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

Battle of Pozzilli

6 November 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 45th Inf Div, 17,404 men under Mg Middleton) attacked Germany (Ger 3rd Pz Gr Div, 6,566 men under Mg Baade) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 24 hours of fighting on a front of 8 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that Germany held. Losses: USA 155 (1%), Germany 25 (0%).

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 Middleton

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	3,654
USA centre	Infantry	4,872
USA right wing	Infantry	3,654
USA reserve	Infantry	3,045
USA artillery (110 guns)	Artillery	1,650
USA armour (106 tanks)	Armour	530
Mg Middleton	Commander	—
In this plan		17,405

Germany

Mg Baade

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	1,331
Germany centre	Infantry	1,775
Germany right wing	Infantry	1,331
Germany reserve	Infantry	1,109
Germany artillery (50 guns)	Artillery	750
Germany armour (54 tanks)	Armour	270
Mg Baade	Commander	—
In this plan		6,566

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	17,404	6,566
Losses, this plan	155	25

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 417, “Pozzilli”, 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 defender
Terrain: Rugged, Mixed
Weather: Wet, Light precipitation, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 8 km (attacker), 8 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	17,404	155	0	110	Frontal attack; Repulse
Germanydefender	6,566	25	0	50	Defensive plan

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. 417 · 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.