Schematic plan · World War II (European Theater)

Battle of Seine River

23 August 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 20th Corps, 40,619 men under Mg Walker) attacked Germany (Ger 1st Army(-), 15,000 men under Gen Chevallerie) in France. The CAA Database of Battles records 48 hours of fighting on a front of 45 km, a river crossing against prepared defense, and that USA won. Losses: USA 234 (1%), Germany 906 (6%).

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 Walker

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	8,117
USA centre	Infantry	10,822
USA right wing	Infantry	8,117
USA reserve	Infantry	6,764
USA artillery (296 guns)	Artillery	4,440
USA armour (472 tanks)	Armour	2,360
Mg Walker	Commander	—
In this plan		40,620

Germany

Gen Chevallerie

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	3,266
Germany centre	Infantry	4,355
Germany right wing	Infantry	3,266
Germany reserve	Infantry	2,722
Germany artillery (80 guns)	Artillery	1,200
Germany armour (38 tanks)	Armour	190
Gen Chevallerie	Commander	—
In this plan		14,999

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	40,619	15,000
Losses, this plan	234	906

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 464, “Seine River”, 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: Wet, Light precipitation, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense
Front width: 45 km (attacker), 45 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	40,619	234	0	296	River crossing; Penetration
Germanydefender	15,000	906	0	80	Defensive plan; Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages morale +1 · logistics +1 · momentum +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. 464 · 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.