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Schematic plan · World War I (Serbian Front 1914)

Battle of Kolubara

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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.
Rugged, Mixed groundCentreLeft wingRight wingCentreReserveLeft wingRight wingReservePotiorek010 km20 kmN

Serbia (Serb 1st, 2nd & 3rd Armies, 200,000 men under Fm Putnik) attacked Austria (Aus 5th & 6th Armies, 300,000 men under Gen Potiorek) in Serbia. The CAA Database of Battles records 144 hours of fighting on a front of 106 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense, and that Serbia won. Losses: Serbia 45,000 (23%), Austria 92,000 (31%).

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

Serbia

Fm Putnik

UnitArmMen
Serbia left wingInfantry48,000
Serbia centreInfantry64,000
Serbia right wingInfantry48,000
Serbia reserveInfantry40,000
Fm PutnikCommander—
In this plan200,000

Austria

Gen Potiorek

UnitArmMen
Austria left wingInfantry72,000
Austria centreInfantry96,000
Austria right wingInfantry72,000
Austria reserveInfantry60,000
Gen PotiorekCommander—
In this plan300,000

What the sources report

SerbiaAustria
Strength, this plan200,000300,000
Losses, this plan45,00092,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 288, “The Kolubra”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
144 hours
Winner
the attacker
Terrain
Rugged, Mixed
Weather
Wet, Heavy precipitation, Temperate, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Prepared defense
Front width
106 km (attacker), 106 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Serbiaattacker200,00045,0000—Frontal attack; Breakthrough; Pursued
Austriadefender300,00092,0000—Defensive plan; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · logistics +1 · initiative +1 · surprise +2

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.