What if the German armies in Stalingrad attempted to break out?

It was obvious that the Red Army underestimated the number of German soldiers in Stalingrad, so what if they attempted to break out after the encirclement?

 

Well first of all Hitler wasn't going to allow it. He wasn't going to stand for defeat again after Moscow the previous winter.

Second Paulus wasn't going to authorize a breakout without direct orders from Hitler.

Third, most were waiting to be rescued by Manstein and Hoth.

Finally, I doubt many of the landsers were in shape for a break out.

 

Where did you get the idea it was so obvious?

 

"Second Paulus wasn't going to authorize a breakout without direct orders from Hitler. "

Such an order was expected. 6th Army staff with Paulus's giudance prepared a plan for attacking west to meet Hoth and eventual evacuation of the pocket. Preliminary orders were given and some units were withdrawn from their defending positions and concentrated for the attack. Hitlers stand fast order arrived and that was the end of it.

An Ironic note: Paulus had been the senior staff officer in planning Barbarosa. He had more evidence before him than anyone else that the Barbarosa plan was logisticlly unsustainable and operationally unrealistic in terms of truck & railroad transport. He did present batches of the facts to Hitler, and as later he shut up & followed orders when Hitler refused reality.

 

Had the 6th Armee break out during the initial period when it was surrounded, it would have successfully pulled out saving itself. The down side would be the whole southern front would have withdrawn towards Rostov if the Russians pursued them (which I doubt would have happened).

Now if we are talking about breaking out at the time of Manstein's rescue effort, then I agree that it would not be possible because of the lack of gas and the weak condition of the soldiers. It would have ended in disaster.

 

I obtained this information from many documentaries i have watched. According to them, the Russian thought they have trapped seventy-five thousand Germans, when two hundred and fifty thousand Germans have been trapped. I think if the armies in the pocket attempted to break out when the Russians drove westward after the encirclement, they might have a good chance. What i do not know is this: what did Hitler do when confronted with the Russian build up.

 

Nothing factual but up to this point, the Germans have been surrounded before and have successfully "waited" it out. But those were smaller pockets compared to Stalingrad. So I would assume that Hitler did not panic and honestly thought that the 6th Armee could wait it out. Again, the Germans were overconfident even at this point.

 

Obviously we haven't been watching the same documentaries...

6th Army after Op. Uranus (the encirclement, launched Nov.19th) was cut off and had little in terms of fuel, food and ammunition left to be able to conduct offensive operations for a breakout. Contrary to general thought, the Red Army was a well organized force which was able to provide two siege lines, circumvalation and countervallation in technical terms, one to contain the encircled force, the other to defeat any relief effort.

If the Red Army was able to defeat the von Manstein relief offensive with a part of it's force, certainly it would be able to contain the weak and spluttery effort 6th Army would be able to provide.

And if the bag was bigger than initailly forecast (I still don't know where those figures come from), so much the better.

You are being simplistic. There was no mad rush to Rostov. The forces surrounding Stalingrad were left in place in the same steel vise and a new offensive was launched towards Rostov (Op. Saturn, Dec. 16th) by an entirely separate group of forces. Read the Wikipedia article on the Battle of Stalingrad, it's a very decent summary.

Nothing. The Red Army was able to maintain secrecy for long enough so the bolt when shot was a complete surprise. And what reports there were of the impending offensive were disregarded as 'hysterical Romanians whining'.

 

Given the state of 6th Army at the time it was surrounded, if an immediate attempt to break out was made the bulk of the army would still have been trapped and destroyed. This is due to the fact that the Germans were woefully short of transport, trucks, horses, wagons, everything.
Much of the heavy equipment of any of the divisions would have had to be abandoned right from the start just to give the troops themselves some degree of mobility.
Given the distance to travel (about 50 to 100 miles depending on where in the pocket the unit is) the Soviets would have had sufficent time to react to a breakout and make attempts to pinch off any salients created. The result would have been just about or just as bad as the historical case.
If anything, what the Germans really needed were mechanized engineers with equipment that could have built and maintained good airfields and landing aids making it possible to efficently supply the pocket. If this were the case, then the Stalingrad pocket might have turned out like Demyansk (sp) the year before where an airlift was successful.

