Could the Luftwaffe have done a better job supplying the 6th army at Stallingrad

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A lot of their confidence was based on the success of the Demyansk airlift.
 
The Demyansk airlift supported about 100,000 encircled men, there were almost 300,000 at Stalingrad, the Soviets evidently learned more from their failure to stop the Demyansk airlift than the Germans did from it's success.

It's almost as if some on the German side couldn't do simple arithmatic. They knew about how many men were encircled, they knew how much tonnage of supplies it took to supply them, and how many aircraft they had, and what they could carry. It's almost as if they though national socialist ardor could enable aircraft to operate around the clock with no maintenance, crews to fly with no rest, or escort. And troops in the encircled positions to fight while starving , freezing, and low on ammo.


The airlift never at no time ever came close to suppling their daily needs, some aircraft somehow got loaded with supplies not even needed, waisting a whole aircraft mission and crew for nothing.
 
DonL said:
Between 20-25 November the army was intact with food, fuel and munition for six days and the way to Nischne Tschirskaja was absolutely possible as intact formation...
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Hello Don
what is your source on fuel status of 6.A before the encirclement? I asked this because of according to the history of 14.PzD (by Rolf Grams in 1957) the div ran out of fuel already while withdrawing towards Stalingrad from combats against encircling Soviets and because of that lost most of its heavy equipments. That before and around 27 Nov. And I remembered wrongly, IV./PzArtRgt 4, a FlaKAbt, was overran with its 88s by Soviet infantry not cavalry. And the excellent source on Stalingrad is not Keil's but Manfred Kehrig's Stalingrad. Analyse und Dokumentation einer Schlacht.. According to Kehrig the catastrophic fuel situation greatly hampered 6.A counter moves against Soviet breakthroughs NW of Stalingrad, ie the movements of 16. and 24.PzDs and 3. and 60. Inf.D(mot)s towards critical sectors. And after Hube (CG of 16.PzD) informed on 22 Nov. that his div was unable to implement his order to attack W of Don because the lack of fuel the AOK gave first orders to began to built ring defence.

Juha
 
IMHO the question was simpe: Risk the 6. Armee or loose the most if not all of Army group South in the Caucasus by letting the 6. Armee try to break out - and in process become a spent force too, loosing most equipment, and leaving the wounded, sick behind for certain death.. IF it succeeds in breaking out. No guarantee there.

Its a simple making of balance choosing between two bad scenerio, one being infinitely worse than first and would lead to complete collapse of German front in the East. Which balance has less cost?

I'd say decision to make the 6. Armee keep Russian busy was correct choice. There would be some chance to save 6. Armee. Demyanks as note was one example, but there were some large parallel Soviet operation to Stalingrad pocket, which were complete failure and costly to Soviet. So some optimism was not badly placed.

Could Luftwaffe provide better job? No, in winter of 1942. They had to use what was at hand, and adopt circumstances.. they gave all. to develop capability to supply entire 300 000 Army from would take year or two preparation, at expense of other areas. I doubt anybody elso could though, given circumstances, especially thing like very limited size, capacity of receiving airfields.
 
Hello tyrodtom
one problem was that CoS of LW, Jeschonek, seems to have thought that he must first be a staunt Nazi, to whom Hitler's orders and wishes were God's orders and only secondly a capable staff officer.

Juha
 
Juha said:
Hello tyrodtom
one problem was that CoS of LW, Jeschonek, seems to have thought that he must first be a staunt Nazi, to whom Hitler's orders and wishes were God's orders and only secondly a capable staff officer.

Juha
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He certainly didn't do the Luftwaffe any favours by agreeing to the air lift. The long term consequences for his service,not just those I mentioned earlier,were dire and do not seem to have been given any consideration at the time.

At the risk of veering off topic I wonder what decisions would have been made over the fate of the 6th Army IF the Luftwaffe/OKH had convinced Hitler that the air lift was not an option. Would it have been withdrawn or left to its fate anyway?

Cheers
Steve
 
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How do you know that? Do you have a copy of a 6th Army strength report for November 1942?

German 6th Army fought more or less non-stop since May 1942 when they won a huge victory at the 2nd Battle of Kharkov. Six months later and at the end of a very long supply line I'd be surprised if divisions averaged much over 50% of TOE strength for personnel and equipment.
 
