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

Battle of Chouigui Pass

26 November 1942
Tunisia
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.

Germany (Ger 190th Pz Bn, 10th Pz Div (Elms)(+), 465 men under Col Broich) attacked USA (US 1st Armd Div (Elms), 188 men under Lcol Waters) in Tunisia. The CAA Database of Battles records 0.5 hours of fighting on a front of 0.6 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that USA held. Losses: Germany 27 (6%), USA 21 (11%).

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

Germany

Col Broich

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	96
Germany centre	Infantry	128
Germany right wing	Infantry	96
Germany reserve	Infantry	80
Germany armour (13 tanks)	Armour	65
Col Broich	Commander	—
In this plan		465

USA

Lcol Waters

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	32
USA centre	Infantry	42
USA right wing	Infantry	32
USA reserve	Infantry	26
USA artillery (3 guns)	Artillery	28
USA armour (25 tanks)	Armour	28
Lcol Waters	Commander	—
In this plan		188

What the sources report

	Germany	USA
Strength, this plan	465	188
Losses, this plan	27	21

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 391, “Chouigui Pass”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 0.5 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Rolling, Desert
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 0.6 km (attacker), 1.6 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Germanyattacker	465	27	0	0	Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew
USAdefender	188	21	0	3	Defensive/offensive plan; Double envelopment; Pursued

Attacker’s advantages training +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. 391 · 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.