Schematic plan · World War I (Western Front 1918)

Battle of Blanc Mont II

8 October 1918
France
Draw

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 36th Div(-)(+), 18,000 men under Mg Smith) attacked Germany (Ger 213th Inf Div, 10,000 men under Mg Hammerstein) in France. The CAA Database of Battles records 12 hours of fighting on a front of 4 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that neither side won. Losses: USA 1,589 (9%), Germany 500 (5%).

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 Smith

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	3,802
USA centre	Infantry	5,069
USA right wing	Infantry	3,802
USA reserve	Infantry	3,168
USA artillery (144 guns)	Artillery	2,160
Mg Smith	Commander	—
In this plan		18,001

Germany

Mg Hammerstein

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	2,040
Germany centre	Infantry	2,720
Germany right wing	Infantry	2,040
Germany reserve	Infantry	1,700
Germany artillery (177 guns)	Artillery	1,500
Mg Hammerstein	Commander	—
In this plan		10,000

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	18,000	10,000
Losses, this plan	1,589	500

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 372, “Blanc Mont Ii”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 12 hours
Winner: the draw
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 4 km (attacker), 4 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	18,000	1,589	0	144	Frontal attack; Repulse; Stalemate
Germanydefender	10,000	500	0	177	Defensive/offensive plan; Stalemate

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. 372 · 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.