Schematic plan · World War II (Eastern Front)

Battle of Berezina River

25 June 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 3rd Gds Mech Corps, 16,100 men under Lg Obukhov) attacked Germany (Ger 299th Inf Div(+), 8,500 men under unrecorded commanders) in USSR. The CAA Database of Battles records 96 hours of fighting on a front of 10 km, a frontal attack, double envelopment against hasty defense, and that USSR won. Losses: USSR 670 (4%), Germany 4,795 (56%).

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

Lg Obukhov

Unit	Arm	Men
USSR left wing	Infantry	3,049
USSR centre	Infantry	4,066
USSR right wing	Infantry	3,049
USSR reserve	Infantry	2,541
USSR artillery (215 guns)	Artillery	2,415
USSR armour (196 tanks)	Armour	980
Lg Obukhov	Commander	—
In this plan		16,100

Germany

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	1,727
Germany centre	Infantry	2,302
Germany right wing	Infantry	1,727
Germany reserve	Infantry	1,439
Germany artillery (82 guns)	Artillery	1,230
Germany armour (15 tanks)	Armour	75
Germany command	Commander	—
In this plan		8,500

What the sources report

	USSR	Germany
Strength, this plan	16,100	8,500
Losses, this plan	670	4,795

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 504, “Berezina River”, 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: Flat, Heavily wooded, Marsh or swamp
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 10 km (attacker), 10 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USSRattacker	16,100	670	0	215	Frontal attack; Double envelopment; Breakthrough
Germanydefender	8,500	4,795	0	82	Defensive plan; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages morale +1 · momentum +1 · initiative +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. 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. 504 · 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.