Time Astra

Schematic plan · Thirty Year's War

Battle of Herbsthausen

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 groundHorseHorseHorseHorseCentreCentreLeft wingRight wingLeft wingRight wingReserveReserveGuns02 km4 kmN

Holy Roman Empire (Imp Army, 10,000 men under Mercy & Werth) attacked France (Fr Army, 11,000 men under Turenne) in Bavaria. The CAA Database of Battles records 12 hours of fighting on a front of 7 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Holy Roman Empire won. Losses: Holy Roman Empire 700 (7%), France 3,500 (32%).

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 · Werth

UnitArmMen
Holy Roman Empire left wingInfantry1,200
Holy Roman Empire centreInfantry1,600
Holy Roman Empire right wingInfantry1,200
Holy Roman Empire reserveInfantry1,000
Holy Roman Empire cavalry of the leftCavalry2,500
Holy Roman Empire cavalry of the rightCavalry2,500
Mercy & WerthCommander—
In this plan10,000

France

Turenne

UnitArmMen
France left wingInfantry1,386
France centreInfantry1,848
France right wingInfantry1,386
France reserveInfantry1,155
France cavalry of the leftCavalry2,500
France cavalry of the rightCavalry2,500
France artillery (15 guns)Artillery225
TurenneCommander—
In this plan11,000

What the sources report

Holy Roman EmpireFrance
Strength, this plan10,00011,000
Losses, this plan7003,500

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 17, “Mergentheim”, 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, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
7 km (attacker), 7 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Holy Roman Empireattacker10,0007005,000—Frontal attack; Breakthrough; Pursued
Francedefender11,0003,5005,00015Defensive plan; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · intelligence +1 · initiative +1 · surprise +3

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.