On 10 November, Galen discovered that the Southwestern Front command was present northwest of Serafimović, which was seen as a harbinger of a massive offensive. But by November 12, Galen had submitted a contradictory, vague report. While explicitly declaring that "there is no sign that the enemy is likely to launch an offensive," he also believed that the Soviets would attack the Romanian 3rd Army with a less powerful force (23 infantry divisions, 1-4 tank brigades, 3 cavalry divisions), but only to cut off a supply railway for the 6th Army to the west. Forced the Germans to withdraw from Stalingrad. In this report, Galen again talks about the possibility of soviet troops moving south to Rostov. Interestingly, Galen never seems to have considered the possibility of a Soviet offensive south of Stalin.
During this time, Paulus and Weix tried their best to strengthen the flanks. On 9 November, on Paulus's orders, Colonel Simmons of the 14th Panzer Division commanded a battle group (1 motorized infantry battalion, 1 anti-tank artillery company, 1 artillery squad) into the rear of the 3rd Romanian Army. On the same day, Weix considered drawing the 29th Motorized Division from the 4th Panzer Army to support The 3rd Army. But he quickly dispelled the idea, because the 4th Panzer Army could also be attacked.
On 12 November, Weix ordered Paulus to draw 10,000 men from the engineering and artillery units to support the Romanians. On 16 November, Weix cobbled together another force to back up the Romanian 3rd Army: including the headquarters of the 48th Panzer Army drawn from the 4th Panzer Army, the German 22nd Panzer Division from the Italian 8th Army front, and the 1st Romanian Panzer Division. There was also 1 anti-tank battalion and 1 motorized artillery battalion.
As mentioned earlier, on the same day Paulus was ready to draw armored and motorized troops from the city of Stalingrad to deal with the Soviet counteroffensive. The next day, however, Hitler was provoked by Richterhofen to give the order to attack Stalingrad again. Under this premise, Weix and Paulus could not send more troops to the flanks, especially the main force of 3 armored divisions and 2 motorized divisions.