Schematic plan · The Napoleonic Wars

Battle of Bussaco

27 September 1810
Portugal
Victory for Great Britain

All battles The event in the chronicle Wikipedia

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.

France (Fr Army of Portugal, 65,900 men under Massena) attacked Great Britain (Br & Port Armies, 51,910 men under Wellington) in Portugal. The CAA Database of Battles records 8.3 hours of fighting on a front of 12 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense and prepared defense, and that Great Britain held. Losses: France 4,500 (7%), Great Britain 1,300 (3%).

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

Massena

Unit	Arm	Men
France left wing	Infantry	13,390
France centre	Infantry	17,853
France right wing	Infantry	13,390
France reserve	Infantry	11,158
France cavalry of the left	Cavalry	4,200
France cavalry of the right	Cavalry	4,200
France artillery (114 guns)	Artillery	1,710
Massena	Commander	—
In this plan		65,901

Great Britain

Wellington

Unit	Arm	Men
Great Britain left wing	Infantry	11,042
Great Britain centre	Infantry	14,723
Great Britain right wing	Infantry	11,042
Great Britain reserve	Infantry	9,202
Great Britain cavalry of the left	Cavalry	2,500
Great Britain cavalry of the right	Cavalry	2,500
Great Britain artillery (60 guns)	Artillery	900
Wellington	Commander	—
In this plan		51,909

What the sources report

	France	Great Britain
Strength, this plan	65,900	51,910
Losses, this plan	4,500	1,300

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 129, “Bussaco”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 8.3 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Rugged, Bare
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense, Prepared defense
Front width: 12 km (attacker), 12 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Franceattacker	65,900	4,500	8,400	114	Frontal attack; Repulse; Stalemate
Great Britaindefender	51,910	1,300	5,000	60	Defensive plan; Stalemate; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages momentum +1 · 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

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 129 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Bussaco · CC-BY-SA-4.0

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.