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

Battle of Monte Maggiore

2 December 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 36th Inf Div(-), 5,551 men under Mg Walker) attacked Germany (Ger 15th Pz Gr Div(1/4), 3,288 men under Mg Rodt) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 24.5 hours of fighting on a front of 1 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that USA won. Losses: USA 80 (1%), Germany 20 (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

USA

Mg Walker

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	1,132
USA centre	Infantry	1,510
USA right wing	Infantry	1,132
USA reserve	Infantry	944
USA artillery (152 guns)	Artillery	833
Mg Walker	Commander	—
In this plan		5,551

Germany

Mg Rodt

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	656
Germany centre	Infantry	875
Germany right wing	Infantry	656
Germany reserve	Infantry	547
Germany artillery (34 guns)	Artillery	493
Germany armour (12 tanks)	Armour	60
Mg Rodt	Commander	—
In this plan		3,287

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	5,551	3,288
Losses, this plan	80	20

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 422, “Monte Maggiore”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 24.5 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rugged, Mixed
Weather: Wet, Heavy precipitation, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 1 km (attacker), 1 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	5,551	80	0	152	Frontal attack; Penetration
Germanydefender	3,288	20	0	34	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. 422 · 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.