Schematic plan · World War II (European Theater)

Battle of Westwall

2 October 1944
Germany
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 19th Corps, 32,283 men under Mg Corlett) attacked Germany (Ger 81st Corps, 19,632 men under Gen Koechling) in Germany. The CAA Database of Battles records 65.1 hours of fighting on a front of 12.5 km, a river crossing, frontal attack against fortified defense, and that USA won. Losses: USA 1,477 (5%), Germany 3,616 (18%).

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 Corlett

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	6,531
USA centre	Infantry	8,708
USA right wing	Infantry	6,531
USA reserve	Infantry	5,443
USA artillery (234 guns)	Artillery	3,510
USA armour (312 tanks)	Armour	1,560
Mg Corlett	Commander	—
In this plan		32,283

Germany

Gen Koechling

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	4,218
Germany centre	Infantry	5,625
Germany right wing	Infantry	4,218
Germany reserve	Infantry	3,515
Germany artillery (116 guns)	Artillery	1,740
Germany armour (63 tanks)	Armour	315
Gen Koechling	Commander	—
In this plan		19,631

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	32,283	19,632
Losses, this plan	1,477	3,616

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 468, “Westwall”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 65.1 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Wet, Light precipitation, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 12.5 km (attacker), 12.5 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	32,283	1,477	0	234	River crossing; Frontal attack; Penetration
Germanydefender	19,632	3,616	0	116	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Penetration; Repulse; 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

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 468 · 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.