Schematic plan · World War II (Italy 1944)

Battle of Anzio Breakout

23 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 1st Inf Div(+), 22,374 men under Mg Harmon) attacked Germany (Ger 3rd Pz Gr Div(-)(+), 12,815 men under Mg Baade) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 40.5 hours of fighting on a front of 5.6 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that USA won. Losses: USA 710 (3%), Germany 1,355 (11%).

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 Harmon

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	4,314
USA centre	Infantry	5,752
USA right wing	Infantry	4,314
USA reserve	Infantry	3,595
USA artillery (152 guns)	Artillery	2,280
USA armour (424 tanks)	Armour	2,120
Mg Harmon	Commander	—
In this plan		22,375

Germany

Mg Baade

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	2,584
Germany centre	Infantry	3,445
Germany right wing	Infantry	2,584
Germany reserve	Infantry	2,153
Germany artillery (107 guns)	Artillery	1,605
Germany armour (89 tanks)	Armour	445
Mg Baade	Commander	—
In this plan		12,816

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	22,374	12,815
Losses, this plan	710	1,355

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 444, “Anzio Breakout”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 40.5 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Wet, Light precipitation, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 5.6 km (attacker), 5.6 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	22,374	710	0	152	Frontal attack; Penetration
Germanydefender	12,815	1,355	0	107	Defensive plan; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages initiative +1 · surprise +2 · 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. 444 · 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.