text:
The Battle of Prokhorovka was fought on 12 July 1943 near Prokhorovka,  southeast of Kursk, in the Soviet Union, during the Second World War. Taking place on the Eastern Front, the engagement was part of the wider Battle of Kursk and occurred when the 5th Guards Tank Army of the Soviet Red Army attacked the II SS-Panzer Corps of the German Waffen-SS in one of the largest tank battles in history.

In April 1943, the German leadership began preparing for Operation Citadel, with the objective of enveloping and destroying the Soviet forces in the Kursk salient by attacking and breaking through the base of the salient from north and south simultaneously. The German offensive was delayed several times because of the vacillation of the leadership (Hitler repeatedly delayed launching the attack so that more Tiger tanks could be delivered to the front, hoping that a technical advantage would help him win the offensive) and the addition of more forces and new equipment. The Soviet high command, Stavka, had learned of the German intentions and so used the delay to prepare a series of defensive belts along the routes of the planned German offensive. The Soviet leadership also massed several armies deep behind their defences as the Stavka Reserve. The army group, the Steppe Front, was to launch counteroffensives once the German strength had dissipated. The 5th Guards Tank Army was the primary armoured formation of the Steppe Front.

On 5 July 1943, the Wehrmacht launched its offensive. On the northern side of the salient, the German forces bogged down within four days. On the southern side, the German 4th Panzer Army, with Army Detachment Kempf on its eastern flank, attacked the Soviet defences of the Voronezh Front. They made slow but steady progress through the Soviet defensive lines.

After a week of fighting, the Soviets launched their counteroffensives: Operation Kutuzov on the northern side and a coinciding one on the southern side. On the southern side of the salient near Prokhorovka, the 5th Guards Tank Army engaged the II SS-Panzer Corps of the 4th Panzer Army, resulting in a large clash of armoured fighting vehicles. The 5th Guards Tank Army suffered significant losses in the attack, but succeeded in preventing the Wehrmacht from capturing Prokhorovka and breaking through the third defensive belt, the last heavily-fortified one. Having failed to achieve his objective, Hitler, despite the advice of his commanders, cancelled Operation Citadel and began redeploying his forces to deal with new pressing developments elsewhere.

The Red Army went on a general offensive by conducting Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev on the southern side and continuing Operation Kutuzov on the northern side. The Soviet Union thus seized the strategic initiative on the Eastern Front, which it held for the rest of the war.

Background

After the conclusion of the battle for the Donets, as the spring  (mud) season came to an end in 1943, both the German and Soviet commands considered their plans for future operations. The Soviet premier Joseph Stalin and some senior Soviet officers wanted to seize the initiative first and attack the German forces inside the Soviet Union, but they were convinced by a number of key commanders, including the Deputy Supreme Commander Georgy Zhukov, to assume a defensive posture instead. This would allow the German side to weaken themselves in attacking prepared positions, after which the Soviet forces would be able to respond with a counter-offensive.

Strategic discussions also occurred on the German side, with Field Marshal Erich von Manstein arguing for a mobile defence that would give up terrain and allow the Soviet units to advance, while the German forces launched a series of sharp counterattacks against their flanks to inflict heavy attrition. But for political reasons, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler insisted that the German forces go on the offensive, choosing the Kursk salient for the attack. On 15 April 1943 he authorised preparations for Unternehmen Zitadelle (Operation Citadel).

The German offensive plan envisioned an assault at the base of the Kursk salient from both the north and south, with the intent of enveloping and destroying the Soviet forces in the salient. The two spearheads were to meet near the city of Kursk. From the south, the XLVIII Panzer Corps and General Paul Hausser's II SS-Panzer Corps, forming the left and right wings of the 4th Panzer Army commanded by Colonel General Hermann Hoth, would drive northward. The III Panzer Corps of Army Detachment Kempf was to protect Hoth's right flank. The 4th Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf were under Army Group South, commanded by Manstein. Air support over the southern portion of the offensive was provided by Colonel General Otto Deßloch's Luftflotte 4 and its major air formation, the 8th Air Corps. The German offensive, originally slated to commence in the beginning of May, was postponed several times as the German leadership reconsidered and vacillated over its prospects, as well as to bring forward more units and equipment.

The Soviet leadership, through their intelligence agencies and foreign sources, learned about the German intentions, and therefore the multiple delays by the German high command, OKW, allowed them a great deal of time to prepare their defences. Employing defence in depth, they constructed a series of defensive lines to wear down the attacking panzer formations. Three belts made up of extensive minefields, anti-tank ditches, and anti-tank gun emplacements were created; behind those were an additional three belts, which were mostly unoccupied and less fortified. The Voronezh Front, commanded by General Nikolai Vatutin, defended the southern face of the salient. The Steppe Front, commanded by Colonel General Ivan Konev, formed the strategic reserve. It was to be held back east of the salient until the time was right for the Soviet counteroffensive. This formation included Lieutenant General Alexei Zhadov's 5th Guards Army and Lieutenant General Pavel Rotmistrov's 5th Guards Tank Army.

German advance leading up to Prokhorovka

The Wehrmacht launched its attack on the morning of 5 July 1943 and met heavy resistance. There were far more Soviet anti-tank guns, minefields, anti-tank ditches and overall Soviet resistance than had been anticipated, making a breakthrough more difficult to achieve. Furthermore, from the outset they were subjected to frequent counterattacks from Soviet tank units. Despite this, by the end of 5 July the II SS-Panzer Corps had advanced through the first defensive belt on the southern side of the salient and reached the second, although the plan was to breach the first two belts and reach the third on the first day. Nonetheless, the panzer corps' penetration caused great concern among Soviet commanders, compelling Vatutin to commit almost all of Voronezh Front's operational reserves by the end of the first day.

The III Panzer Corps met with stiff resistance as well and had great difficulty creating and maintaining a bridgehead across the Northern Donets River. They eventually succeeded by the morning of 6 July, but the delay in their advance kept them from protecting the east flank of the II SS-Panzer Corps.

Late on 6 July, the 5th Guards Tank and the 5th Guards Armies of the Steppe Front began moving up from their reserve position. The 5th Guards Tank Army covered the  over three days, and arrived at the Prokhorovka area on the night of 9 July, and the 5th Guards Army's 33rd Guards Rifle Corps arrived at the settlement on the night of 10 July. Both armies completed their journey and deployment intact without any substantial interference from the Luftwaffe.

Slow progress by the XLVIII Panzer Corps caused Hoth to shift elements of the II SS-Panzer Corps on 8 July to aid the XLVIII Corps' drive toward Oboyan and Kursk. On the same day, the Soviet units counterattacked the II SS-Panzer Corps with several tank corps. These attacks did not destroy the panzer corps as hoped, but slowed its progress. By the end of 8 July, the II SS-Panzer Corps had advanced about  and broken through the first and second defensive belts.

On the following day, 9 July, a meeting of the commanders of the German forces on the northern side of the Kursk salient concluded that a breakthrough on the northern side of the salient was unlikely. Nevertheless, they decided to continue their offensive to maintain pressure and inflict casualties, thereby tying down the Soviet forces there. Any level of success for Operation Citadel now depended on a breakthrough being achieved by 4th Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf on the southern side of the Kursk salient.

German attack toward Prokhorovka

On the evening of 9 July, the II SS-Panzer Corps was ordered to shift its own forward progress, from due north to the northeast, toward the settlement of Prokhorovka. Hoth had formulated this move, and had discussed it with Manstein since early May, as he expected large Soviet armoured reserve forces to arrive from the east, and he did not want his corps to be caught crossing the Psel River when they arrived. The plan originally envisioned elements of XLVIII Panzer Corps and III Panzer Corps joining in the attack toward Prokhorovka, but this could not be realised. The Soviet command, however, interpreted the change in direction to be a response to the heavy resistance the German forces had faced driving toward Oboyan, and incorrectly believed the change indicated the German panzer forces had been severely weakened.

Soviet intelligence reports issued from 8 to 9 July reported that defensive works were being constructed by German infantry on the flanks of the 4th Panzer Army, and that German armoured formations were not present in these locations, despite the fact that Soviet armoured formations were situated opposite these flanks. Voronezh Front headquarters supposed the Germans must be reaching their limit, and on 10 July decided to set its counterattack to coincide with the planned Soviet counteroffensive on the northern side of the Kursk salient, Operation Kutuzov, which was set for 12 July.

Starting on the morning of 10 July, the II SS-Panzer Corps began its attack toward Prokhorovka. Its 3rd SS-Panzergrenadier Division Totenkopf attacked across the Psel River and secured a bridgehead. The 1st SS-Panzergrenadier Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler captured Komsomolets State Farm and Hill 241.6. The 2nd SS-Panzergrenadier Division Das Reich defended the panzer corps' flank from Soviet armoured counterattacks.

The II SS-Panzer Corps continued its attack toward Prokhorovka on 11 July. The advance of Leibstandarte was checked by the 2nd Tank Corps, which had been reinforced by the 9th Guards Airborne Division and 301st Anti-tank Artillery Regiment, both from the 33rd Guards Rifle Corps. Totenkopf was resisted by the 31st Tank Corps, the 33rd Guards Rifle Corps' 95th Guards Rifle Division, and the 11th Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 10th Tank Corps. To the south of Leibstandarte, the 2nd Guards Tank Corps and the 48th Rifle Corps' 183rd Rifle Division opposed the advance of Das Reich.

