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Schematic plan · War of the Second Coalition

Battle of Stockach (1799)

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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.
Rugged, Heavily wooded groundCentreCentreLeft wingRight wingLeft wingRight wingReserveReserveHorseHorseHorseHorseArchduke Charles05 km10 kmN

France (Fr Army, 38,000 men under Jourdan) attacked Austria (Aus Army, 50,000 men under Archduke Charles) in Germany. The CAA Database of Battles records 15 hours of fighting on a front of 17 km, a frontal attack, single envelopment against hasty defense, and that Austria held. Losses: France 4,500 (12%), Austria 6,000 (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

France

Jourdan

UnitArmMen
France left wingInfantry7,920
France centreInfantry10,560
France right wingInfantry7,920
France reserveInfantry6,600
France cavalry of the leftCavalry2,500
France cavalry of the rightCavalry2,500
JourdanCommander—
In this plan38,000

Austria

Archduke Charles

UnitArmMen
Austria left wingInfantry9,120
Austria centreInfantry12,160
Austria right wingInfantry9,120
Austria reserveInfantry7,600
Austria cavalry of the leftCavalry6,000
Austria cavalry of the rightCavalry6,000
Archduke CharlesCommander—
In this plan50,000

What the sources report

FranceAustria
Strength, this plan38,00050,000
Losses, this plan4,5006,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 109, “Stockach I”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
15 hours
Winner
the defender
Terrain
Rugged, Heavily wooded
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
17 km (attacker), 14 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Franceattacker38,0004,5005,000—Frontal attack; Single envelopment; Repulse; Withdrew
Austriadefender50,0006,00012,000—Defensive plan

Attacker’s advantages initiative +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, and which flank the envelopment fell on is a guess. The sources give no hours; the timing is conjectural.

Sources

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.