Of course I was kidding, thats suicide.

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Time is only enemy you'll never get rid of.

I was just reading Manstein's "Lost Victories", and i came across some interesting information about the subject of this thread.
"The moment Sixth Army launched its attack towards the south-west things would become easier for Fourth Panzer Army, whose further progress over the Mishkova was by no means a certainty on 19th December, would doubtless be able to accomplish the outstanding 12 miles once the pressure were relieved by the action of Sixth Army"
So Manstein thought it was still possible for Sixth Army to link up with Forth Panzer Army and establish enough contact to provide Sixth Army with the fuel, ammunition and food it needed for continuing its breakthrough.

Yes, but the Sixth army never had any plans for making the attack as Paulus would not do anything against Hitler´s will...

besides if the sixth army had fuel for some 50-60 kilometers and they would meet half-way and would start refuelling that would be an ideal target for the Red Army to attack. A huge number of tanks and other vehicles refuelling in the middle of nowhere and probably without decent cover...that would be a blood bath with lots of german losses, I´d think.

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If Paulus was really obedient, he would have killed himself. The reason why Paulus refused to break out was because that he was a coward. He knew Sixth Army was unfit for a break out, but so did Manstein. That was why Manstein risked everything trying to break in and give the Sixth Army a chance to survive. But Paulus was too much of a coward to take that chance and break out, even after Mainstein tried to break in.
If Sixth Army did link up with Fourth Panzer Army, do you think they will be refueling in middle of nowhere (unprotected)? It would take at least 1-2 days for the Russians to realize what happened and take action.

If the Germans would try to get out of the pocket the Soviets would know it immediately because the surrounding ring would be broken. That would release these troops to hunt the escaping Germans within hours because I do believe the Soviets were expecting that kind of reaction, wouldn´t you?

The Germans would be forced to refuel in the middle of nowhere if the idea was to attack from both sides and meet in the middle. I mean the 6th Army only had fuel to make a run for 50-60 kilometers and without refueling immediately when meeting the 4th Panzer they could not get anywhere. The distance to safety was some 100 kilometes altogether at the time I think. Hitler himself was told of the fuel situation in early-mid December and he said they would not get from Stalingrad more than half-way to "freedom". So another reason why Hitler would not let them escape from Stalingrad because it was doomed in Hitler´s eyes even to try.

"It would take 1-2 days for the Russians to realize what happened??" I do think you are quite underestimating the enemy here....

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Sorry, Crossy, but I don't think it's right to judge a man on his back, and when you don't know all what was going through his soul. You have judged him without as you Americans use to say "having had his day in court". That's not fair.

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Bah!

I agree, calling Paulus a coward seems a little short sighted?

And why would it take the Russian 1-2 days to figure out that Paulus had broken the encirclement, were they that imcompetent?

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

I was unable to control my rage after finding out that the fate of an entire army was sealed because of the cowardice of one man.
I am sure Paulus had his reasons for his conduct, we all do.
I am only human.

Bombing the crap out of Stalingrad was not a smart thing to do, any how Paulus's was forced to strip the last Germans in the rear to take Stalingrad leaving the Romanians to defend the rear which for them proved to much.

Text book operation by the Russians who now learn the lesson of Kharkov in 42, the big German encirclements now fizzed out as the Russian withdrew in to Stalingrad and kept the Germans right on the doorstep which prevented air support in fear of bombing your own side.

Paulus followed Hitlers orders to the letter and did his best, but any chance of a breakout was all over by Dec 42. I will give Paulus credit for not blowing his brains out which as we all know pi**ed off Hitler.

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Regards, Richard


"Open channel D"

Sez you

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Bah!

Had Hitler had a lucid moment and decided that Stalingrad should be evacuated, no doubt about it, the 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army (part) would have gotten out of the cauldron, how many that is up for speculation but had the German forces gotten out they could have stabalised the front. Again that is speculative.