By day's end on 11 July Leibstandarte had advanced deep into the Soviet third defensive belt. They had moved up the Psel corridor, cleared Soviet resistance at the Oktyabrsky ("October") State Farm (), crossed a 15-foot (4.6 m)-deep anti-tank ditch at the base of Hill 252.2 and seized the hill itself after a brief but bloody battle, leaving them only  south of Prokhorovka. To its northwest, the panzergrenadiers of Totenkopf had achieved a bridgehead across the Psel and tanks had been brought across, but they had yet to take Hill 226.6 and there was a  gap between Totenkopf and Leibstandarte. To the south of Leibstandarte, Das Reich had also met stiff resistance and lagged behind some . With its advance, Leibstandarte was exposed on both of its flanks.

Late on 11 July the 5th Guards Tank Army prepared for its forthcoming counterattack. Leibstandartes advance had disrupted Rotmistrov's preparations, as the assembly areas he intended to use for the tank army's 18th and 29th Tank Corps were in German hands by the end of the day, forcing him to hastily revise his plans and select new positions. The arrival of the 5th Guards Tank Army just days earlier was detrimental to it in two major ways: the tank unit commanders did not have an opportunity to reconnoitre the terrain they would be travelling across, and the supporting artillery was unable to site and spot their fire.

Planning

German plans for 12 July
Late on the evening of 11 July, Hausser, the commander of the II SS-Panzer Corps, issued orders for the next day's advance on Prokhorovka. It was known that the Red Army had dug in many anti-tank guns on the southwest slopes of Prokhorovka, making a direct attack by Leibstandarte very difficult. The plan was for Totenkopf to capture Hill 226.6, and advance northeast along the Psel River to the Kartashёvka-Prokhorovka road, and then strike southeast into the flank and rear of Soviet forces at Prokhorovka. Leibstandarte was ordered to make a limited advance and secure Storozhevoe and Lamki just outside Prokhorovka, then it and Das Reich were to wait until Totenkopfs attack had disrupted the Soviet positions, after which Leibstandarte was to attack the main Soviet defences on the southwest slope of Prokhorovka. To Leibstandartes right, elements of Das Reich were also to advance eastward to the high ground south of Prokhorovka, then turn south away from Prokhorovka to roll up the Soviet defences opposing the III Panzer Corps' advance and force a gap. The 8th Air Corps was to concentrate its effort to supporting the advance of the II SS-Panzer Corps, with the XLVIII Panzer Corps to the west assigned limited air resources.

Soviet plans for 12 July
The 5th Guards Army and 5th Guards Tank Army of the Steppe Front had been brought up from reserve and reassigned to the Voronezh Front on 8 and 11 July respectively. On 11 July, Vatutin ordered the armies of the Voronezh Front to go over to the offensive on the following day. This Soviet counterattack on the southern side of the Kursk salient was planned to coincide with the offensive against Orel on the northern side, Operation Kutuzov. Vatutin ordered Rotmistrov to destroy the German forces near Prokhorovka with his 5th Guards Tank Army, without allowing the German forces to withdraw southward.

For the battle, Rotmistrov ordered his tanks to move forward at high speed to engage the German armour in order to nullify the advantages the Tiger tanks had in the range and firepower of their 88 mm guns. He believed the more manoeuvrable T-34 medium tanks would be able to quickly close in and obtain effective flanking shots against the German heavy tanks. In fact, Soviet intelligence had greatly overestimated the numbers of Ferdinand Jagdpanzer tank destroyers and Tiger tanks possessed by the II SS-Panzer Corps. In actuality there were no Ferdinands with the 4th Panzer Army or Army Group South, as they were all deployed on the northern side of the Kursk salient with the 9th Army. Soviet tank crews frequently mistook the versions of Panzer IV tanks that were armed with the 7.5 cm KwK 40 anti-tank gun, which also had extra armour added to their turret, for Tigers; therefore Soviet reports tended to overestimate the number of Tigers employed by the German side during the Battle of Kursk.

Soviet air support in the southern part of the salient was provided by the 2nd Air Army and the 17th Air Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Stepan Krasovsky and Lieutenant General Vladimir Sudets, respectively. However, the bulk of the air support was committed in support of Soviet units attacking XLVIII Panzer Corps to the west of Prokhorovka and the III Panzer Corps to the southeast, and only limited numbers of aircraft were available to support 5th Guards Tank Army's attack.

Rotmistrov's plans for a counterattack were threatened by events to the south. The III Panzer Corps managed to cross the Northern Donets at Rzhavets on the night of 11 July, and was about  southeast of Prokhorovka, and advancing northwards. This threat jeopardised Rotmistrov's entire plan by threatening the flank and rear of the 5th Guards Tank Army. Early on 12 July, Vatutin ordered Rotmistrov to send reinforcements to the Soviet 7th Guards and 69th Armies facing the III Panzer Corps. He organised a task force under the command of his deputy, Major General Kuzma Trufanov, which consisted of the 26th Guards Tank Brigade from the 2nd Guards Tank Corps, the 11th and 12th Guards Mechanized Brigades from the 5th Guards Mechanized Corps, and the 53rd Guards Tank Regiment of the 5th Guards Tank Army. Other units of the Voronezh Front also joined the group on its way south. In doing so, Rotmistrov committed over half of his army's reserves before the Battle of Prokhorovka had begun.

Opposing forces

Disposition of German forces

The German forces involved in the Battle of Prokhorovka were from the three Waffen-SS divisions of the II SS-Panzer Corps: Leibstandarte, Das Reich, and Totenkopf. On the evening of 11 July, the serviceable armour strength of the II SS-Panzer Corps was 294 tanks and assault guns, which included 15 Tigers. The armoured strength of Leibstandarte, Das Reich, and Totenkopf were 77, 95, and 122 tanks and assault guns respectively. Ten of the Tigers were to the north of the Psel River with Totenkopf, four were with Leibstandarte, and Das Reich had just one.

Leibstandarte had advanced the most deeply toward Prokhorovka and was situated in the centre of the German position. A railway line, with a 30-feet high railbed, divided Leibstandartes area into north and south. The bulk of the division was positioned to the north of the rail line, including the division's 1st SS-Panzer Regiment and 2nd SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment, as well as its reconnaissance, artillery and command units. To the south of the rail line was Leibstandartes 1st SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment, along with the division's 1st SS-Panzerjäger Battalion. Das Reich was positioned to the south of Leibstandarte, and it protected the southern flank of the II SS-Panzer Corps. Totenkopf was positioned to the northwest of Leibstandarte. Totenkopfs 3rd SS-Panzer Regiment had largely crossed over the Psel in preparation for the assault. Leibstandarte placed its lightly armed 1st SS-Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion in the  gap between it and Totenkopf to provide some flank protection. The unit was, later on 12 July, buttressed by the division's four remaining Tigers, commanded by SS-Untersturmführer Michael Wittmann.

Disposition of Soviet forces
The main Soviet armoured formation involved in the battle was the 5th Guards Tank Army, which controlled five corps, two of which were Guards units, by 12 July: the 2nd Guards, 2nd, 5th Guards Mechanized, 18th and 29th Tank Corps. Altogether they fielded 793 tanks and 37 to 57 self-propelled guns for a total of approximately 840 armoured fighting vehicles. About two-thirds of these tanks were T-34s, while the remainder were T-70 light tanks, with some 31 to 35 Churchill heavy tanks as well. Not all of the 5th Guards Tank Army was present in the Prokhorovka area during the battle, as part of the formation had been sent south to check the advance of the III Panzer Corps. The Soviet armour of the 5th Guards Tank Army – including the newly attached 2nd Guards Tank Corps and 2nd Tank Corps, as well as the 5th Guards Mechanized Corps held in reserve – that faced the II SS-Panzer Corps on 12 July was about 616 tanks and self-propelled guns. In addition, five artillery regiments, one artillery brigade, and one anti-aircraft artillery division were attached to the 5th Guards Tank Army for the assault.

The main attack of the 5th Guards Tank Army was conducted against Leibstandarte by its fresh 29th and 18th Tank Corps that had been brought up from the Soviet strategic reserve. These two Soviet tank corps together provided the greatest number of tanks in the attack, with the 18th Tank Corps fielding 190 tanks and self-propelled guns, and the 29th Tank Corps fielding 212 tanks and self-propelled guns. Infantry support to the 18th and 29th Tank Corps was provided by the 9th Guards Airborne Division. A portion of the 18th Tank Corps was directed against the eastern flank of Totenkopfs 6th SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment Theodor Eicke. On the southeastern wing of the 5th Guards Tank Army, Rotmistrov deployed the 120 tanks of the 2nd Guards Tank Corps. Later on 12 July during the battle, the 26th Guards Tank Brigade of that tank corps with its estimated 40 tanks were sent south to face the III Panzer Corps. The remainder of the 2nd Guards Tank Corps, supported by the remnants of the 2nd Tank Corps, was to attack Das Reich. Their infantry support was provided by the 183rd Rifle Division. The western flank of the 5th Guards Tank Army, which faced Totenkopf, was defended by the 33rd Guards Rifle Corps' 42nd and 95th Guards Rifle Divisions, which were supported by the remnants of the 31st Tank Corps and the heavily depleted 23rd Guards Rifle Corps' 52nd Guards Rifle Division. The forces of the 5th Guards Mechanized Corps that were not sent south were held as reserve northwest of Prokhorovka, and they numbered about 113 tanks and self-propelled guns.

