Schematic plan · World War II (Okinawa)

Yaeju-Dake

12 June 1945
Okinawa
Victory for USA

All battles Battle of Okinawa: engagement 26 of 28 The event in the chronicle Wikipedia

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.

One of the 28 engagements of the Battle of Okinawa recorded in the CAA Database of Battles (number 26 in date order). USA (US 7th Inf Div(+), 5,237 men under Mg Arnold) attacked Japan (Jap 44th Ind Mixed Bde(-), 2,500 men under Lg Ushijima) in Okinawa. The CAA Database of Battles records 12 hours of fighting on a front of 1.5 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that USA won. Losses: USA 48 (1%), Japan 2,401 (96%).

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

USA

Mg Arnold

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	1,020
USA centre	Infantry	1,360
USA right wing	Infantry	1,020
USA reserve	Infantry	850
USA artillery (53 guns)	Artillery	786
USA armour (40 tanks)	Armour	200
Mg Arnold	Commander	—
In this plan		5,236

Japan

Lg Ushijima

Unit	Arm	Men
Japan left wing	Infantry	578
Japan centre	Infantry	771
Japan right wing	Infantry	578
Japan reserve	Infantry	482
Japan artillery (6 guns)	Artillery	90
Lg Ushijima	Commander	—
In this plan		2,499

What the sources report

	USA	Japan
Strength, this plan	5,237	2,500
Losses, this plan	48	2,401

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 536, “Yaeju-Dake”, 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: Rugged, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 1.5 km (attacker), 1.5 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	5,237	48	0	53	Frontal attack; Penetration; Stalemate
Japandefender	2,500	2,401	0	6	Defensive plan

Attacker’s advantages morale +1 · initiative +1 · air superiority +1 · combat effectiveness +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. 536 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Okinawa · CC-BY-SA-4.0

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.