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

Battle of Canal I

17 October 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 7th Armd Div, 14,600 men under Mg Erskine) attacked Germany (Ger 15th Pz Gr Div (-), 8,138 men under Mg Rodt) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 24 hours of fighting on a front of 9 km, a river crossing against prepared defense, and that Great Britain won. Losses: Great Britain 125 (1%), Germany 45 (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

Great Britain

Mg Erskine

Unit	Arm	Men
Great Britain left wing	Infantry	3,070
Great Britain centre	Infantry	4,093
Great Britain right wing	Infantry	3,070
Great Britain reserve	Infantry	2,558
Great Britain artillery (68 guns)	Artillery	1,020
Great Britain armour (158 tanks)	Armour	790
Mg Erskine	Commander	—
In this plan		14,601

Germany

Mg Rodt

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	1,743
Germany centre	Infantry	2,324
Germany right wing	Infantry	1,743
Germany reserve	Infantry	1,453
Germany artillery (45 guns)	Artillery	675
Germany armour (40 tanks)	Armour	200
Mg Rodt	Commander	—
In this plan		8,138

What the sources report

	Great Britain	Germany
Strength, this plan	14,600	8,138
Losses, this plan	125	45

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 410, “Canal I”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 24 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Wet, Light precipitation, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense
Front width: 9 km (attacker), 9 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Great Britainattacker	14,600	125	0	68	River crossing; Penetration
Germanydefender	8,138	45	0	45	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. 410 · 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.