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

Battle of Campoleone Counterattack

3 February 1944
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.

Germany (Ger 3rd Pz Gr Div(+), 26,029 men under Lg Graeser) attacked Great Britain (Br 1st Inf Div(1/3)(+), 9,834 men under Mg Penney) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 29.5 hours of fighting on a front of 11 km, a double envelopment against prepared defense, and that Germany won. Losses: Germany 1,318 (5%), Great Britain 1,450 (15%).

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

Germany

Lg Graeser

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	5,319
Germany centre	Infantry	7,092
Germany right wing	Infantry	5,319
Germany reserve	Infantry	4,433
Germany artillery (222 guns)	Artillery	3,330
Germany armour (107 tanks)	Armour	535
Lg Graeser	Commander	—
In this plan		26,028

Great Britain

Mg Penney

Unit	Arm	Men
Great Britain left wing	Infantry	1,964
Great Britain centre	Infantry	2,619
Great Britain right wing	Infantry	1,964
Great Britain reserve	Infantry	1,637
Great Britain artillery (122 guns)	Artillery	1,475
Great Britain armour (35 tanks)	Armour	175
Mg Penney	Commander	—
In this plan		9,834

What the sources report

	Germany	Great Britain
Strength, this plan	26,029	9,834
Losses, this plan	1,318	1,450

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 426, “Campoleone Counterattack”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 29.5 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense
Front width: 11 km (attacker), 11 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Germanyattacker	26,029	1,318	0	222	Double envelopment; Penetration
Great Britaindefender	9,834	1,450	0	122	Defensive plan; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages training +1 · initiative +1 · combat effectiveness +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. 426 · 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.