Schematic plan · King William's War

Battle of Killiecrankie

27 July 1689
Scotland
Victory for Jacobites

All battles The event in the chronicle Wikipedia

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.

Jacobites (Scots Reb Army, 2,800 men under Dundee) attacked England (Eng Army, 3,400 men under Mackay) in Scotland. The CAA Database of Battles records 1.3 hours of fighting on a front of 1 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Jacobites won. Losses: Jacobites 600 (21%), England 1,900 (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

Jacobites

Dundee

Unit	Arm	Men
Jacobites left wing	Infantry	672
Jacobites centre	Infantry	896
Jacobites right wing	Infantry	672
Jacobites reserve	Infantry	560
Dundee	Commander	—
In this plan		2,800

England

Mackay

Unit	Arm	Men
England left wing	Infantry	792
England centre	Infantry	1,056
England right wing	Infantry	792
England reserve	Infantry	660
England cavalry of the left	Cavalry	50
England cavalry of the right	Cavalry	50
Mackay	Commander	—
In this plan		3,400

What the sources report

	Jacobites	England
Strength, this plan	2,800	3,400
Losses, this plan	600	1,900

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 40, “Killiecrankie”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 1.3 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rugged, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 1 km (attacker), 1 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Jacobitesattacker	2,800	600	—	0	Frontal attack; Breakthrough; Pursued
Englanddefender	3,400	1,900	100	—	Defensive plan; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · initiative +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

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 40 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Killiecrankie · CC-BY-SA-4.0

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.