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Schematic plan · Jacobite Rebellion

Battle of Culloden

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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 wingReserveCentreLeft wingRight wingReserveGunsHorseHorseGuns0250 m500 mN

Jacobites (Scot Reb Army, 5,400 men under Prince Charles Edward) attacked Great Britain (Br Army, 9,000 men under Cumberland) in Scotland. The CAA Database of Battles records 0.7 hours of fighting on a front of 0.7 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Great Britain held. Losses: Jacobites 1,558 (29%), Great Britain 309 (3%).

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

Prince Charles Edward

UnitArmMen
Jacobites left wingInfantry1,157
Jacobites centreInfantry1,542
Jacobites right wingInfantry1,157
Jacobites reserveInfantry964
Jacobites cavalry of the leftCavalry200
Jacobites cavalry of the rightCavalry200
Jacobites artillery (12 guns)Artillery180
Prince Charles EdwardCommander—
In this plan5,400

Great Britain

Cumberland

UnitArmMen
Great Britain left wingInfantry2,102
Great Britain centreInfantry2,803
Great Britain right wingInfantry2,102
Great Britain reserveInfantry1,752
Great Britain artillery (16 guns)Artillery240
CumberlandCommander—
In this plan8,999

What the sources report

JacobitesGreat Britain
Strength, this plan5,4009,000
Losses, this plan1,558309

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 63, “Culloden”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
0.7 hours
Winner
the defender
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Wet, Light precipitation, Cold, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
0.7 km (attacker), 1.5 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Jacobitesattacker5,4001,55840012Frontal attack; Penetration; Repulse; Withdrew with heavy losses
Great Britaindefender9,000309—16Defensive/offensive plan; Double envelopment

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.