Schematic plan · World War II (Eastern Front)

Battle of Korsun-Schevchenkovskiy

24 January 1944
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 First Ukrainian Ag(+), 254,950 men under Gen Vatutin) attacked Germany (Ger 1st Pz Army(-)(+), 84,500 men under Gen Stemmerman) in USSR. The CAA Database of Battles records 576 hours of fighting on a front of 180 km, a double envelopment against prepared defense and fortified defense, and that USSR won. Losses: USSR 63,500 (25%), Germany 68,000 (80%).

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 Vatutin

Unit	Arm	Men
USSR left wing	Infantry	51,469
USSR centre	Infantry	68,625
USSR right wing	Infantry	51,469
USSR reserve	Infantry	42,891
USSR artillery (2,650 guns)	Artillery	38,243
USSR armour (451 tanks)	Armour	2,255
Gen Vatutin	Commander	—
In this plan		254,952

Germany

Gen Stemmerman

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	17,024
Germany centre	Infantry	22,699
Germany right wing	Infantry	17,024
Germany reserve	Infantry	14,187
Germany artillery (828 guns)	Artillery	12,420
Germany armour (229 tanks)	Armour	1,145
Gen Stemmerman	Commander	—
In this plan		84,499

What the sources report

	USSR	Germany
Strength, this plan	254,950	84,500
Losses, this plan	63,500	68,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 501, “Korsun-Schevchenkovskiy”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 576 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Wet, Heavy precipitation, Cold, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense, Fortified defense
Front width: 180 km (attacker), 180 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USSRattacker	254,950	63,500	0	2,650	Double envelopment; Breakthrough
Germanydefender	84,500	68,000	0	828	Defensive/offensive plan; Annihilated

Attacker’s advantages morale +1 · logistics +1 · momentum +1 · intelligence +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. 501 · 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.