What would be the consequences of a Stalingrad breakout
I am kicking around two scenarios
1. Paulus suffers a stroke right before the encirclement, and command of the army is turned over to Seydlitz (who at that point Hitler held in high regard due to his excellent operation against the Demyansk pocket)... upon encirclement Seydlitz, without asking for orders pulls back and masses his strength on the southwestern portion of the pocket and bursts through escaping towards Kotelnikovo and keeping open a route of retreat similar to OTL for Army Group A... Hitler doesn't become aware of the evac until its too late to countermand, executes Seydlitz but in turn can't order the troops back into the city...
2. Operation Torch is delayed for a period of weeks so that it is not going on simultaneous with Stalingrad falling apart. The 6th army is surrounded, but operational reserves that ended up going to Tunisia instead end up going to Manstein's Army Group Don...(10th Panzer 2nd parachute, 164th light infantry and a big load of transport planes and specialists) and without the need to roll on Vichy France, the Leibstandarte is also sent to Army Group Don. With additional reserves Manstein is able to break through and push his supply tail into Stalingrad, succoring the 6th army... he then as Army Group Commander orders the evacuation which falls back towards Rostov, keeping open the escape route for Army Group A relatively OTL
You thoughts gentlemen?