Schematic plan · World War II (Eastern Front)

Leningrad (Operation Spark)

12 January 1943
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 2nd Assault Army(+), 120,000 men under Gen Romanovskiy) attacked Germany (Ger 18th Army(-), 30,000 men under Gen Lindemann) in USSR. The CAA Database of Battles records 144 hours of fighting on a front of 13 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that USSR won. Losses: USSR 28,000 (23%), Germany 4,150 (14%).

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 Romanovskiy

Unit	Arm	Men
USSR left wing	Infantry	24,198
USSR centre	Infantry	32,264
USSR right wing	Infantry	24,198
USSR reserve	Infantry	20,165
USSR artillery (1,173 guns)	Artillery	17,595
USSR armour (316 tanks)	Armour	1,580
Gen Romanovskiy	Commander	—
In this plan		120,000

Germany

Gen Lindemann

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	6,521
Germany centre	Infantry	8,694
Germany right wing	Infantry	6,521
Germany reserve	Infantry	5,434
Germany artillery (182 guns)	Artillery	2,730
Germany armour (20 tanks)	Armour	100
Gen Lindemann	Commander	—
In this plan		30,000

What the sources report

	USSR	Germany
Strength, this plan	120,000	30,000
Losses, this plan	28,000	4,150

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 492, “Leningrad (Operation Spark)”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 144 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Wet, Light precipitation, Cold, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 13 km (attacker), 13 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USSRattacker	120,000	28,000	0	1,173	Frontal attack; Breakthrough
Germanydefender	30,000	4,150	0	182	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · training +1 · morale +2 · logistics +1 · initiative +2

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. 492 · 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.