Schematic plan · World War II (Okinawa)

Attack on Shuri Line's Eastern Flank II

14 May 1945
Okinawa
Draw

All battles Battle of Okinawa: engagement 16 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 16 in date order). USA (US 96th Div(+), 20,973 men under Mg Bradley) attacked Japan (Jap 24th Inf Div(-)(+), 4,757 men under Lg Amamiya) in Okinawa. The CAA Database of Battles records 96 hours of fighting on a front of 2.5 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that neither side won. Losses: USA 590 (3%), Japan 4,328 (91%).

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 Bradley

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	4,124
USA centre	Infantry	5,498
USA right wing	Infantry	4,124
USA reserve	Infantry	3,436
USA artillery (210 guns)	Artillery	3,146
USA armour (129 tanks)	Armour	645
Mg Bradley	Commander	—
In this plan		20,973

Japan

Lg Amamiya

Unit	Arm	Men
Japan left wing	Infantry	1,019
Japan centre	Infantry	1,359
Japan right wing	Infantry	1,019
Japan reserve	Infantry	849
Japan artillery (34 guns)	Artillery	510
Lg Amamiya	Commander	—
In this plan		4,756

What the sources report

	USA	Japan
Strength, this plan	20,973	4,757
Losses, this plan	590	4,328

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 544, “Attack On Shuri Line'S Eastern Flank Ii”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 96 hours
Winner: the draw
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 2.5 km (attacker), 2.5 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	20,973	590	0	210	Frontal attack; Penetration; Stalemate
Japandefender	4,757	4,328	0	34	Defensive plan

Attacker’s advantages technology +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. 544 · 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.