A big part of the reasoning for 6th Army to hold in place was simply the greater part of it was virtually immobile to begin with. Other than the handful of panzer and panzergrenadier units, all of which were critically short on everything, the army was foot and horse mobile.
To make matters worse, AGC and AGN had been largely denuded of equipment and replacements earlier in the year to allow offenisve operations by AGS. Thus, when ordered to relieve 6th Army these units showed up with a fraction of their full fighting strenght. 11th Panzer, a spearhead unit in the relief effort, for example had one understrength battalion of panzers (mixed Pz III and IV).

If we take a position that the withdrawal of 6th Army et al, starts earlier and the Germans attempt to form a new front somewhere to the rear of their initial positions much the same thing happens. Since the bulk of this line would consist of leg infantry units these would find themselves hard pressed to march to their new positions and then dig in for a defense in a timely manner.
More likely, they would have to abandon alot of their heavy equipment in favor of mobility to withdraw making them marginal in value for defense. If anything, the likelyhood is that the Soviets would do better in the face of a full German withdrawal due in large part to the poor mobility of the majority of the German army.

Easy, Germany surrendered on the 23rd June 1941.

eh?

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Bah!

Yeah well you know it ?.

Rod, even I have to admit that's debatable. I'm by no means of the opinion that Germany lost the war in June 23 1941.

Germany:

* could have won in 1941 (this has been discussed to exhaustion in this forum so we won't start that all over again);

* could have got themselves into a very good position (Caspian oil or no Caspian oil) strategically wise in 1942 if it weren't for that stupid fixation with Stalingrad the city;

* after the Russian locked Stalingrad in (6 Army and all the other formations compromised in this complex situation) it all went downhill, but I'd argue that there could be other options later instead the error that was Kursk.

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Bah!

Yeah, i know, just beating up myself with a plank of wood, after a while you either pass out or get to enjoy it.

How could Germany have won in 1941, every time i raise this i get shot down.

You are correct Army Group South could either go after the Caucasus oilfields or Stalingrad not both at the same time.

That's the discussion I was trying to avoid as we have already spoken about this so many bloody times I get the shudders anyone mentions the matter.

If Terry Gardner sees this he's going to murder me, but let me say that when I played tabletop hex wargames (a long way before computers and I was single) there was a game whose map covered an entire 10ftx7ft table and we still had an extra table going out the room door to accommodate the Caucasus. It was called Drang Nach Osten / Unenteschieden. I still have the monster tucked away. This was so big it required several players at the same time (God bless college, when everybody had time and resilience) and the game took weeks.

Of course this was 25 years ago or thereabouts and the game was full of errors and simplifications, a Pz division was as fresh after 3000 km as it was the day it set out from Poland, for instance.

Well, after all this explanation all I what to say is that it required an especially green or dumb German team not to win in 1941, 1942 at most.

Of course it was a game only, with some faulty rules and mechanisms, and we all had decades of hindsight, but...

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I remember a game where "we" were challenged by another club, and we took the Reds. It was amazing how the other guys spoke of themselves, how much they knew, how good they were, how they had done this and that, bla bla blah.

So we got a bit scared and decided to pull all the stops and play every single dirty trick allowed by the rules and use all our collective experience regarding railway chokepoints and all that. They were so bloody cocksure they simply HAD to be good. *

Suffice it to say that the game started on cue on 22 June 1941, in July entire Finland (sorry Kai) was under new management, in August Ploesti was being run by Sovoil (my sector, by the way), and the entire German army was lost and starving somewhere in Russia with all communication liknks cut, with no way to go ahead and no way to go back for whatever rail lines the partisans had spared were busily being used for sighseeing joyrides by the Komsomol

They never played again with us ever after, go figure!

* That's the Saddam Syndrome, you talk and bluff way too much, you get clobbered

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Bah!

I suppose if the encirclement had just be completed the German forces if ordered by Adolf Hitler to evacuate i believe that Generaloberst Friedrich von Paulas would have gotten his troops out, if it had been an orderly (under extreme conditions) rolling maneuver like Model did in the west then the 6th Army and part of the 4th Panzer Army would have forced their way out.

how?

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler