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

Battle of Dragoni

15 October 1943
Italy
Victory for Germany

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(+), 17,034 men under Mg Ryder) attacked Germany (Ger 3rd Pz Gr Div(-), 5,152 men under Mg Baade) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 48 hours of fighting on a front of 5.2 km, a frontal attack against delaying action, and that Germany held. Losses: USA 65 (0%), Germany 103 (2%).

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	3,597
USA centre	Infantry	4,796
USA right wing	Infantry	3,597
USA reserve	Infantry	2,998
USA artillery (101 guns)	Artillery	1,515
USA armour (106 tanks)	Armour	530
Mg Ryder	Commander	—
In this plan		17,033

Germany

Mg Baade

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	987
Germany centre	Infantry	1,316
Germany right wing	Infantry	987
Germany reserve	Infantry	822
Germany artillery (51 guns)	Artillery	765
Germany armour (55 tanks)	Armour	275
Mg Baade	Commander	—
In this plan		5,152

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	17,034	5,152
Losses, this plan	65	103

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 409, “Dragoni”, 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 defender
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Wet, Light precipitation, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Delaying action
Front width: 5.2 km (attacker), 5.2 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	17,034	65	0	101	Frontal attack; Penetration
Germanydefender	5,152	103	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. 409 · 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.