Vatutin directed Soviet air assets to commit their main effort toward checking the III Panzer Corps' drive northward, and in supporting the attack against the XLVIII Panzer Corps. Missions were flown in support of the attack of the 5th Guards Tank Army as well, but to a limited extent. The 2nd Air Army had some 472 aircraft operational on 12 July, while the 17th Air Army had 300 operational aircraft.

Battle
At 05:45 on 12 July, Leibstandartes headquarters started receiving reports of the sound of many tank engines as the Soviet tanks moved into their assembly areas for the attack. At around 06:50, elements of Leibstandartes 1st SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment nudged forward and drove the Soviet infantry out of Storozhevoe, while elements of the division's 2nd SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment fanned out from the Oktyabrsky State Farm. The Soviet forces began a preparatory artillery barrage at around 08:00, and as the last shells fell at 08:30, Rotmistrov radioed the code words "Stal! Stal! Stal!" ("Steel, Steel, Steel!") – the order to commence the attack. With that the Soviet armour of the 5th Guards Tank Army began their advance.

Ground engagement
In total, about 500 tanks and self-propelled guns of the 5th Guards Tank Army attacked the positions of the II SS-Panzer Corps on 12 July, doing so in two waves, with 430 tanks in the first echelon and 70 more in the second.

Down from the slopes in front of Prokhorovka, the massed Soviet armour charged with five tank brigades of the 18th and 29th Tank Corps, firing as they came at Leibstandartes positions. As the Soviet tanks rolled down the slopes, they carried the men of the 9th Guards Airborne Division on their hulls ("tank desant"). The troops of Leibstandarte were not slated to go into action until later in the day. Exhausted from the previous week's fighting, many were just starting their day at the outset of the attack. As the Soviet armour appeared, German outposts all across the corps' frontage began firing purple warning flares signalling a tank attack. Obersturmbannführer Rudolf von Ribbentrop, commander of a panzer company under the 1st SS-Panzer Regiment, stated that he knew at once a major attack was underway. He ordered his company of seven Panzer IVs to follow him over a bridge across an anti-tank ditch. Crossing the bridge they fanned out on the lower slope of Hill 252.2. On the crest of the hill, Sturmbannführer Joachim Peiper's 3rd Panzergrenadier Battalion of the 2nd SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment were being overrun.

As Ribbentrop's tanks spread out, he and the 1st SS-Panzer Regiment were suddenly confronted by Soviet tanks of the 29th Tank Corps' 31st and 32nd Tank Brigades: "About 150–200 meters in front of me appeared fifteen, then thirty, then forty tanks. Finally there were too many of them to count." The Soviet armour, firing on the move, charged down the western slopes of Hill 252.2 into the panzer company, and a tank battle ensued. Rotmistrov's tactic to close at high speed disrupted the control and co-ordination of the Soviet tank formations and also greatly reduced their accuracy. In a three-hour battle, the 1st SS-Panzer Regiment engaged the attacking Soviet tanks and repulsed them, reporting that they destroyed about 62 Soviet tanks. Later that afternoon, tanks from the 31st Tank Brigade and the 53rd Motorized Brigade overran elements of the 1st SS-Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion and reached Komsomolets State Farm, threatening Leibstandarte lines of communication and the division's command post located at Hill 241.6. The Soviet tanks attacked the division's 1st SS-Panzer Artillery Regiment, killing some of the crews before they themselves were destroyed by direct fire from anti-tank teams.

Wittmann's group of four Tigers provided support to the reconnaissance battalion in its effort to protect Leibstandartes left flank, and faced off with the 18th Tank Corps' advancing 181st Tank Brigade. In a three-hour battle the Tigers engaged the Soviet tanks at ranges from 1,000 metres down to point-blank, inflicting heavy losses on the Soviet tankers and successfully repelling their attack. None of the Tigers were lost. Later, elements of the 170th Tank Brigade engaged the 1st SS-Panzer Regiment, which was already fighting the 31st and 32nd Tank Brigades. Despite losing its commander and about 30 tanks in the fight, by early afternoon the 170th Tank Brigade had forced the 1st SS-Panzer Regiment back to the Oktyabrsky State Farm and reached the position of the 1st SS-Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion. At around 18:00, the 170th and 181st Tank Brigades penetrated the German line connecting Totenkopf and Leibstandarte. Assault guns and panzers supporting Totenkopfs 6th SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment Theodor Eicke repelled the Soviet attack and re-established the line, forcing the Soviet tanks to withdraw to the village of Andreevka.

The advance of Soviet armour down Hill 252.2 was disrupted when they reached the anti-tank ditch at the base of the hill. A number of tanks crashed into the 15-foot deep ditch while others moved along the edge looking for a way to cross. Heavy fire was exchanged between the Soviet tanks and two companies of a panzergrenadier battalion on the opposite side of the ditch. Peiper's surviving panzergrenadiers engaged the Soviet infantry and attacked the Soviet tanks with Hafthohlladung magnetic anti-tank grenades. Twenty of his battalion's half-tracks were lost in the fighting, some destroyed in ramming the much heavier Soviet tanks in an effort to stop them. Eventually, due to heavy Soviet pressure and dangerously exposed flanks, Leibstandarte withdrew from the Oktyabrsky State Farm and established firmer defensive lines  to the south.

Air combat

The 2nd and 17th Air Armies flew 893 sorties compared to the German 8th Air Corps's 654 sorties over the southern part of the salient. Of note, most of the Soviet sorties flown that day were flown against the XLVIII Panzer Corps to the west and the III Panzer Corps to the south. Low clouds in the morning and thunderstorms in the afternoon inhibited air operations over Prokhorovka for both sides. Over the Prokhorovka battlefield the Luftwaffe gained control of the air. Formations of Junkers Ju 87 Stukas, including a small number of the G-2 variants, experimentally equipped with twin  Bordkanone BK 3,7 cannon in gun pods, that were commanded by Staffelkapitän Hans-Ulrich Rudel, attacked the Soviet formations. They were joined by Focke-Wulf Fw 190 single engine fighter-bombers and Henschel Hs 129 twin-engined ground-attack aircraft, both equipped with  anti-tank cannon. In particular, the Hs 129 formations from SG 1 inflicted grievous losses on Soviet tanks. The Stuka wings, StG 2 and StG 77, made their weakest contribution to the Kursk operation since the 5 July – 150 sorties – down from 1,071 on 5 July, but the small Ju 87G contingent proved effective. Luftwaffe liaison officers allotted to German ground forces were able to guide the close air support units to carry out pinpoint attacks. SG 1 and Panzerjägerstaffel/JG 51 flew 248 attack missions, virtually all of them in support of the II SS Panzerkorps.

The 31st Tank Brigade, 29th Tank Corps, reported: "We suffered heavy losses in tanks through enemy artillery and aircraft. At 10:30 our tanks reached the Komsomolets State Farm, but due to continuous air attacks, they were unable to advance any further and shifted to the defence." The tank brigade also reported: "our own air cover was fully absent until 13:00." The 5th Guards Tank Army reported: "the enemy's aircraft literally hung above our combat formations throughout the entire battle, while our own aircraft, and particularly the fighter aviation, was totally insufficient." The 36th Tank Brigade lost its commander to an air attack.

German domination of the Prokhorovka air space occurred for several reasons. During the initial stages of the battle it was Soviet tanks that were hit and burned, obscuring the battlefield which made it difficult for Soviet commanders to develop a clear picture of the situation. Added to that was the failure to provide air liaison officers with Red Army forces, who were then unable to call for air support when the German assault formations first appeared. Whereas the German 8th Air Corps assembled powerful concentrations over the Prokhorovka battlefield, the 17th Air Army spread its forces thinly, to support other sectors; the Soviets dominated the air over the 4th Panzer Army's flanks, leaving the skies over Prokhorovka clear. The 2nd Air Army's fighter aviation had been reduced to 266 aircraft, and this force was used in the fighter escort, not the air superiority role. The battle of Prokhorovka absorbed the 8th Air Corps' combat power to the extent it was unable to intervene to support the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps, enabling Soviet defences to defeat the attempted breakthrough in that sector.

The posture, dispositions and tactics on 12 July led to few losses on either side in air combat. The 8th Air Corps reported 19 aircraft damaged and destroyed. Only one German aircraft was reported lost in combat with Soviet fighters; the rest were victims of Soviet ground-fire. In return, the 2nd Air Army reported 14 fighters damaged and destroyed (German fighter pilots claimed only seven; though they claimed 16 aircraft of all types shot down). Soviet bomber losses are unknown.

Result of the engagement

By the end of the day, Leibstandarte still held Hill 252.2, but had been exhausted by the effort of turning back five Soviet tank brigades. To its left, Totenkopf had succeeded in capturing Hill 226.6 and had advanced along the northern bank of the Psel River to reach the Karteschevka–Prokhorovka road,  northwest of Prokhorovka in accordance with plan. It was in position to outflank the Soviet forces at Prokhorovka, but was under pressure from Soviet attacks and its hold on the forward ground was tenuous. Forced onto the defensive by the attacks of the 2nd Guards and 2nd Tank Corps, Das Reich was unable to conduct its planned offensive manoeuvres.

