heres a “what if” question thats fun to think about. What do you think the outcome of the battle of stalingrad would have been, if hitler had not broken up the southern sector battle group so the 6th army attacks stalingrad and the other, i forget its name, instead of attacking the cacaus oil fields, also attacked stalingrad? Do you think Germany would have taken Stalingrad then the oil fields, crippling the red army war effort by choking all supplies up the volga?
Stalingrad was not the objective if the 42 offensive. It only gradually became so. The Nazis would have been a lot better off if they had just followed the original plan.