Just going by Wiki, not the best source maybe, that's 6th Army , with all the other units attached to it, and all their allies. Wiki actually says 291,000, I rounded up to less than 300,000.

If they didn't even make a fairly accurate count of how many personnel they had to supply, how could they ever hope to supply them? Even I will give them credit for the intelligence to do that very soon after they were cut off.
 
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didn't even make a fairly accurate count of how many personnel they had to supply
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Perhaps they did and perhaps that number came to less then 200,000 soldiers as units were at 50% strength. Under such circumstances aerial resupply starts to look possible. It also explains why the Soviets captured only about 90,000 POWs.
 
Since when does "perhaps" count as a source ?

Even if the figure was 200,000, that's still twice as many as they supplied at Demyansk.
 
Axis History Forum • View topic - 6th Army Losses Attacking in Stalingrad Sept-Oct 42
376 ID: 5269
44ID: 6748
384 ID: 5025
76 ID: 4740
113 ID: 5064
94 ID: 2924
16 PzD: 4855
60 ID (mot): 4812
3 ID (mot): 4498
71 ID: 4331
295 ID: 3459
100 JgD: 4688
79 ID: 4304
305 ID: 2915
389 ID: 4021
Gr. Seydel (14 PzD): 588
24 PzD: 6160
PiBtl 376: 100
Source: Kehrig, pp. 662-663.
............................................................
74,501 total
These numbers suggest 6th Army divisions averaged well below 50% of TOE strength. 14th Panzer Division was already destroyed for all practical purposes. 94th Infantry Division and 305th Infantry Division weren't much better.
 
In fact it is the Verpflegungsstärke, the number of mouths needed to feed that was important, on 18 Dec 6.A reported that inside the encirclement its Verpflegungsstärke was 249600 men, incl. Romanians and Hiwis
Source Kehrig p. 671

Juha
 

Sorry Gr Seydel was only one KG from 14.PzD, not all what was left from the div. The div, excluding Gr Seydel, had Verpfl.-St. of 10 389men and Gef.-St. 4760men

Juha
 
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davebender said:
Axis History Forum • View topic - Stalingrad

Apparently about 25% of 6th Army strength consisted of Ukrainians fighting to liberate their land from Stalin's grip.
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The percentage I can agree with, the reasons for their fighhting for the germans I am less sure about. My stepfather fought at stalingrad, was a Machine gunner manning an MG42. Though officially hiwis were banned from frontline roles, this was routinely ignored by the frontline units. The no2 on the gun was a giant Ukrainian, who told my Dad he fought for germany for food. he didnt care aboput Stalin, or politics or Ukrainian separatism. he fought to stay alive.

There were other Hiwis that were conscripted, still others in the north particulalry that joined because of tribal hatreds. of course there were some that joined to avenge the murder of family or the displacement from homes and farms, ther were all sorts of reasons why Russians fought for Germany.

With regard to strengths within the pocket I have a source somewhere (I will dig it out), that estimate strengths at the time of the encirclement as 248000. I will try and find it. Many of that number will be non-combat troops, there were also many wounded (effectively non-combattants) holed up in the city, unable to be moved because of lack of transport (though that is in dispute).

6th Army was already heavily depleted even before the encirclement. The encirclement simply sped up its destruction. by the time of its surrender, there were just 91000 survivors in the pocket. Not all of them were German.
 
What about civilians remaining inside Stalingrad after 6th Army seized it? I suspect there was no shortage of civilian volunteers by 18 December 1942 as that was the only way to acquire food.
 
Stalin did forbid the evacuation of the city, however i strongly suspect that all able bodied Soviets would have been inducted into the city by November. The city was ionitially defended by the 1077 AA Regiment, which because all the able bodied men had already been drafted was a unit fully manned by young women. This unit hung on but took heavy casualties.

The german advance onto the city itself weas rather slow, caused by the traffic jams and logistic issues experienced in ASugust. This would give time for the Soviets to remove everything of value before the city was invested. My suspicion is that only old, very young and infirm individuals would have been left behind by the soviets at the time, despite Stalins orders.
 
Guys, I don't want to start an alternative history discussion here, but in your opinions Germany could have defeated the Soviets if taked Stalingrad and subsequentely the oil fields? Germany would have logistical capabilities for this? (in certain way this is inside the topic)
 
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