On the Soviet side, all the tank units under Rotmistrov's 5th Guards Tank Army involved in the battle on 12 July suffered heavy losses. Rotmistrov later wrote that the 29th Tank Corps lost 60 percent of its armour and the 18th Tank Corps lost 30 percent on 12 July. A Soviet General Staff report recorded: "Thus on 12 July, the 5th Guards Tank Army failed to accomplish its assigned mission. As a result of the frontal attack, the army's corps fought heavy battles against large enemy tank forces during which they were forced to assume defence." Rotmistrov was forced to shift the 18th and 29th Tank Corps over to defence and reinforce them with infantry. They dug more trenches, dug in some of their tanks, laid new minefields, prepared anti-tank strong points and massed their artillery. The 10th Guards Mechanized and 24th Guards Tank Brigades of the 5th Guards Mechanized Corps made preparations to push Totenkopf back the next morning.

Stalin was very disappointed and infuriated by the early reports of heavy Soviet losses in the battle and on the evening of 12 July, he berated Rotmistrov via a phone call. The same evening, he dispatched Zhukov, who had been overseeing Operation Kutuzov, to Vatutin's headquarters as Stavka representative, in order to assume control of coordinating the operations of the Voronezh and Steppe Fronts. A commission was dispatched to investigate the cause of the high losses and the role of Rotmistrov and his plans in the battle; its findings were completed and submitted to Stalin two weeks later, and initially considering sacking Rotmistrov and hauling him before a military tribunal, Stalin eventually changed his mind after the Chief of the General Staff Aleksandr Vasilevsky interceded.

Following the main engagement
On the night of 12 July, Vatutin ordered Soviet forces to prevent any further German advance on Prokhorovka, destroy German forces that had advanced along the northern bank of the Psel River, and stop the III Panzer Corps from making further progress. Orders issued by the German command for 13 July instructed Totenkopf to consolidate its gains of the previous day and then attack into the flank and rear of the Soviet forces around Prokhorovka. Leibstandarte was to strengthen its front line and co-ordinate its attack on Prokhorovka from the south with Totenkopfs attack from the northwest. Das Reich was to consolidate and strengthen its front line and prepare for an offensive operation to link up with the III Panzer Corps.

Further fighting around Prokhorovka
On the morning of 13 July, the 10th Guards Mechanized and 24th Guards Tank Brigades, in cooperation with the 95th and 52nd Guards Rifle Corps, launched attacks against Totenkopf. These Soviet attacks preoccupied Totenkopf and prevented it from attacking toward Prokhorovka. Around noon, Leibstandartes 1st SS-Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion was ordered to attack northward toward the Psel River to consolidate its front line with Totenkopf, while the division's panzer units were to attack toward Soviet positions northeast of the Oktyabrsky State Farm toward Prokhorovka.

The 1st SS-Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion attacked the defensive positions held by the 42nd Guards Rifle Division and the remaining armour of the 18th Tank Corps, while the panzer units attacked the defences of 9th Guards Airborne Division and the 29th Tank Corps. These German attacks were repelled by concentrated anti-tank artillery fire. The 29th Tank Corps responded with a counterattack and penetrated German lines, reaching Komsomolets State Farm before being beaten back by direct fire from German artillery. That afternoon, Totenkopf was ordered to abandon their positions northwest of Prokhorovka and return to tenable positions around Hill 226.6. Soviet attempts to sever the narrow salient were unsuccessful, and Totenkopf completed its withdrawal by nightfall.

Termination of Operation Citadel
On 13 July Hitler summoned Manstein and the commander of Army Group Center, Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, to his Eastern Front headquarters, the Wolfsschanze in East Prussia. The Allied invasion of Sicily on the night of 9–10 July, combined with the Soviet counteroffensive of Operation Kutuzov against the flank and rear of General Walter Model's 9th Army on the northern side of the Kursk salient on 12 July, and the attacks by strong Soviet forces at Prokhorovka the same day had caused Hitler to stop the offensive and begin redeploying forces to the Mediterranean theatre. He ordered his generals to terminate Operation Citadel.

Kluge welcomed the decision, as he was already in the process of withdrawing units of the 9th Army from the northern side of the Kursk salient to deal with Soviet attacks on his flank. But Manstein was greatly disappointed. He argued that his forces were now on the verge of achieving a major breakthrough on the southern side of the salient. As he saw it, with his III Panzer Corps about to link up with the II SS-Panzer Corps at Prokhorovka, and with the XXIV Panzer Corps available as his operational reserve, they would be halting the offensive just at the moment when victory was in hand. With an eye toward the west, Hitler was unwilling to continue the offensive. Manstein persisted, proposing that his forces should at least destroy the Soviet reserves in the southern Kursk salient before Citadel was finally terminated, so that the Soviet fighting capacity in the sector would be depleted for the rest of the summer. Hitler agreed to continue offensive operations in the southern salient until Manstein's goal was achieved.

Operation Roland

After the meeting with Hitler on 13 July, Manstein hastily put together the plans for Operation Roland, realizing that he only had a few days to conduct the operation before he lost the II SS-Panzer Corps due to redeployment. The plan called for Das Reich to attack east and south and link up with III Panzer Corps, which would attack to the northwest. Totenkopf and Leibstandarte  were to anchor the western and northern flanks of Das Reich, respectively. Once the link was achieved and the Soviet forces encircled, Prokhorovka would then be attacked shortly thereafter by the combined forces of the II SS-Panzer Corps and III Panzer Corps. The goal of the operation was to destroy the Soviet armoured reserves massed in the southern sector of the Kursk salient, and thereby check Soviet offensive capacity for the rest of the summer.

The orders for Operation Roland were issued in the closing hours of 13 July 1943. But after meeting with Manstein, Hitler countermanded the XXIV Panzer Corps' deployment to the Kursk salient, sending them on 14 July to support the 1st Panzer Army to the south. The assault began at 04:00 on 14 July. Following a brief artillery barrage, the 4th SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment Der Führer of Das Reich struck out for the high ground south-west of Pravorot, evicting the remnants of the 2nd Guards Tank Corps from the village of Belenikhino following house-to-house and hand-to-hand fighting. Das Reichs 2nd SS-Panzer Regiment fought off a series of counterattacks and forced the Red Army units to withdraw eastward to a new line. Zhukov ordered the 10th Guards Mechanized Brigade of the 5th Guards Mechanized Corps to reinforce the line. The 7th Panzer Division of the III Panzer Corps made contact with Das Reich, but Trufanov, commanding the Soviet forces in the gap, was aware of the threat and conducted a fighting withdrawal. The link-up failed to trap the Soviet forces, though they abandoned a substantial number of their anti-tank guns. Operation Roland failed to produce a decisive result for the German side, and Totenkopf began withdrawing from its positions north of the Psel, following orders issued late on 15 July, as the II SS-Panzer Corps assumed a defensive stance along its entire front.

On 17 July the Soviet Southwestern and Southern Fronts launched a major offensive across the Mius and Donets Rivers against the southern wing of Army Group South, pressing upon the 6th Army and 1st Panzer Army. In the early afternoon of 17 July, Operation Roland was terminated with an order for the II SS-Panzer Corps to begin withdrawing from the Prokhorovka sector back to Belgorod. The 4th Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf anticipated the order and began executing it as early as the evening of 16 July. Leibstandartes tanks were distributed between Das Reich and Totenkopf, and the division was hastily redeployed to Italy, while Das Reich and Totenkopf were dispatched south to meet the new Soviet offensives.

Casualties and losses
Losses for 12 July are difficult to establish for either combatant. Tank losses attributed to the German side vary, in part due to the Wehrmacht's methodology for counting and reporting equipment losses. Only equipment that could not be repaired or that had to be abandoned were counted as losses, but damaged equipment that could be recovered and repaired were simply listed as such. Likewise, reliable figures for tank and personnel casualties for the Red Army in the Battle of Prokhorovka are difficult to establish.

German
The II SS-Panzer Corps reported 842 soldiers killed, wounded, or missing for 12 July, and 2,672 for 12 to 16 July inclusive. Since the German forces controlled much of the Prokhorovka battlefield until 17 July, they were able to recover most of their disabled armoured vehicles. The II SS-Panzer Corps' logistics report for 12 July did not record any confirmed permanent tank losses. Other German sources show that three tanks of the II SS-Panzer Corps (two Panzer IVs and a Tiger) that were immobilized in the battlefield could not be subsequently recovered and therefore the permanent losses can only be adjusted to a possible maximum of three tanks for 12 July. A study by the US Army's Center for Strategy and Force Evaluation attributed six permanent tank losses, not counting Panzer I and Panzer II light tanks or German assault guns if any. Archival files of the II SS-Panzer Corps and 4th Panzer Army show that the II SS-Panzer Corps permanently lost 17 tanks and assault guns from 12 to 23 July inclusive, which therefore represents the maximum permanent losses the unit could have incurred for the engagement on 12 July up till the end of Operation Roland.

Archival data of the II SS-Panzer Corps shows that the corps had 294 operable tanks and assault guns on the evening of 11 July, and 251 on the evening of 13 July. Allowing for the possibility that some repaired tanks were returned to service on 13 July, these numbers indicate that at least 43 tanks and assault guns became inoperable during this period, which includes all ten Tigers belonging to Totenkopf and one belonging to Leibstandarte. An estimated total of 60–80 tanks and assault guns of the II SS-Panzer Corps were damaged or destroyed in combat on 12 July. By the end of 16 July, the II SS-Panzer Corps had 292 serviceable tanks and assault guns, almost the same number it had at the beginning of the battle on 12 July. On 12 July, Schlachtgeschwader 1 of the 8th Air Corps reported 11 aircraft damaged, all by Soviet anti-aircraft artillery, of which 6 were total write-offs.

