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Schematic plan · Zulu War

Battle of Ulundi

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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, Bare groundCentreLeft wingRight wingReserveCentreLeft wingRight wingReserveHorseHorseGunsCetewayo0500 m1 kmN

Zulu (Zulu Army, 20,000 men under Cetewayo) attacked Great Britain (Br Army, 5,317 men under Chelmsford) in Zululand. The CAA Database of Battles records 1 hours of fighting on a front of 2 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Great Britain held. Losses: Zulu 1,500 (8%), Great Britain 100 (2%).

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

Zulu

Cetewayo

UnitArmMen
Zulu left wingInfantry4,800
Zulu centreInfantry6,400
Zulu right wingInfantry4,800
Zulu reserveInfantry4,000
CetewayoCommander—
In this plan20,000

Great Britain

Chelmsford

UnitArmMen
Great Britain left wingInfantry1,017
Great Britain centreInfantry1,356
Great Britain right wingInfantry1,017
Great Britain reserveInfantry848
Great Britain cavalry of the leftCavalry450
Great Britain cavalry of the rightCavalry450
Great Britain artillery (12 guns)Artillery180
ChelmsfordCommander—
In this plan5,318

What the sources report

ZuluGreat Britain
Strength, this plan20,0005,317
Losses, this plan1,500100

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 231, “Ulundi”, 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 defender
Terrain
Rolling, Bare
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
2 km (attacker), 1.5 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Zuluattacker20,0001,50000Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew
Great Britaindefender5,31710089912Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Pursued

Attacker’s advantages none recorded

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.