What mistakes did the Reich make in their defense of Italy?

If they were participating in Anton they'd have been locked down throughout November and only available to move East in December some time, which would still take at least two weeks based on historical transfer times, plus more time to organize after detraining, assuming everyone arrives on time in the right place. Plus they had to acclimate to the East after being in southern France. I'm still not clear how they could have arrived in time for any part of Wintergewitter.


For one things that's assuming supply within the pocket is operating effectively, which based on historically reports it certainly was not, while it would take a significant amount of time (days at least) for soldiers suffering from the weather and weeks of nutritional deficits to recover physically enough to evacuate. What sort of sustainable ability did the operation have once the initial convoy arrived? A one-off resupply is going to just be a temporary boost before Operation Saturn implodes yet another part of the Axis line and AG-Don has to scramble to react.



I can't find any reference to a 17th motorized division online, just a 17th division, which was not located where you are stating this division was. Also deleting any air drops are going to have an impact on the air bridge for Stalingrad, especially if the number of aircraft used is large enough to supply and entire motorized division, as the pocket was already only getting 20% of supply needs.


Are you referring to Panzer divisions?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17th_Panzer_Division_(Wehrmacht)#1942




Perhaps, but that would be a very different situation to the scenario I had suggested. I'm assuming in that scenario the Wallies are for some reason opting to go with Operation Sledgehammer in April-May 1943? What of Rommel's position in Africa without reinforcement?


I was referring to a no case anton situation. Their particpation in anton saw them tied down in security duties in France, but without that I believe the 1st SS division was ready to fight. The core of their troops had put in long hard service on the southern part of the eastern front in 1941 and early 1942 before being withdrawn to be rebuilt as a tank division, I don't believe they would need much in the way of acclimation

Per Peter G Tsouras book on the 6th Panzer division (his Raus Biography), they were able to get from Brittany France to Army Group Don's staging areas in about 10 days in 7 dozen fully loaded rail cars studded with flak and machine guns. I don't see why they couldn't shuttle the second division right behind them

Part of the success the few times I was able to recover the 6th army, was that availability of additional transports without the Tunisian airhead allowed the 6th army to decay more gradually before Army Group Don could relive them. The factoids on the card gave it as 65 serviceable JU-52's replacing the HE-111's in the airlift which could carry more cargo per run into Stalingrad and freeing up the HE-111's for other tasks

The 6th army's infantry would face hell on earth trying to retreat over the frozen steppes towards Rostov, but with the 6th panzer and 1st SS (or 11th if you put the SS on the Chir river in their place) and their own restored tanks, they would be shielded by about 300 runners and only have to defend their rear guards from eastern Operation Ring forces (since the scenario assumes the 6th and the 1st defeat the western parts of Operation ring). There is some window of time before Saturn for them to retreat if Saturn is launched as it was historically, but Stalin would have the option to divert Saturn forces to try to engage Army Group Don more directly at the cost of some transit delay. My table version did give you the option to try to save the 6th army's wounded (over 30k) but any attempt at that made it completely impossible to move them with any speed and they were always over run or cut off.

The Germans did have an intermediate rail head between Rostov and Stalingrad, the hope was that the supply tail would give the 6th army enough in their cartridge belts and bellies to allow them to retreat that far, and then be resupplied again for the second stage of the withdrawal to Rostov

Please forgive my faulty memory, the formation I was meaning to reference was the 16th Heer motorized division not 17th. This formation was attached to army group A and prior to Uranus had been staged at Elista for several months without being engaged. The card allowed a couple dozen HE-111 bombers to bring them up to full war movement capability in 4 days by providing air supply. The 16th was close to the pocket if they had the fuel (and orders) to move

Due to the commitment of all German air transport assets to rescue the soldiers at Stalingrad; Rommel I am sure gets rolled up by the 8th army and compelled to surrender much earlier than historical
 
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