Soviet

A document prepared on 17 July 1943 by the 5th Guards Tank Army headquarters summarised the combat losses incurred by the formation from 12 to 16 July inclusive for all of its five corps, as well as smaller units directly subordinated to the army headquarters. The document reported the following irrecoverable losses: 222 T-34s, 89 T-70s, 12 Churchills, 8 SU-122s, 3 SU-76s, and 240 support vehicles. The document reported damaged vehicles still under repair as 143 T-34s, 56 T-70s, 7 Churchills, 3 SU-122s, and 3 SU-76s, with no figures for support vehicles. The document reported personnel casualties as 2,940 killed in action, 3,510 wounded in action, and 1,157 missing in action. This totals 334 irrevocable losses in tanks and self-propelled guns, with another 212 tanks and self-propelled guns under repair, and 7,607 casualties. The historian Karl-Heinz Frieser argued that the majority of the losses reported in the document must have occurred on 12 July.

Soviet personnel losses at Prokhorovka for 12 July were estimated by the historian Christer Bergström to have been as high as 5,500 men. For equipment damaged or destroyed, David Glantz and Jonathan House estimate that the whole 5th Guards Tank Army lost at least 400 tanks in its attacks on 12 July. The Soviet historians Grigoriy Koltunov and Boris Soloviev estimate about 300 tanks and self-propelled guns of 5th Guards Tank Army were damaged or destroyed on 12 July. The study by the US Army's Center for Strategy and Force Evaluation reports that the 2nd Guards, 18th and 29th Tanks Corps altogether permanently lost 144 tanks on 12 July, not including self-propelled guns. George Nipe estimates that 600–650 tanks of the 5th Guards Tank Army were damaged or destroyed while fighting both the II SS-Panzer Corps and III Panzer Corps on 12 July.

Outcome
Debate exists over the significance and outcome of the battle. The German forces destroyed many Soviet tanks and temporarily degraded the striking power of the 5th Guards Tank Army, but they were unable to take Prokhorovka or break through into open ground before developments elsewhere forced the termination of Operation Citadel. For the Soviet side, the massive armoured attack of 12 July failed to destroy the II SS-Panzer Corps, but succeeded in exhausting the Germans and eventually contributed to checking their advance. Thus, neither the 5th Guards Tank Army nor the II SS-Panzer Corps accomplished their objectives for 12 July.

While the battle is generally considered a tactical success for the German side due to the high numbers of Soviet tanks destroyed, in the wider perspective the Soviets successfully completed their defensive operation at Prokhorovka and created the conditions for their decisive counteroffensive, Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev, just as planned. Ultimately there was no German breakthrough at Prokhorovka or elsewhere in the Kursk salient, becoming the first time in the Second World War that a major German offensive was halted before it could break through enemy defences and penetrate into their operational or strategic depths. With the end of Operation Citadel, the strategic initiative permanently swung over to the Soviet Union for the rest of the war.

Misconceptions and disputes

Size of the tank battle and German losses
The battle has been widely described as the largest tank engagement or battle in military history, involving 1,200–1,500 tanks and sometimes up to 2,000, but this is incorrect as the battle did not involve that many tanks. The exaggerated figures originated from erroneous Soviet intelligence estimates of German armour reported during and after the battle, and subsequent postwar accounts that repeated this erroneous narrative. Some Soviet estimates reported figures as high as 800 German tanks and assault guns attacking Prokhorovka on 12 July.

Comparing Soviet and German archives, the total number of tanks and other heavy armoured fighting vehicles such as assault guns and self-propelled guns deployed by the 5th Guards Tank Army and the II SS-Panzer Corps around Prokhorovka during the battle numbered only about 910.  The II SS-Panzer Corps never had the number of tanks and assault guns attributed to it by Soviet estimates at any point during Operation Citadel, not even at the start when it fielded only 494. Even if the definition of the battle was broadened to include the III Panzer Corps and the portion of the 5th Guards Tank Army that faced it, the total number of tanks and other heavy armoured fighting vehicles comes out at a maximum of 1,299. In contrast, for example, the Battle of Brody during Operation Barbarossa involved over 2,000 tanks, up to 6,000 tanks over the duration of the battle, engaged in combat over a 70 km front. Nonetheless, the Battle of Prokhorovka is still regarded as one of the largest tank battles in military history.

High figures for tanks lost during the battle have been widely attributed to the Germans, but these are incorrect. For example, Rotmistrov in his postwar accounts of the battle stated that the Germans lost 350–400 tanks, including 70 Tigers, and 3,500–10,000 soldiers on 12 July, and a Soviet General Staff study of the Battle of Kursk reported that the Germans lost 300 tanks, 20 assault guns and over 4,500 soldiers in the battle from 12 to 16 July inclusive. However, archival data of the German units involved show that much lower losses were incurred during the battle.

Impetus for the attack at Prokhorovka
The historians David Glantz and Jonathan House asserted that the original intention of the 4th Panzer Army command was to drive northwards, with its two panzer corps driving abreast toward Oboyan and then Kursk but that on 9 July, heavy Soviet resistance along the road to Oboyan forced Hoth to alter his plan disastrously by ordering the II SS-Panzer Corps to swing from northwest to the northeast toward Prokhorovka. Therefore, according to Glantz and House, the Battle of Prokhorovka was not a result of original intentions or planned for but was engendered by tactically-flawed late improvisations to the original German plan.

That narrative has been disputed by the historian Steven Newton, who dedicated a section of his 2002 publication about Operation Citadel to refuting it. Using first-hand accounts of German officers who executed Operation Citadel and scrutinizing Glantz's and House's sources, Newton contended that the plan for the 4th Panzer Army to swing from the Oboyan direction to Prokhorovka was decided as early as May 1943, well before Operation Citadel had commenced, as German planners of Army Group South had always expected an encounter between the 4th Panzer Army and Soviet reserves that would arrive at the Psel River and Prokhorovka. Other historians have corroborated those conclusions. Newton also asserts that has always been the accepted narrative in postwar literature.

Surprise factor
Some historians state that the German troops did not expect the Soviet armoured counterattack and were taken by surprise on 12 July. However, other historians have stated or argued that the German commanders were aware of or at least anticipated the Soviet armour that was massing around Prokhorovka and so the troops could not have been genuinely surprised. The German historian Dieter Brand argues that even though the German commanders expected a major Soviet armoured deployment at Prokhorovka, the frontline German troops were indeed largely taken by surprise when the Soviets counterattacked on the morning of 12 July.

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

  – A study of the southern sector of the Battle of Kursk conducted by the US Army Concepts Analysis Agency (under the US Army's Center for Strategy and Force Evaluation) and directed by Walter J. Bauman, using data collected from military archives in Germany and Russia by The Dupuy Institute (TDI).

  – This report, commissioned by the Soviet General Staff in 1944, was designed to educate the Red Army on how to conduct war operations. It was classified secret until its declassification in 1964, and was later edited and translated to English by Orenstein and Glantz. Its original title was Collection of materials for the study of war experience, no. 11 ()

Further reading

  – Comprehensive description of Soviet and German troop movement based on Soviet and German archives

External links

Tank battles of World War II
Tank battles involving Germany
Tank battles involving the Soviet Union
Battles of World War II involving Germany
Battles and operations of the Soviet–German War
Battle of Prokhorovka
Battle of Prokhorovka
Battle of Prokhorovka


text:
Q: Github Desktop: "Update from " button In this picture below from the Github(c) Desktop App there ist this button "Update from master" (in this case). I was wondering if anyone had the insight what exact git function it triggers. Primarily I'm interested if merge or rebase is used. (I could not find any sort of log console).

A: When I hover over the button, it explicitly says "Merge XX commits from "

A: The git commands underlying the buttons in GitHub Desktop are not well-documented, so I investigated a while back. I concluded that the "Update from..." button dispatched
git merge --no-ff -m "Merge <auto_text> <branch_name>" <branch_name>

or something nearly identical with the "Compare" branch set to <branch_name> in the GitHub Desktop GUI.
I reached the conclusion in the following way:
First, I forked a repository that I control to my GitHub account. Then, I cloned the repository from my GitHub account to my local machine. Next, I committed a small change to the (original) main remote repository. Finally, I used git fetch <remote_name_assigned_to_main_repo> (<remote_name>, hereafter) to bring the single commit to my local machine. After this fetch, the "Update from..." button lit up.
This set up a scenario in which the branch checked out, master in my local repository, was one commit behind master in the main remote repository. By default, git merge <remote_name> would have produced a fast-forward merge (without a merge commit).
Using the "Update from..." button, however, resulted in the following reflog entry:
HEAD@{0}: merge <remote_name>/master: Merge made by the 'recursive' strategy.

And a merge commit in the log:
Merge remote-tracking branch '<remote_name>/master'

(The 'recursive' strategy "...is the default merge strategy when pulling or merging one branch." per the manual.)
I also set up a scenario in which git rebase might have been an option, but saw the same merge behavior.

A: Just go into "Branch" menu, then "Merge into current branch..." and choose the branch you want to get your "update" from.

