Time Astra

Schematic plan · Thirty Year's War

Battle of Tuttlingen

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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, Mixed groundCentreLeft wingRight wingHorseHorseReserveCentreHorseHorseLeft wingRight wingReserveGuns01 km2 kmN

Holy Roman Empire (Imp Army, 22,000 men under Mercy) attacked France (Fr Army of Germany, 18,000 men under Rantzau) in Wuerttemberg. The CAA Database of Battles records 12 hours of fighting on a front of 3 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Holy Roman Empire won. Losses: Holy Roman Empire 1,000 (5%), France 7,000 (39%).

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

Holy Roman Empire

Mercy

UnitArmMen
Holy Roman Empire left wingInfantry4,080
Holy Roman Empire centreInfantry5,440
Holy Roman Empire right wingInfantry4,080
Holy Roman Empire reserveInfantry3,400
Holy Roman Empire cavalry of the leftCavalry2,500
Holy Roman Empire cavalry of the rightCavalry2,500
MercyCommander—
In this plan22,000

France

Rantzau

UnitArmMen
France left wingInfantry2,364
France centreInfantry3,152
France right wingInfantry2,364
France reserveInfantry1,970
France cavalry of the leftCavalry4,000
France cavalry of the rightCavalry4,000
France artillery (10 guns)Artillery150
RantzauCommander—
In this plan18,000

What the sources report

Holy Roman EmpireFrance
Strength, this plan22,00018,000
Losses, this plan1,0007,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 14, “Tuttlingen”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
12 hours
Winner
the attacker
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
3 km (attacker), 2 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Holy Roman Empireattacker22,0001,0005,000—Frontal attack; Breakthrough; Pursued
Francedefender18,0007,0008,00010Defensive plan; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages leadership +2 · intelligence +1 · initiative +1 · surprise +2

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.