Comments by "Pottenger\x27s Human" (@LTPottenger) on "Paulus HAD to take Stalingrad (he couldn't bypass it)" video.

Not true in the least. Despite what TIK says paulus did not need to take stalingrad at all and that was not in his orders either, only someone with no clue about military matters would say that. Once it was full of defenders he could have just left a siege force of infantry (like the romanians) and moved on without ever thinking of it again, but when he arrived in fact it was totally undefended because the whole offensive was still a complete surprise at this point. There was only a giant battle inside stalingrad because paulus allowed one to occur. He took an elite army designed for mobile infantry and penned them up where they would be most vulnerable on the whole planet. The fact is there was a battle outside stalingrad very shortly after he took over the 6th army and this is what led to all the issues, TIK would know that if he actually read whole books instead of quote mining them. He spent 3 days resting his army when he should have continued the fighting at all costs to encircle them before they could escape into the city. That is probably what spawned the idea of taking the city in the first place because a large force in the city is a threat to leave behind, though once it was inside it was certainly better to leave it alone and starve it out with a small siege force. Paulus was a plan writer and had never led even a platoon in combat and should never have been allowed to lead such a large force. They would probably be in trouble when the russian counterattack came anyway, but it would certainly not have been the resounding disaster it became once they were trapped in the city during winter with no food or supplies.
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Paulus botched the battle outside stalingrad and let the enemy get inside. Otherwise it would have fallen easily. Plus they made many other mistakes like pounding it to rubble which made it much much harder to take over. When von brauchist died the 6th army's fate was sealed
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@Tico.Altacuna If you can't move quickly it slows down the attack and that makes it much harder. It also favors snipers and makes it harder to use vehicles
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And snipers are for defense mainly. Stalingrad is where the russians got the most use of snipers in the whole war
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What they did wrong at stalingrad was choose paulus or rather by a great misfortune his superior died. They did not simply choose to attack the whole world only an infant would believe that. The war escalated over time, and even then if Japan had been a better ally or if many of the new war technologies had not greatly favored USA (which no one could have predicted a priori) then things might be different. But production capability turned out to mean far more than even in WW I. @Tico.Altacuna
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If they couldn't fortify it first they could not defend it, which is why kiev fell so easily. It was very close for moscow, st petersberg and especially stalingrad. All of the nightmares of the tractor factory and grain silo and on and on would all be under german control. @jaaackaissa1633
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Once the russians escaped into the city due to paulus dithering going in was pointless. They also guarded their flank with troops with no anti-tank weapons to speak of and sent the ones who did into the city. Paulus blundered over and over and that is why he lost.
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