Stalingrad question

Matt

Quite possibly. Remember reading that the commander of Army group South at the time, forget his name, had recomended Paulus, his staff officer, for the 6thA role. The source suggested that the field marshal would have kept an eye on him and helped out when trouble began. However he was a fitness fanatic and always did a multi-mile run in the morning. This being Russia in mid-winter he caught a fever. The plane flying him to a hospital then crashed in a storm and he was killed. If there had been a strong commander, who I think had stood up to Hitler in the past and had Paulus's confidence, you might have seen a considerable difference in the way 6thA and the entire AGS had operated. Probably wouldn't have avoided disaster in the end but might have resulted in a different Stalingrad campaign.

Sorry I can't give more detail. Too long ago. If I get a chance I'll dig up my reference books and see if I can find out more.

Steve

That would be Reichenau. He didn't die in plane crash but from heart attack.
 
I'm not sure that Paulus' ability to stand up to Hitler (or not) is relevant in this context. Standing up to Hitler became relevant when 6th Army was cut off, i.e. the order to stand fast and not break out to link with Winter Storm. The query is whether the Battle should take place in the city at all, but rather in open country. This possibility only exists in the opening stages, August, September and (maybe) October.

It is true that Hitler was determined to take Stalingrad and Stalin was determined to hold it. But that merely implies it does not matter which general commanded 6th Army. No German general would defy a Fuhrerbegleit when the Army was doing well (this is a feature often overlooked by groupies of the German General Staff - they only tended to stand up to AH when things were going badly.)

And in late August, on the outskirts of Stalingrad, Paulus and the rest of the German Army would have had every reason to suppose things were going well. But having failed to trap 62nd & 64th Amies in open country, they were then committed to attacking the city.

Now it could be argued the Ostheer could have tried a very mobile attack, like at Kiev or Minsk, a big encirclement causing a breakout or surrender. If so, Paulus' fault in attacking the city would have been overconfidence - he thought he could deal with the Russian rabble. But there were several factors against a big encirclement battle:-
(a) The difficulties of operating across the Volga with Stalingrad still in Russian hands.
(b) It would have been mid-September for such an attack to be organised, which would have given only one month (maybe) for it to succeed - in fact rain, succeeded quickly by snow, arrived in mid-October.
(c) Forces would have to be retained at Stalingrad, and with the Forces sent to the Caucasus, there would not be enough vehicles and troops.

There is also the fact that the Stavka people (Zhukov and Vasilevsky) had already started planning Uranus in September, and by October there was already a Red Army reserve of 12 infantry divisions and 5 armoured held beyond the Volga, earmarked for this offensive. This is in addition to such units as 13th Guards Div., which were fed into Stalingrad from time to time, just to keep the pot boiling.
 

blysas

Banned
Life is like a box of grapes, you have to prepare for it. If Germany had won at Stalingrad, and crossed the Volga river, then they might be able to cut off the Soviets in the Cascaus. However, theymight run into more problems, later on in some ways.
 
Could another commander of the 6th army have faired better? von Paulus was a staffofficer with no combatexperience according to some book i read

I think its important to remember, at this time, if you're not a citizen of Russia or Germany and I suppose Japan at this time, that you ,"Did What You Were Told!". Its bad enough that you have the lives of you're fellow soldiers on your conscience, but any overt lack of respect, or flagrant acts of disobedience or alledged cowardice, are very likely to get your entire family killed, or if you're lucky, ostricized.

Its not like the United States or England where people will be snooty. Your behavior absolutely, reflects the way your family and friends will be treated, until such time as you either win, or forever. Its high stakes, IMO.
 
I agree with Blysas' philosophy "you have to be prepared" and its clear the Germans weren't. 4th Panzer Army in particular was short on fuel and ammunition, and had been considerably reduced by having to detach armoured units to 6th Army and to the Caucasus. They were down to one panzer and one mech division.

I don't agree with his conclusion, a drive further east once Stalingrad had been taken. For a start, this could only happen if Paulus' last great offensive had succeeded, which was in November. This would have committed the Germans to an offensive in the middle of winter - something they only did if they really had to.

Second, I have mentioned the reserve forces which Stavka had built up beyond the Volga. These would have stopped any such drive.

