It would seem, why hide it? Stalingrad was held, the Germans were surrounded, a real field marshal was taken prisoner - in short, great fellows everywhere. On the contrary, we must blow all the trumpets, as we outwitted the enemy and wiped Adolf's nose.
Moreover, the plan "Uranus" of the Southwestern Front has long been published, and the scans of the original have been posted - it will be dear to see. By the way, today we will definitely look there out of the corner of our eyes - after all, not every day we get our hands on sensational materials.
Uranus, the one signed by Stalin on November 13, 1942, is still classified for one simple reason - the strategic plan did not go according to plan. And as many have already guessed, "Uranus" of the Southwestern Front was published within the framework of the same logic - it is the only one of the three advancing fronts that fully fulfilled the task assigned to it.
The Stalingrad front worked for four, but the offensive of the Don Front, commanded by Rokossovsky, went at random - in the truest sense of the word.
Before us is the "classic" map of Uranus, where two large red arrows connect under Kalach on the Don. And where is the third big arrow of the Don Front? The one that is also heading towards Kalach through Vertyachiy and cuts off the enemy's "Zadonsk" grouping?
Instead, we see a modest arrow directed for some reason towards Stalingrad. Yes, we do not know for sure the final goal of the Don Front (because the plan was never shown to us), however, the offensive of the 24 army of the Don Front on Stalingrad is really too much. It is reliably known that the 24th army attacked precisely on Vertyachy, but it never took it.
On the other hand, a map from a school textbook is not an official document, what are the claims to it? They could draw Napoleon there too.
Promotional video:
Actually, the failure of the Don Front offensive is not a sensation - this is open information from Soviet times. They don't talk about it on TV, but it's understandable.
It is important to understand that if Rokossovsky had cut off these same five German divisions behind the Don, then there would have been no Manstein's "Winter Thunderstorm". By the end of November, the front would have collapsed right up to Stalingrad, automatically closing the possibility of a full-fledged "air bridge" with the surrounded Paulus. In a situation of obvious disaster, the 6th army would have gone to break through from the cauldron and the victory in the Battle of Stalingrad, we would have celebrated not February 1943, but in December 1942.
However, these are all lyrics, and we promised a documented sensation.
And the fact is that the failure of Uranus (both in Soviet times and today) was explained by the mistake of the explored. Like the Stavka planned that 80,000 people would be surrounded, but in reality they received 330,000, and therefore the Germans were able to gain a foothold on the outer defensive line.
Already in Soviet times, data were published that against our three fronts there was an enemy grouping with a total number of 1 million people (Samsonov A. M. Battle of Stalingrad, 4th ed., Revised and supplemented - M.: Science, 1989).
But these data were considered to be obtained as if retroactively, but in November 1942 the Headquarters did not know this. After all, it is obvious that to step on a group of one million people and plan to surround only 80 thousand in just a week is too much.
And only in 2017, the Uranus plan of the Southwestern Front was finally published as part of the anniversary of the victory at Stalingrad. The only reliable source where you can see what information about the Germans did the Soviet command have at the beginning of November? We open and gasp - the most complete, up to the number of rifles and machine guns.
170,000 "bayonets" in the first and second lines of defense without rear units, reserves and reinforcement! The intelligence data fully coincide with the figures that were allegedly learned much later. That is, we knew perfectly well that a group of almost 400,000 people was standing in front of the SWF, as indicated in Samsonov's work!
It is naive to assume that the data on the Stalingrad and Don fronts were less informative, given the fact that it was in these areas that the most intense battles took place.
And where did this figure come from with a plan of 80 thousand surrounded? There is an opinion that this amount is spelled out in the very document that is being hidden from us. It is possible that this is the approximate number of Germans that really should have remained after the Stalingrad and Don fronts have successfully completed their tasks. But they didn't.
For example, on November 23, 1942, the 13th Guards. Division of the Stalingrad Front received an order to take the Railway Station. The station was taken only in January 1943.
Simply put, for the past 50 years, we have been successfully deceived about underestimating the enemy. Why only 50? Because under Stalin and Khrushchev, the issue of the problems of "Uranus" was not raised at all. Moreover, the very fact of Paulus's encirclement at Stalingrad was hidden from the people until the end of December 1942.
As a result, I would like to return to the very first question - why did you need to hide all this? After all, there is no crime here, they didn't take it the first time - they took it from the second. In the end, we won anyway! In any case, we are great, and no one canceled the objective difficulties.