Schematic plan · World War II (Eastern Front)

Battle of Pogoreloye Gorodishche

4 August 1942
USSR
Victory for USSR

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.

USSR (Sov 20th Combined Arms Army, 54,180 men under Gen Reyter) attacked Germany (Ger 9th Army, 12,035 men under Gen Model) in USSR. The CAA Database of Battles records 117.3 hours of fighting on a front of 36 km, a frontal attack, single envelopment, river crossing against prepared defense and fortified defense, and that USSR won. Losses: USSR 21,327 (39%), Germany 6,534 (54%).

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

USSR

Gen Reyter

Unit	Arm	Men
USSR left wing	Infantry	10,406
USSR centre	Infantry	13,875
USSR right wing	Infantry	10,406
USSR reserve	Infantry	8,672
USSR artillery (876 guns)	Artillery	8,127
USSR armour (539 tanks)	Armour	2,695
Gen Reyter	Commander	—
In this plan		54,181

Germany

Gen Model

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	2,146
Germany centre	Infantry	2,861
Germany right wing	Infantry	2,146
Germany reserve	Infantry	1,788
Germany artillery (366 guns)	Artillery	1,805
Germany armour (258 tanks)	Armour	1,290
Gen Model	Commander	—
In this plan		12,036

What the sources report

	USSR	Germany
Strength, this plan	54,180	12,035
Losses, this plan	21,327	6,534

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 491, “Pogoreloye Gorodishche”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 117.3 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Flat, Heavily wooded
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense, Fortified defense
Front width: 36 km (attacker), 36 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USSRattacker	54,180	21,327	0	876	Frontal attack; Single envelopment; River crossing; Penetration
Germanydefender	12,035	6,534	0	366	Defensive/offensive plan; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages surprise +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, and which flank the envelopment fell on is a guess. 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. 491 · 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.