6th Army Breaks Out of Stalingrad

[LestWeForget]

What if the 6th army broke out early in the encirclement in Stalingrad?

What consequences for the Eastern Front?

 

[Kou Gakei]

Most likely the Soviets would roll down and take out Army Group A while brutalizing B, thus resulting in heavier losses than OTL.

 

[Promita Banik]

Most likely the Soviets would roll down and take out Army Group A while brutalizing B, thus resulting in heavier losses than OTL.

Agreed as perverse as this sounds Hitler needed the 6th Army to be sacrificed in order to prepare the nation on a total war footing.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

What if the 6th army broke out early in the encirclement in Stalingrad?

At best? The attempt fails, badly. The losses sustain means the pocket folds inside of a week.

At worst? The entire army is destroyed there and then.

What consequences for the Eastern Front?

As the others say: the Soviets take the extra 6 armies now freed up and shatter the Italians and Germans on the Don, encircling Army Group A and gutting Army Group B.

 

[Seleucus]

At best? The attempt fails, badly. The losses sustain means the pocket folds inside of a week.

At worst? The entire army is destroyed there and then.



As the others say: the Soviets take the extra 6 armies now freed up and shatter the Italians and Germans on the Don, encircling Army Group A and gutting Army Group B.

Yep; the logistics of supplying the crippled-but-escaped 6th Army (and the Soviets being able to move forces elsewhere) means you'd likely get a successful Operation Saturn. Army Group A is cut off; Army Group B is wrecked.