Schematic plan · World War II (Italy 1944)

Battle of Cisterna

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 3rd Inf Div(+), 19,971 men under Mg O'daniel) attacked Germany (Ger 362nd Inf Div (3/5)(+), 11,928 men under Lg Greiner) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 40 hours of fighting on a front of 7.8 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that USA won. Losses: USA 1,524 (8%), Germany 1,617 (14%).

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 O'daniel

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	3,947
USA centre	Infantry	5,263
USA right wing	Infantry	3,947
USA reserve	Infantry	3,289
USA artillery (201 guns)	Artillery	2,996
USA armour (106 tanks)	Armour	530
Mg O'daniel	Commander	—
In this plan		19,972

Germany

Lg Greiner

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	2,498
Germany centre	Infantry	3,331
Germany right wing	Infantry	2,498
Germany reserve	Infantry	2,082
Germany artillery (85 guns)	Artillery	1,275
Germany armour (49 tanks)	Armour	245
Lg Greiner	Commander	—
In this plan		11,929

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	19,971	11,928
Losses, this plan	1,524	1,617

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 445, “Cisterna”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 40 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Wet, Light precipitation, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 7.8 km (attacker), 7.8 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	19,971	1,524	0	201	Frontal attack; Penetration
Germanydefender	11,928	1,617	0	85	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. 445 · 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.