Schematic plan · World War I (Turkish Fronts 1915)

Battle of Es Sinn

27 September 1915
Mesopotamia
Victory for Great Britain

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.

Great Britain (Br Mesopotamian Field Force, 11,000 men under Mg Townshend) attacked Ottoman Empire (Tk Army, 11,300 men under Nur-Ud-Din Pasha) in Mesopotamia. The CAA Database of Battles records 24 hours of fighting on a front of 16 km, a single envelopment, left rear, frontal attack against fortified defense, and that Great Britain won. Losses: Great Britain 1,230 (11%), Ottoman Empire 5,300 (47%).

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

Great Britain

Mg Townshend

Unit	Arm	Men
Great Britain left wing	Infantry	2,539
Great Britain centre	Infantry	3,386
Great Britain right wing	Infantry	2,539
Great Britain reserve	Infantry	2,116
Great Britain artillery (28 guns)	Artillery	420
Mg Townshend	Commander	—
In this plan		11,000

Ottoman Empire

Nur-Ud-Din Pasha

Unit	Arm	Men
Ottoman Empire left wing	Infantry	2,575
Ottoman Empire centre	Infantry	3,434
Ottoman Empire right wing	Infantry	2,575
Ottoman Empire reserve	Infantry	2,146
Ottoman Empire artillery (38 guns)	Artillery	570
Nur-Ud-Din Pasha	Commander	—
In this plan		11,300

What the sources report

	Great Britain	Ottoman Empire
Strength, this plan	11,000	11,300
Losses, this plan	1,230	5,300

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 302, “Kut-El-Amara”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 24 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Flat, Bare
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 16 km (attacker), 16 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Great Britainattacker	11,000	1,230	0	28	Single envelopment; Left rear; Frontal attack; Breakthrough
Ottoman Empiredefender	11,300	5,300	0	38	Defensive plan; Withdrew

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

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 302 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Es Sinn · 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.