Wait, im sorry im a little confussed, why break out of a city on 20 November?
By this time the Russian assault just started, and the city was not encirlcled and the magnitude of the assault was unpredictable.

__________________
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

Well, let me cut to the chase here: The encircled units were:

IIV, VIII, XI, and LI Army Corps along with XIV Panzer Corps
14th, 16th, and 24th Panzer Divisions
3rd, 29th, and 60th Motorized Infantry Divisions
44th, 71st, 76th, 79th, 94, 100th, 113th, 295th, 297th, 305th, 371st, 376th, 384th, and 389th Infantry Divisions
20th Rumanian Infantry Division
1st Rumanian Cavalry Division
Without providing a long list of smaller units the summary is:
1 signals regiment
2 Nebelwerfer regiments
1 Heavy flak regiment
2 assault gun battalions
12 Pioneere / engineer battalions
150 smaller units including heavy artillery batteries, construction units, bridging columns, etc.

There were about 100 or so tanks in the encirclement with the bulk being in the three panzer divisions. The average strength of the infantry formations was between 3 and 5,000 men with a typical line infantry battalion having a rifle strength of between 100 and 300 men. Most artillery batteries were already short one or more guns. There were about 10,000 trucks and motor vehicles in the pocket.

Basically, ordering a retreat on 11/20/42 leaves 6th Army only two realistic paths across the Don River that are being held open by the three panzer divisions. One at Kalatsch, the other at Peskowatka. The Kalatsch crossing fell in spite of determined counter attacks by the 24th Panzer Division (losing over 50% of their remaining armor in the process) on the 22nd. The Peskowatka crossing fell on the 24th when all three panzer divisions were forced back across the Don and into the pocket.
At that point the daily ration for light artillery was 16 rounds and the various independent batteries and heavier artillery were no longer able to fire consistantly due to lack of ammunition.
Thus, starting the withdrawal on the 20th pretty much dooms most of 6th Army to destruction in any case. The various infantry divisions are not strong enough to do anything but mount minor, local counterattacks and hold their positions. There is little fuel and most motor vehicles are already immobilized due to this.
In the four days until the two escape routes close (assuming that the Russians close them on the original dates....a very likely occurance as they have near overwhelming strength attacking in this area) the Germans might have saved several thousand troops, maybe as many as 20,000. The rest would have still been lost and all of the divisions involved essentially destroyed anyway.
Either way, encircled and slowly reduced or, fighting a retreat out of the encirclement 6th Army is doomed.

Yeah it should have said the 24th November, sorry for the type-o, my mistake at not proof reading the post.

These German formations were lost in Stalingrad, this does not include Roumanian units.
() indicates reformation location
HQ Sixth Army, (Eastern Front)
HQ IV Panzer Korps, (Eastern Front)
HQ VIII Korps, (Eastern Front)
HQ XIV Panzer Korps, (Sicily,Italy)
HQ LI Korps, (Renamed LI Gebirgs Korps, Italy)
3rd Panz-Gren Div, (Italy)
14th Panzer Div, (Eastern Front)
16th Panzer Div, (Italy)
24th Panzer Div, (Italy)
29th Panzer-Gren Div, (Sicily, Italy)
44th Inf Div, (Italy)
60th Pan-Gren Div, (Eastern Front)
71st Inf Div, (Slovenia)
76th Inf Div, (Italy)
79th Inf Div, (Eastern Front)
94th Inf Div, (Italy)
100th Jeager Div, (Albania)
113th Inf Div, (Eastern Front)
295th Inf Div, (Norway)
297th Inf Div, (Albania)
305th Inf Div, (Italy)
371st Inf Div, (Italy)
376th Inf Div, (Eastern Front)
384th Inf Div, (Eastern Front
389th Inf Div, (Eastern Front)

Several sources of those trapped in the Stalingrad were some Axis forces were between 330,000 to 350,000 men. At the point of surrender 91,000 men were taken into POW and only 5,000 eventually made it back to Germany after the war, so in the end over 325,000+ lost their lives in the Stalingrad fiasco.

Yes, but these divisions only look good on paper. The 6th army was bleeding at a pace of about 20,000 men a week, do the math. These soldiers were far from the same men who entered the city.

