Yes there was the 5th Tank army myth (not Guards yet) and concealing the AFV losses for the entire battle as well, but in terms of personnel losses this is from the GSWW series on Kursk:Cult Icon wrote: ↑29 Nov 2021, 16:40The details of that I don't know (to what extent there is an undercount). Obviously the most famous on is the 5th Guards Tank Army hoax at Kursk.stg 44 wrote: ↑29 Nov 2021, 16:34Boris Sokolov, confirmed by Toppel and others, including the authors of the GSWW series, has found evidence that the Soviets hid a lot of their losses in official reports during Citadel and official stats undercount Soviet losses by at least 25%.
Otherwise I agree with the rest of what you said.
Sokolov's argument goes into greater depth than that, including pointing out that very few units were transferred out of Central Front in this period and they also had more reinforcements coming in as well as replacements. He also didn't consider 'unofficial' conscription of locals when military age men could be found.39 Boris V. Sokolov gives the following calculation as an example: according to official data (Grif
sekretnosti sniat, 187–9), Central Front had 738,000 men on 5 July and lost 33,897 up to and including 11 July. It would therefore have had around 704,000 men on 12 July. But for that date, the beginning of Operation KUTUZOV, Central Front’s strength is given as only 645,300. That means a further shrinkage of around 60,000 men, despite the fact that Central Front had received considerable reinforcements in the meantime because of its losses (Sokolov, ‘The Battle for Kursk’, 79; id., ‘The Cost of War’, 158).
Toppel has a much better breakdown of the overall situation with faulty reporting and total likely numbers, but that would require a lot of screenshot-ing of the book.