Time Astra

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

Battle of Aprilia II

All battles
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.
Flat, Mixed groundCentreLeft wingRight wingReserveCentreLeft wingRight wingGunsReserveGunsArmourArmour0500 m1 kmN

Germany (Ger 3rd Pz Gr Div(+), 27,518 men under Lg Graeser) attacked Great Britain (Br 1st Inf Div(+), 17,730 men under Mg Penney) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 4 hours of fighting on a front of 2 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense, and that Germany won. Losses: Germany 270 (1%), Great Britain 311 (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 Graeser

UnitArmMen
Germany left wingInfantry5,666
Germany centreInfantry7,555
Germany right wingInfantry5,666
Germany reserveInfantry4,722
Germany artillery (223 guns)Artillery3,345
Germany armour (113 tanks)Armour565
Lg GraeserCommander—
In this plan27,519

Great Britain

Mg Penney

UnitArmMen
Great Britain left wingInfantry3,497
Great Britain centreInfantry4,663
Great Britain right wingInfantry3,497
Great Britain reserveInfantry2,914
Great Britain artillery (226 guns)Artillery2,660
Great Britain armour (100 tanks)Armour500
Mg PenneyCommander—
In this plan17,731

What the sources report

GermanyGreat Britain
Strength, this plan27,51817,730
Losses, this plan270311

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 429, “Aprilia Ii”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Winner
the attacker
Terrain
Flat, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Cold, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Prepared defense
Front width
2 km (attacker), 2 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Germanyattacker27,5182700223Frontal attack; Penetration
Great Britaindefender17,7303110226Defensive plan; Withdrew

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

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.