__________________
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

Try about 100 tanks, 1800 artillery pieces, and about 250,000 men. As I pointed out the infantry divisions were running 3,000 to 5,000 men with line battalions at between 300 and 500 men on average. This puts them between 20 and 30% strength as the average German full strength infantry division is 15,000 to 20,000 men.
In many cases, battalions holding the perimeter of the encirclement had nothing but machinegun teams on their frontage. That is, two or three men with a machinegun holding what a squad would normally cover, six to twelve men covering a platoon frontage and as few as 20 or 30 men covering a full company frontage.

Ok, i will go with your figures, now take this senario, Hitler on the 25th November 1942 just a day after the encirclement orders Stalingrad evacuated as it is a lost cause and that at all cost orders Army Group B's commander General von Weichs to do everything he can to force a breakout of Stalingrad, are you saying that with those forces working together could not force at least a complete or partial breakout.

One problem that the germans had in breaking out of difficult situations during the war, was the ever present lack of transport and fuel.

To get any out of Stalingrad the Germans would have to do what Rommel did to the Itallians. A motorised force break out, and the rest are trapped.

__________________
'We march. The enemy is retreating in transport. We follow on foot.' Lt.Neil McCallum 5/7 Gordons 19th November 1942

Yes, a breakout would take place but where to stop is the next question? There are no defence lines where to retreat to really (?), and the only closer reserves are probably in the army group A which is fighting in the Caucasus. In fact if you retreat too fast you actually end up with the AG A being in trap in the Caucasus which would mean some 400,000 more men in trouble.

__________________

I would amass all the panzers and armoured fighting vehicle i could muster drain as much fuel from damaged vehicles (then set them on fire, as to deprive the Soviets of war material) then withdraw those vehicles to the where to weakest point of the encirclement and have General von Weichs attack with what he can muster. And rely on Luftwaffe support to send in as many aircraft as possible to attack Soviet troops and then launch fierce counter attacks on the rear of the Soviets (Facing the 6th Army) forcing the breakout.

Then after a breakout is achieved i would then make a stand on the western bank of the River Don (on the proviso that the Soviets had yet to cross it), With Army Group A i would withdraw it and send it into Rostov and dig in along the northern bank of the River Don.

The problem here is that the Soviets are already on the west side of the Don, and in strength. That was what 14th, 16th, and 24th Panzer from 4th Panzer Army were fighing starting on about the 19th. These units were struggling to hold open bridgeheads across the Don to 6th Army.....without success. By the 22nd the bridgeheads were gone and 6th Army encircled.
The problem for the Germans relieving 6th Army are really two-fold:

First, there is a lack of available units to break the encirclement. Units like 29th PzGr tried and failed. The problem here was that the counterattacking units were badly weakened from months of fighting. Panzer divisions had less than a battalion of tanks typically. Infantry battalions were down to just a few hundred effectives on the line in most cases. Compounding this were political stupidities like Luftwaffe Field Divisions that were thrown into the attack and ground up for nothing.
On top of all this, AGC was also having to fight for its life as the Soviets were attacking their sector too. Rezev and Velieki-Luki were two salients under assault and holding on by a thread. So, the rest of the German army in the East could not send much help to AGS for a counteroffensive.
As for the Luftwaffe, it was virtually ineffective. Its bomber units could either supplement the air lift into 6th Army or conduct offensive operations. Either way, it lacked the resources to do this on a sustained level. Many of its forward air bases were either vulnerable to Soviet attack or were so bad in terms of maintenance that they posed severe operational limitations on flying.

The second problem was one of logistics. The Germans were at the end of a very tenious supply line and simply were not getting what they needed to really fight an offensive war in the East at this point.

In the final analysis, AGS's problems began before their offensive and were only multiplied as they advanced. The solution is not found when 6th Army is threatened with annhilation but before the offensive begins several months earlier.

I can't agree more. As Manstein would put it: "Yet the fact that Sixth Army could ever land in such a situation at all was due to the operational errors committed BEFOREHAND by the Supreme Command in the planning and execution of the 1942 offensive, most of all with regard to its final stages."

Manstein on the Supreme Command: "While Hitler may have had an eye for tactical opportunity and could quickly seize a chance when it was offered to him, he still lacked the ability to assess the prerequisites and practicability of a plan of operations. He failed to understand that the objectives and ultimate scope of an operation must be in direct proportion to the time and forces needed to carry it out-to say nothing of the possibilities of supply. He did not - or would not - realize that any long-range offensive operation calls for a steady build - up of troops over and above those committed in the original assault. All this was brought out with striking clarity in the planning and execution of the 1942 summer offensive. Another example was the fantastic idea he disclosed to me in autumn 1942 of driving through the Caucasus to the Near East and India with a motorized army group"

Like I said before, the command chain of the Wehrmacht was the most serious problem for Germany. That is why Operation Barbarossa, Operation Blue, and the Ardennes offensive failed.

