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

Battle of Moletta River Defense

7 February 1944
Italy
Draw

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 65th Inf Div(2/3)(+), 7,418 men under Lg Pfeiffer) attacked USA (US 45th Inf Div(+), 5,000 men under Mg Eagles) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 48 hours of fighting on a front of 3.2 km, a river crossing against prepared defense, and that neither side won. Losses: Germany 167 (2%), USA 107 (2%).

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 Pfeiffer

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	1,539
Germany centre	Infantry	2,052
Germany right wing	Infantry	1,539
Germany reserve	Infantry	1,283
Germany artillery (58 guns)	Artillery	870
Germany armour (27 tanks)	Armour	135
Lg Pfeiffer	Commander	—
In this plan		7,418

USA

Mg Eagles

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	1,020
USA centre	Infantry	1,360
USA right wing	Infantry	1,020
USA reserve	Infantry	850
USA artillery (76 guns)	Artillery	750
Mg Eagles	Commander	—
In this plan		5,000

What the sources report

	Germany	USA
Strength, this plan	7,418	5,000
Losses, this plan	167	107

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 428, “Moletta River Defense”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 48 hours
Winner: the draw
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Cold, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense
Front width: 3.2 km (attacker), 3.2 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Germanyattacker	7,418	167	0	58	River crossing; Penetration; Stalemate
USAdefender	5,000	107	0	76	Defensive plan; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages initiative +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. 428 · 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.