Schematic plan · World War II

Battle of Schmidt I

2 November 1944
Germany
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 112th Inf (+), 28th Id, 6,200 men under Col Peterson) attacked Germany (Ger Lxxiv Corps (-), 5,025 men under Gen Straube) in Germany. The CAA Database of Battles records 72 hours of fighting on a front of 1.7 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense and fortified defense, and that Germany held. Losses: USA 640 (10%), Germany 850 (17%).

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 Peterson

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	1,212
USA centre	Infantry	1,616
USA right wing	Infantry	1,212
USA reserve	Infantry	1,010
USA artillery (71 guns)	Artillery	930
USA armour (44 tanks)	Armour	220
Col Peterson	Commander	—
In this plan		6,200

Germany

Gen Straube

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	997
Germany centre	Infantry	1,330
Germany right wing	Infantry	997
Germany reserve	Infantry	831
Germany artillery (38 guns)	Artillery	570
Germany armour (60 tanks)	Armour	300
Gen Straube	Commander	—
In this plan		5,025

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	6,200	5,025
Losses, this plan	640	850

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 614, “Schmidt 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: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Wet, Light precipitation, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense, Fortified defense
Front width: 1.7 km (attacker), 1.7 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	6,200	640	0	71	Frontal attack; Penetration; Repulse; Withdrew with heavy losses
Germanydefender	5,025	850	0	38	Defensive/offensive plan; Double 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. 614 · 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.