Hitler´main mistake, in my opinion, seems to be his ultimate belief that the Red Army reserves are close to zero in late 1942, especially after the big wins in Kharkov spring 1942 and Crimea later on with huge losses for the Soviets, he did not believe the poor defending towards Stalingrad was due to new strategy but to having no men anymore.

However I never have seen that the August 1942 battles in Rzhev area in any way affected Hitler´s views for the campaign as Zhukov sent tanks after tanks to crush the AGC ( See the david Glanz book Zhukov´s biggest defeat ). One of the problems may be that Hitler was informed of everything but when he negotiated with Generals they only knew what Hitler told them. His way to keep the Generals quite/happy...

__________________

Many idiots believed that, and Hitler was one of them. But it was the command chain of the Wehrmacht that made it possible for such a believe to dictate the operational plannings.

Im not sure that "idiots" would be the word of my choosing. As Kai correctly pointed out the German high command only established that the Soviet Union would be able to mobilize no more then 300 divisions. However in 1938 the Soviet Union passed a law raising the age of recruitment to 50 ( I believe ) this opened up an additional pool of 14million men which by the time of the invasion had at least some sort of basic training.

There was no way that the German Intelligence could know this, as you can imagine they were quite suprised and shocked when the Soviet Union was able to raise double the amount of divisions which the Germans predicted.

As for the operational planning, it worked quite well until the 7th month of Barbarrosa

__________________
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

Here is an open challenge to Sloniksp and T.A Gardner, you are now Generaloberst Friedrich Paulas and in command of German and Axis units in Stalingrad and Operation Uranus has taken place and after consideration Adolf Hitler on the 25th November issues a Fuhrerdirektive and orders the evacuation of Stalingrad.

You have under your command anywhere between 250,000 to 330,000 men and you have to get them out of Stalingrad Cauldron, Surrendering is not an option. How would achieve this task and as i said surrendering is not an option.

Im sure that T.A. would do a better job then me on the subject.

Frankly I have no idea.

Those 250,000 men are far from good shape. A large number are wounded and freezing. There is no motorized transport available for such an operation. Their only real hope perhaps might be the horses but a large number were either lost to gun fire or were eaten by the starving men, 39,000 alone just in December ( the following month. ) The 100 tanks they had would have been easily cut down by artillery and Soviet tanks along with aircraft as Russia had air supperiority. The weather would have played a huge role and NOT in the favor of the Germans as they ( while fleeing on foot ) would probably be close to a knee deep in snow. I would imagine that perhaps the wounded ones might be left behind as to not slow them down?


Banzai charge

__________________
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

So if you have no idea then at least give credit to those who do at least give it a shot no matter how preposterious it is.

Regards.

Ok I'll bite and give an answer. First off, I doubt it would work and probably would lead to near original results but it is a shot at saving 6th Army.

1. Army Group A (in the Caucasus) is ordered to immediately cease offensive operations to the south and east and redeploy as follows:
17th Army will withdraw and form a new defensive line based on the Kerch River and secure the area around Rostov. This will form the basis for a future new offensive operation into the Caucasus.
1st Panzer Army in its entirety will begin a withdrawal with the intent of counterattacking into the southern arm of the Soviet salient to take pressure off 6th Army.

6th Army, with those reminants of 4th Pz Army that are now being encircled, is to do the following:

The various infantry divisions will immediately regroup under designated division HQ reforming in place under a single division number per three divisions. The excess division HQ personnel will be reassigned to other duties necessary for the breakout as outlined below. The commander's intent here is to try and re-orgainze by combination the infantry divisions into a few actually near-full-strength units under a unified command. It is better that a single battalion of near full strength be holding a sector than three weak battalions.
All non-divisional motorized transport will immediately be pooled under the command of a division staff designated for this purpose.
All non-divisional artillery of non-standard calibers and those not having ammunition will immediately be disbanded. All other non-divisional batteries will be reassigned to a division to supplement their artillery.
All engineering assets, divisional and non-divisional are to be grouped under a division staff designated for the purpose. These units will immediately be assign