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

Battle of Caiazzo

13 October 1943
Italy
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 34th Inf Div(+), 18,210 men under Mg Ryder) attacked Germany (Ger 3rd Pz Gr Div(+), 6,435 men under Mg Baade) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 23.8 hours of fighting on a front of 9 km, a river crossing against delaying action, and that USA won. Losses: USA 140 (1%), Germany 52 (1%).

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 Ryder

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	3,869
USA centre	Infantry	5,158
USA right wing	Infantry	3,869
USA reserve	Infantry	3,224
USA artillery (104 guns)	Artillery	1,560
USA armour (106 tanks)	Armour	530
Mg Ryder	Commander	—
In this plan		18,210

Germany

Mg Baade

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	1,310
Germany centre	Infantry	1,747
Germany right wing	Infantry	1,310
Germany reserve	Infantry	1,092
Germany artillery (51 guns)	Artillery	765
Germany armour (42 tanks)	Armour	210
Mg Baade	Commander	—
In this plan		6,434

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	18,210	6,435
Losses, this plan	140	52

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 404, “Caiazzo”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 23.8 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Delaying action
Front width: 9 km (attacker), 9 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	18,210	140	0	104	River crossing; Penetration
Germanydefender	6,435	52	0	51	Defensive plan; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages 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. 404 · 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.