Time Astra

Schematic plan · The Napoleonic Wars

Battle of Corunna

All battlesThe event in the chronicleWikipedia
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, Mixed groundCentreCentreLeft wingRight wingLeft wingRight wingReserveReserveHorseHorseGunsGuns01 km2 kmN

France (Fr Army, 20,600 men under Soult) attacked Great Britain (Br Army, 14,800 men under Moore) in Spain. The CAA Database of Battles records 4 hours of fighting on a front of 5 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that Great Britain held. Losses: France 1,600 (8%), Great Britain 1,000 (7%).

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

Soult

UnitArmMen
France left wingInfantry3,720
France centreInfantry4,960
France right wingInfantry3,720
France reserveInfantry3,100
France cavalry of the leftCavalry2,250
France cavalry of the rightCavalry2,250
France artillery (40 guns)Artillery600
SoultCommander—
In this plan20,600

Great Britain

Moore

UnitArmMen
Great Britain left wingInfantry3,520
Great Britain centreInfantry4,693
Great Britain right wingInfantry3,520
Great Britain reserveInfantry2,933
Great Britain artillery (9 guns)Artillery135
MooreCommander—
In this plan14,801

What the sources report

FranceGreat Britain
Strength, this plan20,60014,800
Losses, this plan1,6001,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 123, “Corunna”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
4 hours
Winner
the defender
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Fortified defense
Front width
5 km (attacker), 4 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Franceattacker20,6001,6004,50040Frontal attack; Repulse
Great Britaindefender14,8001,00009Defensive plan; Stalemate; Withdrew

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. 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.