BW does not approve
this is a very open ended POD; its hard to figure who would even appoint Manstein's replacement let alone who that would be
11th army was in a very strange situation... they where part of army group south (commanded by Bock)... however the main fighting front and Bocks HQ where hundreds of miles away, and in effect 11th army took its orders directly from Hitler and the OKH. So whilst theoretically Bock should appoint someone, there is no assurance that he would actually get the privilage of doing so.
If Bock is the one who gets to pick the new command (I don't assume he would pick one of the corps commanders in 11th army, since this was a BIG position, he would want a heavy hittier)... I could see Seydlitz from the 6th army picked... he was a senior corps commander and (at the time) a Hitler favorite and had huge name recognition and credit with the general staff
If its Hitler who decides I honestly don't know... if it was a bit earlier he might actually bring Rommel home (who he had been promising for months he would give a break from Africa and give him a command in Russia)... but by June '42 11th army would represent a demotion for Rommel so that's out (plus Benny would object to him being removed from Africa since he was a huge propaganda symbol to the Italian home front)... I think Guderian in June is still too sick to be recalled (plus Hitler still hadn't removed him from the dog house yes)... Rundstedt is too senior.... i lean towards Model I guess... Hitler favorite, proper experience, and a working relationship with Bock
the problem is that Model is 500+ miles away, and it will probably take more than a week to get him situated there... ideally the OKH allows 11th army to continue their preperation and time table under Manstein's staff (he had Busse and Wohler there who where capable of running the show themselves if need be until Model would get there)... I can't imagine this doesn't add some amount of time to the capture of Sevastopol (the result isn't in doubt, the germans had total air superiority and their entire siege train there, the Russians where in a fucked tactical position)
So assuming Model takes the position a few weeks later than otl... the question is, does the 11th army still go north, or are they sent over the strait of kerch to add more muscle to army group a (as Manstein advocated for)... I'm not sure about this one... pushing the capture back a couple weeks might convince the OKH that they can't get the 11th army and all their gear into position in time for an assault on Leningrad before bad weather sets in; so they might consent to have them reinforce army group a or b
as a part of army group a, their 4-5 corps (plus air power and the siege train) really help... they would form the right flank and have enough striking power to capture tuapse, batumi and the entire black sea coast, reaching the turkish border and forcing the black sea fleet into internment... having the 17th army and 1st panzer army not have to cover this front lets their axis of attack be much more concentrated, they probably capture grozny... (and depending on how organized their airpower is) there is an outside chance they can get to baku... all sorts of pod's from there
as part of army group b, they would slot in on the 6th army's left flank and cross the volga even if 6th army went into stalingrad... with the siege train, they could take stalingrad even in a blood bath (although probably not necessary since 11th army would cross the volga and roll up all the soviet artillery on the east bank)
