Schematic plan · World War I

Battle of Messines

7 June 1917
Belgium
Victory for Great Britain

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 2nd Army, 180,000 men under Gen Plumer) attacked Germany (Ger 4th Army, 100,000 men under Gen Arnim) in Belgium. The CAA Database of Battles records 168 hours of fighting on a front of 19 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that Great Britain won. Losses: Great Britain 17,000 (9%), Germany 32,500 (33%).

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

Gen Plumer

Unit	Arm	Men
Great Britain left wing	Infantry	36,720
Great Britain centre	Infantry	48,960
Great Britain right wing	Infantry	36,720
Great Britain reserve	Infantry	30,600
Great Britain artillery (2,266 guns)	Artillery	27,000
Gen Plumer	Commander	—
In this plan		180,000

Germany

Gen Arnim

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	20,400
Germany centre	Infantry	27,200
Germany right wing	Infantry	20,400
Germany reserve	Infantry	17,000
Germany artillery (1,000 guns)	Artillery	15,000
Gen Arnim	Commander	—
In this plan		100,000

What the sources report

	Great Britain	Germany
Strength, this plan	180,000	100,000
Losses, this plan	17,000	32,500

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 318, “Messines”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 168 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rugged, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 19 km (attacker), 19 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Great Britainattacker	180,000	17,000	0	2,266	Frontal attack; Penetration; Stalemate
Germanydefender	100,000	32,500	0	1,000	Defensive plan; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages intelligence +1 · initiative +1 · surprise +1 · air superiority +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. 318 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Messines · 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.