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Schematic plan · War of the Second Coalition

Battle of Hohenlinden

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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.
Rolling, Heavily wooded groundCentreCentreLeft wingRight wingLeft wingRight wingReserveReserveHorseHorseHorseHorseMoreau05 km10 kmN

Austria (Aus Army, 57,000 men under Archduke John) attacked France (Fr Army, 55,000 men under Moreau) in Germany. The CAA Database of Battles records 9.5 hours of fighting on a front of 18 km, a frontal attack, single envelopment against hasty defense, and that France held. Losses: Austria 20,000 (35%), France 2,500 (5%).

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

Austria

Archduke John

UnitArmMen
Austria left wingInfantry10,800
Austria centreInfantry14,400
Austria right wingInfantry10,800
Austria reserveInfantry9,000
Austria cavalry of the leftCavalry6,000
Austria cavalry of the rightCavalry6,000
Archduke JohnCommander—
In this plan57,000

France

Moreau

UnitArmMen
France left wingInfantry10,320
France centreInfantry13,760
France right wingInfantry10,320
France reserveInfantry8,600
France cavalry of the leftCavalry6,000
France cavalry of the rightCavalry6,000
MoreauCommander—
In this plan55,000

What the sources report

AustriaFrance
Strength, this plan57,00055,000
Losses, this plan20,0002,500

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 116, “Hohenlinden”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
9.5 hours
Winner
the defender
Terrain
Rolling, Heavily wooded
Weather
Wet, Heavy precipitation, Temperate, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
18 km (attacker), 18 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Austriaattacker57,00020,00012,000—Frontal attack; Single envelopment; Repulse; Withdrew with heavy losses
Francedefender55,0002,50012,000—Defensive/offensive plan; Pursued

Attacker’s advantages none recorded

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.