Deleted member 1487
Not sure why you think that. Stahel's maps (which are largely derived from Wehrmacht daily situation maps) show portions of the 9th army unengaged in Vyazma and advancing behind 41st corps. On the 16th they were covering what would be 3rd Panzer's flank ITTL, as well as the rest of 3rd Panzer being freed up at that point to do so too:The 9th aren't going anywhere until the 24th Oct
9th Army HQ is in an area directing the liquidation of the Vyazma pocket, but at least 1 corps (XXIII on the map) was around Rzhev attacking what remained of the 22nd, 29th, and 31st Soviet armies.
I'll go back and try to find an argument about that, but going by at least two books that detail the actions at this point, including one focusing on the Kalinin battles, there really isn't any problem other than what direction the 41st corps is ordered to attack.No it you not reading my posts I know the 41st aren't involved in the pocket, but read what I posted about the issues with making moves in conjunction with other units that are!
Yeah you're just looking at HQ positions, not what the entire army was doing, same with the rest of 3rd Panzer. At least 1 corps of 9th army was not involved in Vyazma and was in fact attacking north of Rzhev on the 16th and earlier never was involved in Vyazma. It was a flank defense corps keeping contact with AG-North.To wit if you are going to block the north off with the 9th you can't do that until the 9th is done with the pocket, and without the 9th blocking the north your albeit free to move 41st going east risks getting flanked from the north as it hits the line. Now you can of course ignore the pocket and not crush it freeing up the 9th, but then you are left with a bunch of Russians (who were still fighting pretty tenaciously through most fo Oct) who you are going to have to either leave free or redirect other forces to contain/crush them.
Plus Soviet forces as of mid-October on the flanks were badly worn down and disordered from the retreat. The only reason they gave 41st corps an issue in Kalinin is that it was on top of Soviet supply lines and was well forward of the rest of German positions and deep in Soviet rear areas, so they could cut them off from ground supply quite easily. Advancing East wouldn't create that issue, as the Soviets would still have to deal with the elements of the 9th army that were attacking them on the flank and their whole supply issues that would stem from trying to attack away from the main rail line from Moscow. The book "Defense of Moscow: the Northern Flank" really gets into the details of Soviet forces in the area and what they were capable of, attacking Rzhev was beyond their abilities at that point, they could just contest Kalinin basically and ultimately failed to do even that IOTL.
It sounds like you're hung up on a general narrative without understanding the details of what actually happened and what forces were actually where and what their capabilities were, rather than where army HQs were on a map. Which is ironic considering you're accusing me of just looking at pieces on a map.