Schematic plan · World War II (Eastern Front)

Vistula River, Crossing, Phase I

29 July 1944
Poland
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 91st Rifle Corps, 12,700 men under Mg Volkov) attacked Germany (Ger 171st, 214th & 26th Inf Divs, 5,100 men under unrecorded commanders) in Poland. The CAA Database of Battles records 48 hours of fighting on a front of 10 km, a river crossing, frontal attack against prepared defense, and that USSR won. Losses: USSR 1,150 (9%), Germany 320 (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

Mg Volkov

Unit	Arm	Men
USSR left wing	Infantry	2,591
USSR centre	Infantry	3,454
USSR right wing	Infantry	2,591
USSR reserve	Infantry	2,159
USSR artillery (205 guns)	Artillery	1,905
Mg Volkov	Commander	—
In this plan		12,700

Germany

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	1,026
Germany centre	Infantry	1,368
Germany right wing	Infantry	1,026
Germany reserve	Infantry	855
Germany artillery (78 guns)	Artillery	765
Germany armour (12 tanks)	Armour	60
Germany command	Commander	—
In this plan		5,100

What the sources report

	USSR	Germany
Strength, this plan	12,700	5,100
Losses, this plan	1,150	320

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 508, “Vistula River, Crossing, Phase I”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 48 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense
Front width: 10 km (attacker), 10 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USSRattacker	12,700	1,150	0	205	River crossing; Frontal attack; Penetration
Germanydefender	5,100	320	0	78	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Double envelopment; Withdrew

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. 508 · 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.