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

Battle of Santa Maria Oliveto

4 November 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(+), 16,870 men under Mg Ryder) attacked Germany (Ger 3rd Pz Gr Div(-)(+), 6,321 men under Mg Baade) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 24 hours of fighting on a front of 4.8 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense, and that USA won. Losses: USA 416 (2%), Germany 185 (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

USA

Mg Ryder

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	3,590
USA centre	Infantry	4,787
USA right wing	Infantry	3,590
USA reserve	Infantry	2,992
USA artillery (92 guns)	Artillery	1,380
USA armour (106 tanks)	Armour	530
Mg Ryder	Commander	—
In this plan		16,869

Germany

Mg Baade

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	1,333
Germany centre	Infantry	1,778
Germany right wing	Infantry	1,333
Germany reserve	Infantry	1,111
Germany artillery (41 guns)	Artillery	615
Germany armour (30 tanks)	Armour	150
Mg Baade	Commander	—
In this plan		6,320

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	16,870	6,321
Losses, this plan	416	185

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 414, “Santa Maria Oliveto”, 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: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense
Front width: 4.8 km (attacker), 4.8 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	16,870	416	0	92	Frontal attack; Penetration
Germanydefender	6,321	185	0	41	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Penetration; Repulse; 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. 414 · 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.