On 14 August, Kluge personally supervised the battle in the 2nd Panzer Army. But he was still not enthusiastic about the Whirlwind, believing that his men were not enough to cope with the two battles of Lezhev and Sushinich. The fighting was hard and the casualties were increasing. On 15 August, the 11th Panzer Division reported that 15 tanks were completely destroyed, but 89 tanks remained combat effective. The 9th Panzer Division, which had 110 usable tanks on 12 August, had 94 left to do by 20 August.
Kluge's offensive was gradually delayed. On Aug. 18, Halder's diary wrote: "Operation Cyclone cannot make real progress. Very stubborn resistance, difficult terrain", wrote on the 19th: "The 2nd Panzer Army has not made significant progress. "From 11 to 20 August, the 2nd Panzer Army suffered as many as 12,063 casualties (2,159 killed, 354 missing, and 9,550 wounded). On 22 August, the offensive was halted. The defeat was a personal blow to Hitler, who at one point admitted it was the biggest mistake of 1942.
On the side of Lezhev, the German 9th Army continued to withstand the onslaught of Zhukov and Konev. On 10 August, a wounded Modell returned to the front to command the 9th Army. By this time, the German position had been pushed considerably to the west, along the Vazuza-Gzati-Kalmanov. The southern corner of The city of Zubzov was also invaded by the Soviets.
Earlier, on August 5, Zhukov had been given unified command of all Soviet forces on the Lezhev side, and was trying to capture Lezhev from both the north (30th Army) and the south (31st Army), while the 29th Army, which had made little progress, paused and drew out 2 infantry divisions and 3 artillery regiments for the main attack. However, Modell had already established himself in the second defensive zone, inflicting heavy casualties on the Soviets with the reinforcement of 3 armored divisions and 88 mm anti-aircraft guns of the Air Force, and transferring the 253rd Infantry Division, which had been used as a counter-guerrilla, to the front.