Schematic plan · World War II (European Theater)

Battle of Moselle-Metz

6 September 1944
France
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 20th Corps, 59,631 men under Mg Walker) attacked Germany (Ger 1st Army(-), 41,500 men under Gen Knobelsdorf) in France. The CAA Database of Battles records 120 hours of fighting on a front of 25 km, a river crossing against delaying action, and that neither side won. Losses: USA 1,647 (3%), Germany 1,700 (4%).

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	11,737
USA centre	Infantry	15,650
USA right wing	Infantry	11,737
USA reserve	Infantry	9,781
USA artillery (520 guns)	Artillery	7,800
USA armour (585 tanks)	Armour	2,925
Mg Walker	Commander	—
In this plan		59,630

Germany

Gen Knobelsdorf

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	8,875
Germany centre	Infantry	11,834
Germany right wing	Infantry	8,875
Germany reserve	Infantry	7,396
Germany artillery (248 guns)	Artillery	3,720
Germany armour (160 tanks)	Armour	800
Gen Knobelsdorf	Commander	—
In this plan		41,500

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	59,631	41,500
Losses, this plan	1,647	1,700

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 465, “Moselle-Metz”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 120 hours
Winner: the draw
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Wet, Light precipitation, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Delaying action
Front width: 25 km (attacker), 25 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	59,631	1,647	0	520	River crossing; Repulse; Repulse; Stalemate
Germanydefender	41,500	1,700	0	248	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Repulse; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages 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. 465 · 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.