Warmatrix

The Battle of Stalingrad was the largest battle of World War II. It was the first time that the USSR was able to inflict a heavy defeat on Germany and gave a tremendous morale boost to the Soviets.
After the German invasion of the USSR, Operation Barbarossa, had stalled in December 1941 CE, the eastern frontline did not move much during the winter. In the spring of the next year the Wehrmacht resumed its attack, launching Operation Blue. This targeted the southeast, which surprised the Soviets, who had expected a renewed thrust towards Moscow. The German army again advanced quickly before crumbling Soviet resistance and then split in two. Army Group South A went south to try to capture the rich oil fields of the Caucasus mountains; Army Group South B went north to capture Stalingrad. The city was vital for both parties, as it was an important industrial center; sat on the crossroads of several important routes; was a prestige target as it bore Josef Stalin's name.
At the start of the battle Army Group South B numbered 270,000 men, 3,000 guns, 500 tanks and had the support of 600 aircraft. Facing them were 187,000 Soviets soldiers, both men and women, 2,200 guns, 400 tanks and 300 aircraft. During the battle both sides fed many more reserves into it, so that later 4 - 5 times larger forces were involved. The Germans displayed their usual power; the Red Army showed more determination and much more skill than in the previous year.
In late August the Germans reached the city. First the Luftwaffe delivered a shattering bombardment, reducing much of it to rubble. This had one effect that the Germans could not appreciate: the ruins offered plenty of cover for the defenders and were unsuitable for armored forces. Initial defense was conducted by volunteers and militia troops, who fought fiercely, sometimes without rifles. Stalin issued his 'Not one step back' order and the NKVD enforced it ruthlessly; possibly 13,500 soldiers were executed during the battle. Many others needed no threats and showed genuine and extraordinary bravery. Nonetheless incessant attacks by the German army and air force pushed the Soviets back. By early September the situation was desperate: they held on to a small strip of the city on the west bank of the Volga, precariously supplied by river ferries who had to run the gauntlet of the Luftwaffe attacks.
Stalin summoned two of his best generals, Georgy Zhukov and Aleksandr Vasilevsky, to come up with a rescue plan. Together with several other generals they conceived a counterattack, but needed 1½ months to prepare. In the meantime the city had to be held. Stalin moved in two of his other aces, Vasiliy Chuikov and Andrei Yeremeno, who together with reinforcements halted the German advance. The Soviets stuck very close to the German lines, prohibiting artillery and air attacks, hampering maneuver and forcing the enemy into close combat, sometimes hand-to-hand. Retreat was followed by counterattack. Some ruins changed hands many times while others were defended until death. Snipers on both sides picked off anyone who showed his head too long; on the Soviet side Vasily Zaytsev scored 225 confirmed kills and was proclaimed a Hero of the Soviet Union. There was even fighting in the sewers, which the Germans called "rattenkrieg", 'rat war'.
At the start of the battle the Luftwaffe swept the Red Air Force aside and achieved near total air superiority. By November the tables started to turn, as more and more Soviet airplanes joined the fight. At the same time preparations for the attack on the ground, Operation Uranus, were finally complete. A vast force of 1,150,000 men, 900 tanks, 13,500 artillery guns and 1,100 aircraft had been assembled. Zhukov and his men had devised a two-pronged attack on both sides of Stalingrad. The flanks of the axis front were held by Italian, Romanian and Hungarian troops, allies of the Germans. They had around 800,000 men, many of them conscripts; several thousand guns; few tanks and only 400 operational aircraft. They were spread very thin over wide frontlines. The Soviet attack shredded them, raced southwest and after four days closed a ring around the city. Most of general Paulus' 6th army, some 250,000 men, were trapped in it.
Hermann Göring claimed that the Luftwaffe could supply 6th army by air, but faced with increasing numbers of Soviet airplanes, delivered 85 tons per day on average, far short of the 700 tons per day that Paulus' men needed. Attacks by Soviet fighters and air defense guns took down 500 airplanes, many of them transports. In mid December the Germans organized a relief attempt, Operation Winter Tempest, led by Erich von Manstein, who had to advance 160 kilometers. After a few days the Soviets halted it at 55 kilometers of the city. General Paulus asked several times for permission to break out, but Hitler denied him that. This effectively sealed the army's fate, though it is doubtful that it could have broken out successfully with the little fuel it had left. After another week the Soviet forces threatened to encircle the relief force, so that von Manstein had to retreat. The Soviets squeezed the pocket around Paulus' army tighter and tighter, while his army starved to death but still fought on. In late January 1943 CE the last airstrip was taken from the Germans. Shortly after the remaining forces, 105,000 men, isolated from each other, surrendered, though some small groups resisted until late February. The prisoners were marched off into captivity; only 5,000 of them later returned home. Paulus himself was captured too.
The USSR won the Battle of Stalingrad because the Soviets kept just enough soldiers in the city to hold it and thus lured the entire 6th army in; because the defenders fought tactically clever and showed astounding tenacity; because the Germans underestimated the reserves of the Red Army; most of all because Hitler wasted the strength of his best army in street fighting over a city that was only of medium strategic importance.
In total, in and around the city, the Germans lost 850,000 men killed, wounded and taken prisoner; 6,000 artillery guns; 500 tanks and 900 aircraft. The Soviets suffered more: 1,130,000 casualties, 15,700 guns; 4,300 tanks and 2,800 aircraft. Though in absolute numbers the losses were terrible, the ratio of German to Soviets losses was far lower than in the first year of the war in the east. The Soviets could replace them, though at high cost; the Germans could not and lost most of their offensive capability. Other effects and developments were even more important: the second year of failure of the Wehrmacht to achieve its strategic goals; a sharp turnaround in morale; the rapid professionalization of the Red Army and Air Force. At Stalingrad, the USSR achieved equality with Germany in raw military power; later it would come to outmatch it.