Time Astra

Schematic plan · American Revolution

Battle of Princeton

All battlesThe event in the chronicleWikipedia
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 wingReserveGunsGuns0200 m400 mN

USA (Am Army, 4,800 men under Washington) attacked Great Britain (Br Army (Det.), 1,200 men under Mawhood) in New Jersey. The CAA Database of Battles records 0.5 hours of fighting on a front of 0.6 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that USA won. Losses: USA 44 (1%), Great Britain 215 (18%).

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

USA

Washington

UnitArmMen
USA left wingInfantry1,134
USA centreInfantry1,512
USA right wingInfantry1,134
USA reserveInfantry945
USA artillery (5 guns)Artillery75
WashingtonCommander—
In this plan4,800

Great Britain

Mawhood

UnitArmMen
Great Britain left wingInfantry281
Great Britain centreInfantry374
Great Britain right wingInfantry281
Great Britain reserveInfantry234
Great Britain artillery (2 guns)Artillery30
MawhoodCommander—
In this plan1,200

What the sources report

USAGreat Britain
Strength, this plan4,8001,200
Losses, this plan44215

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 86, “Princeton”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
0.3 hours
Winner
the attacker
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Dry, Cold, Winter, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
0.6 km (attacker), 0.3 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
USAattacker4,80044—5Frontal attack; Breakthrough
Great Britaindefender1,200215—2Defensive plan; Withdrew with heavy losses

Attacker’s advantages leadership +2 · intelligence +2 · initiative +1 · surprise +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.