A: GitHub themselves say it's just git merge <defaultBranch>.
To quote the official comments on the issue in the GitHub Desktop repo:

This menu item emits the update-branch message to the main window (what we call the renderer in Electron terminology). The updateBranch method then looks for your default branch (typically master). Git operations in the app use the Git command line, so what we're doing in the app is just a git merge master into your current branch.)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Journal of Computer Security - Volume 27, issue 2
Price: EUR 260.00
The Journal of Computer Security presents research and development results of lasting significance in the theory, design, implementation, analysis, and application of secure computer systems. It also provides a forum for ideas about the meaning and implications of security and privacy, particularly those with important consequences for the technical community.
The journal provides an opportunity to publish articles of greater depth and length than is possible in the proceedings of various existing conferences, while addressing an audience of researchers in computer security who can be assumed to have a more specialized background than the readership of other archival publications. The journal welcomes contributions on all aspects of computer security: confidentiality, integrity, and assurance of service - that is, protection against unauthorized disclosure or modification of sensitive information, or denial of service. Of interest is a precise understanding of security policies through modelling, as well as the design and analysis of mechanisms for enforcing them, and the architectural principles of software and hardware systems implementing them.
Learning probabilistic dependencies among events for proactive security auditing in clouds
Authors: Majumdar, Suryadipta | Tabiban, Azadeh | Jarraya, Yosr | Oqaily, Momen | Alimohammadifar, Amir | Pourzandi, Makan | Wang, Lingyu | Debbabi, Mourad
Abstract: Security compliance auditing is a viable solution to ensure the accountability and transparency of a cloud provider to its tenants. However, the sheer size of a cloud, coupled with the high operational complexity implied by the multi-tenancy and self-service nature, can easily render existing runtime auditing techniques too expensive and non-scalable. To this end, a proactive approach, which prepares for the auditing ahead of critical events, is a promising solution to reduce the response time to a practical level. However, a key limitation of such approaches is their reliance on manual efforts to extract the dependency relationships among events, which greatly …restricts their practicality. What makes things worse is the fact that, as the most important input to security auditing, the logs and configuration databases of a real world cloud platform can be unstructured and not ready to be used for efficient security auditing. In this paper, we first propose a log processing technique, which prepares raw cloud logs for different analysis purposes, and then design a learning-based proactive security auditing system, namely, LeaPS + . To this end, we conduct case studies on current log formats in different real-world OpenStack (a popular cloud platform) deployments, and identify major challenges in log processing. Later, we design a stand-alone log processor for clouds, which may potentially be used for various log analyses. Consequently, we leverage the log processor outputs to extract probabilistic dependencies from runtime events for the dependency models. Finally, through these dependency models, we proactively prepare for security critical events and prevent security violations resulting from those critical events. Furthermore, we integrate LeaPS + to OpenStack and perform extensive experiments in both simulated and real cloud environments that show a practical response time (e.g., 6 ms to audit a cloud of 100,000 VMs) and a significant improvement (e.g., about 50% faster) over existing proactive approaches. In addition, we successfully and efficiently apply our log processor outputs to other learning techniques (e.g., executing sequence pattern mining algorithms within 18 ms for 50,000 events). Show more
Keywords: Proactive auditing, security auditing, cloud security, automatic learning, log formatting, log processing, OpenStack
DOI: 10.3233/JCS-181137
Citation: Journal of Computer Security, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 165-202, 2019
Secure authentication in the grid: A formal analysis of DNP3 SAv5
Authors: Cremers, Cas | Dehnel-Wild, Martin | Milner, Kevin
Abstract: Most of the world's power grids are controlled remotely. Their control messages are sent over potentially insecure channels, driving the need for an authentication mechanism. The main communication mechanism for power grids and other utilities is defined by an IEEE standard, referred to as DNP3; this includes the Secure Authentication v5 (SAv5) protocol, which aims to ensure that messages are authenticated. We provide the first security analysis of the complete DNP3: SAv5 protocol. Previous work has considered the message-passing sub-protocol of SAv5 in isolation, and considered some aspects of the intended security properties. In contrast, we formally model and …analyse the complex composition of the protocol's sub-protocols. In doing so, we consider the full state machine, the protocol's asymmetric mode, and the possibility of cross-protocol attacks. Furthermore, we model fine-grained security properties that closely match the standard's intended security properties. For our analysis, we leverage the Tamarin prover for the symbolic analysis of security protocols. Our analysis shows that the core DNP3: SAv5 design meets its intended security properties. Notably, we show that a previously reported attack does not apply to the standard. However, our analysis also leads to several concrete recommendations for improving future versions of the standard. Show more
Keywords: DNP3, secure authentication, power grids, network protocols, formal analysis
Sub-session hijacking on the web: Root causes and prevention
Authors: Calzavara, Stefano | Rabitti, Alvise | Bugliesi, Michele
Abstract: Since cookies act as the only proof of a user identity, web sessions are particularly vulnerable to session hijacking attacks, where the browser run by a given user sends requests associated to the identity of another user. When n > 1 cookies are used to implement a session, there might actually be n sub-sessions running at the same website, where each cookie is used to retrieve part of the state information related to the session. Sub-session hijacking breaks the ideal view of the existence of a unique user session by selectively hijacking m sub-sessions, with …m < n . This may reduce the security of the session to the security of its weakest sub-session. In this paper, we take a systematic look at the root causes of sub-session hijacking attacks and we introduce sub-session linking as a possible defense mechanism. Out of two flavors of sub-session linking desirable for security, which we call intra-scope and inter-scope sub-session linking respectively, only the former is relatively smooth to implement. Luckily, we also identify programming practices to void the need for inter-scope sub-session linking. We finally present Warden, a server-side proxy which automatically enforces intra-scope sub-session linking on incoming HTTP(S) requests, and we evaluate it in terms of protection, performances, backward compatibility and ease of deployment. Show more
Keywords: Web application security, web sessions, HTTP cookies
DABKE: Secure deniable attribute-based key exchange framework
Authors: Tian, Yangguang | Li, Yingjiu | Yang, Guomin | Susilo, Willy | Mu, Yi | Cui, Hui | Zhang, Yinghui
Abstract: We introduce the first deniable attribute-based key exchange (DABKE) framework that is resilient to impersonation attacks. We define the formal security models for DABKE framework, and propose a generic compiler that converts any attribute-based key exchanges into deniable ones. We prove that it can achieve session key security and user privacy in the standard model, and strong deniability in the simulation-based paradigm. In particular, the proposed generic compiler ensures: 1) a dishonest user cannot impersonate other user's session participation in conversations since implicit authentication is used among authorized users; 2) an authorized user can plausibly deny his/her participation after secure …conversations with others; 3) the strongest form of deniability is achieved using one-round communication between two authorized users. Show more
Keywords: Attribute-based key exchange, impersonation attacks, strong deniability, generic compiler
Volume Pre-press
Issue Pre-press

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


What do we use a leaf area meter for (Area Meter 350)?
This series aims to provide a more comprehensive picture of the work and developments of the GINOP program by introducing on our website some of the instruments applied in our researches.
Leaf area is an important agronomical parameter as it is reflecting environmental conditions, related to plant growth, photosynthetic capacity and many times it indicates anomalies of the plant (e.g. yellow leaves can be a sign for iron deficiency.) The area meter is a portable device that measures the main visible features and some morphological markers of the leaf. The device consists of a central unit that performs measurement and evaluation, memory and battery are also placed here. The other one is a reader head connected to the central unit with a cable, which functions as a scanner: illuminates and scans the sample. Firstly, the leaf to be measured is placed under the transparent foil in the measuring area, and the reader head is drawn through the measuring area. Right after scanning is finished, the main details of the leaf are immediately displayed: length, width, surface and perimeter. Measurement data, together with leaf images, may be automatically recorded on the large internal memory or saved to a PC. The device separates the leaf from the white measurement area by its contrast difference. The instrument is most often used to compare the leaf sizes of treated (e.g., under drought) and untreated (control) plants.


text:
Q: Why is the "POST" method not passing the "type=file" variable, please? My code was uploading video files, but after I extended the form it stopped uploading. All the other variables were passed OK but not the file variable was blank.
I tried comparing the upload logic with similar examples on the web but could not see what I had changed to cause it to fail. In the listing below I have removed all the irrelevant code. When this code runs it returns "Error".
<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', '1');
if (isset($_FILES['urlvideo'])) {
  move_uploaded_file($_FILES['urlvideo']['tmp_name'], "{$_FILES['urlvideo']['name']}");
} else {
  echo('Error');
  exit();
}
?>
<!DOCTYPE HTML>

    <form action="videotest.php"
          method="post"
         enctype="multipart/form-data">
      Upload video:
      <input type="file" name="urlvideo" />

      <input type="submit"
            value="Submit"/>
    </form>

<?php ob_end_flush(); ?>

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

A: use this code.
<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', '1');
if ( $_POST ) {
    if (isset($_FILES['urlvideo'])) {
      move_uploaded_file($_FILES['urlvideo']['tmp_name'], "{$_FILES['urlvideo']['name']}");
    } else {
      echo('Error');
      exit();
    }
}
?>
<!DOCTYPE HTML>

    <form action="testup.php"
          method="post"
         enctype="multipart/form-data">
        <input type="hidden" name="method" value="post" />
      Upload video:
      <input type="file" name="urlvideo" />

      <input type="submit"
            value="Submit"/>
    </form>

it is because you put if ( isset( $_FILES before showing the form.


