Schematic plan · Austro-Italian War

Battle of Custoza (1866)

24 June 1866
Venetia
Victory for Austria

All battles The event in the chronicle Wikipedia

A schematic plan, generated from the statistics of the CAA Database of Battles: the armies' size and width, the hours of fighting, the plan of attack and the outcome are as recorded; the ground and the positions are not.

Italy (Ital Army, 90,000 men under La Marmora) attacked Austria (Aus Army, 75,000 men under Archduke Albert) in Venetia. The CAA Database of Battles records 9 hours of fighting on a front of 11.3 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Austria held. Losses: Italy 8,100 (9%), Austria 5,600 (7%).

This plan is generated from those figures. It shows the shape of the battle the database describes: the size and width of the armies, the plan of attack and the outcome. It does not show where the units actually stood.

The armies

Italy

La Marmora

Unit	Arm	Men
Italy left wing	Infantry	19,229
Italy centre	Infantry	25,638
Italy right wing	Infantry	19,229
Italy reserve	Infantry	16,024
Italy cavalry of the left	Cavalry	3,500
Italy cavalry of the right	Cavalry	3,500
Italy artillery (192 guns)	Artillery	2,880
La Marmora	Commander	—
In this plan		90,000

Austria

Archduke Albert

Unit	Arm	Men
Austria left wing	Infantry	17,381
Austria centre	Infantry	23,174
Austria right wing	Infantry	17,381
Austria reserve	Infantry	14,484
Austria artillery (172 guns)	Artillery	2,580
Archduke Albert	Commander	—
In this plan		75,000

What the sources report

	Italy	Austria
Strength, this plan	90,000	75,000
Losses, this plan	8,100	5,600

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 170, “Custozza Ii”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 9 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Italyattacker	90,000	8,100	7,000	192	Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew
Austriadefender	75,000	5,600	—	172	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack

Attacker’s advantages none recorded

CDB90 (US Army Concepts Analysis Agency, 1990), tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold; data under ODC-BY 1.0.

Notes

On this reconstruction

Generated automatically from the statistics in CDB90. Frontages, depths, distances, the order of events and the terrain are schematic: they follow the recorded strengths, front widths, hours of fighting, tactical plan and outcome, not maps or accounts of the battle. The sources give no hours; the timing is conjectural.

Sources

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 170 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Custoza (1866) · CC-BY-SA-4.0

Facts gathered from Wikidata (CC0), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Wikimedia Commons (licence per file); the plan and its text are timeastra’s own.