Schematic plan · World War II (European Theater)

Battle of Bowling Alley I

16 February 1944
Italy
Victory for USA

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.

Germany (Ger Lxxvi Pnz Corps (-), 14,600 men under Gen Mackenson) attacked USA (US 2nd/157th Inf (+), 45th Id, 4,500 men under Col Brown) in Italy. The CAA Database of Battles records 72 hours of fighting on a front of 2 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense and fortified defense, and that USA held. Losses: Germany 1,129 (8%), USA 442 (10%).

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

Germany

Gen Mackenson

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	3,096
Germany centre	Infantry	4,128
Germany right wing	Infantry	3,096
Germany reserve	Infantry	2,580
Germany artillery (100 guns)	Artillery	1,500
Germany armour (40 tanks)	Armour	200
Gen Mackenson	Commander	—
In this plan		14,600

USA

Col Brown

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	874
USA centre	Infantry	1,165
USA right wing	Infantry	874
USA reserve	Infantry	728
USA artillery (70 guns)	Artillery	675
USA armour (37 tanks)	Armour	185
Col Brown	Commander	—
In this plan		4,501

What the sources report

	Germany	USA
Strength, this plan	14,600	4,500
Losses, this plan	1,129	442

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 609, “Bowling Alley I”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 72 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Flat, Bare
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense, Fortified defense
Front width: 2 km (attacker), 2 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Germanyattacker	14,600	1,129	0	100	Frontal attack; Repulse; Penetration; Stalemate
USAdefender	4,500	442	0	70	Defensive plan; Withdrew; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages momentum +1 · initiative +1 · surprise +2

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. 609 · 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.