Schematic plan · World War I (Western Front 1918)

Battle of Blanc Mont I

3 October 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 2nd Div(+), 26,000 men under Mg Lejeune) attacked Germany (Ger 12th Saxon Army Corps(-), 13,000 men under Gen Nidda) in France. The CAA Database of Battles records 72 hours of fighting on a front of 6.4 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that USA won. Losses: USA 4,700 (18%), Germany 4,000 (31%).

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

Mg Lejeune

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	5,462
USA centre	Infantry	7,283
USA right wing	Infantry	5,462
USA reserve	Infantry	4,552
USA artillery (192 guns)	Artillery	2,880
USA armour (72 tanks)	Armour	360
Mg Lejeune	Commander	—
In this plan		25,999

Germany

Gen Nidda

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	2,652
Germany centre	Infantry	3,536
Germany right wing	Infantry	2,652
Germany reserve	Infantry	2,210
Germany artillery (202 guns)	Artillery	1,950
Gen Nidda	Commander	—
In this plan		13,000

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	26,000	13,000
Losses, this plan	4,700	4,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 367, “Blanc Mont I”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 72 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 6.4 km (attacker), 6.4 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	26,000	4,700	0	192	Frontal attack; Penetration; Stalemate
Germanydefender	13,000	4,000	0	202	Defensive/offensive plan; Single envelopment; Right flank; Repulse; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages morale +1 · 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

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 367 · 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.