Schematic plan · Arab-Israeli War, 1967 (Six-Day War)

Battle of Jenin

5 June 1967
Jordan
Victory for Israel

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.

Israel (Is Peled Armd Div(-), 10,900 men under Bg Peled) attacked Jordan (Jor 25th Inf Bde, 6,160 men under Lcol El Khalidi) in Jordan. The CAA Database of Battles records 12 hours of fighting on a front of 2 km, a frontal attack, double envelopment against prepared defense, and that Israel won. Losses: Israel 225 (2%), Jordan 200 (3%).

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

Israel

Bg Peled

Unit	Arm	Men
Israel left wing	Infantry	2,366
Israel centre	Infantry	3,155
Israel right wing	Infantry	2,366
Israel reserve	Infantry	1,972
Israel artillery (36 guns)	Artillery	540
Israel armour (100 tanks)	Armour	500
Bg Peled	Commander	—
In this plan		10,899

Jordan

Lcol El Khalidi

Unit	Arm	Men
Jordan left wing	Infantry	1,358
Jordan centre	Infantry	1,811
Jordan right wing	Infantry	1,358
Jordan reserve	Infantry	1,132
Jordan artillery (20 guns)	Artillery	300
Jordan armour (40 tanks)	Armour	200
Lcol El Khalidi	Commander	—
In this plan		6,159

What the sources report

	Israel	Jordan
Strength, this plan	10,900	6,160
Losses, this plan	225	200

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 549, “Jenin”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 12 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rugged, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Hot, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense
Front width: 2 km (attacker), 2 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Israelattacker	10,900	225	0	36	Frontal attack; Double envelopment; Penetration
Jordandefender	6,160	200	0	20	Defensive/offensive plan; Double envelopment; Repulse; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · training +1 · surprise +2 · air superiority +1 · combat effectiveness +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. 549 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.

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.