BlondieBC
Banned
The Germans then leave themselves exposed north and south to flank attacks and in an obvious trap where the encirclement and destruction of Army Group South is concerned.
Yes, it is vulnerable to a pincer attack, but so was Kursk for the the Soviets so vulnerability does not always mean defeat. It does mean an hard fought Soviet counter attack with likely similar forces to OTL. The difference will be instead of just weak Italian and Romanian divisions to attack, they likely have some additional German division in reserve to counter attack. The Soviets will only get one chance to break the Germans and force a retreat of the Volga. If the Soviets fail, the will lack the petroleum to launch the broad attacks we see in 1943 and 1944, and they will have to resort to the much slower WW1 style attacks with much less motorized units. Until routes are secured to oil in the south, the soviets will be able to fight a war of attrition, but not be able to achieve large breakouts due to lack of fuel.
It is not that much of a stretch to change to these orders. The Attack to the south was supposed to be after the Volga line was achieve. The Soviets attacks on the 6th Army flanks were slowing it down, so instead of choosing to launch the attack to the South early, Hitler could have chosen to send some extra units to help the 6th Army. Early on, Stalingrad was poorly defended, and additional forces might have achieve the full Volga line before the Soviets could react in strength. And by delaying the push to the South(Baku) by a few months, we set up a scenario where it might be cancelled until the ever strengthening counter attacks are defeated. Stalingrad is much different battle if the Germans secure the full western bank.