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Schematic plan · Thirty Year's War

Battle of White Mountain

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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 wingReserveHorseHorseHorseHorseCentreLeft wingRight wingReserveGunsGuns0500 m1 kmN

Holy Roman Empire (Imp & Holy League Army, 40,000 men under Bucquoi) attacked Bohemia (Boh Reb Army, 21,000 men under Christian of Anhalt-Bernberg) in Bohemia. The CAA Database of Battles records 1 hours of fighting on a front of 1.5 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense and prepared defense, and that Holy Roman Empire won. Losses: Holy Roman Empire 400 (1%), Bohemia 5,000 (24%).

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

Bucquoi

UnitArmMen
Holy Roman Empire left wingInfantry7,757
Holy Roman Empire centreInfantry10,342
Holy Roman Empire right wingInfantry7,757
Holy Roman Empire reserveInfantry6,464
Holy Roman Empire cavalry of the leftCavalry3,750
Holy Roman Empire cavalry of the rightCavalry3,750
Holy Roman Empire artillery (12 guns)Artillery180
BucquoiCommander—
In this plan40,000

Bohemia

Christian of Anhalt-Bernberg

UnitArmMen
Bohemia left wingInfantry2,484
Bohemia centreInfantry3,312
Bohemia right wingInfantry2,484
Bohemia reserveInfantry2,070
Bohemia cavalry of the leftCavalry5,250
Bohemia cavalry of the rightCavalry5,250
Bohemia artillery (10 guns)Artillery150
Christian of Anhalt-BernbergCommander—
In this plan21,000

What the sources report

Holy Roman EmpireBohemia
Strength, this plan40,00021,000
Losses, this plan4005,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 2, “White Mountain”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
1 hours
Winner
the attacker
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense, Prepared defense
Front width
1.5 km (attacker), 1.5 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Holy Roman Empireattacker40,0004007,50012Frontal attack; Breakthrough; Pursued
Bohemiadefender21,0005,00011,00010Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew with heavy losses

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.