Time Astra

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

Battle of Moletta River 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 wingReserveCentreGunsLeft wingRight wingReserveGunsArmourArmour01 km2 kmN

Germany (Ger 65th Inf Div(2/3)(+), 21,478 men under Gen Pfeiffer) attacked Great Britain (Br 56th Inf Div(-), 9,761 men under Mg Templer) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 72 hours of fighting on a front of 4 km, a river crossing against fortified defense and prepared defense, and that Germany won. Losses: Germany 1,451 (7%), Great Britain 1,693 (17%).

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

Gen Pfeiffer

UnitArmMen
Germany left wingInfantry4,525
Germany centreInfantry6,033
Germany right wingInfantry4,525
Germany reserveInfantry3,771
Germany artillery (167 guns)Artillery2,505
Germany armour (24 tanks)Armour120
Gen PfeifferCommander—
In this plan21,479

Great Britain

Mg Templer

UnitArmMen
Great Britain left wingInfantry1,920
Great Britain centreInfantry2,561
Great Britain right wingInfantry1,920
Great Britain reserveInfantry1,600
Great Britain artillery (185 guns)Artillery1,464
Great Britain armour (59 tanks)Armour295
Mg TemplerCommander—
In this plan9,760

What the sources report

GermanyGreat Britain
Strength, this plan21,4789,761
Losses, this plan1,4511,693

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 432, “Moletta River Ii”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
72 hours
Winner
the attacker
Terrain
Flat, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Cold, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Fortified defense, Prepared defense
Front width
4 km (attacker), 4 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Germanyattacker21,4781,4510167River crossing; Penetration; Repulse; Withdrew
Great Britaindefender9,7611,6930185Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Penetration; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages training +1 · momentum +1 · initiative +1 · surprise +2 · 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

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.