Schematic plan · Thirty Year's War

Battle of Lutter

27 August 1626
Brunswick
Victory for Holy Roman Empire

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.

Holy Roman Empire (Holy League Army, 17,000 men under Tilly) attacked Denmark (Dan Army, 20,000 men under Christian IV) in Brunswick. The CAA Database of Battles records 12 hours of fighting on a front of 2.1 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Holy Roman Empire won. Losses: Holy Roman Empire 2,000 (12%), Denmark 7,000 (35%).

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

Tilly

Unit	Arm	Men
Holy Roman Empire left wing	Infantry	2,357
Holy Roman Empire centre	Infantry	3,142
Holy Roman Empire right wing	Infantry	2,357
Holy Roman Empire reserve	Infantry	1,964
Holy Roman Empire cavalry of the left	Cavalry	3,500
Holy Roman Empire cavalry of the right	Cavalry	3,500
Holy Roman Empire artillery (12 guns)	Artillery	180
Tilly	Commander	—
In this plan		17,000

Denmark

Christian IV

Unit	Arm	Men
Denmark left wing	Infantry	2,321
Denmark centre	Infantry	3,094
Denmark right wing	Infantry	2,321
Denmark reserve	Infantry	1,934
Denmark cavalry of the left	Cavalry	5,000
Denmark cavalry of the right	Cavalry	5,000
Denmark artillery (22 guns)	Artillery	330
Christian IV	Commander	—
In this plan		20,000

What the sources report

	Holy Roman Empire	Denmark
Strength, this plan	17,000	20,000
Losses, this plan	2,000	7,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 5, “Lutter”, 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

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Holy Roman Empireattacker	17,000	2,000	7,000	12	Frontal attack; Breakthrough; Pursued
Denmarkdefender	20,000	7,000	10,000	22	Defensive/offensive plan; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · morale +1 · momentum +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

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 5 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Lutter · 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.