Order of battle

The order of battle, Latin acies, French ordre de bataille closely. order of battle or battle formation, also battle plan is the evolved from the ancient art of war doctrine of the spatial structure of the troops and fleets and their reserves for march and tactical battle formation. The order of battle due to the timing and the use of available resources in terms of battle formation and the battle management command and decides the long term the outcome of the action by increasingly deploying installation advantages. As such, the starting position of a chess game is to compare the order of battle.

In worse enemy order of battle can be a good own battle compensate for a disadvantage to quotas up to a certain degree.

Classic examples are the skewness order of battle of the Battle of Leuctra and the Battle of Marktleuthen as well as the order of battle of encirclement battle of Cannae, or Napoleon's multi-unit order of march of his main contingents to the battle of Jena and Auerstädt that allowed a Flankenumfassung the enemy in all directions.

A rich source for the graphical representation of the military history of the battle are the historical maps.