Schematic plan · Russo-Japanese War

Battle of Sandepu

26 January 1905
Manchuria
Victory for Japan

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.

Russia (Russ Army, 58,000 men under Grippenberg) attacked Japan (Jap Army Group, 40,000 men under Oyama) in Manchuria. The CAA Database of Battles records 24.3 hours of fighting on a front of 24 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense, and that Japan held. Losses: Russia 13,000 (22%), Japan 9,400 (24%).

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

Russia

Grippenberg

Unit	Arm	Men
Russia left wing	Infantry	12,660
Russia centre	Infantry	16,880
Russia right wing	Infantry	12,660
Russia reserve	Infantry	10,550
Russia artillery (350 guns)	Artillery	5,250
Grippenberg	Commander	—
In this plan		58,000

Japan

Oyama

Unit	Arm	Men
Japan left wing	Infantry	9,600
Japan centre	Infantry	12,800
Japan right wing	Infantry	9,600
Japan reserve	Infantry	8,000
Oyama	Commander	—
In this plan		40,000

What the sources report

	Russia	Japan
Strength, this plan	58,000	40,000
Losses, this plan	13,000	9,400

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 246, “Sandepu”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 24.3 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Wet, Light precipitation, Cold, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense
Front width: 24 km (attacker), 24 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Russiaattacker	58,000	13,000	—	350	Frontal attack; Repulse; Stalemate
Japandefender	40,000	9,400	—	—	Defensive/offensive plan; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages initiative +1

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. 246 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Sandepu · 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.