Luftwaffe Generalquartiermiester reported a loss of 687 machines with 420 totally destroyed, 220 of them on the northern sector. In the following month Soviet losses were to reach 1,104 for 12 July–18 August. Attritional air battle alarmingly depleted the Luftwaffe's strength. 911 aircraft were lost in July, while inflicting much heavier losses on the Soviet Air Forces, whose strength appeared to be undiminished. The Soviet 11th Guards Army initiated an offensive aimed at cutting off the 2. Panzerarmee and German 9th Army. The Luftwaffe was called upon to rescue the situation in a huge aerial counter-offensive lasting from 16 July–31 July against a Soviet offensive at Khotynets and saved two German armies from encirclement, reducing the attacking Soviet 11th Guards Army to just 33 tanks by 20 July. The Soviet offensive had been completely halted from the airFigures from Grigoriy Koltunov and Boris Solovyev: Kurskaya bitva, 1970. Bergström p. 109 Model sent a message to von Greim thanking him, stating "the Luftwaffe's intervention was absolutely decisive to prevent a second, more disastrous Stalingrad". By October 1943 with the Soviet forces pushing the Wehrmacht back toward the Dnieper, the Luftwaffe had some 1,150 of its aircraft, 60 percent of its eastern front strength concentrated around Kiev. By December the Luftwaffe had just 425 operational fighters alone on the eastern front. The Battle of the Atlantic Following some early experience in support of the war at sea during the Norwegian Campaign, the Luftwaffe contributed small amounts of forces to the Battle of the Atlantic from 1940 to 1944. These were primarily long-range reconnaissance planes, first with Focke-Wulf Fw 200 and later Junkers Ju 290 maritime patrol aircraft. The initial Focke-Wulf aircraft were very successful, claiming 365,000 tons of shipping in early 1941. The development of escort carriers and increased efforts by RAF Coastal Command soon made the task more dangerous and less rewarding for the Luftwaffe though. The defeats on the Eastern Front, in North Africa and the ever-increasing raids of British bombers of the Reich ensured that the Luftwaffe's naval arm, the Fliegerfuhrer Atlantik was denied the necessary resources to combat Allied air and naval superiority over the Atlantic. By the end of 1943 a Gruppe of He 177s, that had been committed, lost 17 of their number to air opposition. These units had trained with radio controlled anti-shipping bombs, and this loss of fully trained crews prompted a switch to