ABSTRACT
Whilst Soviet forces had held off the Wehrmacht before Moscow, Stalin’s overambitious winter offensive did not reap the rewards that he had expected. The Soviet winter offensive, which according to the Soviet literature took place from December 1941 to April 1942, had run out of steam by March, with German forces still clinging tenaciously to a number of forward positions projecting towards the Soviet capital, including those in and around Rzhev and Viaz’ma. A resource situation shifting by many measures, including tank strength, in Soviet favour at the end of 1941 and during the first weeks of 1942 had been squandered in operations along the whole front. Soviet losses were heavy, as indicated in Table 5.1.