Skills in people management and an interest in financial management makes for a successful Bank Manager who will be responsible for one or more local branches of banks including Bank of Scotland, RBS and Lloyds TSB. Within their branch, they will be responsible for setting and achieving targets and managing a team.
Bank Manager jobs involve a lot of time working with customers in person and on the phone, identifying their needs and aiming to meet or exceed them, marketing and selling the bank's products and services, e.g. mortgages, loans, share dealing and will writing, is a major part of the job.
Securing a role as a Bank Manager can be done in a number of ways. Some Bank Managers start in an entry level job in a local branch and work their way up with experience, whereas others have entered the field directly through graduate schemes offered by banks after gaining a bachelors degree or higher. Their degree is often in finance, however banks are usually open to accepting applications from most degree diciplines. It can also be useful to gain a banking internship as many banks hire their summer interns full time post-graduation.
Bank staff usually work in modern, open plan offices with interview rooms for meeting customers. Bank Managers jobs may spend about half their time out of the office.
Good conflict management skills, which will be put to use when interracting wth both clients and subordinates.
A fully qualified Bank Manager salary usually ranges between £30,000-£40,000 dependant upon the bank and size of branch managed. Successful Bank Managers can work their way up to positions such as area manager.


The University of Pittsburgh on Sunday afternoon announced the return of its retro color scheme and introduced a new secondary logo, as well as new uniforms and number font for all 19 athletic programs.
Pitt first donned royal blue and athletic/mustard gold in 1973, the football program's first season under legendary coach Johnny Majors. The Panthers were among the nation's worst teams at the time, but steadily improved their record over the next few years, which culminated in an undefeated season and national championship in 1976.
The color scheme remained a staple of Pitt athletics until the department switched to navy and Vegas Gold in 1997. A roaring Panther logo was also introduced, but that went through a considerable facelift after only a few years and was eventually scrapped.
Over the last few seasons, nostalgia became a huge selling point for Pitt. The Panthers' football and basketball programs wore throwback uniforms to much fanfare, and a return to the retro color scheme was widely expected.
The new number font and striping pattern pays tribute to Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning, a historic landmark and centerpiece of the university, while the new secondary logo is based on the fountain at the entrance of the building.


text:
\section{Some Technical Details on the Implementation}

In our implementation, the supercell size is set large enough to
prevent the interactions between the structures and their images
in neighboring cells (2~nm distance at least from surface to
surface for single NWs, and inter-crossing separation for SiNets).
Since the bandgap of Si NWs is rather insensitive to the
cross-section shape as long as the mean wire diameter is the
same,\cite{ng2007s} we carve out of the bulk Si an essentially
cylindrical shape NWs, and embed them into an oxide host matrix.
The resulting NWs are one-dimensional periodic structures. For
different NW directions, wire unit cell length $a_{\mathrm{wire}}$
has different values such as $a_{\langle100\rangle}=a$,
$a_{\langle110\rangle}= a/\sqrt{2}$, $a_{\langle111\rangle}=
a\sqrt{3}$, and $a_{\langle112\rangle}= a\sqrt{6}/2$, where
$a=$5.43~\AA~ is the Si lattice constant. We define the mean wire
diameter as the diameter of the cylinder of length
$a_{\mathrm{wire}}$ whose volume is the same as the average volume
$\Omega=N_{\mathrm{Si}} a^3/8$ occupied by the $N_{\mathrm{Si}}$
number of Si atoms in the wire unit cell.\cite{niquet2006s}  We
tested and observed that the effect of spin-orbit interaction
causes shifts of the band edge states by typically of at most
10~meV, and therefore we excluded this term from the Hamiltonian
in the interest of computational budget.

For the local empirical pseudopotentials of Si and SiO$_2$, we
employ the analytical expression given by Freidel $et$
$al.$\cite{friedel1989s} They use the following functional form
for the pseudopotential form factor at a given general wave number
$q$
\begin{equation}\label{pp}
V_{\mathrm{PP}}(q)=\frac{1}{2} \left[
 \tanh\left( \frac{a_5-q^2}{a_6} \right) + 1
\right] \frac{a_1(q^2-a_2)}{e^{a_3(q^2-a_4)}+1} .
\end{equation}
We employ their parameters for Si.\cite{friedel1989s} On the other
hand, SiO$_2$ is more subtle not only due to the presence of
oxygen but also due to its many polymorphs locally incompatible
with the diamond structure of Si. Therefore, we introduce an
artificial monoatomic wide bandgap material that reproduces the
refractive index and band alignments of SiO$_2$ with Si, however
with a diamond structure lattice-matched to Si to circumvent
further complications associated with strain.\cite{bulutay2007s}
As an improvement over our prior work,\cite{bulutay2007s} we
generate new pseudopotential parameters to represent the
artificial SiO$_2$ which satisfies the experimental band offsets
of bulk Si/SiO$_2$ interference having 4.4 and 3.4~eV for
valence~\cite{keister1999s} and conduction~\cite{himpsel1988s}
band edges, respectively. The resulted parameters in
Eq.~(\ref{pp}) are $a_1=69.625$, $a_2=2.614$, $a_3=0.0786$,
$a_4=-19.1433$, $a_5=5.99$, $a_6=0.335$. Here, the units are such
that the pseudopotential form factors come out in Rydberg energy
unit, and the wave number $q$ in the above expression should be in
atomic units (1/Bohr radius). In the LCBB basis
set\cite{lcbb1997s,lcbb1999s} we employ a large number of both
core and matrix Bloch states to attain high accuracy. This
produces not only core-derived states that we are interested in
this work, but also various matrix-derived interface states. We
filtered out the latter.

\section{Generalized Mean}
The estimation function of nanowire networks is constructed on the
notion of the generalized mean,\cite{abramowitz1965s} also known
as the power mean, to express our conclusion that thickest wire
dominates the bandgap while the narrower wires still contributing
marginally. The generalized $\beta$-mean of a set of values
($x_1,x_2,...,x_N$) is defined by the expression
\begin{equation}
M_{\beta} (x_1,x_2,...,x_N) = \left[  \frac{1}{N} \sum_{i=1}^{N}
x_i^{\beta} \right]^{1/\beta} .
\end{equation}
The special cases of generalized mean includes: minimum ($\beta
\rightarrow -\infty$), harmonic mean ($\beta=-1$), geometric mean
($\beta \rightarrow 0$), arithmetic mean ($\beta=1$), quadratic
mean ($\beta=2$), and maximum ($\beta \rightarrow +\infty$).

\section{Estimation expression for valence and conduction band offsets}

\subsection{For Si Nanowires}
We can give the band offsets of Si NWs with respect to bulk Si as
$\Delta_{\mathrm{VBO}}^{\mathrm{Si}}=
C_{\mathrm{VBE}}d^{-\alpha_{\mathrm{VBE}}}$ and
$\Delta_{\mathrm{CBO}}^{\mathrm{Si}}=
C_{\mathrm{CBE}}d^{-\alpha_{\mathrm{CBE}}}$.
Moreover, since we set the bulk Si/SiO$_{2}$ VB (CB) offset as $E_{\mathrm{%
VBO}}$=4.4~eV ($E_{\mathrm{CBO}}$=3.4~eV), we can calculate the
band offsets
of Si NWs with respect to silica by simply writing $\Delta _{\mathrm{VBO}%
}^{\mathrm{SiO}_{2}}=-E_{\mathrm{VBO}}-C_{\mathrm{VBE}}d^{-\alpha
_{\mathrm{VBE}}}$
 $\left(\Delta _{\mathrm{CBO}}^{\mathrm{SiO}_{2}}=E_{\mathrm{CBO}}-C_{\mathrm{CBE}%
}d^{-\alpha _{\mathrm{CBE}}}\right)$.

\subsection{For Si Nanowire Networks}

In Supplementary Fig.~\ref{vcbo}, we use
$\Delta^{\mathrm{Si}}_{\mathrm{VBO}}=C_{\mathrm{VBE}}\left(\sum_{i=1}^N
d_i^\beta\right)^{-\alpha_{\mathrm{VBE}} /\beta}$ and
$\Delta^{\mathrm{Si}}_{\mathrm{CBO}}=C_{\mathrm{CBE}}\left(\sum_{i=1}^N
d_i^\beta\right)^{-\alpha_{\mathrm{CBE}} /\beta}$ with single Si
NW band edge fitting parameters
\{$C_{\mathrm{VBE}}$,~$\alpha_{\mathrm{VBE}}$\} and
\{$C_{\mathrm{CBE}}$,~$\alpha_{\mathrm{CBE}}$\} from Table~I of
the main paper to estimate the band offsets of Si NW networks with
respect to bulk Si band edges.

