Schematic plan · World War II (Okinawa)

Battle of East Prussia

13 January 1945
Germany
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 2nd Byelorussian Ag(+), 1,220,000 men under Marshal Rokossovskiy) attacked Germany (Ger Ag Center, 780,000 men under Gen Reinhardt) in Germany. The CAA Database of Battles records 432 hours of fighting on a front of 500 km, a frontal attack, double envelopment against fortified defense, and that USSR won. Losses: USSR 112,000 (9%), Germany 126,000 (16%).

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

Marshal Rokossovskiy

Unit	Arm	Men
USSR left wing	Infantry	246,438
USSR centre	Infantry	328,584
USSR right wing	Infantry	246,438
USSR reserve	Infantry	205,365
USSR artillery (15,540 guns)	Artillery	183,000
USSR armour (2,035 tanks)	Armour	10,175
Marshal Rokossovskiy	Commander	—
In this plan		1,220,000

Germany

Gen Reinhardt

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	165,696
Germany centre	Infantry	220,928
Germany right wing	Infantry	165,696
Germany reserve	Infantry	138,080
Germany artillery (5,740 guns)	Artillery	86,100
Germany armour (700 tanks)	Armour	3,500
Gen Reinhardt	Commander	—
In this plan		780,000

What the sources report

	USSR	Germany
Strength, this plan	1,220,000	780,000
Losses, this plan	112,000	126,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 512, “East Prussia”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 432 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Wet, Light precipitation, Cold, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 500 km (attacker), 500 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USSRattacker	1,220,000	112,000	0	15,540	Frontal attack; Double envelopment; Breakthrough
Germanydefender	780,000	126,000	0	5,740	Defensive/offensive plan; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages training +2 · morale +2 · logistics +2 · momentum +1 · technology +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. 512 · 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.