Chimera0205
Banned
What if the German 6th army had decides to fight to the last man as hitlerhad ordered it? How much damage could they do to soviets? How much could they delay the soviet advance? What effect would that this have on the war?
This. The effect is that would have been even less than the 5-6,000 solders that survived captivity than OTL. The OTL Axis remnants in Stalingrad either surrendered or were mopped up between the beginning of February 1943 through March 1943. There were some groups that DID fight to the death and a few thousand more wretched, frostbitten, starving, and diseased soldiers deciding to continue the fight wouldn't have made any difference in the war.Not much, I think. The surrender came after the 6th Army had been cut off from resupply for months, forced to use almost all of its remaining ammunition, and had most of their defensive positions (and something like 90% of the city) overrun by a much larger and better-equipped Soviet force. The remnants of 6th Army that surrendered had already been beaten and had little or no capacity for further resistance.
Was a breakout from Stalingrad every feasible? I assume once the city was encircled 6th Army was doomed. Still, was there a window - however briefly opened - that at least some of the garrison might have got away?
Well i doubt theyll completely run out of ammo especially given all the guns that are littering rhe battlefield from all the fighting.Short answer, they run out of ammunition and take knives, rocks and sticks to a gun fight while week with hunger.
Real life is not a video game.Well i doubt theyll completely run out of ammo especially given all the guns that are littering rhe battlefield from all the fighting.
I wrote something on Quora about this:Was a breakout from Stalingrad every feasible? I assume once the city was encircled 6th Army was doomed. Still, was there a window - however briefly opened - that at least some of the garrison might have got away?
Except the pockets were shrinking and the 'guns' / ammunition that is 'littering' the battlefield would tend to be on the enemy's side of the front lines. Even the pitiful flow of airdropped supplies had stopped by the end of January due to the loss of the airfields where the transports could make the trips from.Well i doubt theyll completely run out of ammo especially given all the guns that are littering rhe battlefield from all the fighting.
We [...] went into the yard of the large burnt out building of the Red Army House; and here one realized particularly clearly what the last days of Stalingrad had been to so many of the Germans. In the porch lay the skeleton of a horse, with only a few scraps of meat still clinging to its ribs. Then we came into the yard. Here lay more more [sic?] horses' skeletons, and to the right, there was an enormous horrible cesspool – fortunately, frozen solid. And then, suddenly, at the far end of the yard I caught sight of a human figure. He had been crouching over another cesspool, and now, noticing us, he was hastily pulling up his pants, and then he slunk away into the door of the basement. But as he passed, I caught a glimpse of the wretch's face – with its mixture of suffering and idiot-like incomprehension. For a moment, I wished that the whole of Germany were there to see it. The man was probably already dying. In that basement [...] there were still two hundred Germans—dying of hunger and frostbite. "We haven't had time to deal with them yet," one of the Russians said. "They'll be taken away tomorrow, I suppose." And, at the far end of the yard, besides the other cesspool, behind a low stone wall, the yellow corpses of skinny Germans were piled up – men who had died in that basement—about a dozen wax-like dummies. We did not go into the basement itself – what was the use? There was nothing we could do for them
What if the German 6th army had decides to fight to the last man as hitlerhad ordered it? How much damage could they do to soviets? How much could they delay the soviet advance? What effect would that this have on the war?
I wrote something on Quora about this:
There was only one moment when a breakout was possible and that was just after the Germans were surrounded and when the Soviets were still expanding their lines. .
Except the pockets were shrinking and the 'guns' / ammunition that is 'littering' the battlefield would tend to be on the enemy's side of the front lines. Even the pitiful flow of airdropped supplies had stopped by the end of January due to the loss of the airfield.
Here is an example of the state of the German soldiers as reported by Alexander Werth at the end of the Stalingrad battles; how much more resistance can you expect from them:
Your grandfather may have fought in the wrong side in WW2 but I'm glad he managed to escape from the Gulag and get home safely.