\begin{Sfigure}[h]
\includegraphics[width=15.0cm]{figS1.eps}
\caption{\label{vcbo} Valence and conduction band offsets for
$\langle110\rangle$ three-wire crossings with respect to bulk Si
band edges. The calculated values are shown with the markers
whereas the estimation values based on the single nanowire
parameters are plotted with the curves. }
\end{Sfigure}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


text:
Branches & Locals
We're working with incarcerated workers in Maryland and beyond to dismantle the prison industrial complex
We're working with incarcerated workers in Upstate NY and beyond to dismantle the prison industrial complex
Inquire about availability for a speech or workshop by sending us your name, email address, type of event and audience details.
We're working with incarcerated workers in Illinois and beyond to dismantle the prison industrial complex.
Connecticut IWOC is working with those on the inside towards the abolition of prison.
Denver IWOC is working to support prisoner organizing for dignity in the Colorado area.
We are prison abolitionists here in Durham working with incarcerated workers to end prison slavery.
We're working with the incarcerated in Florida and beyond to abolish the prison industrial complex.
The Kansas City Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee supports prisoners' efforts to build their own labor union and organize for their own self-defense against inhumane treatment.
Milwaukee IWOC supports prisoner resistance in Wisconsin, the state with the greatest racial disparity for Black men in America, and truly atrocious conditions of confinement.
We're working with incarcerated workers in Montana and beyond to dismantle the prison industrial complex
IWOC NYC has been fighting prison slavery in New York City and the surrounding area since December 2015.
We on the outside, here in the Oakland chapter of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, support prisoners organizing collectively on the inside.
We're working with incarcerated workers in Ohio and Michigan and beyond to dismantle the prison industrial complex.
We're working with incarcerated workers in Rhode Island and beyond to dismantle the prison industrial complex.
Here in Sacramento we work closely with other community groups to provide prisoners with needed solidarity and reading material upon request.
As we are still in our early stages, we are seeking those in need of support on the inside and those feeling drawn to support prisoners on the outside
We are prison abolitionists here in the Twin Cities working with incarcerated workers to end prison slavery.
We're working with incarcerated workers throughout the United Kingdom to dismantle the prison industrial complex.
We're working with the incarcerated in DC and beyond to abolish the prison industrial complex.


text:
Home Entertianment Netflix Welcomes Apple and Disney to Video Streaming Wars – Fortune
Netflix Welcomes Apple and Disney to Video Streaming Wars – Fortune
Ain't gonna study war no more. After more than two years of fighting, Apple and Qualcomm opted for peace. Under a six-year deal, Apple will resume buying mobile modem chips for the iPhone from Qualcomm and pay an undisclosed amount to cover previously unpaid royalties. Apple's current modem supplier, Intel, which was struggling to develop a 5G product, says it will drop out of the business altogether. Expect a 5G iPhone for 2020 backed by a Qualcomm modem. While Apple's stock price was unaffected by the news, Qualcomm's has since risen a total of more than 30%. Intel investors, seemingly sick of the company banging its head against the 5G wall, pushed its stock up 4% in premarket trading.
We'll keep on fighting, til the end. The proposed merger of T-Mobile and Sprint may be in trouble-or not. Staff at the Justice Department aren't satisfied with how the deal is structured, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. But T-Mobile CEO John Legere tweeted that the premise of the story was "simply untrue" and former Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure chimed in that the story was "inaccurate" because negotiations with the regulators continue. The truth may be that the staff is seeking concessions that the carriers are willing to make, such as spinning off some prepaid cellular business.
Shrinking in plain sight. Elsewhere on Wall Street, IBM said its revenue dropped for the third quarter in a row. At $18.2 billion, sales shrunk by 5% and were slightly less than analysts expected. IBM shares fell 3% in premarket trading on Wednesday. The public tech sector will continue to expand this week, with initial public offerings expected to debut in trading on Friday from Pinterest and Zoom.
ALSO READ WWE SmackDown Results - Big Cass Attacks, Final MITB Qualifying Match, Dance-Off, AJ Styles, More
Missing in action. The A.I. industry has a diversity problem, according to a new report from the nonprofit AI Now Institute. Only 20% of A.I. professors are women, while women make up 15% of Facebook's A.I. research staff and 10% at Google.
Answering the call. In yesterday's essay, Adam noted that founders of big tech companies rarely go quietly, referring to Foxconn founder Terry Gou. That quickly proved true, as Gou announced he would run for president in Taiwan. If he wins the primary to represent the Kuomintang opposition party, he would stand against Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan's first female President.
Incroyable. As the world reels from the tragic fire at Notre Dame in Paris and the French vow to rebuild the historic cathedral, it may be a video game company that helps come to the rescue. Intensely detailed 3D scans of the building made for the game Assassin's Creed: Unity could be useful in guiding the reconstruction.
John Wick X Fortnite – Leaked John Wick Skin – Fortnite Insider
Cannes 2019 review: The Dead Don't Die – BBC News
Britney Spears May Never Perform Again, Manager Larry Rudolph Says – TMZ
Monet Haystacks painting sells for record $110.7m – BBC News
Cannes Has a Sex Trafficking Problem Despite #MeToo Era – Hollywood Reporter
CBS renews 'Bull' despite Michael Weatherly's alleged sexual harassment – AOL
Are Jim Parsons and Johnny Galecki from 'The Big Bang Theory' Friends in Real Life? – The Cheat Sheet
Royal baby Archie faces a complicated tax situation – CNBC
Britney Spears granted a restraining order against Sam Lutfi – CNN


A week has passed and I notice Taehyung's change. At first, he was sad, but still cute and romantic. Now, he's cold, reserved, and quiet.
He's usually bright, crazy, talkitive, and just him. Now he's quiet, not playful whatsoever, and just reserved. He doesn't take me on random cute dates anymore. Whenever he's home, he's laying in the living room's sofa looking at his phone. We didn't break up, but it feels as if we had. He doesn't talk to me unless we're in Bangtan's dance practice. Whenever we're with the other 6 boys, he's sweet and he acts like Taehyung. He gets jealous and overprotective if another male that isn't him talks to me.
We just drifted apart. I've been wanting to end the relationship but I can't.
I love him, and even though he has changed, I still hope the real TaeTae can come back to me.
"You never talk to me anymore, and we never go on dates now. I understand you're busy, but we were able to manage our time before"
I couldn't take this anymore. I explained that I only loved him, and if he can't trust me, that's his problem.
"Why didn't you break up with me then?" I said annoyed.
"What?" He asked. Now his voice wasn't irritated, he sounded hurt.
"Yeah. You clearly don't trust me, nor believe me, so why are you still with me?"
Then why is he acting like this?
If he loved me, he would trust me. I understand it isn't that easy, but he isn't even trying!
"I'm sorry okay! I'm sorry I can't trust as easly as you would want me to. I just can't" he raised his voice but lowered it to a whisper in the last part.
"Why can't you? Why can't you trust me?"
"Because I've been through this before! I 'know' you wouldn't hurt me, but the same thing happened to me a couple years ago" he explained, air quoting the Know.
"Her name was Linda. She was always sweet, and innocent, and she was very similar to you in personality. Not in appearance though. One day, a friend of mine showed me a picture of her kissing another guy's cheek. She told me it was her cousin, and I trusted her. Later on, I saw her making out with him."
The whole day I kept quiet and I never stopped thinking about Taehyung's words.


Achieve energised locks with the Phytologist 15 Shampoo from Phyto. Designed to restore enviable body, strength and beauty to hair, the shampoo boasts an innovative formula.
The shampoo holds the power to stimulate the scalp whilst coating hair fibers. Enriched with an energising blend of Cacao, Guarana and Red Algae, the formula delivers protection and improves the hair bulb environment, all whilst having a volumizing effect on tresses. Rich in minerals, Horsetail Decoction works to strengthen hair and actively fight against hair loss. Hair is left gently cleansed and coated, boasting a beautiful shine.


text:
Q: identical solution spaces based on matrices of the same order and the same rank I came across a statement that:
if A and B are matrices of the same order, and the rank of B = the rank of AB, then the solution space of the homogenous system $AB \underline{x}=0$ is identical to the solution space to the homogenous system $B \underline{x}=0$.
No proof is provided, and I am a bit puzzled at why this would be the case? Can anyone provide some insight?
Thank you!

A: The rows of $AB$ are linear combinations of the rows of $B$. If the ranks of $B,AB$ are identical, the rowspace of $B$ and $AB$ is the same, and the nullspace of $B,AB$ is also the same, being the orthogonal complement of the row space.

A: In general, $x$ will be a solution to $ABx = 0$ if either $Bx = 0$, or $Bx \neq 0$ and $ABx = 0$.  Consequently, every solution to $Bx = 0$ is also a solution to $ABx = 0$.
If we are given than $AB$ and $B$ have the same rank, however, then we can conclude (by the rank-nullity theorem) that the nullspaces of $AB$ and $B$ have the same dimension.  So, the solution space to $Bx = 0$ is a subspace of $ABx$, but both subspaces have the same dimension.  So, the subspaces (i.e. the solutions spaces) must be identical.


On the heels of a five-win season, the last thing Northern Illinois needs is to lose its leading scorer.
However that's exactly what may happen, as it was reported by Cavan Walsh of ChicagoHoops.com that 6-7 sophomore forward Abdel Nader has decided to transfer. Nader, who led the Huskies in scoring and was named to the MAC All-Freshman Team last season, averaged 13.1 points and 5.7 rebounds per game this season.
Sophmore Abdel Nader from NIU is transferring was the Huskies leading scorer both years there – will have 2 years left….
In Mark Montgomery's first season in Dekalb the Huskies finished 5-25, going 3-13 in MAC play. The low point came on January 26, when NIU managed to score just four first-half points in their 42-25 loss at Eastern Michigan.
Nader is the lone NIU player to average double figures, making this a big loss for a program that shot just 35.8% from the field in 2012-13. Nader's departure will likely result in more opportunities for forwards Aksel Bolin (7.4 ppg, 4.2 rpg) and Darrell Bowie (5.9 ppg, 3.8 rpg).
It also makes the task of landing a couple late signees in the 2013 class even more important for a program that doesn't have much talent.
Nader has two seasons of eligibility remaining.