Schematic plan · World War II (Italy 1944)

Battle of Sezze

25 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(+), 17,925 men under Mg Coulter) attacked Germany (Ger 29th Pz Gr Div(1/2), 6,957 men under Mg Fries) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 48 hours of fighting on a front of 14 km, a frontal attack against withdrawal, and that USA won. Losses: USA 162 (1%), Germany 227 (3%).

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	3,673
USA centre	Infantry	4,898
USA right wing	Infantry	3,673
USA reserve	Infantry	3,061
USA artillery (138 guns)	Artillery	2,070
USA armour (110 tanks)	Armour	550
Mg Coulter	Commander	—
In this plan		17,925

Germany

Mg Fries

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	1,357
Germany centre	Infantry	1,809
Germany right wing	Infantry	1,357
Germany reserve	Infantry	1,131
Germany artillery (88 guns)	Artillery	1,044
Germany armour (52 tanks)	Armour	260
Mg Fries	Commander	—
In this plan		6,958

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	17,925	6,957
Losses, this plan	162	227

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 446, “Sezze”, 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: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Withdrawal
Front width: 14 km (attacker), 14 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	17,925	162	0	138	Frontal attack; Penetration
Germanydefender	6,957	227	0	88	Defensive plan; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages 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. 446 · 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.