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

Battle of Jebel Libni

6 June 1967
Egypt
Draw

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 Yoffe Div(-)(+), 10,800 men under Bg Yoffe) attacked Egypt (Eg 3rd Inf Div(-), 3,000 men under Mg Nasser) in Egypt. The CAA Database of Battles records 3.5 hours of fighting on a front of 10 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense and delaying action, and that neither side won. Losses: Israel 70 (1%), Egypt 450 (15%).

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 Yoffe

Unit	Arm	Men
Israel left wing	Infantry	2,198
Israel centre	Infantry	2,931
Israel right wing	Infantry	2,198
Israel reserve	Infantry	1,832
Israel artillery (48 guns)	Artillery	720
Israel armour (184 tanks)	Armour	920
Bg Yoffe	Commander	—
In this plan		10,799

Egypt

Mg Nasser

Unit	Arm	Men
Egypt left wing	Infantry	540
Egypt centre	Infantry	720
Egypt right wing	Infantry	540
Egypt reserve	Infantry	450
Egypt artillery (48 guns)	Artillery	450
Egypt armour (60 tanks)	Armour	300
Mg Nasser	Commander	—
In this plan		3,000

What the sources report

	Israel	Egypt
Strength, this plan	10,800	3,000
Losses, this plan	70	450

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 558, “Jebel Libni”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 3.5 hours
Winner: the draw
Terrain: Flat, Desert
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Hot, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense, Delaying action
Front width: 10 km (attacker), 10 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Israelattacker	10,800	70	0	48	Frontal attack; Stalemate
Egyptdefender	3,000	450	0	48	Defensive plan; Stalemate; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · training +1 · morale +1 · momentum +1 · initiative +1 · 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. 558 · 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.