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.

After the conclusion of the battle for the Donets, as the spring rasputitsa (mud) season came to an end in 1943, both the German and Soviet commands considered their plans for future operations.

[29] Nonetheless, the panzer corps' penetration caused great concern among Soviet commanders,[30] compelling Vatutin to commit almost all of the Voronezh Front's operational reserves by the end of the first day.

[31] The III Panzer Corps met with stiff resistance as well and had great difficulty creating and maintaining a bridgehead across the Northern Donets River.

[46] 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, towards the settlement of Prokhorovka.

[69] The plan was for Totenkopf to capture Hill 226.6,[70] and advance northeast along the Psel River to the Kartashyovka–Prokhorovka road, and then strike southeast into the flank and rear of Soviet forces at Prokhorovka.

The III Panzer Corps managed to cross the Northern Donets at Rzhavets on the night of 11 July, and was about 18 kilometres (11 mi) southeast of Prokhorovka, and advancing northwards.

[82][83] Early on 12 July, Vatutin ordered Rotmistrov to send reinforcements to the Soviet 7th Guards and 69th Armies facing the III Panzer Corps.

[62][86] 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.

[98][99] 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.

[86][120] As the Soviet armour appeared, German outposts all across the corps' frontage began firing purple warning flares signalling a tank attack.

[121] 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.

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.

[134] Eventually, due to heavy Soviet pressure and dangerously exposed flanks, Leibstandarte withdrew from the Oktyabrsky State Farm and established firmer defensive lines 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) to the south.

They were joined by Focke-Wulf Fw 190 single engine fighter-bombers and Henschel Hs 129 twin-engined ground-attack aircraft, both equipped with 30 mm (1.2 in) anti-tank cannon.

Luftwaffe liaison officers allotted to German ground forces were able to guide the close air support units to carry out pinpoint attacks.

[86][139] To its left, Totenkopf had captured Hill 226.6 and advanced along the northern bank of the Psel River to reach the Kartashyovka–Prokhorovka road, 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) northwest of Prokhorovka in accordance with plan.

[149] 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.

[151] 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.

[159] On 13 July Hitler summoned Manstein and the commander of Army Group Centre, Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, to his Eastern Front headquarters, the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia.

[160][161] 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.

[162] 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.

Das Reich's 2nd SS-Panzer Regiment fought off a series of counterattacks and forced the Red Army units to withdraw eastward to a new line.

[172] Operation Roland failed to produce a decisive result for the German side,[173] 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.

[176][177] 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.

[86][129] 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.

[104] 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,[129] not even at the start when it fielded only 494.

[j] The historians David M. 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 towards 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 towards Prokhorovka.

[219] 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.