Schematic plan · World War II (Okinawa)

Battle of Ciechanow (Phase II)

15 January 1945
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 90th Rifle Div, 12,115 men under Gen Lyashchenko) attacked Germany (Ger 7th Inf Div, 3,900 men under unrecorded commanders) in Poland. The CAA Database of Battles records 12 hours of fighting on a front of 2.5 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that USSR won. Losses: USSR 850 (7%), Germany 230 (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

Gen Lyashchenko

Unit	Arm	Men
USSR left wing	Infantry	2,243
USSR centre	Infantry	2,991
USSR right wing	Infantry	2,243
USSR reserve	Infantry	1,870
USSR artillery (414 guns)	Artillery	1,817
USSR armour (190 tanks)	Armour	950
Gen Lyashchenko	Commander	—
In this plan		12,114

Germany

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	757
Germany centre	Infantry	1,010
Germany right wing	Infantry	757
Germany reserve	Infantry	631
Germany artillery (84 guns)	Artillery	585
Germany armour (32 tanks)	Armour	160
Germany command	Commander	—
In this plan		3,900

What the sources report

	USSR	Germany
Strength, this plan	12,115	3,900
Losses, this plan	850	230

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 514, “Ciechanow (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: 12 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling
Weather: Wet, Light precipitation, Cold, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 2.5 km (attacker), 2.5 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USSRattacker	12,115	850	0	414	Frontal attack; Penetration
Germanydefender	3,900	230	0	84	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages morale +1 · momentum +1 · initiative +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. 514 · 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.