I don't see that anyone is discarding or fading the role of the Russian military, but without General Winter (a coin termed by the Russians) the outcome would have been different.

There's an excellent book I bought at a library sale a couple years back, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege (http://www.amazon.com/Stalingrad-Fateful-1942-1943-Antony-Be...) that really tells the story well.