Schematic plan · World War I (Eastern Front 1914)

Battle of Gnila Lipa

26 August 1914
Austrian Galicia
Victory for Russia

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.

Austria (Aus 3rd Army(+), 240,000 men under Gen Bruderman) attacked Russia (Rus 3rd & 8th Armies, 480,000 men under Gen Ivanov) in Austrian Galicia. The CAA Database of Battles records 96 hours of fighting on a front of 150 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Russia held. Losses: Austria 76,000 (32%), Russia 35,000 (7%).

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

Austria

Gen Bruderman

Unit	Arm	Men
Austria left wing	Infantry	54,619
Austria centre	Infantry	72,826
Austria right wing	Infantry	54,619
Austria reserve	Infantry	45,516
Austria artillery (828 guns)	Artillery	12,420
Gen Bruderman	Commander	—
In this plan		240,000

Russia

Gen Ivanov

Unit	Arm	Men
Russia left wing	Infantry	110,506
Russia centre	Infantry	147,341
Russia right wing	Infantry	110,506
Russia reserve	Infantry	92,088
Russia artillery (1,304 guns)	Artillery	19,560
Gen Ivanov	Commander	—
In this plan		480,001

What the sources report

	Austria	Russia
Strength, this plan	240,000	480,000
Losses, this plan	76,000	35,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 284, “Gnila Lipa”, 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: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 150 km (attacker), 150 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Austriaattacker	240,000	76,000	0	828	Frontal attack; Withdrew
Russiadefender	480,000	35,000	0	1,304	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Penetration

Attacker’s advantages none recorded

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