Schematic plan · World War I (Western Front 1918)

Battle of Yvonne & Odette Positions (Sector Toulon)

14 April 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 Spec Asslt Grp 'von Grothe' & 272nd Res Inf Rgt, 3,072 men under Maj Grothe) attacked USA (US Cos I & L of 3rd Bn, 9th Inf Rgt, 650 men under Col Upton) in France. The CAA Database of Battles records 2 hours of fighting on a front of 0.3 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that Germany won. Losses: Germany 71 (2%), USA 72 (11%).

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

Maj Grothe

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	627
Germany centre	Infantry	836
Germany right wing	Infantry	627
Germany reserve	Infantry	522
Germany artillery (36 guns)	Artillery	461
Maj Grothe	Commander	—
In this plan		3,073

USA

Col Upton

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	133
USA centre	Infantry	177
USA right wing	Infantry	133
USA reserve	Infantry	111
USA artillery (24 guns)	Artillery	98
Col Upton	Commander	—
In this plan		652

What the sources report

	Germany	USA
Strength, this plan	3,072	650
Losses, this plan	71	72

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 333, “Yvonne & Odette Positions (Sector Toulon)”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 2 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 0.3 km (attacker), 0.3 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Germanyattacker	3,072	71	0	36	Frontal attack; Penetration; Repulse; Stalemate
USAdefender	650	72	0	24	Defensive plan; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · training +1 · intelligence +1 · 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. 333 · 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.