Schematic plan · World War I (Western Front 1918)

Battle of Meuse-Argonne III

1 November 1918
France
Victory for France

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.

France (Fr 4th Army(+), 600,000 men under Gen Pershing) attacked Germany (Ger 3rd Army(+), 380,140 men under Gen Gallwitz) in France. The CAA Database of Battles records 240 hours of fighting on a front of 169 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense and delaying action, and that France won. Losses: France 30,426 (5%), Germany 29,491 (8%).

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

France

Gen Pershing

Unit	Arm	Men
France left wing	Infantry	144,000
France centre	Infantry	192,000
France right wing	Infantry	144,000
France reserve	Infantry	120,000
Gen Pershing	Commander	—
In this plan		600,000

Germany

Gen Gallwitz

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	91,234
Germany centre	Infantry	121,645
Germany right wing	Infantry	91,234
Germany reserve	Infantry	76,028
Gen Gallwitz	Commander	—
In this plan		380,141

What the sources report

	France	Germany
Strength, this plan	600,000	380,140
Losses, this plan	30,426	29,491

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 381, “Meuse-Argonne Iii”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 240 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense, Delaying action
Front width: 169 km (attacker), 169 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Franceattacker	600,000	30,426	0	—	Frontal attack; Penetration
Germanydefender	380,140	29,491	0	—	Defensive plan; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages morale +2 · 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. 381 · 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.