Alternate Operation Uranus

This is an idea that's been bouncing around in my head for awhile. What if, instead of having two wings coming from the north and south to encircle the German forces in Stalingrad, the Soviets had massed all their forces where their right wing was historically, and headed strait southwest towards Rostov? The goal would be to cut off and destroy the entirety of Army Groups A and B.
 

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This is an idea that's been bouncing around in my head for awhile. What if, instead of having two wings coming from the north and south to encircle the German forces in Stalingrad, the Soviets had massed all their forces where their right wing was historically, and headed strait southwest towards Rostov? The goal would be to cut off and destroy the entirety of Army Groups A and B.
Didn't have the logistics for it. They might have had a better shot with a full Operation Saturn, rather than Little Saturn, had they run it instead of Uranus.
 
Has anybody considered the impacts of this operation on North Africa? Would German troops there [barely] avoid wastage there unlike reality just to save the dying Army Groups? What would be the actual impact on WW2 then?
 

Deleted member 1487

Can you please provide more details here, Wiking? :)
For Saturn?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Little_Saturn

AFAIK the original plan was to smash through the Hungarians-the Romanians with a huge push toward the sea of Azov to cut off the entire AG-South, but that was deemed too ambitious and they went with the smaller, more sustainable Uranus and Little Saturn. The rail lines along the route from the Don to the Sea of Azov were pre-existing, but there were not existing rail lines south of the Volga, East of Stalingrad that linked up to the rail line coming out of Stalingrad to Rostov. So they need to capture Stalingrad before being able to push to Rostov from the area the OP suggests.
 
Didn't have the logistics for it. They might have had a better shot with a full Operation Saturn, rather than Little Saturn, had they run it instead of Uranus.

This, although my quibble would be based on relative Soviet/German combat power prior to Uranus rather then logistics. The Soviets certainly have the logistics to get to Rostov.
 

Deleted member 1487

This, although my quibble would be based on relative Soviet/German combat power prior to Uranus rather then logistics. The Soviets certainly have the logistics to get to Rostov.
In one leap from the area south of the Volga?
 
In one leap from the area south of the Volga?

From a purely logistical standpoint? Yes, certainly possible. Once one factors in Axis forces? No not at all, that would certainly require a multi-stage campaign. I also note that the OP says the Soviets would be massing on their right wing, not their left. The Volga there runs north-south, not west-east, and the Soviets have an extensive rail net in that region between the Don and Volga. So I'm not sure what your on about with "south of the Volga".

Ideally, the Soviets should have gone with Uranus as per IOTL, but then gone for a full Operation Saturn while letting the 6th Army starve. A multi-stage effort, rather then a single stage one.
 
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Aside from the logistical issues, what did the Axis have in between its line near the Don and Rostov at the start of Uranus, or which could have been brought there before the Soviets reach the city?
 
Aside from the logistical issues, what did the Axis have in between its line near the Don and Rostov at the start of Uranus, or which could have been brought there before the Soviets reach the city?

6th Panzer is at Stalino and would be enough to slow the Soviet advance in running battles for additional reinforcements to be brought in and/or for 6th Army to turn it's mobile forces around to strike the Soviet advance in the flank.
 
6th Panzer is at Stalino and would be enough to slow the Soviet advance in running battles for additional reinforcements to be brought in and/or for 6th Army to turn it's mobile forces around to strike the Soviet advance in the flank.

Why didn't the Germans do this OTL then?
 
Why didn't the Germans to this OTL then?

Time and distance, mainly. Starting from Stalin, to get in the way of a Soviet advance towards Rostov Stalino takes a lot less time then to get in the way of a Soviet advance towards Kalach. On the flip side, a Soviet advance from their positions on the Don to Rostov is going to take a whole lot longer then a double-envelopment of the 6th Army. The distances are correspondingly larger and leave the Germans with both more time to realize what is happening and to do something about it.
 
