Comments by "Aleksa Žunjić" (@aleksazunjic9672) on "OPERATION RING | Battlestorm Stalingrad E47" video.

Interesting thing to note : In Napoleonic times generals like Kutuzov knew very well that desperate and hopeless men would fight to the death, even if they are starving and half-frozen. Thus, he allowed French to retreat and melt gradually, while sparing the lives of his own men as much it was possible. Soviet generals on the other hand went for complete annihilation despite their own losses.
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@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 Rokossovsky lost 25 000 men irrecoverably, and 80 000 sanitary (wounded) to defeat half-starving enemy. This is an example of clumsy strategy. Germans were not defeated in the winter of 1941/42 (Soviet generals were not skilled as generals of Russian Empire), but in winter of 1942/43 Germans would gladly retreat from Stalingrad if they had a chance, and would be destroyed in the process. Kutuzov, de Tolly and others knew very well that logistic is the key for victory in vast spaces of Russia, not head-butting against enemy. Soviet generals never learned that lesson.
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Well, this would be traditional Russian tactics (Kutuzov used it in 1812). However, Soviet generals never valued the lives of their own men much. Thus, this all ended in carnage with unnecessary Soviet losses.
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@victorzvyagintsev1325 Sending almost 100 000 people to graveyard or hospital is not exactly freeing up manpower. What is actually true, he could have sieged 6th Army with less manpower then those encircled, and they would still starve to death and would have to surrender. Of course, this was not all Rokosovsky's fault, he simply did what Stalin and Stavka asked from him.
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@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 Very competent compared to other Soviet operations where they would have higher losses than Germans. Germans basically had two options, try to leave or starve to death. They considered both, and if presented with the option of "golden bridge" Kutuzov style, they would probably take it. If not, they would starve. Western Allies were also not very competent, but at least Bradly and Eisenhower did try to spare lives of their soldiers (compared to Patton and Montgomery ) , so they did not push for total anhilation at Falaise at the cost of their own troops.
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@victorzvyagintsev1325 As mentioned in the video, Rokosovsky did create fortified regions in some sectors of the front, in order to achieve large numerical superiority in others. What would happen if he created fortified regions around the whole Stalingrad perimeter, and simply sent rest of the troops westwards ? Well, Stalingrad would surrender by March, and Soviets would have less casualties. As for Rostov and other offensives that winter, Hungarians, Italians , Germans ... suffered massive casualties despite not being surrounded. Why ? Well retreating across steppe in Russian winter tends to do that :)
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@88porpoise Well, I would disagree. Soviets did have "tongues" (POWs) , radio intercepts and basically knew to calculate. They did know that situation in the cauldron was getting desperate. They also knew that rescue/breakout had failed (Winter Storm) and that nearest German units were hundreds of kilometers away when Operation Ring started. At the time of Ring even distant German airfields were falling into Soviet hands due to Little Saturn. At the time of the Ring Stavka was basically pushing for Rostov and then Kharkov, without troops actually engaged in Ring. Thus, it would be much more prudent to send half of the troops engaged in the Ring to help with those offensives instead of wasting them by killing mortally wounded beast (to paraphrase Tolstoy) .
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