Schematic plan · Russo-Polish War (1920)

Battle of Warsaw (1920)

14 August 1920
Poland
Victory for Poland

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.

Poland (Pol Army Group, 160,000 men under Pilsudski) attacked USSR (Sov Army Group, 200,000 men under Tukhachevski) in Poland. The CAA Database of Battles records 264 hours of fighting on a front of 335 km, a single envelopment, left flank, frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Poland won. Losses: Poland 50,000 (31%), USSR 150,000 (75%).

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

Poland

Pilsudski

Unit	Arm	Men
Poland left wing	Infantry	37,754
Poland centre	Infantry	50,339
Poland right wing	Infantry	37,754
Poland reserve	Infantry	31,462
Poland artillery (179 guns)	Artillery	2,685
Poland armour (1 tanks)	Armour	5
Pilsudski	Commander	—
In this plan		159,999

USSR

Tukhachevski

Unit	Arm	Men
USSR left wing	Infantry	45,847
USSR centre	Infantry	61,130
USSR right wing	Infantry	45,847
USSR reserve	Infantry	38,206
USSR artillery (598 guns)	Artillery	8,970
Tukhachevski	Commander	—
In this plan		200,000

What the sources report

	Poland	USSR
Strength, this plan	160,000	200,000
Losses, this plan	50,000	150,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 253, “Warsaw”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 264 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Flat, Bare
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 335 km (attacker), 335 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Polandattacker	160,000	50,000	0	179	Single envelopment; Left flank; Frontal attack; Breakthrough; Pursued
USSRdefender	200,000	150,000	0	598	Defensive plan; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · intelligence +1 · initiative +1 · surprise +3 · combat effectiveness +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. 253 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Warsaw (1920) · 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.