Schematic plan · World War II (Italy 1944)

Battle of Formia

16 May 1944
Italy
Victory for USA

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.

USA (US 85th Inf Div(+), 23,190 men under Mg Coulter) attacked Germany (Ger 94th Inf Div(2/3)(+), 7,627 men under Mg Steinmetz) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 48 hours of fighting on a front of 4 km, a frontal attack against delaying action, and that USA won. Losses: USA 405 (2%), Germany 721 (9%).

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

USA

Mg Coulter

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	4,723
USA centre	Infantry	6,298
USA right wing	Infantry	4,723
USA reserve	Infantry	3,936
USA artillery (159 guns)	Artillery	2,385
USA armour (225 tanks)	Armour	1,125
Mg Coulter	Commander	—
In this plan		23,190

Germany

Mg Steinmetz

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	1,586
Germany centre	Infantry	2,114
Germany right wing	Infantry	1,586
Germany reserve	Infantry	1,321
Germany artillery (58 guns)	Artillery	870
Germany armour (30 tanks)	Armour	150
Mg Steinmetz	Commander	—
In this plan		7,627

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	23,190	7,627
Losses, this plan	405	721

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 438, “Formia”, 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 attacker
Terrain: Rugged, Bare
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Delaying action
Front width: 4 km (attacker), 4 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	23,190	405	0	159	Frontal attack; Penetration
Germanydefender	7,627	721	0	58	Defensive plan; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages momentum +1 · initiative +1 · air superiority +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. 438 · 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.