Time Astra

Schematic plan · The Napoleonic Wars

Battle of Waterloo

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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 wingReserveCentreHorseHorseLeft wingRight wingReserveHorseHorseGunsGuns02 km4 kmN

France (Fr Army of North (Elements of), 68,265 men under Napoleon I) attacked Great Britain and Prussia (Allied (Br, Du, Pr) Armies, 137,547 men under Wellington & Bluecher) in Belgium. The CAA Database of Battles records 10 hours of fighting on a front of 4 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense and prepared defense, and that Great Britain and Prussia held. Losses: France 25,000 (37%), Great Britain and Prussia 22,500 (16%).

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

Napoleon I

UnitArmMen
France left wingInfantry11,709
France centreInfantry15,612
France right wingInfantry11,709
France reserveInfantry9,757
France cavalry of the leftCavalry7,745
France cavalry of the rightCavalry7,745
France artillery (266 guns)Artillery3,990
Napoleon ICommander—
In this plan68,267

Great Britain and Prussia

Wellington · Bluecher

UnitArmMen
Great Britain left wingInfantry26,574
Great Britain centreInfantry35,433
Great Britain right wingInfantry26,574
Great Britain reserveInfantry22,145
Great Britain cavalry of the leftCavalry11,940
Great Britain cavalry of the rightCavalry11,940
Great Britain artillery (196 guns)Artillery2,940
Wellington & BluecherCommander—
In this plan137,546

What the sources report

FranceGreat Britain
Strength, this plan68,265137,547
Losses, this plan25,00022,500

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 145, “Waterloo”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
10 hours
Winner
the defender
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Wet, Light precipitation, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense, Prepared defense
Front width
4 km (attacker), 6.4 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Franceattacker68,26525,00015,489266Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew with heavy losses
Great Britain & Prussiadefender137,54722,50023,880196Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Single envelopment; Penetration; Pursued

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

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.