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Time, mainly. Starting from Stalin, to get in the way of a Soviet advance towards Rostov Stalino takes a lot less time then to get in the way of a Soviet advance towards Kalach. On the flip side, a Soviet advance from their positions on the Don to Rostov is going to take a whole lot longer then a double-envelopment of the 6th Army. The distances are correspondingly larger and leave the Germans with both more time to realize what is happening and to do something about it.

Would one panzer division really be enough to stop the advance? Keep in mind that I'm proposing that all the forces attacking in Uranus be included in this one push.
 
Would one panzer division really be enough to stop the advance? Keep in mind that I'm proposing that all the forces attacking in Uranus be included in this one push.

Stop? No. Slow down enough for the Germans to bring in the requisite reinforcements too stop it? Sure.

It was ~70 kilometers from the Soviet start point for Uranus to Kalach. On the other hand, it's ~390 kilometers from the Soviet start point for Uranus to Rostov. It took the Soviets 4 days to link up at Kalach, a rate of advance of 17-18 kilometers a day. Even if we assume nothing else gets in the way to slow down the Soviet advance toward Rostov (like the 6th Panzer Division), it would still take almost an entire month.

Much better for the Soviets to shatter the Romanian armies, encircle the 6th Army, force the remaining Germans formations to be pinned into doomed efforts to try and relieve the 6th, build-up and reinforce, and then utilize their more forward positions to drive on towards Rostov while the 6th Army starves to death.
 
Stop? No. Slow down enough for the Germans to bring in the requisite reinforcements too stop it? Sure.

It was ~70 kilometers from the Soviet start point for Uranus to Kalach. On the other hand, it's ~390 kilometers from the Soviet start point for Uranus to Rostov. It took the Soviets 4 days to link up at Kalach, a rate of advance of 17-18 kilometers a day. Even if we assume nothing else gets in the way to slow down the Soviet advance toward Rostov (like the 6th Panzer Division), it would still take almost an entire month.

Much better for the Soviets to shatter the Romanian armies, encircle the 6th Army, force the remaining Germans formations to be pinned into doomed efforts to try and relieve the 6th, build-up and reinforce, and then utilize their more forward positions to drive on towards Rostov while the 6th Army starves to death.

What other reinforcements could the Germans have brought in? I was under the impression that they were mostly tied up resisting the Soviet attack on AGC.
 
What other reinforcements could the Germans have brought in?

Well, IOTL they brought in 5 divisions over the course of December: 2 Panzer, an infantry, and two Luftwaffe field. The Luftwaffe fields are useless for anything other then cannon fodder but the panzers and infantry would be invaluable. With a whole month to react, the Germans could also halt the attacks in Stalingrad and bring out large portions of the 6th Army. Since this would not mean abandoning Stalingrad, Hitler would be okay with it.
 
Well, IOTL they brought in 5 divisions over the course of December: 2 Panzer, an infantry, and two Luftwaffe field. The Luftwaffe fields are useless for anything other then cannon fodder but the panzers and infantry would be invaluable. With a whole month to react, the Germans could also halt the attacks in Stalingrad and bring out large portions of the 6th Army. Since this would not mean abandoning Stalingrad, Hitler would be okay with it.

OK, makes sense. Would it be possible for the Soviets, if they were going to do this strait for Rostov push, to make the attack substantially stronger, perhaps with forces used for the attack on AGC OTL? Have you ever tried, just for the heck of it, something like this in one of your games?
 
OK, makes sense. Would it be possible for the Soviets, if they were going to do this strait for Rostov push, to make the attack substantially stronger, perhaps with forces used for the attack on AGC OTL?

An interesting idea. I don't know.

Have you ever tried, just for the heck of it, something like this in one of your games?

No, because generally the relevant scenarios are set-up under the OTL deployment schemes. I could try to edit them into being otherwise, but these editors are not very user-friendly and the process would take months.
 
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