Schematic plan · World War II (North Africa 1942-1943)

Battle of El Alamein II

23 October 1942
Egypt
Victory for Great Britain

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.

Great Britain (Br 8th Army, 220,476 men under Lg Montgomery) attacked Germany (Ger & Ital Pz Army, 105,223 men under Gfm Rommel) in Egypt. The CAA Database of Battles records 288 hours of fighting on a front of 61 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that Great Britain won. Losses: Great Britain 13,560 (6%), Germany 15,995 (15%).

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

Great Britain

Lg Montgomery

Unit	Arm	Men
Great Britain left wing	Infantry	48,401
Great Britain centre	Infantry	64,535
Great Britain right wing	Infantry	48,401
Great Britain reserve	Infantry	40,334
Great Britain artillery (908 guns)	Artillery	13,620
Great Britain armour (1,037 tanks)	Armour	5,185
Lg Montgomery	Commander	—
In this plan		220,476

Germany

Gfm Rommel

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	22,411
Germany centre	Infantry	29,881
Germany right wing	Infantry	22,411
Germany reserve	Infantry	18,676
Germany artillery (592 guns)	Artillery	8,880
Germany armour (593 tanks)	Armour	2,965
Gfm Rommel	Commander	—
In this plan		105,224

What the sources report

	Great Britain	Germany
Strength, this plan	220,476	105,223
Losses, this plan	13,560	15,995

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 387, “El Alamein Ii”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 288 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Flat, Desert
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 61 km (attacker), 61 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Great Britainattacker	220,476	13,560	0	908	Frontal attack; Breakthrough; Pursued
Germanydefender	105,223	15,995	0	592	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages logistics +1 · intelligence +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. 387 · 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.