In the last episode, we saw that very few believed in the success of yet another Soviet counteroffensive; even the Soviet Command itself... They believed in Operation Mars, that's why they allocated more resources and Zhukov was directly supervising it, whereas Uranus was "left" to Vasilevsky.
And indeed, the operation had only little chances of success, contrary to the popular belief that "as soon as it was unleashed, the Germans were doomed, because they didn’t see it coming".
That was not at all the case! There were really few chances for Operation Uran to succeed, and many to fail. As we’ll see in the upcoming episodes, it barely achieved its primary objectives, not even all of them, and even so with several strokes of luck. As we’ll explain, it came close to disaster several times, and could have failed at several key moments. Just like was the case for the battle in the city, where the Soviet 62nd Army was close to collapse numerous times.
Let’s review the details of the first day of operations, from the very beginning.
