Schematic plan · World War II

Battle of Rapido South I

20 January 1944
Italy
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 143rd Rct (+), 36th Inf Div, 7,700 men under Col Martin) attacked Germany (Ger 3rd/104th Pgr, 15th Pgd, 1,800 men under Gen Rodt) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 12 hours of fighting on a front of 1 km, a frontal attack, river crossing against fortified defense, and that Germany held. Losses: USA 162 (2%), Germany 13 (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 Martin

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	1,553
USA centre	Infantry	2,070
USA right wing	Infantry	1,553
USA reserve	Infantry	1,294
USA artillery (122 guns)	Artillery	1,155
USA armour (15 tanks)	Armour	75
Col Martin	Commander	—
In this plan		7,700

Germany

Gen Rodt

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	350
Germany centre	Infantry	467
Germany right wing	Infantry	350
Germany reserve	Infantry	292
Germany artillery (42 guns)	Artillery	270
Germany armour (14 tanks)	Armour	70
Gen Rodt	Commander	—
In this plan		1,799

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	7,700	1,800
Losses, this plan	162	13

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 607, “Rapido South I”, 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: Wet, Cold, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 1 km (attacker), 1 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	7,700	162	0	122	Frontal attack; River crossing; Penetration; Stalemate; Withdrew
Germanydefender	1,800	13	0	42	Defensive/offensive plan; Single envelopment; Penetration

Attacker’s advantages 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. 607 · 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.