Schematic plan · American Revolution

Battle of Bunker Hill

17 June 1775
Massachusetts
Victory for Great Britain

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.

Great Britain (Br Army, 2,650 men under Gage) attacked USA (Am Patriots, 3,200 men under Prescott) in Massachusetts. The CAA Database of Battles records 4 hours of fighting on a front of 0.5 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense and prepared defense, and that Great Britain won. Losses: Great Britain 1,054 (40%), USA 479 (15%).

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

Great Britain

Gage

Unit	Arm	Men
Great Britain left wing	Infantry	636
Great Britain centre	Infantry	848
Great Britain right wing	Infantry	636
Great Britain reserve	Infantry	530
Gage	Commander	—
In this plan		2,650

USA

Prescott

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	746
USA centre	Infantry	995
USA right wing	Infantry	746
USA reserve	Infantry	622
USA artillery (6 guns)	Artillery	90
Prescott	Commander	—
In this plan		3,199

What the sources report

	Great Britain	USA
Strength, this plan	2,650	3,200
Losses, this plan	1,054	479

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 82, “Bunker Hill”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 4 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense, Prepared defense
Front width: 0.5 km (attacker), 0.7 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Great Britainattacker	2,650	1,054	0	—	Frontal attack; Breakthrough
USAdefender	3,200	479	0	6	Defensive plan; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages training +2 · combat effectiveness +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. 82 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Bunker Hill · 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.