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Schematic plan · English Civil War

Battle of Naseby

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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 groundHorseHorseHorseHorseCentreLeft wingRight wingCentreReserveLeft wingRight wingReserveGunsGuns0500 m1 kmN

Royalist (Eng Roy Army, 9,000 men under Charles I) attacked Parliamentarian (Eng Parl Army, 13,000 men under Fairfax) in England. The CAA Database of Battles records 3 hours of fighting on a front of 1.6 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Parliamentarian held. Losses: Royalist 6,000 (67%), Parliamentarian 1,000 (8%).

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

Charles I

UnitArmMen
Royalist left wingInfantry1,037
Royalist centreInfantry1,382
Royalist right wingInfantry1,037
Royalist reserveInfantry864
Royalist cavalry of the leftCavalry2,250
Royalist cavalry of the rightCavalry2,250
Royalist artillery (12 guns)Artillery180
Charles ICommander—
In this plan9,000

Parliamentarian

Fairfax

UnitArmMen
Parliamentarian left wingInfantry1,633
Parliamentarian centreInfantry2,178
Parliamentarian right wingInfantry1,633
Parliamentarian reserveInfantry1,361
Parliamentarian cavalry of the leftCavalry3,000
Parliamentarian cavalry of the rightCavalry3,000
Parliamentarian artillery (13 guns)Artillery195
FairfaxCommander—
In this plan13,000

What the sources report

RoyalistParliamentarian
Strength, this plan9,00013,000
Losses, this plan6,0001,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 25, “Naseby”, 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 defender
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
1.6 km (attacker), 1.6 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Royalistattacker9,0006,0005,00012Frontal attack; Penetration; Repulse; Withdrew with heavy losses
Parliamentariandefender13,0001,0006,00013Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Pursued

Attacker’s advantages 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.