Time Astra

Schematic plan · World War II (Italy 1944)

Battle of Ardea

All battles
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.
Rolling, Mixed groundCentreLeft wingRight wingReserveCentreLeft wingRight wingGunsReserveGunsArmour02 km4 kmN

Great Britain (Br 5th Inf Div, 15,557 men under Mg Gregson-Ellis) attacked Germany (Ger 4th Para Div(2/3), 7,695 men under Col Trettner) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 48 hours of fighting on a front of 9 km, a river crossing, frontal attack against fortified defense, and that Great Britain won. Losses: Great Britain 245 (2%), Germany 374 (5%).

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

Great Britain

Mg Gregson-Ellis

UnitArmMen
Great Britain left wingInfantry3,317
Great Britain centreInfantry4,423
Great Britain right wingInfantry3,317
Great Britain reserveInfantry2,764
Great Britain artillery (104 guns)Artillery1,560
Great Britain armour (35 tanks)Armour175
Mg Gregson-EllisCommander—
In this plan15,556

Germany

Col Trettner

UnitArmMen
Germany left wingInfantry1,616
Germany centreInfantry2,155
Germany right wingInfantry1,616
Germany reserveInfantry1,347
Germany artillery (64 guns)Artillery960
Col TrettnerCommander—
In this plan7,694

What the sources report

Great BritainGermany
Strength, this plan15,5577,695
Losses, this plan245374

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 450, “Ardea”, 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
Fortified defense
Front width
9 km (attacker), 9 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Great Britainattacker15,5572450104River crossing; Frontal attack; Penetration
Germanydefender7,695374064Defensive 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

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.