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

Battle of Carroceto

7 February 1944
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.

Germany (Ger 3rd Pz Gr Div(+), 26,490 men under Lg Graeser) attacked Great Britain (Br 1st Inf Div, 4,515 men under Mg Penney) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 20 hours of fighting on a front of 8 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense, and that Great Britain held. Losses: Germany 341 (1%), Great Britain 369 (8%).

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	5,434
Germany centre	Infantry	7,245
Germany right wing	Infantry	5,434
Germany reserve	Infantry	4,528
Germany artillery (221 guns)	Artillery	3,315
Germany armour (107 tanks)	Armour	535
Lg Graeser	Commander	—
In this plan		26,491

Great Britain

Mg Penney

Unit	Arm	Men
Great Britain left wing	Infantry	759
Great Britain centre	Infantry	1,011
Great Britain right wing	Infantry	759
Great Britain reserve	Infantry	632
Great Britain artillery (82 guns)	Artillery	677
Great Britain armour (139 tanks)	Armour	677
Mg Penney	Commander	—
In this plan		4,515

What the sources report

	Germany	Great Britain
Strength, this plan	26,490	4,515
Losses, this plan	341	369

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 427, “Carroceto”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 20 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Cold, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense
Front width: 8 km (attacker), 8 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Germanyattacker	26,490	341	0	221	Frontal attack; Penetration; Repulse; Stalemate
Great Britaindefender	4,515	369	0	82	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Penetration; Stalemate

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. 427 · 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.