Time Astra

Schematic plan · World War I

Battle of Passchendaele

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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.
Rolling, Mixed groundCentreLeft wingRight wingReserveCentreLeft wingRight wingReserveGunsGuns010 km20 kmN

Great Britain (Br 2nd & 5th Armies & Fr 1st Army, 380,000 men under Fm Haig) attacked Germany (Ger 4th Army, 200,000 men under Gen Arnim) in Belgium. The CAA Database of Battles records 3,096 hours of fighting on a front of 48 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that Germany held. Losses: Great Britain 399,821 (105%), Germany 270,710 (135%).

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

Fm Haig

UnitArmMen
Great Britain left wingInfantry83,374
Great Britain centreInfantry111,165
Great Britain right wingInfantry83,374
Great Britain reserveInfantry69,478
Great Britain artillery (2,174 guns)Artillery32,610
Fm HaigCommander—
In this plan380,001

Germany

Gen Arnim

UnitArmMen
Germany left wingInfantry44,256
Germany centreInfantry59,008
Germany right wingInfantry44,256
Germany reserveInfantry36,880
Germany artillery (1,040 guns)Artillery15,600
Gen ArnimCommander—
In this plan200,000

What the sources report

Great BritainGermany
Strength, this plan380,000200,000
Losses, this plan399,821270,710

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 319, “Ypres Iii”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
3096 hours
Winner
the defender
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Fortified defense
Front width
48 km (attacker), 48 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Great Britainattacker380,000399,82102,174Frontal attack; Penetration; Stalemate
Germanydefender200,000270,71001,040Defensive plan; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages initiative +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

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.