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Schematic plan · Thirty Year's War

Battle of Rain

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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 groundCentreCentreLeft wingRight wingLeft wingRight wingReserveReserveGuns05 km10 kmN

Sweden (Sw Army, 33,000 men under Gustavus Adolphus) attacked Holy Roman Empire (Imp Army, 27,000 men under Tilly) in Bavaria. The CAA Database of Battles records 24 hours of fighting on a front of 8 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense, and that Sweden won. Losses: Sweden 1,000 (3%), Holy Roman Empire 3,000 (11%).

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

Sweden

Gustavus Adolphus

UnitArmMen
Sweden left wingInfantry7,668
Sweden centreInfantry10,224
Sweden right wingInfantry7,668
Sweden reserveInfantry6,390
Sweden artillery (70 guns)Artillery1,050
Gustavus AdolphusCommander—
In this plan33,000

Holy Roman Empire

Tilly

UnitArmMen
Holy Roman Empire left wingInfantry6,480
Holy Roman Empire centreInfantry8,640
Holy Roman Empire right wingInfantry6,480
Holy Roman Empire reserveInfantry5,400
TillyCommander—
In this plan27,000

What the sources report

SwedenHoly Roman Empire
Strength, this plan33,00027,000
Losses, this plan1,0003,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 7, “The Lech”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
24 hours
Winner
the attacker
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Prepared defense
Front width
8 km (attacker), 21 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Swedenattacker33,0001,000—70Frontal attack; Stalemate
Holy Roman Empiredefender27,0003,000——Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · 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.