Schematic plan · The Manchurian Incident (1938-1939)

Hill 52-Shachaofeng

2 August 1938
Manchuria
Victory for Japan

All battles Battle of Lake Khasan: engagement 2 of 3 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.

One of the 3 engagements of the Battle of Lake Khasan recorded in the CAA Database of Battles (number 2 in date order). USSR (Sov 40th Rifle Div(-)(+), 4,000 men under Marshal Blucher) attacked Japan (Jap 19th Inf Div(-), 3,010 men under Lg Suetaka) in Manchuria. The CAA Database of Battles records 13 hours of fighting on a front of 3 km, a double envelopment against hasty defense and prepared defense, and that Japan held. Losses: USSR 400 (10%), Japan 41 (1%).

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

USSR

Marshal Blucher

Unit	Arm	Men
USSR left wing	Infantry	780
USSR centre	Infantry	1,040
USSR right wing	Infantry	780
USSR reserve	Infantry	650
USSR artillery (40 guns)	Artillery	600
USSR armour (30 tanks)	Armour	150
Marshal Blucher	Commander	—
In this plan		4,000

Japan

Lg Suetaka

Unit	Arm	Men
Japan left wing	Infantry	643
Japan centre	Infantry	858
Japan right wing	Infantry	643
Japan reserve	Infantry	536
Japan artillery (22 guns)	Artillery	330
Lg Suetaka	Commander	—
In this plan		3,010

What the sources report

	USSR	Japan
Strength, this plan	4,000	3,010
Losses, this plan	400	41

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 257, “Hill 52-Shachaofeng”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 13 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Rugged, Bare
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Hot, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense, Prepared defense
Front width: 3 km (attacker), 3 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USSRattacker	4,000	400	0	40	Double envelopment; Repulse; Withdrew
Japandefender	3,010	41	0	22	Defensive plan

Attacker’s advantages air superiority +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. 257 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Lake Khasan · 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.