Schematic plan · World War II (European Theater)

Battle of Our River North

16 December 1944
Luxembourg
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 Lviii Pnz Corps, 16,000 men under Gen Krueger) attacked USA (US 112th Inf (+), 28th Id, 5,740 men under Col Nelson) in Luxembourg. The CAA Database of Battles records 24 hours of fighting on a front of 4 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense and prepared defense, and that Germany won. Losses: Germany 770 (5%), USA 700 (12%).

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 Krueger

Unit	Arm	Men
Germany left wing	Infantry	3,170
Germany centre	Infantry	4,227
Germany right wing	Infantry	3,170
Germany reserve	Infantry	2,642
Germany artillery (248 guns)	Artillery	2,400
Germany armour (78 tanks)	Armour	390
Gen Krueger	Commander	—
In this plan		15,999

USA

Col Nelson

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	1,166
USA centre	Infantry	1,555
USA right wing	Infantry	1,166
USA reserve	Infantry	972
USA artillery (59 guns)	Artillery	861
USA armour (4 tanks)	Armour	20
Col Nelson	Commander	—
In this plan		5,740

What the sources report

	Germany	USA
Strength, this plan	16,000	5,740
Losses, this plan	770	700

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 625, “Our River North”, 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 attacker
Terrain: Rugged, Heavily wooded
Weather: Dry, Cold, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense, Prepared defense
Front width: 4 km (attacker), 4 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Germanyattacker	16,000	770	0	248	Frontal attack; Repulse; Penetration
USAdefender	5,740	700	0	59	Defensive plan; 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. 625 · 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.