BTW, this was the time of the big row between AH and the Chief of the German General Staff, over objectives, which culminated in Halder's resignation.
 

Stalker

Banned
Maybe if the 4th Pnzr army didn't get sent to help cross the Don and was sent in a direct march on Stalingrad from the SW. This keeps the Russians on the run enough so they can't catch their breath tol mount a counterattack. They reach the bank south of the city and then advance north to trap what Russians there are betweer the Don bend and 6th army. Essentially they take the city before the Soviets have enough defences in place to stop them.
The point is it WAS sent...
Here is the extract from Yeremenko's biography from Russian source (transation is mine):
http://wwii-soldat.narod.ru/MARSHALS/ARTICLES/015-eremenko.htm

"Appointed to command South-Western Front fighting in the Southern part of Stalingrad on 7 august 1942, Colonel-General A.I. Yeremenko made the ironfist of all reserves he had and on 9 august made the counterstrike. As result, he managed to wreck the Hitlerites' attempt to break into the city from the south-western direction. The 4th Panzer Group relocated from Caucasus also was forced to dig into defence on the positions they had reached. On 10 august, Andrei Ivanovich started to combine two posts having become the Commander of Stalingrad Front. His counterstrike organised on 23 august involving large-scale use of air forces and aiming to stop enemy's attempts of breakthrough to Stalingrad from the north-west, was also successful".
 
But there were several factors against a big encirclement battle:-
(a) The difficulties of operating across the Volga with Stalingrad still in Russian hands.
(b) It would have been mid-September for such an attack to be organised, which would have given only one month (maybe) for it to succeed - in fact rain, succeeded quickly by snow, arrived in mid-October.
(c) Forces would have to be retained at Stalingrad, and with the Forces sent to the Caucasus, there would not be enough vehicles and troops.


As I said before, u don't have to cross the Volga to cut off Stalingrad. The soviets relied on all sorts of boats and barges to keep the city alive. Take out the boats, and the problem's solved. The easy and logicall way to do this is to place guns on either side of Stalingrad (upstreem and downstreem), so that no other boats get into the area, either from the upper reaches of the Volga or from the Caspian Sea. Once you've done this, take out the boats caught in between with arty and air attacks. You can then even have your heroic charge into the city for propaganda purposes, as the defenders would run out of ammo after a few days of fighting. The germans however only placed guns upstreem from Stalingrad... and they lost... badly. Given the germans superiority in the early stages of the battle, and even later on, taking a few km of land south of Stalingrad to achieve victory shouldn't have been that big a deal. With Stalingrad taken it would have been very hard (but not impossible) for the soviets to threaten the german left flank, as these would advance into the Caucasus, in order to take/cut off/destroy soviet rafinery's and oil equipement at Baku, and defeat the S.U., wich, without 80% of its fuel, could no longer conduct any type of maneuver warfare.
 

Stalker

Banned
Magnum, you forget about someting else - about monitors (gunboats) of Squadron (Flotilla) of the Volga who boast calibers which rare field cannon can match. And these guys only expect the "silly Germans" to put their guns within their range to have their long-expected game "Knock the Hun sooner'n me";) They are also extremely experienced in the "hide-and-seek" game with German Luftwaffe constantly changing their location and camouflaging themselvers to the terrain and waters they are in at the moment.
By suggesting "Take out the boats, and the problem's solved", do you really think Germans hadn't tried that?;) Saying is easy, doing that - quite a different matter especially when almost all reinforcements and provisions are transferred across the river at night and there are a whole lot of efforts put to disguise the enemy. No, not quite that easy, I must say!
 
Magnum, you forget about someting else - about monitors (gunboats) of Squadron (Flotilla) of the Volga who boast calibers which rare field cannon can match. And these guys only expect the "silly Germans" to put their guns within their range to have their long-expected game "Knock the Hun sooner'n me";) They are also extremely experienced in the "hide-and-seek" game with German Luftwaffe constantly changing their location and camouflaging themselvers to the terrain and waters they are in at the moment.
By suggesting "Take out the boats, and the problem's solved", do you really think Germans hadn't tried that?;) Saying is easy, doing that - quite a different matter especially when almost all reinforcements and provisions are transferred across the river at night and there are a whole lot of efforts put to disguise the enemy. No, not quite that easy, I must say!

