Schematic plan · World War II (Italy 1944)

Battle of Terracina

22 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(-)(+), 18,030 men under Mg Coulter) attacked Germany (Ger 94th Inf Div(-)(+), 6,653 men under Mg Steinmetz) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 32.5 hours of fighting on a front of 15 km, a frontal attack, single envelopment, left flank against hasty defense, and that USA won. Losses: USA 287 (2%), Germany 380 (6%).

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	3,637
USA centre	Infantry	4,850
USA right wing	Infantry	3,637
USA reserve	Infantry	3,031
USA artillery (148 guns)	Artillery	2,220
USA armour (131 tanks)	Armour	655
Mg Coulter	Commander	—
In this plan		18,030

Germany

Mg Steinmetz

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	1,422
Germany centre	Infantry	1,895
Germany right wing	Infantry	1,422
Germany reserve	Infantry	1,185
Germany artillery (40 guns)	Artillery	600
Germany armour (26 tanks)	Armour	130
Mg Steinmetz	Commander	—
In this plan		6,654

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	18,030	6,653
Losses, this plan	287	380

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 441, “Terracina”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 32.5 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rugged, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 15 km (attacker), 15 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	18,030	287	0	148	Frontal attack; Single envelopment; Left flank; Penetration
Germanydefender	6,653	380	0	40	Defensive plan; Withdrew

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

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 441 · 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.