Schematic plan · World War II (European Theater)

Battle of Schmidt

2 November 1944
Germany
Victory for Germany

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 28th Inf Div(+), 20,493 men under Mg Cota) attacked Germany (Ger 74th Corps(-), 20,250 men under Gen Straube) in Germany. The CAA Database of Battles records 264 hours of fighting on a front of 9.5 km, a river crossing, frontal attack against fortified defense, and that Germany held. Losses: USA 3,683 (18%), Germany 3,000 (15%).

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 Cota

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	4,226
USA centre	Infantry	5,635
USA right wing	Infantry	4,226
USA reserve	Infantry	3,522
USA artillery (162 guns)	Artillery	2,430
USA armour (91 tanks)	Armour	455
Mg Cota	Commander	—
In this plan		20,494

Germany

Gen Straube

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	4,396
Germany centre	Infantry	5,861
Germany right wing	Infantry	4,396
Germany reserve	Infantry	3,663
Germany artillery (107 guns)	Artillery	1,605
Germany armour (66 tanks)	Armour	330
Gen Straube	Commander	—
In this plan		20,251

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	20,493	20,250
Losses, this plan	3,683	3,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 469, “Schmidt”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 264 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Wet, Light precipitation, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 9.5 km (attacker), 9.5 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	20,493	3,683	0	162	River crossing; Frontal attack; Penetration; Repulse
Germanydefender	20,250	3,000	0	107	Defensive/offensive plan; Double envelopment; Frontal attack; Penetration

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. 469 · 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.