Schematic plan · World War II (European Theater)

Battle of St. Lo

11 July 1944
France
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 29th Inf Div(+), 18,228 men under Mg Gerhardt) attacked Germany (Ger 352nd Inf Div (Elms) & 3rd Para Div (Elms), 7,500 men under Gen Meindl) in France. The CAA Database of Battles records 168 hours of fighting on a front of 12 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that USA won. Losses: USA 2,777 (15%), Germany 2,350 (31%).

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 Gerhardt

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	3,814
USA centre	Infantry	5,086
USA right wing	Infantry	3,814
USA reserve	Infantry	3,179
USA artillery (120 guns)	Artillery	1,800
USA armour (107 tanks)	Armour	535
Mg Gerhardt	Commander	—
In this plan		18,228

Germany

Gen Meindl

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	1,502
Germany centre	Infantry	2,003
Germany right wing	Infantry	1,502
Germany reserve	Infantry	1,252
Germany artillery (84 guns)	Artillery	1,125
Germany armour (23 tanks)	Armour	115
Gen Meindl	Commander	—
In this plan		7,499

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	18,228	7,500
Losses, this plan	2,777	2,350

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 458, “St. Lo”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 168 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 12 km (attacker), 12 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	18,228	2,777	0	120	Frontal attack; Penetration
Germanydefender	7,500	2,350	0	84	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages logistics +1 · 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. 458 · 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.