Schematic plan · World War II (Eastern Front)

Battle of Vistula River, Pulawy, Phase II

2 August 1944
Poland
Victory for Germany

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, 17,550 men under Mg Volkov) attacked Germany (Ger 171st, 214th & 17th Inf Divs, 6,400 men under unrecorded commanders) in Poland. The CAA Database of Battles records 120 hours of fighting on a front of 12 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense, and that Germany held. Losses: USSR 3,040 (17%), Germany 785 (12%).

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	3,539
USSR centre	Infantry	4,719
USSR right wing	Infantry	3,539
USSR reserve	Infantry	2,950
USSR artillery (308 guns)	Artillery	2,633
USSR armour (34 tanks)	Armour	170
Mg Volkov	Commander	—
In this plan		17,550

Germany

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	1,277
Germany centre	Infantry	1,702
Germany right wing	Infantry	1,277
Germany reserve	Infantry	1,064
Germany artillery (156 guns)	Artillery	960
Germany armour (24 tanks)	Armour	120
Germany command	Commander	—
In this plan		6,400

What the sources report

	USSR	Germany
Strength, this plan	17,550	6,400
Losses, this plan	3,040	785

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 509, “Vistula River, Pulawy, Phase Ii”, 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 defender
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense
Front width: 12 km (attacker), 12 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USSRattacker	17,550	3,040	0	308	Frontal attack; Repulse
Germanydefender	6,400	785	0	156	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. 509 · 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.