Schematic plan · World War II (Eastern Front)

Battle of Nikopol Bridgehead

31 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 109th Rifle Div(+), 25,100 men under unrecorded commanders) attacked Germany (Ger 335th Inf Div(+), 8,230 men under unrecorded commanders) in USSR. The CAA Database of Battles records 120 hours of fighting on a front of 12 km, a frontal attack, river crossing against fortified defense, and that USSR won. Losses: USSR 610 (2%), Germany 480 (6%).

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

Unit	Arm	Men
USSR left wing	Infantry	5,293
USSR centre	Infantry	7,058
USSR right wing	Infantry	5,293
USSR reserve	Infantry	4,411
USSR artillery (201 guns)	Artillery	3,015
USSR armour (6 tanks)	Armour	30
USSR command	Commander	—
In this plan		25,100

Germany

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	1,817
Germany centre	Infantry	2,422
Germany right wing	Infantry	1,817
Germany reserve	Infantry	1,514
Germany artillery (44 guns)	Artillery	660
Germany command	Commander	—
In this plan		8,230

What the sources report

	USSR	Germany
Strength, this plan	25,100	8,230
Losses, this plan	610	480

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 502, “Nikopol Bridgehead”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 120 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Wet, Light precipitation, Cold, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 12 km (attacker), 12 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USSRattacker	25,100	610	0	201	Frontal attack; River crossing; Breakthrough
Germanydefender	8,230	480	0	44	Defensive plan; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages morale +2 · logistics +2 · momentum +1 · intelligence +2 · initiative +1 · air superiority +1 · combat effectiveness +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. 502 · 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.