Schematic plan · World War II

Battle of Schmidt II

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 110th Inf (+), 28th Id, 4,350 men under Col Seely) attacked Germany (Ger Lxxiv Corps (-), 3,450 men under Gen Straube) in Germany. The CAA Database of Battles records 24 hours of fighting on a front of 2 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense and fortified defense, and that Germany held. Losses: USA 163 (4%), Germany 100 (3%).

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 Seely

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	887
USA centre	Infantry	1,183
USA right wing	Infantry	887
USA reserve	Infantry	740
USA artillery (53 guns)	Artillery	653
Col Seely	Commander	—
In this plan		4,350

Germany

Gen Straube

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	704
Germany centre	Infantry	938
Germany right wing	Infantry	704
Germany reserve	Infantry	587
Germany artillery (38 guns)	Artillery	518
Gen Straube	Commander	—
In this plan		3,451

What the sources report

	USA	Germany
Strength, this plan	4,350	3,450
Losses, this plan	163	100

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 615, “Schmidt Ii”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 24 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Rugged, Heavily wooded
Weather: Wet, Light precipitation, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense, Fortified defense
Front width: 2 km (attacker), 2 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	4,350	163	0	53	Frontal attack; Repulse; Penetration; Stalemate
Germanydefender	3,450	100	0	38	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Repulse

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. 615 · 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.