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Schematic plan · English Civil War

Battle of Kilsyth

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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 wingCentreReserveLeft wingRight wingReserveHorseHorseHorseHorseBaillie0200 m400 mN

Royalist (Scot Roy Army, 4,900 men under Montrose) attacked Parliamentarian (Scot Cov Army, 6,800 men under Baillie) in Scotland. The CAA Database of Battles records 12 hours of fighting on a front of 0.7 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Royalist won. Losses: Royalist 6 (0%), Parliamentarian 6,000 (88%).

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

Royalist

Montrose

UnitArmMen
Royalist left wingInfantry1,056
Royalist centreInfantry1,408
Royalist right wingInfantry1,056
Royalist reserveInfantry880
Royalist cavalry of the leftCavalry250
Royalist cavalry of the rightCavalry250
MontroseCommander—
In this plan4,900

Parliamentarian

Baillie

UnitArmMen
Parliamentarian left wingInfantry1,440
Parliamentarian centreInfantry1,920
Parliamentarian right wingInfantry1,440
Parliamentarian reserveInfantry1,200
Parliamentarian cavalry of the leftCavalry400
Parliamentarian cavalry of the rightCavalry400
BaillieCommander—
In this plan6,800

What the sources report

RoyalistParliamentarian
Strength, this plan4,9006,800
Losses, this plan66,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 23, “Kilsyth”, 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, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
0.7 km (attacker), 0.7 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Royalistattacker4,90065000Frontal attack; Breakthrough; Pursued
Parliamentariandefender6,8006,0008000Defensive plan; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages leadership +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.