Time Astra

Schematic plan · American Revolution

Battle of Guilford Court House

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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, Heavily wooded groundCentreLeft wingRight wingReserveCentreLeft wingRight wingReserveHorseHorseHorseHorseGunsGuns0500 m1 kmN

Great Britain (Br Army, 1,900 men under Cornwallis) attacked USA (Am Army, 4,449 men under Greene) in North Carolina. The CAA Database of Battles records 2 hours of fighting on a front of 2 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Great Britain won. Losses: Great Britain 532 (28%), USA 420 (9%).

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

Cornwallis

UnitArmMen
Great Britain left wingInfantry412
Great Britain centreInfantry549
Great Britain right wingInfantry412
Great Britain reserveInfantry343
Great Britain cavalry of the leftCavalry78
Great Britain cavalry of the rightCavalry78
Great Britain artillery (2 guns)Artillery30
CornwallisCommander—
In this plan1,902

USA

Greene

UnitArmMen
USA left wingInfantry1,005
USA centreInfantry1,340
USA right wingInfantry1,005
USA reserveInfantry838
USA cavalry of the leftCavalry100
USA cavalry of the rightCavalry100
USA artillery (4 guns)Artillery60
GreeneCommander—
In this plan4,448

What the sources report

Great BritainUSA
Strength, this plan1,9004,449
Losses, this plan532420

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 93, “Guilford Court House”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
2 hours
Winner
the attacker
Terrain
Rolling, Heavily wooded
Weather
Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense
Front width
2 km (attacker), 2 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Great Britainattacker1,9005321552Frontal attack; Penetration
USAdefender4,4494202004Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages training +1 · 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.