Schematic plan · World War II

Battle of Jitra

12 December 1941
Malaya
Victory for Japan

All battles The event in the chronicle Wikipedia

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.

Japan (Jap 5th Inf Div(-), 7,000 men under Lg Matsui) attacked Great Britain (Br 11th Indian Div, 12,000 men under Mg Murray-Lyon) in Malaya. The CAA Database of Battles records 15 hours of fighting on a front of 8 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense and prepared defense, and that Japan won. Losses: Japan 600 (9%), Great Britain 1,200 (10%).

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

Japan

Lg Matsui

Unit	Arm	Men
Japan left wing	Infantry	1,445
Japan centre	Infantry	1,926
Japan right wing	Infantry	1,445
Japan reserve	Infantry	1,204
Japan artillery (52 guns)	Artillery	780
Japan armour (40 tanks)	Armour	200
Lg Matsui	Commander	—
In this plan		7,000

Great Britain

Mg Murray-Lyon

Unit	Arm	Men
Great Britain left wing	Infantry	2,678
Great Britain centre	Infantry	3,571
Great Britain right wing	Infantry	2,678
Great Britain reserve	Infantry	2,232
Great Britain artillery (56 guns)	Artillery	840
Mg Murray-Lyon	Commander	—
In this plan		11,999

What the sources report

	Japan	Great Britain
Strength, this plan	7,000	12,000
Losses, this plan	600	1,200

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 487, “Jitra”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 15 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Heavily wooded
Weather: Wet, Heavy precipitation, Hot, Winter, Tropical
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense, Prepared defense
Front width: 8 km (attacker), 8 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Japanattacker	7,000	600	0	52	Frontal attack; Repulse; Breakthrough
Great Britaindefender	12,000	1,200	0	56	Defensive plan; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · training +2 · morale +1 · momentum +1 · initiative +1 · surprise +1 · air superiority +1 · combat effectiveness +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. 487 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Jitra · CC-BY-SA-4.0

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.