 

I think this would be totally impossible, since the Red Army was well equipped with AA gun.
How did three quarter of a million man move in absolute secrecy? What happened to the German reconnaissance effort?

 

What reconnaissance effort? Ground or air? Air, the weather from October onwards is too bad for that. Ground, it depends mostly on what you can see and gather from interrogation of prisioners, capture of maps, radio etc. listening. On the edges of 6th Army you had Romanian and Italian units which were not exactly known for aggressiveness, so who was going to conduct reconnaissance?

How did three quarter of a million man move in absolute secrecy? Read here, especially the second.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/call/call_3-88_histp.htm

https://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/Armstrong/ARMSTRONG.asp

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/wright/wf05.pdf

http://www.vectorsite.net/twsnow_08.html


Also, you need to read something more about Stalingrad to be aware of exactly what it meant to be inside the Siege and how capable (or not) troops were to do a breakout. Really, documentaries are no substitute for books.

 

Coming back to this, the Reds had been continuously fighting the Germans in the same restricted area for months already. How could they not already have a pretty sharp idea of their order-of-battle? Maskirovka is a Russian word after all

 

True

 

Well my personal opinion on the matter if Paulus had any balls and backbone and decided that he would defy Hitler and in conjunction with the plans Manstein had drawn up he certainly would have saved his 6th Armie, but he lied to Manstein about his capabilities thus abrogating his responsabilities in the destruction of the 6th Armie, Paulus was in no certain of doubt a gutless coward unlike Erwin Rommel who on several occasions had defied Hitler to save his men.

Armies are lost in no small part due to the effectiveness and strength of the commanding officers that lead them not by the humble footslogger.

 

Hitler had ordered the bridgeheads of Serafimovich and Kletskaya destroyed but the Red Army was able to hold onto these which were the key to starting the offensive to surround Stalingrad.

Also to the Northern sector Hitler had sent a panzer division to secure the area from Soviet breakthroughs but once the operation started these were no match for the massive Soviet offensive. I think Hitler also ordered the panzer division General to be executed for not doing his duty.

 

Kai, that is not complete. It was obviously impossible to have one Pz Div holding an entire riverfront. What happenned was that one (I have to check which) Pz Div was sent North of Stalingrad from Army Group Reserve to bolster the Romanian 3rd Army, making up one PzKorps with one Romanian tank division equipped with Skoda and Renault tanks. This was in the path of two Soviet Fronts, so it is no surprise it was run over in one day.

 

Yes, Za, that must be closer to the truth.

I recall that this was the instance that mice bit the electric wires in the German tanks leaving some 30 panzers useless. The mice hid in the straws the Germans put over their tanks. Do you recall this sort of thing Za??

 

Yes, we talked about this in the forum sometime in the past, but I don't recall any firm source for this event. In any case that seems to be quite plausible as I recall seeing in everyday use electrical wiring even for 220V insulated in cotton braid, quite chewable.

By the way, a good site in Stalingrad, also presente here in the past.
http://users.pandora.be/stalingrad/

And the PzDiv I meant above was 22nd PD, making up 48th PzKorps with THE Romanian Tank Div.

 

I don't know whether Paulus had any of the above or not, what he certainly didn't have was the means (fuel, ammunition, working vehicles, towing means for his artillery, men fed and in shape, etc., etc.) to perform a breakout. It wouldn't work. And if he did the Russians were prepared for that and certainly would fall into his tail and shatter what was left to little pieces.

Please make an effort to read what other people have written, such as T.A.Gardner's post in Mar28th.

 

Also Hitler made several promises that Paulus could not know they would not succeed: the Air lift, the operation to break through to help them in Dec 1942, new SS divisions by January-February 1943 in the area. Even Manstein did not dare to say to Paulus to break through the Soviet lines in Nov 1942, he only " hinted him to do so". So Paulus´position was not an easy one and he chose what Hitler told him. When all promises had failed it was too late to try to do anything except stay in Stalingrad.