Schematic plan · World War II

Battle of Sidi Bou Zid II

15 February 1943
Tunisia
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.

USA (US Cc C, 1st Armd Div, 2,738 men under Col Stack) attacked Germany (Ger Elms 10th and 21st Pd, 8,380 men under Gen Ziegler) in Tunisia. The CAA Database of Battles records 12 hours of fighting on a front of 4 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Germany held. Losses: USA 367 (13%), Germany 50 (1%).

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

Col Stack

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	484
USA centre	Infantry	646
USA right wing	Infantry	484
USA reserve	Infantry	404
USA artillery (26 guns)	Artillery	390
USA armour (66 tanks)	Armour	330
Col Stack	Commander	—
In this plan		2,738

Germany

Gen Ziegler

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	1,723
Germany centre	Infantry	2,298
Germany right wing	Infantry	1,723
Germany reserve	Infantry	1,436
Germany artillery (35 guns)	Artillery	525
Germany armour (135 tanks)	Armour	675
Gen Ziegler	Commander	—
In this plan		8,380

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	2,738	8,380
Losses, this plan	367	50

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 603, “Sidi Bou Zid 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 defender
Terrain: Flat, Bare
Weather: Dry, Cold, Winter, Desert
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 4 km (attacker), 4 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	2,738	367	0	26	Frontal attack; Penetration; Repulse; Withdrew with heavy losses
Germanydefender	8,380	50	0	35	Defensive/offensive plan; Double envelopment; Penetration

Attacker’s advantages none recorded

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. 603 · 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.