 The high consumption of ammunition in the last month and a half had cut into supplies put aside for the last two weeks of August and the first two weeks of September; until the turn of the month the army would have to get along with fifty percent of its daily average requirements in artillery and tank ammunition.XI Army Corps now had a combat strength of only 4,000 infantrymen, one man for every ten yards of front.Wöhler, recognizing the hopelessness of the situation, did not prove any more resolute; in view of the harsh realities facing the defenders of Kharkov, he knew that the depleted infantry regiments could not hold their positions without copious artillery support.