Schematic plan · World War II (Eastern Front)

Battle of Sevastopol

5 May 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 4th Ukranian Ag, 397,607 men under Gen Tolbukhin) attacked Germany (Ger 17th Field Army, 72,000 men under Gen Allmendinger) in USSR. The CAA Database of Battles records 96 hours of fighting on a front of 25 km, a frontal attack, double envelopment against fortified defense, and that USSR won. Losses: USSR 35,500 (9%), Germany 48,500 (67%).

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	80,834
USSR centre	Infantry	107,778
USSR right wing	Infantry	80,834
USSR reserve	Infantry	67,361
USSR artillery (3,890 guns)	Artillery	58,350
USSR armour (490 tanks)	Armour	2,450
Gen Tolbukhin	Commander	—
In this plan		397,607

Germany

Gen Allmendinger

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	14,628
Germany centre	Infantry	19,504
Germany right wing	Infantry	14,628
Germany reserve	Infantry	12,190
Germany artillery (1,050 guns)	Artillery	10,800
Germany armour (50 tanks)	Armour	250
Gen Allmendinger	Commander	—
In this plan		72,000

What the sources report

	USSR	Germany
Strength, this plan	397,607	72,000
Losses, this plan	35,500	48,500

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 503, “Sevastopol”, 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 attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 25 km (attacker), 25 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USSRattacker	397,607	35,500	0	3,890	Frontal attack; Double envelopment; Breakthrough
Germanydefender	72,000	48,500	0	1,050	Defensive plan; Annihilated

Attacker’s advantages leadership +2 · training +2 · morale +2 · logistics +2 · momentum +1 · intelligence +2 · initiative +2 · 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. 503 · 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.