Navy launched a full-scale invasion of Taiwan. Amphibious assault ships, supported by hypersonic missiles and fifth-generation fighters, overwhelmed Taiwan’s defenses. The U.S., unable to project power without its logistical backbone, could only watch. AWACS and tankers, critical for coordinating air operations, were grounded. C-17s, meant to ferry troops and supplies, sat useless. The Pacific Fleet, hamstrung by the loss of its bases, couldn’t deploy in time.

Taiwan’s air defenses held for 72 hours before collapsing. China’s drone swarms, now battle-tested, dominated the skies, overwhelming U.S.-supplied Patriot systems. By July 20, Taipei was under PLA control.

The Aftermath

The U.S. scrambled to respond, but the damage was done. The grid outages persisted for weeks, crippling the economy. Fuel shortages grounded civilian and military transport. The Pentagon, humiliated, faced a public demanding answers. China, meanwhile, consolidated its hold on Taiwan, presenting the invasion as a fait accompli to a fractured UN.

The drones, China’s silent army, had been the perfect weapon—cheap, deniable, and devastating. For five years, they’d hidden in plain sight, a testament to patience and deception. The U.S., once the world’s unchallenged superpower, now faced a new reality: its vulnerabilities had been exposed, and the cost of rebuilding would be measured in decades.

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Notes: This is a fictional scenario, grounded in plausible but speculative tactics. Real-world cybersecurity, military preparedness, and international dynamics are far more complex. If you’d like me to explore specific aspects—like technical details of drone tech, U.S. countermeasures, or geopolitical fallout—let me know!

Quote:Harry Kellar’s “Blue Room” illusion is one that exemplifies the affinity between science, stage magic, and some of the prominent issues circulating within Victorian culture. It involves a series of appearances, disappearances, and transformations that occur within a small, curtained chamber.

The Blue Room and Metempsychosis transformations were created by employing a carefully-choreographed series of undetectable stage reconfigurations centered around a partially-mirrored pane of glass. The mirrored glass was carefully prepared with the silvering gradually scraped away so that the pane, from one end to the other, went from entirely transparent to entirely reflective.

Quote:Centering around the creation of a substance called "apergy", a form of anti-gravitational energy, Percy Greg's novel details a flight to Mars taken in 1830. They discover the planet to be inhabited by diminutive beings who, convinced that life couldn't exist any where else apart from on their world, refuse to believe that the unnamed narrator is actually from Earth - deciding instead he is an unusually tall Martian from some remote corner of their planet.

The book is notable as containing what is probably the first alien language in any work of fiction to be described with linguistic and grammatical terminology. It also contains what is possibly the first instance in the English language of the word "Astronaut", which features as the name of the narrator's spacecraft. In 2010 a crater on Mars was named Greg in recognition of his contribution to the lore of Mars. Volume 2 available here.

Quote:“The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) requires an ultra-long-range business jet aircraft to support rapid global transportation of Department of Justice (DOJ) personnel in response to counterterrorism, high-risk operations, and other sensitive missions. The aircraft will also support executive transportation requirements for the FBI Director and the U.S. Attorney General".”

The solicitation was posted on July 11, the same day FBI deputy director Dan Bongino allegedly refused to show up to work after a blow out fight with Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel. According to widespread reports, the dust up resulted from the DOJ’s botched roll up of Jeffrey Epstein’s dirty laundry.

The order is curious, given the FBI directors past disdain for top DOJ officials flying private on the Tax Payer’s dime. The FBI should "ground Chris Wray's private jet that he pays for with taxpayer dollars to hop around the country," Patel said during an episode of "Kash's Corner" podcast in 2023.

According to a report by CBS news, the FBI has refused to confirm “Patel's flight schedule and would not confirm his presence on a number of flights to destinations where he later appeared. During the first weekend in April, for instance, a Boeing 757 owned by the Department of Justice made two round trip flights from Washington to New York.”

As voters of all stripes scream for more disclosures regarding the death of Jeffrey Epstein and the guests that flew on HIS private jet, it looks like America’s top law enforcement officials will continue a long tradition of flying private, away from the maddening crowd.

Quote:Janet Blair (April 23, 1921 – February 19, 2007) petite strawberry-blonde who could range from sweet and demure to sharp and peppy, Janet Blair had an ability to outshine stars on occasion but never quite became a star herself. She hoofed her way through Broadway (1942), a gangster story about the Great White Way with George Raft, and was cast opposite Cary Grant in his role as a luckless producer who hires a dancing caterpillar in Once Upon a Time (1944). She played second lead to Rita Hayworth in Tonight and Every Night, a ludicrous tale of the saucy Windmill Theatre in London.

