Schematic plan · World War II (Eastern Front)

Battle of Oboyan-Kursk (Phase III)

11 July 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.

Germany (Ger 48th Pz Corps, 56,000 men under Gen Knobelsdorff) attacked USSR (Sov 6th Gds Army(+), 129,000 men under Gen Chistyakov) in USSR. The CAA Database of Battles records 96 hours of fighting on a front of 25 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense and fortified defense, and that USSR held. Losses: Germany 2,900 (5%), USSR 30,200 (23%).

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

Germany

Gen Knobelsdorff

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	12,031
Germany centre	Infantry	16,042
Germany right wing	Infantry	12,031
Germany reserve	Infantry	10,026
Germany artillery (323 guns)	Artillery	4,845
Germany armour (205 tanks)	Armour	1,025
Gen Knobelsdorff	Commander	—
In this plan		56,000

USSR

Gen Chistyakov

Unit	Arm	Men
USSR left wing	Infantry	25,944
USSR centre	Infantry	34,592
USSR right wing	Infantry	25,944
USSR reserve	Infantry	21,620
USSR artillery (1,490 guns)	Artillery	19,350
USSR armour (310 tanks)	Armour	1,550
Gen Chistyakov	Commander	—
In this plan		129,000

What the sources report

	Germany	USSR
Strength, this plan	56,000	129,000
Losses, this plan	2,900	30,200

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 496, “Oboyan-Kursk (Phase Iii)”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 96 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense, Fortified defense
Front width: 25 km (attacker), 25 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Germanyattacker	56,000	2,900	0	323	Frontal attack; Penetration; Repulse; Stalemate
USSRdefender	129,000	30,200	0	1,490	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · training +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. 496 · 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.