Schematic plan · US-Mexican War

Battle of Palo Alto

8 May 1846
Texas
Victory for USA

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.

USA (US Army, 2,288 men under Taylor) attacked Mexico (Mex Army, 6,000 men under Arista) in Texas. The CAA Database of Battles records 5 hours of fighting on a front of 1.2 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that USA won. Losses: USA 48 (2%), Mexico 400 (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

USA

Taylor

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	477
USA centre	Infantry	636
USA right wing	Infantry	477
USA reserve	Infantry	398
USA artillery (20 guns)	Artillery	300
Taylor	Commander	—
In this plan		2,288

Mexico

Arista

Unit	Arm	Men
Mexico left wing	Infantry	1,157
Mexico centre	Infantry	1,542
Mexico right wing	Infantry	1,157
Mexico reserve	Infantry	964
Mexico cavalry of the left	Cavalry	500
Mexico cavalry of the right	Cavalry	500
Mexico artillery (12 guns)	Artillery	180
Arista	Commander	—
In this plan		6,000

What the sources report

	USA	Mexico
Strength, this plan	2,288	6,000
Losses, this plan	48	400

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 157, “Palo Alto”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 5 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Flat, Bare
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Hot, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 1.2 km (attacker), 1.6 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	2,288	48	—	20	Frontal attack; Penetration
Mexicodefender	6,000	400	1,000	12	Defensive/offensive plan; Double envelopment; Repulse; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages leadership +2 · training +1 · initiative +1 · combat effectiveness +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. 157 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Palo Alto · 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.