Ah, but therein lies the rub. The only good year for enveloping Russians was 1941, after those lessons learnt the hard way the Russians started to pull back to a new line when flanks became compromised so the old Summer'41 manouvers were no longer working in 1942. Historically the Germans were gaining a lot of (empty) territory in the South, but where were the prisioner bags of 1941? that was how Hitler wrongly surmised the Russians were exhausted. They weren't, what they were was not being caught.

On the other hand the respite given by an inactive winter would provide the Russians with a golden opportunity to rest, reorganise and reequip, all this at a line much forward, with lots more of European territory intact, that is, with much better provisions of manpower, foodstuffs, and industrial production. Together with the possibility of refitting the former Stalin line fortifications and transformation of all cities on the Moscow road into Festungen or however it's said in Russian, I see a number of Stalingrads on the way to Moscow.

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