Schematic plan · World War I (Western Front 1918)

Battle of St. Amand Farm

18 July 1918
France
Victory for USA

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.

USA (US 2/28th Inf Rgt, 1,150 men under Maj Huebner) attacked Germany (Ger 2/396th Inf Rgt, 400 men under Lg Kneussl) in France. The CAA Database of Battles records 4.9 hours of fighting on a front of 0.3 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that USA won. Losses: USA 120 (10%), Germany 400 (100%).

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

USA

Maj Huebner

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	270
USA centre	Infantry	360
USA right wing	Infantry	270
USA reserve	Infantry	225
USA armour (5 tanks)	Armour	25
Maj Huebner	Commander	—
In this plan		1,150

Germany

Lg Kneussl

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	96
Germany centre	Infantry	128
Germany right wing	Infantry	96
Germany reserve	Infantry	80
Lg Kneussl	Commander	—
In this plan		400

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	1,150	400
Losses, this plan	120	400

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 355, “St. Amand Farm”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 4.9 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 0.3 km (attacker), 0.3 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	1,150	120	0	0	Frontal attack; Penetration
Germanydefender	400	400	0	—	Defensive plan; Annihilated

Attacker’s advantages morale +1 · initiative +1 · surprise +2 · 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. 355 · 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.