Schematic plan · The Seven Year's War

Battle of Kolín

18 June 1757
Bohemia
Victory for Austria

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.

Prussia (Pr Army, 32,000 men under Frederick II) attacked Austria (Aus Army, 44,000 men under Daun) in Bohemia. The CAA Database of Battles records 7 hours of fighting on a front of 5.2 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Austria held. Losses: Prussia 13,768 (43%), Austria 9,000 (20%).

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

Prussia

Frederick II

Unit	Arm	Men
Prussia left wing	Infantry	4,003
Prussia centre	Infantry	5,338
Prussia right wing	Infantry	4,003
Prussia reserve	Infantry	3,336
Prussia cavalry of the left	Cavalry	7,000
Prussia cavalry of the right	Cavalry	7,000
Prussia artillery (88 guns)	Artillery	1,320
Frederick II	Commander	—
In this plan		32,000

Austria

Daun

Unit	Arm	Men
Austria left wing	Infantry	6,678
Austria centre	Infantry	8,904
Austria right wing	Infantry	6,678
Austria reserve	Infantry	5,565
Austria cavalry of the left	Cavalry	7,000
Austria cavalry of the right	Cavalry	7,000
Austria artillery (145 guns)	Artillery	2,175
Daun	Commander	—
In this plan		44,000

What the sources report

	Prussia	Austria
Strength, this plan	32,000	44,000
Losses, this plan	13,768	9,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 67, “Kolin”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 7 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 5.2 km (attacker), 6.4 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Prussiaattacker	32,000	13,768	14,000	88	Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew
Austriadefender	44,000	9,000	14,000	145	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Pursued

Attacker’s advantages leadership +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. 67 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Kolín · 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.