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Schematic plan · American Revolution

Battle of White Plains

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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 wingReserveReserveGuns0500 m1 kmN

Great Britain (Br Army, 13,000 men under Howe) attacked USA (Am Army, 13,000 men under Washington) in New York. The CAA Database of Battles records 9 hours of fighting on a front of 2.4 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Great Britain won. Losses: Great Britain 313 (2%), USA 150 (1%).

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

Howe

UnitArmMen
Great Britain left wingInfantry3,077
Great Britain centreInfantry4,102
Great Britain right wingInfantry3,077
Great Britain reserveInfantry2,564
Great Britain artillery (12 guns)Artillery180
HoweCommander—
In this plan13,000

USA

Washington

UnitArmMen
USA left wingInfantry3,120
USA centreInfantry4,160
USA right wingInfantry3,120
USA reserveInfantry2,600
WashingtonCommander—
In this plan13,000

What the sources report

Great BritainUSA
Strength, this plan13,00013,000
Losses, this plan313150

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 84, “White Plains”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
9 hours
Winner
the attacker
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
2.4 km (attacker), 2.8 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Great Britainattacker13,000313—12Frontal attack
USAdefender13,000150——Defensive plan; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages training +2 · momentum +1 · initiative +2 · combat effectiveness +2

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.