Schematic plan · World War II (Italy 1943-1944)

Battle of Port of Salerno

9 September 1943
Italy
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 46th Inf Div, 12,917 men under Mg Hawkesworth) attacked Germany (Ger 16th Pz Div (Elms), 4,250 men under Mg Sikenius) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 48 hours of fighting on a front of 6 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense and prepared defense, and that Great Britain won. Losses: Great Britain 1,530 (12%), Germany 120 (3%).

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

Mg Hawkesworth

Unit	Arm	Men
Great Britain left wing	Infantry	2,635
Great Britain centre	Infantry	3,513
Great Britain right wing	Infantry	2,635
Great Britain reserve	Infantry	2,196
Great Britain artillery (138 guns)	Artillery	1,938
Mg Hawkesworth	Commander	—
In this plan		12,917

Germany

Mg Sikenius

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	821
Germany centre	Infantry	1,095
Germany right wing	Infantry	821
Germany reserve	Infantry	685
Germany artillery (46 guns)	Artillery	638
Germany armour (38 tanks)	Armour	190
Mg Sikenius	Commander	—
In this plan		4,250

What the sources report

	Great Britain	Germany
Strength, this plan	12,917	4,250
Losses, this plan	1,530	120

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 395, “Port Of Salerno”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 48 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense, Prepared defense
Front width: 6 km (attacker), 6 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Great Britainattacker	12,917	1,530	0	138	Frontal attack; Penetration; Stalemate
Germanydefender	4,250	120	0	46	Defensive/offensive plan; Single envelopment; Left flank; Repulse; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages initiative +1 · surprise +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. 395 · 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.