Well, they did, but only partially (guns only upstreem from Stalingrad). However, I doubt monitors can make that much of a difference. Right now, I don't have the time to check it out, but I guess placing camouflaged 88, 105 and 150 mm guns along the banks of the Volga will eventually take out the Volga Flottila. Most of the boats where unarmored and vulnerable, and again, I doubt gunboats, even with 150 mm guns, can make a difference. Why ? the german guns would be camouflaged, while the gunboat is clearly visible. Plus, there are a lot more guns then gunboats. Also, I doubt these would be able to withstand a lot of direct hits. At night, there's no way for the monitors to attack the guns, and if they strike at day, a squadron of Stukas is just a radio-call away. But let's assume these gunboats where invincible. They're not the target. The boats that supply the men at Stalingrad are. German guns would simply avoid them and take out the boats. In an area only a few km long between the to hipothetical emplacements of german guns, there's not a lot of room for those boats to hide from Luftwaffe aircraft...
 

Stalker

Banned
We are speaking of the city over 100 km long, we are speaking of the River over 2 miles wide in that place with multiple islands and forests with tributaries and secret harbour capable at need to hide not a tiny boat but an Air Carrier. And the other back with its harbours is growing flaks like ypung pine-trees. Any attack of Lufwaffe on that bank may be very expencive. In autumn, there is also Russian fighter cover growing stronger.
map_stalingrad.jpg

On Squadron of the Volga:
You were right in part: who'd ever thought that enemy would be able to come up to the Volga? So, there were not real river monitors with 224-mm cannons as in Dnieper, Danube and Squadron of Pinsk. What there was: 7 gunboats, 14 armoured cutters, 33 cutter mine-trailers, 2 floating AA-batteries, railway battery and two batallions of the marines attached to the Squadron.
From july 1942 on, the Squadron of the Volga consisting of 3 brigades and 1 special mine-trailing brigade was under command of the brass of Stalingrad (South-Western) Front. It supported the troops with artillery barrages, landed forces, guarded water communicaions, carries loads across the Volga.
Armoured cutters, mine-trailers, in heavy conditions of ice-clad river under continuous ari and artillery attacks, made over 35 000 raids, transferred over 90 000 men and 13 000 tons of cargo, large amounts of vehicles and equipment, arms and munitions. Its artillery destroyed over 3 infantry regiments, hit 20 tanks took down 13 ariplanes, ruined over 100 fortified positions, suppressed 26 enemy cannoon batteries. Its ships evacuated about 52 000 men from Stalingrad.

Not a force to niglegt, I should say...
 
Artillery of that era did not rely on line-of-sight. The Germans had artillery in and around Stalingrad and no doubt they could have fired on the river craft had they wished to. I suspect they were fully tasked in supporting the fighting in the city itself. The point is simply that the Germans did not have enough artillery, and not enough of anything else.

Besides, by September, the Red Army had no less than 300 guns on the east bank of the Volga and this figure was rising daily. Any German battery appearing on the west bank would have brought down a storm of counter-battery fire.
 

Stalker

Banned
Artillery of that era did not rely on line-of-sight.
[...]
Besides, by September, the Red Army had no less than 300 guns on the east bank of the Volga and this figure was rising daily. Any German battery appearing on the west bank would have brought down a storm of counter-battery fire.
Exactly as it was in real. Once bogged into the dogfight in the city, the 6th army in september had not a sincle chance to win that "local war of attrition".
Chuikov clutched at the land as a bulldog and every minute he gained only strengthened reserve forces prepared for Operation "Uranus".

N.B. That simile when I compared Chuikov with the bulldog reminds me of old movie by Ozerov "Stalingrad" made in Soviet time in late 80-s where Powers Boothe played Chuikov. :)
 
Could another commander of the 6th army have faired better?
Can I spin that another way? If there had been more "allied" strength in AGSouth, Italians or Turks or Spaniards or whoever (Klingons?:p), could they've held better against 62d Army & been detailed to take the city? If there'd been an "allied" CO, is it possible he'd ignore the maniac douchebag:p...erm, Hitler & just cross the Volga on his own initiative?
 
I'm not sure, good question though. Not sure if they would have the necessary mobility to mount such an operation though. Oh, Stalker btw awesome pictures dude hope someday I get to go travel and see for my self! :D
 
Top