Schematic plan · World War I (Western Front 1918)

Battle of Second Somme-Phase I (Somme-Peronne)

21 March 1918
France
Victory for Germany

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.

Germany (Ger 2nd, 17th & 18th Armies, 800,000 men under Gen Ludendorff) attacked Great Britain (Br 1st(-), 3rd & 5th (4th) Armies, 400,000 men under Fm Haig) in France. The CAA Database of Battles records 120 hours of fighting on a front of 97 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that Germany won. Losses: Germany 70,000 (9%), Great Britain 120,000 (30%).

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

Germany

Gen Ludendorff

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	168,686
Germany centre	Infantry	224,915
Germany right wing	Infantry	168,686
Germany reserve	Infantry	140,572
Germany artillery (6,473 guns)	Artillery	97,095
Germany armour (9 tanks)	Armour	45
Gen Ludendorff	Commander	—
In this plan		799,999

Great Britain

Fm Haig

Unit	Arm	Men
Great Britain left wing	Infantry	86,698
Great Britain centre	Infantry	115,597
Great Britain right wing	Infantry	86,698
Great Britain reserve	Infantry	72,248
Great Britain artillery (2,500 guns)	Artillery	37,500
Great Britain armour (252 tanks)	Armour	1,260
Fm Haig	Commander	—
In this plan		400,001

What the sources report

	Germany	Great Britain
Strength, this plan	800,000	400,000
Losses, this plan	70,000	120,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 330, “Second Somme-Phase I (Somme-Peronne)”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 120 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Wet, Heavy precipitation, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 97 km (attacker), 97 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Germanyattacker	800,000	70,000	0	6,473	Frontal attack; Penetration
Great Britaindefender	400,000	120,000	0	2,500	Defensive plan; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages initiative +1 · surprise +2 · 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. 330 · 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.