Edited sentence: After the battle of Stalingrad, German armored forces had fallen into chaos and despair.Also, to increase the terrible situation, the design of new tanks, needed to overcome the Soviet tanks (specifically, the T-34), was delayed and almost abandoned.First of all, the German Army relied on armored forces to push through enemy lines at high-speed (the famous Blitzkrieg tactic).Guderian inmediatly analized the posibility of a new offensive, and was then ordered to prepare the armored forces for "the campaign that would decide the war".Guderian quickly tried to stop the offensive, due to the false hopes that most commanders had putten on the new armored forces, in spite of the facts that proved that victory could not be achieved.In this hopeless situation, Hitler called for the only person that could save the Wehrmacht from collapsing, General Heinz Guderian, creator of Germany's armored forces and master of the lighting war tactics, to become the general inspector of the armored forces.Inmediatly he assumed control of the instruction of Panzer troops and pushed the construction of the new Panzers: the Panther (Panzer V) and the heavier Tiger (Panzer VI).Of the almighty armored force that had once marched victorious over Europe there were now left only poor and overworn units.The Eastern Front war in 1941 and 1942 had thus developed into a series of German advances in the summer, followed by Soviet counterattacks in the winter.This meant they could only assume the offensive during the summer when the Russian continental climate had dried out the ground enough to give tanks a high degree of mobility.This time, the summer offensive had to be the decisive blow to the Red Army, something that now was practicly impossible.Thousands of vehicles had been lost in the cold steppes of Russia, the forces that still remained were totally worn out, and inefficient command had made the Panzer divisions troops lose all confidence in their commanders