WI:the German 6th army faught to the last man.

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?
 
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.
 

nbcman

Donor
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.
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.
 
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?
 

Ian_W

Banned
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?

There was, but that ends the siege of Stalingrad early, and frees the surrounding Soviet units to do other things.

The Stavka plan is that German operational reserves would assist with such a breakout ... which means they couldn't counter the second phase of the operation, which was pushing south to encircle everything..
 

Chimera0205

Banned
Short answer, they run out of ammunition and take knives, rocks and sticks to a gun fight while week with hunger.
Well i doubt theyll completely run out of ammo especially given all the guns that are littering rhe battlefield from all the fighting.
 
My grandfather was in Stalingrad and survived it.
He not much talk about it, but he told me some aspects of it

They surrounded by Red army, in hope of miracle by liberated by Wehrmacht or airlifted out that Hellhole by Luftwaffe.
Only to get order "Fight to last man" by that aggravating Little Austrian

The men not wanted to die in a icy ruins landscape
They wanted to go home, to there love ones and simply ignored the order, even the SS !
Final my grandfather came home from war around 1950
He escaped the Gulach, fled across Siberia by hiking cargo trains, in a Ukraine harbor he manage get on board of greek freighter from there to Italy.

During his life he refer to Hitler and Göring as Little dirty B*****d and as fat lying B*****d
 
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.
 
A lot of men had no choice...

...Join up, or face the Evening Knock On The Door by the Geheimestaatspolizei. The reality of Nazi rule.

A lot of poor Ukrainians had to join up or watch their families starve to death.

I honour your grandfather, Michel Van - he was an exceptionally brave man.
 
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?
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. After that there was no chance whatsoever for the Sixth Army to break out as a cohesive entity.

Let me explain.

By the time that the Soviets started Operation Uranus Sixth Army had been ground to a halt in Stalingrad itself. The Soviets had deliberately fed in just enough reinforcements to the Soviet 62nd Army to keep a lodgement on the West bank of the Volga in the city. The fighting was ferocious, with little if any quarter being given or taken in many places. By November the German forces were digging in for another Russian winter. Supplies were already something of a problem and as a result orders were given for many of the draught animals - the horses in particular - to be sent to the rear areas, as fodder for them was bulky and awkward to transport.

There is a tendency to think of the Germany Army of this time to be a mechanised monster. It wasn’t - it relied on hundreds of thousands of horses. The prime mover for the German artillery throughout the war on the Eastern and Western Fronts was the horse. No horses = static artillery.

The moment that Sixth Army was surrounded it lost every supply line, so that everything had to be brought in by air. It was promised 300 tonnes a day. It actually needed a minimum of 750 tonnes of supplies a day. Let’s list what needed to be brought in:

  • Ammunition (all calibres)
  • Fuel for the tanks and other vehicles
  • Food
  • Medicine
  • Medical supplies (bandages, etc)
  • Winter clothing
On a good day the Luftwaffe could fly in 100–150 tonnes.

There were not many good days.

As a result the Sixth Army was relying on its own reserves plus what could be brought in. And with every day of being on half-rations, being stressed from being surrounded, being stressed from the constant bombardment, men were getting weaker and weaker. The more they waited the less chance of a successful breakout.

But a breakout with what? The Panzers were running out of fuel. The men were getting weaker by the day, many had dysentery and more and more were getting lousy. The few horses were running out of fodder (and being eaten as well) and there weren’t enough to move the guns. And the guns themselves were short on shells (it was easier to fly in machine gun ammunition than shells).

If an attempt had been made to break out of Stalingrad when Manstein was ‘just’ 40 miles away then you would have had badly armed and poorly supported half-starved men trying to attack the Soviet lines to their West whilst breaking contact with the Soviet 62nd Army to their East, all in the face of the Russian winter.

Some could have made it. An awful lot more would have been slaughtered or frozen to death.
 

watch
 

nbcman

Donor
Well i doubt theyll completely run out of ammo especially given all the guns that are littering rhe battlefield from all the fighting.
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.

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:

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

EDIT: completed sentence about airdropped supplies and loss of airfields.
 
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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?

Negligible impact on Soviet war plans, fewer German POWs are taken.

If the Germans inexplicably turn into the Imperial Japanese Army and do something like a banzai charge it might surprise the Soviets before they slaughter them with superior firepower. If the Germans start to do it enough times when surrounded perhaps the Soviets become a bit more cautious as they advance the way the US Marines did as they fought across the Pacific but nothing in a way that materially impacts the course of the war.
 
It would have very little effect if any; the Sixth Army, such as it was, was in such a dire state by the time of the final Soviet offensive that they could offer precious little further resistance, at least not to the extent that it would have any impact on the Soviets' plans.
 
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. .

Without Hitler's approval, it could not have happened. Paulus would have been replaced immediately.
 
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:

Slightly off-topic but recently finished reading Russia at War; really nice book that touches on the human aspect of the Eastern Front (to complement the more common operational histories).
 
Well, the "last stand" of the 6th Army would probably be similar to a giant "banzai charge" against the Red Army.
 
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.

And survived Leningrad, original he and his unit had be to send to Africa to support Rommel army
insane twist of fate in last moment came change in destination: East front Leningrad
Was is quite a challenge with Tropical equipment during winter...

He and survivors were transfer to 6th Army, He thought "ok got the worst part behind me"
until that day that aggravating Little Austrian look on map and ask: Stalingrad ?
 
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