Schematic plan · World War I

Trentino Counter-Offensive

16 June 1916
Austria and Italy
Victory for Italy

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.

Italy (It 5th Army, 200,000 men under Gen Cadorna) attacked Austria (Aus 3rd & 11th Armies, 172,000 men under Gen Conrad) in Austria and Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 552 hours of fighting on a front of 48 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Italy won. Losses: Italy 72,000 (36%), Austria 29,000 (17%).

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

Italy

Gen Cadorna

Unit	Arm	Men
Italy left wing	Infantry	45,757
Italy centre	Infantry	61,010
Italy right wing	Infantry	45,757
Italy reserve	Infantry	38,131
Italy artillery (623 guns)	Artillery	9,345
Gen Cadorna	Commander	—
In this plan		200,000

Austria

Gen Conrad

Unit	Arm	Men
Austria left wing	Infantry	35,088
Austria centre	Infantry	46,784
Austria right wing	Infantry	35,088
Austria reserve	Infantry	29,240
Austria artillery (2,000 guns)	Artillery	25,800
Gen Conrad	Commander	—
In this plan		172,000

What the sources report

	Italy	Austria
Strength, this plan	200,000	172,000
Losses, this plan	72,000	29,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 314, “Trentino Counter-Offensive”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 552 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rugged, Bare
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 48 km (attacker), 48 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Italyattacker	200,000	72,000	0	623	Frontal attack; Penetration; Stalemate
Austriadefender	172,000	29,000	0	2,000	Defensive plan; Withdrew; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages logistics +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. 314 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.

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.