Stalingrad isn't really the issue. The flanks of Stalingrad are the issue.
As Derek Pullem says, taking the city is one thing but stopping the counter attack is another. They need to hold the Volga
They could've won at Stalingrad IOTL even without any change, the Soviets defended 100m of Stalingrad with very few troops and the Soviet high command didn't expect them to survive. Had the Germans took it, it would be inconsequencial for the rest of the war.
There was only 1 railway to Stalingrad, they couldn't feed let alone supply a bigger army even if they had one. There simply wasn't the logistical capacity to take and hold Stalingrad and supply Army Group A towards Baku (I'm not even sure a single objective was possible). It might work if they just took Stalingrad to Astrakhan, somehow held a 1300 km front, and frittered a few planes away in anti-shipping on the Caspian Sea in 42 then went south in 43 but that would require them to actually expand the railways, destroy the beachheads, and supply the Italians, Romanians, and Hungarians with heavy equipment that they were short of.
Yep, Case Blue is like the quintessential example of mission creep when you look at what Barbarossa's goals were a year earlier (and it has far worse starting positions)
On this and the Germany would be nuked… yes, but only if they manage to hold Stalingrad.
Not really. The Germans would have redeployed forces to protect their flanks and reconstituted reserves. Seeing as how Operation Uranus went behind schedule in spite of the limited (in case of anti-tank matters, zero) capabilities of what opposed them, it's hardly inconceivable that German troops with proper anti-tank weaponry could stall out the Soviets as they did in other areas that year. Plus, eliminating Soviet bridgeheads would be a top priority after Stalingrad, since the whole point of Army Group B's mission was to establish a defensive line along the Don and Volga rivers. The notion that the Germans would all winter at Stalingrad makes zero sense.
A bit hard to use anti-tank weapons if every building you’re housed in and all your supplies are being burnt to ashes around you… and with you in them.
Again, that argument is baseless because you're claiming without any reason whatsoever that the Germans would all just sit in Stalingrad after taking it, when in reality they would immediately start redeploying and reconstituting their divisions to destroy the Soviet bridgeheads over the Don, as per the plan. The whole point of Army Group B was to secure the flank of Army Group A, and that involves destroying Soviet bridgeheads, of which Stalingrad was the most important. Anyway, even after the Stalingrad Pocket was closed, large numbers of German troops remained outside the city, and the Germans were only pushed completely into it on the eve of the pocket's collapse.
The front of the army won’t stay, but if they’re busting through a bridgehead to get to another place, then it makes sense that their rear/supply train will stay in the city, and perhaps set up a command center since it’ll allow the front of the army to advance faster.
Nothing much, because the Battle of Stalingrad was never supposed to be fought in the first place. In the original plan the forces heading for Stalingrad were only supposed to hold the flank of the main offensive. It was Hitler's decision that the city had to be taken that completely derailed German strategy. Allowing they take the last bit of the city they didn't occupy IOTL they are still at the end of a massively overextended supply line with a huge exposed flank and the Soviet counteroffensive still encircles them.
Wait, so Germany would have been better off if they never even tried to take Stalingrad?
