Schematic plan · World War II (Eastern Front)

Battle of Melitopol

26 September 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 4th Ukranian Ag, 524,724 men under Gen Tolbukhin) attacked Germany (Ger 6th Field Army, 210,000 men under Gen Hollidt) in USSR. The CAA Database of Battles records 960 hours of fighting on a front of 111 km, a frontal attack, river crossing, single envelopment against fortified defense, and that USSR won. Losses: USSR 79,000 (15%), Germany 36,500 (17%).

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 Tolbukhin

Unit	Arm	Men
USSR left wing	Infantry	112,580
USSR centre	Infantry	150,107
USSR right wing	Infantry	112,580
USSR reserve	Infantry	93,817
USSR artillery (3,450 guns)	Artillery	51,750
USSR armour (778 tanks)	Armour	3,890
Gen Tolbukhin	Commander	—
In this plan		524,724

Germany

Gen Hollidt

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	45,360
Germany centre	Infantry	60,480
Germany right wing	Infantry	45,360
Germany reserve	Infantry	37,800
Germany artillery (1,300 guns)	Artillery	19,500
Germany armour (300 tanks)	Armour	1,500
Gen Hollidt	Commander	—
In this plan		210,000

What the sources report

	USSR	Germany
Strength, this plan	524,724	210,000
Losses, this plan	79,000	36,500

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 500, “Melitopol”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 960 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 111 km (attacker), 111 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USSRattacker	524,724	79,000	0	3,450	Frontal attack; River crossing; Single envelopment; Breakthrough
Germanydefender	210,000	36,500	0	1,300	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages logistics +1 · momentum +1 · intelligence +1 · 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, 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. 500 · 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.