Schematic plan · Thirty Year's War

Battle of Lützen (1632)

16 November 1632
Saxony
Victory for Sweden

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.

Sweden (Sw Army, 18,996 men under Gustavus Adolphus) attacked Holy Roman Empire (Imp Army, 21,770 men under Wallenstein) in Saxony. The CAA Database of Battles records 9 hours of fighting on a front of 4.4 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Sweden won. Losses: Sweden 4,000 (21%), Holy Roman Empire 5,000 (23%).

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

Unit	Arm	Men
Sweden left wing	Infantry	2,853
Sweden centre	Infantry	3,804
Sweden right wing	Infantry	2,853
Sweden reserve	Infantry	2,377
Sweden cavalry of the left	Cavalry	3,105
Sweden cavalry of the right	Cavalry	3,105
Sweden artillery (60 guns)	Artillery	900
Gustavus Adolphus	Commander	—
In this plan		18,997

Holy Roman Empire

Wallenstein

Unit	Arm	Men
Holy Roman Empire left wing	Infantry	2,927
Holy Roman Empire centre	Infantry	3,902
Holy Roman Empire right wing	Infantry	2,927
Holy Roman Empire reserve	Infantry	2,439
Holy Roman Empire cavalry of the left	Cavalry	4,600
Holy Roman Empire cavalry of the right	Cavalry	4,600
Holy Roman Empire artillery (25 guns)	Artillery	375
Wallenstein	Commander	—
In this plan		21,770

What the sources report

	Sweden	Holy Roman Empire
Strength, this plan	18,996	21,770
Losses, this plan	4,000	5,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 9, “Luetzen”, 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: 4.4 km (attacker), 4.8 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Swedenattacker	18,996	4,000	6,210	60	Frontal attack; Penetration
Holy Roman Empiredefender	21,770	5,000	9,200	25	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Repulse; 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

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 9 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Lützen (1632) · 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.