Schematic plan · World War II (European Theater)

Battle of Schnee Eifel North I

16 December 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.

Germany (Ger 18th Vgdiv (-)(+), 14,300 men under Col Hoffman-Schonborn) attacked USA (US 14th Cav Grp (+), 2,050 men under Col Devine) in Germany. The CAA Database of Battles records 12 hours of fighting on a front of 6 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Germany won. Losses: Germany 50 (0%), USA 127 (6%).

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

Col Hoffman-Schonborn

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	2,857
Germany centre	Infantry	3,810
Germany right wing	Infantry	2,857
Germany reserve	Infantry	2,381
Germany artillery (160 guns)	Artillery	2,145
Germany armour (50 tanks)	Armour	250
Col Hoffman-Schonborn	Commander	—
In this plan		14,300

USA

Col Devine

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	377
USA centre	Infantry	503
USA right wing	Infantry	377
USA reserve	Infantry	315
USA artillery (46 guns)	Artillery	308
USA armour (34 tanks)	Armour	170
Col Devine	Commander	—
In this plan		2,050

What the sources report

	Germany	USA
Strength, this plan	14,300	2,050
Losses, this plan	50	127

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 622, “Schnee Eifel North 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 attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Cold, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 6 km (attacker), 6 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Germanyattacker	14,300	50	0	160	Frontal attack; Penetration; Breakthrough
USAdefender	2,050	127	0	46	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages momentum +1 · intelligence +2 · initiative +1 · surprise +3

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. 622 · 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.