Janet Blair proved a stalwart supporter of the Allied cause, posing in tight sweaters to aid the war effort, and presenting Lord Halifax, the British ambassador in Washington, with a bronze plaque commemorating the entertainers who worked on during the Blitz. When she crossed the Atlantic in 1945 to publicise Tars and Spars, the story of a wartime revue, wan Londoners were struck by her healthy complexion, which had earned her an award for wearing the least make-up in Hollywood.

Back home again she earned plaudits for her part in The Fuller Brush Man, a murder comedy with Sid Caesar (1946) and provided the love interest in The Fabulous Dorseys, about the bandleader brothers Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey (1946). But after The Black Arrow (1948), a disappointing swashbuckler in which she played a haughty Lady Joanna, she was not entirely sorry to have her contract with Columbia ended. "All I got were princess parts," she recalled. "A girl gets tired of being a princess all of the time."

Janet Blair's later work included the television series Smith Family, in which she played the wife of a detective played by Henry Fonda, and such films as Walt Disney's The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band, with Buddy Ebsen, and Won Ton Ton, a spoof on the canine star Rin Tin Tin.

Her best film was Night of the Eagle (1962), a supernatural thriller made with Peter Wyngarde in Britain, in which she played a wife who dabbles in witchcraft.

Janet Blair Obit

Quote:Eureka Daily Sentinel, Eureka weekly sentinel, and The Eureka sentinel

The small mining camp that eventually became known as Eureka was established in 1864 by prospectors who had discovered rich lead-silver deposits in a canyon 70 miles east of Austin, Nevada. At first, smelting the mixed ore proved difficult, and mining languished until the construction of new local furnaces that were adapted to lead-silver smelting techniques. When the news of this success reached the neighboring districts there was a rush to the camp, and a flurry of new mining activity followed.

In 1871 the Eureka Daily Sentinel reported that Eureka mining stock was on the rise in San Francisco (despite the financial dislocation caused by the Chicago Fire): “at no time in the history of the district has property looked so well on the San Francisco market . . . though long delayed this appreciation of the actual worth of our mining interests  is none the less welcome . . .  Soon we may hope to see Eureka stocks of all kinds attract the attention of speculators they so well deserve, and rival the famous ones of the Comstock lode.”

In 1873, the new county of Eureka was carved out of the three neighboring counties with the town of Eureka serving as its seat. With the consolidation of mining operations into two large companies, the construction of new furnaces, and the completion of the Eureka & Palisade and Eureka & Ruby Hill Railroads, Eureka by 1878 had become the second largest city in Nevada. 

The Eureka Sentinel was first established in 1870 when Archibald Skillman moved his press from Shermantown, where he had very briefly published the Shermantown Reporter, to the new booming camp of Eureka.  With his partner and editor, Dr. L.C. McKenney, A. Skilman and Co. published a weekly paper that prospered with the town.

In 1871, the Eureka Sentinel was bought by Fred Ellott, a printer and writer, and George W. Cassidy, the late editor of the Hamilton Inland Empire, who expanded the Sentinel to a triweekly with an actively Democratic editorial policy. Cassidy, a senator and later congressman from Nevada, turned over the editorship to John H. Dennis in 1874 to concentrate on his political career. Dennis published the Eureka Sentinel as a daily.

In 1876, Archibald Skillman returned to Eureka from Hamilton, where he had published the White Pine News. He bought out Dennis’s interest in the Eureka Sentinel andran the paper with Cassidy until the latter’s death in 1892. In 1879, Skillman and Cassidy added a weekly addition to the daily, and ran both editions until 1887 when they suspended the daily.

The Eureka Sentinel survived a number of disasters: in 1873, a fire burned down most of the town and totally destroyed the printing plant. While the publishers waited for new equipment and supplies to arrive from San Francisco, they launched the Eureka Daily Sentinel Supplement to meet their requirement of publishing the new county’s legal notices. The next year flash floods swept through the canyon inundating the town of Eureka and its newspaper.

By 1885, the district’s ore deposits were exhausted, and by 1890, the smelters had closed down. When the two competing mining companies merged in 1906, there was a brief recovery, but the local railroads were washed out by flash floods in 1910.  Eureka never fully recovered from these losses despite sporadic mining activity.

