Schematic plan · The Manchurian Incident (1938-1939)

Changkufeng-Hill 52

6 August 1938
Manchuria
Victory for Japan

All battles Battle of Lake Khasan: engagement 3 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 3 in date order). USSR (Sov Special Far Eastern Army(-), 20,000 men under Marshal Blucher) attacked Japan (Jap 19th Inf Div(+), 8,000 men under Lg Suetaka) in Manchuria. The CAA Database of Battles records 96 hours of fighting on a front of 6 km, a frontal attack, single envelopment, right flank against prepared defense, and that Japan held. Losses: USSR 4,000 (20%), Japan 1,100 (14%).

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	4,200
USSR centre	Infantry	5,600
USSR right wing	Infantry	4,200
USSR reserve	Infantry	3,500
USSR artillery (100 guns)	Artillery	1,500
USSR armour (200 tanks)	Armour	1,000
Marshal Blucher	Commander	—
In this plan		20,000

Japan

Lg Suetaka

Unit	Arm	Men
Japan left wing	Infantry	1,787
Japan centre	Infantry	2,382
Japan right wing	Infantry	1,787
Japan reserve	Infantry	1,489
Japan artillery (37 guns)	Artillery	555
Lg Suetaka	Commander	—
In this plan		8,000

What the sources report

	USSR	Japan
Strength, this plan	20,000	8,000
Losses, this plan	4,000	1,100

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 258, “Changkufeng-Hill 52”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 96 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Rugged, Bare
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense
Front width: 6 km (attacker), 6 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USSRattacker	20,000	4,000	0	100	Frontal attack; Single envelopment; Right flank; Repulse; Penetration; Stalemate
Japandefender	8,000	1,100	0	37	Defensive/offensive plan; Withdrew

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. 258 · 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.