Comments by "Nicholas Conder" (@nicholasconder4703) on "Terrible state of German Divisions BEFORE Stalingrad city | BATTLESTORM STALINGRAD E11" video.

  1. One issue I had with TIK discussing moving the units around to maximize the forces entering the city is that he did not provide a map showing where these units were all located. One may say, "why didn't they just move X to Y", but it may not necessarily be that easy (i.e., he could have just moved the units, but is this really the case?). Grabbing three divisions and moving them into position is not an easy task. It is one reason why Montgomery gets praise for shifting 3rd Division 30 miles at night to plug the gap left by the Belgium capitulation during the retreat to Dunkirk. It is also why Patton gets praise for shifting a corps to hit the German southern flank during the Battle of the Bulge. It is no easy task to shift troops out of the lines and replace them with other units on the fly. Time is also important, as it takes time to do this, but the longer one delays, the more time the enemy has to entrench and fortify their position. Sometimes you have to make do with what you have on hand. In addition, over the two days Paulus had to act on this, he was concerned with: 1) watching the developing situation with the Italian Army towards his rear, 2) fending off Soviet counterattacks, 3) trying to figure out how to rescue the troops in the pocket near Stalingrad, 4) keeping up the pressure so the Soviets could not organize a successful counterattack, 5) planning how to link up with Hoth's 4th Panzer Army to encircle and destroy Soviet forces outside the city, 6) organizing an assault force to take the city. This is a lot on your plate. Add in trying to move whole divisions around and it is a recipe for disaster (eg., General Rosecrans at Chickamauga). Best analogy I can think of for Paulus' problems at this time is juggling a set of balls in the air with one foot on a pier, the other in a rowboat, and someone forgot to tie the boat to the pier!
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  2. Conventional history seems to treat Paulus like it does Nagumo. Both commanders were given almost impossible tasks with minimal forces, and were used as scapegoats for the eventual failure of their respective battles. Hoth, Manstein (as we might see later on) and Yamamoto all seem to avoid major criticism in official histories. If they weren't fighting for terrible causes one might have even greater sympathy for them for their treatment by their peers and historians.
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