Archibald Skillman managed the Eureka Sentinel as sole owner and editor until his death in 1900. The Sentinel passed to his son, Ed Skillman who ran it until his death in 1940, and his son after him, until the paper was finally sold in 1944.

Quote:Eureka Sentinel Museum, "Battle Born" Nevada

The Eureka Sentinel is still active today. The following is a historical excerpt from there website: "Following the death of his partner at the Shermantown Reporter in the Hamilton area in 1870, G.A. Brier moved his press and equipment to the new camp town of Eureka. Together with Dr. L.C. McKenney, a former journalist, they began publishing the Eureka Sentinel July 16, 1870.

It became a daily in 1871. A weekly paper was added to the daily August 20, 1879, and the two editions ran concurrently until the daily was suspended in 1887." Both Shawn Hall and E Clampus Vitus list a man named A. Skillman or Abraham Skillman as a founding party. The following is an excerpt from the historical plaque on the old sentinel building. This plaque was put up by the Lucinda Jane Saunders 1881 Chapter of E Clampus Vitus (Elko).

"When A. Skillman closed the Shermantown Reporter at Hamilton he moved his printing press to Eureka. Together with Dr. L.C. McKenny they started the Sentinel as a weekly paper in July 1870. It became a daily in June 1871 reporting local and international news via telegraph dispatches. The Sentinel's reporting of mining and other opportunities helped bring people and investors to this once great Nevada mining district. Originally located at No. 5 Buel Street it relocated here in August 1879.

Last published on June 12, 1960 by editor. Publisher and owner Edward James Mowle who died two days after the last issue." The two stories are almost identical, with one exception. One version calls the man G.A. Brier. The other version calls him Abraham Skillman. I found a website called skillmansofamerica. This appears to be a multi-generational, genealogical website for the Skillman family. They claim that Skillman was an editor (but not a co-owner or founder) at the Eureka Sentinel from 1870-1900. They also list him as a co-owner of the White Pine News in Hamilton between 1873-1878. They also state that he emigrated to Virginia City in 1868. They do not list anything about him spending time in White Pine County prior to 1870.

According to their website, Skillman would have been in Virginia City during the immediate time period prior to 1870. With that said, I have no idea how accurate the Skillman website is. A written description of the Eureka Sentinel from the University of Nevada Las Vegas also uses the version with Abraham Skillman. I'm just putting the information out there. I'm not taking a side on which version is correct. Today, the building that was utilized by the Sentinel starting in 1879 is an active museum. There are all kinds of artifacts from the early days of Eureka. The old lodge regalia from the Masons, Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias is very impressive. There are also some very cool, original era artifacts from the Eureka Fire Departments. It is well worth the visit.

• Pair-O-Dice opened on July 4, 1931.
  
• Became Ambassador Night Club in 1936.
  
• Became 91 Club in 1939.
  
• 91 Club is integrated into the Hotel Last Frontier.
  
• Hotel Last Frontier opened on October 30, 1942.
  
• Little Church of the West opened on May 22, 1943 on the north side of the property.
  
• Last Frontier Village opened in 1948.
  
• Golden Slipper Saloon and Gambling Hall opened in 1950 within the Last Frontier Village.
  
• Golden Slipper Saloon and Gambling Hall renamed Silver Slipper in 1950.
  
• Little Church of the West relocated to the south side of the property in 1954.
  
• A new casino is built and renamed New Frontier in 1955.
  
• Hotel Last Frontier is demolished in 1966.
  
• Last Frontier Village demolished in 1966.
  
• A 7-story hotel tower is built in 1967.
  
• A second 7-story hotel tower is built in 1967.
  
• Hotel Last Frontier became The Frontier in 1967.
  
• Little Church of the West relocated to the Hacienda Hotel Resort and Casino in 1979.
  
• Silver Slipper closed on November 28, 1988.
  
• Silver Slipper demolished in 1988.
  
• Atrium Tower is built in 1989.
  
• On September 21, 1991, the Culinary Workers Union 226, Bartenders 165, Teamsters 995, Operating Engineers 501, and Carpenters 1780 staged a strike against the Frontier. The strike ended on February 1, 1998.
  
  
• The Frontier became New Frontier in 1998.
  
• New Frontier closed on July 16, 2007.
  
• New Frontier imploded in 2007.