Deleted member 1487
Immediate counterattacks before units were deployed, trained, or fully equipped to stop the advance on Stalingrad; as it was the Germans overran a number of units, but likely their defeats would have been worse had Stalin's plans gone into action and Stalingrad would likely have fallen as a result. Stalin was freaked out about all the retreats and was afraid of a revolt against him (classic paranoia, the people were too afraid to really try to overthrow him in the midst of a war for survival).Interesting, what kind of “attacks” was Stalin trying to order to Zhukov?
I'm not sure whether those memoirs are accurate, written as they were after the fact.I doubt so. The heavy Ju-87 Stuka raids are frequently mentioned in Soviet memoirs (Kataev, Simonov, Paustovsky etc.), but simultaneously and later the Soviet artillery and rocket artillery support from east bank was also noted, while German artillery was mentioned sporadically to none. Well, the truth was likely what Germans did not have enough artillery in Stalingrad zone for Soviet artillery suppression, and tried to substitute with air raids, but that attempt has also failed IOTL.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6th_Army_(Wehrmacht)
Despite German air superiority over Stalingrad, and with more artillery pieces than the Red Army, progress was reduced to no more than several meters a day. Eventually, by mid November, the 62nd Army had been pushed to the banks of the Volga, but the 6th Army was unable to eliminate the remaining Soviet troops.[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad#Casualties
That was just what was captured, not even lost in combat or destroyed before surrender.According to a contemporary Soviet report, 5,762 guns, 1,312 mortars, 12,701 heavy machine guns, 156,987 rifles, 80,438 sub-machine guns, 10,722 trucks, 744 aircraft; 1,666 tanks, 261 other armored vehicles, 571 half-tracks and 10,679 motorcycles were captured by the Soviets.[123]
I've seen on other forums documentation about how much artillery ammo was reaching Stalingrad for the Germans (it was substantial), plus the use of Dora:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav#Dora