Schematic plan · World War II (Italy 1944)

Battle of Via Anziate

1 June 1944
Italy
Draw

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 45th Inf Div(+), 23,604 men under Mg Eagles) attacked Germany (Ger 65th Inf Div(2/3)(+), 19,255 men under Mg Ziehlberg) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 30.2 hours of fighting on a front of 4 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that neither side won. Losses: USA 316 (1%), Germany 884 (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

USA

Mg Eagles

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	5,042
USA centre	Infantry	6,723
USA right wing	Infantry	5,042
USA reserve	Infantry	4,202
USA artillery (121 guns)	Artillery	1,815
USA armour (156 tanks)	Armour	780
Mg Eagles	Commander	—
In this plan		23,604

Germany

Mg Ziehlberg

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	3,886
Germany centre	Infantry	5,181
Germany right wing	Infantry	3,886
Germany reserve	Infantry	3,238
Germany artillery (202 guns)	Artillery	2,888
Germany armour (35 tanks)	Armour	175
Mg Ziehlberg	Commander	—
In this plan		19,254

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	23,604	19,255
Losses, this plan	316	884

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 454, “Via Anziate”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 30.2 hours
Winner: the draw
Terrain: Rolling, Bare
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 4 km (attacker), 4 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	23,604	316	0	121	Frontal attack; Penetration; Repulse; Stalemate
Germanydefender	19,255	884	0	202	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Repulse

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. 454 · 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.