Schematic plan · World War II (Italy 1944)

Battle of Monte Grande (Rome)

17 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 88th Inf Div(-)(+), 13,095 men under Mg Sloan) attacked Germany (Ger 94th Inf Div(-)(+), 4,563 men under Mg Steinmetz) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 39.5 hours of fighting on a front of 9 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that USA won. Losses: USA 203 (2%), Germany 332 (7%).

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 Sloan

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	2,515
USA centre	Infantry	3,354
USA right wing	Infantry	2,515
USA reserve	Infantry	2,096
USA artillery (132 guns)	Artillery	1,964
USA armour (130 tanks)	Armour	650
Mg Sloan	Commander	—
In this plan		13,094

Germany

Mg Steinmetz

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	924
Germany centre	Infantry	1,231
Germany right wing	Infantry	924
Germany reserve	Infantry	770
Germany artillery (40 guns)	Artillery	600
Germany armour (23 tanks)	Armour	115
Mg Steinmetz	Commander	—
In this plan		4,564

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	13,095	4,563
Losses, this plan	203	332

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 439, “Monte Grande (Rome)”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 39.5 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 9 km (attacker), 9 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	13,095	203	0	132	Frontal attack; Penetration
Germanydefender	4,563	332	0	40	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. 439 · 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.