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Schematic plan · Russo-Polish War (1920)

Battle of the Niemen River

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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.
Flat, Mixed groundCentreCentreLeft wingRight wingReserveLeft wingRight wingReserveGunsGuns010 km20 kmN

Poland (Pol Army Group, 80,000 men under Pilsudski) attacked USSR (Sov Army Group, 108,500 men under Tukhachevski) in USSR. The CAA Database of Battles records 120 hours of fighting on a front of 320 km, a single envelopment, right rear against hasty defense and prepared defense, and that Poland won. Losses: Poland 20,000 (25%), USSR 50,000 (46%).

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

UnitArmMen
Poland left wingInfantry18,408
Poland centreInfantry24,544
Poland right wingInfantry18,408
Poland reserveInfantry15,340
Poland artillery (220 guns)Artillery3,300
PilsudskiCommander—
In this plan80,000

USSR

Tukhachevski

UnitArmMen
USSR left wingInfantry23,984
USSR centreInfantry31,979
USSR right wingInfantry23,984
USSR reserveInfantry19,987
USSR artillery (571 guns)Artillery8,565
TukhachevskiCommander—
In this plan108,499

What the sources report

PolandUSSR
Strength, this plan80,000108,500
Losses, this plan20,00050,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 254, “The Nieman”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
120 hours
Winner
the attacker
Terrain
Flat, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense, Prepared defense
Front width
320 km (attacker), 320 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Polandattacker80,00020,0000220Single envelopment; Right rear; Breakthrough; Pursued
USSRdefender108,50050,0000571Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · momentum +1 · initiative +1 · 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

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.