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

Battle of Sedjanne-Bizerte

23 April 1943
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.

USA (US 9th Inf Div(+), 24,098 men under Mg Eddy) attacked Germany (Ger von Mantueffel Div(2/3), 5,000 men under Lg Bulovius) in Tunisia. The CAA Database of Battles records 312 hours of fighting on a front of 32 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that USA won. Losses: USA 1,120 (5%), Germany 605 (12%).

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 Eddy

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	5,311
USA centre	Infantry	7,081
USA right wing	Infantry	5,311
USA reserve	Infantry	4,426
USA artillery (100 guns)	Artillery	1,500
USA armour (94 tanks)	Armour	470
Mg Eddy	Commander	—
In this plan		24,099

Germany

Lg Bulovius

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	1,072
Germany centre	Infantry	1,429
Germany right wing	Infantry	1,072
Germany reserve	Infantry	893
Germany artillery (34 guns)	Artillery	510
Germany armour (5 tanks)	Armour	25
Lg Bulovius	Commander	—
In this plan		5,001

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	24,098	5,000
Losses, this plan	1,120	605

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 393, “Sedjanne-Bizerte”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 312 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rugged, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 32 km (attacker), 32 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	24,098	1,120	0	100	Frontal attack; Breakthrough; Pursued
Germanydefender	5,000	605	0	34	Defensive plan; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages morale +1 · logistics +1 · momentum +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. 393 · 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.