[CaptainCrunch]

Its funny, because the Soviet Army originally had a real leadership problem because of the purges by Stalin. The fact that they developed some real war horses in a relatively short period of time was amazing.

There's a psychological aspect that I wanted to touch on that links the German Army to the Japanese Military. When the Japanese hit Midway, they were pretty much the Yankees of the war. They had victory fever and they got really sloppy in deployment, rushing the carriers ahead of their battleships which could have provided more anti-aircraft coverage, and a poor scouting plan that failed to find the US carriers.

With the German's up to the Russian offensive they had won everything and in devestating style. Then the Soviets were no where to be found and the biggest enemy was the winter conditions. In a sense their first mistake was splitting their army between Army Group A and B. They also used them to effect that there wasn't any what if mutual support or reenforcement. Stalingrad was literally like a hand grabbing the German's by the nose, while they encircled and kicked them in the butt.

Up until that point, the German's really hadn't seen Urban combat on that scale, Its also tough to discredit the brutality that the Soviets fought with inside of the city, and the psychological effect of the Snipers, and the 5 man teams occupying buildings at every corner.

Paulus also ignored his instincts out of loyalty to Hitler and fear of the reprisals to his family if he tried to pull back to escape his encirclement, which he should have done. It showed his character later that he stayed in Moscow long after the end of the war and became a somewhat hardcore communist.