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Schematic plan · Thirty Year's War

Battle of Lens

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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 groundHorseHorseCentreCentreHorseHorseLeft wingRight wingLeft wingRight wingReserveReserveGuns01 km2 kmN

France (Fr Army, 14,000 men under Conde) attacked Holy Roman Empire (Imp Army, 18,000 men under Leopold William) in France. The CAA Database of Battles records 3 hours of fighting on a front of 2 km, a double envelopment against hasty defense, and that France won. Losses: France 4,000 (29%), Holy Roman Empire 10,000 (56%).

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

Conde

UnitArmMen
France left wingInfantry2,160
France centreInfantry2,880
France right wingInfantry2,160
France reserveInfantry1,800
France cavalry of the leftCavalry2,500
France cavalry of the rightCavalry2,500
CondeCommander—
In this plan14,000

Holy Roman Empire

Leopold William

UnitArmMen
Holy Roman Empire left wingInfantry2,263
Holy Roman Empire centreInfantry3,018
Holy Roman Empire right wingInfantry2,263
Holy Roman Empire reserveInfantry1,886
Holy Roman Empire cavalry of the leftCavalry4,000
Holy Roman Empire cavalry of the rightCavalry4,000
Holy Roman Empire artillery (38 guns)Artillery570
Leopold WilliamCommander—
In this plan18,000

What the sources report

FranceHoly Roman Empire
Strength, this plan14,00018,000
Losses, this plan4,00010,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 19, “Lens”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
3 hours
Winner
the attacker
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
2 km (attacker), 3.5 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Franceattacker14,0004,0005,000—Double envelopment; Breakthrough; Pursued
Holy Roman Empiredefender18,00010,0008,00038Defensive/offensive plan; Single envelopment; Right flank; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · 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.