Schematic plan · World War I

Battle of Asiago

15 May 1916
Austria and Italy
Victory for Austria

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 & 11th Armies, 213,000 men under Gen Conrad) attacked Italy (It 1st Army, 118,000 men under Gen Pecori-Giraldi) in Austria and Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 624 hours of fighting on a front of 48 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense and prepared defense, and that Austria won. Losses: Austria 41,264 (19%), Italy 74,887 (63%).

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 Conrad

Unit	Arm	Men
Austria left wing	Infantry	43,920
Austria centre	Infantry	58,560
Austria right wing	Infantry	43,920
Austria reserve	Infantry	36,600
Austria artillery (2,000 guns)	Artillery	30,000
Gen Conrad	Commander	—
In this plan		213,000

Italy

Gen Pecori-Giraldi

Unit	Arm	Men
Italy left wing	Infantry	26,077
Italy centre	Infantry	34,770
Italy right wing	Infantry	26,077
Italy reserve	Infantry	21,731
Italy artillery (623 guns)	Artillery	9,345
Gen Pecori-Giraldi	Commander	—
In this plan		118,000

What the sources report

	Austria	Italy
Strength, this plan	213,000	118,000
Losses, this plan	41,264	74,887

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 313, “Asiago”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 624 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rugged, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense, Prepared defense
Front width: 48 km (attacker), 48 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Austriaattacker	213,000	41,264	0	2,000	Frontal attack; Penetration; Stalemate
Italydefender	118,000	74,887	0	623	Defensive plan; Withdrew; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages initiative +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. 313 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Asiago · 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.