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

Battle of Monte Grande (Volturno)

16 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 56th Inf Div (Elms), 16,400 men under Mg Templer) attacked Germany (Ger Hermann Goering Pz Div(1/2), 7,239 men under Mg Schmaltz) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 24 hours of fighting on a front of 9 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense, and that Great Britain won. Losses: Great Britain 200 (1%), Germany 66 (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 Templer

Unit	Arm	Men
Great Britain left wing	Infantry	3,445
Great Britain centre	Infantry	4,594
Great Britain right wing	Infantry	3,445
Great Britain reserve	Infantry	2,871
Great Britain artillery (112 guns)	Artillery	1,680
Great Britain armour (73 tanks)	Armour	365
Mg Templer	Commander	—
In this plan		16,400

Germany

Mg Schmaltz

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	1,535
Germany centre	Infantry	2,046
Germany right wing	Infantry	1,535
Germany reserve	Infantry	1,279
Germany artillery (49 guns)	Artillery	735
Germany armour (22 tanks)	Armour	110
Mg Schmaltz	Commander	—
In this plan		7,240

What the sources report

	Great Britain	Germany
Strength, this plan	16,400	7,239
Losses, this plan	200	66

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 411, “Monte Grande (Volturno)”, 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: Rolling, 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	16,400	200	0	112	Frontal attack; Penetration
Germanydefender	7,239	66	0	49	Defensive plan; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages 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. 411 · 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.