Last year I published a series of articles examining some of the significant but often overlooked Soviet counterstrokes directed against the Sixth Army's flanks outside Stalingrad. To this day, when one thinks of the exposed northwestern shoulder of Germany's drive into the Caucuses, and Soviet efforts to penetrate that flank, they think first and foremost of events exactly like those. However, what one needs to understand is that from Case Blue's first days the Red Army proved far from a passive defender.
