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

Battle of Gaza Strip

5 June 1967
Egypt
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 Reshef Task Force, 12,150 men under Bg Tal) attacked Palestine (Pales 20th Pla Div(+), 17,450 men under Mg Hasni) in Egypt. The CAA Database of Battles records 28.8 hours of fighting on a front of 9 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense and fortified defense, and that Israel won. Losses: Israel 55 (0%), Palestine 626 (4%).

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 Tal

Unit	Arm	Men
Israel left wing	Infantry	2,537
Israel centre	Infantry	3,382
Israel right wing	Infantry	2,537
Israel reserve	Infantry	2,114
Israel artillery (72 guns)	Artillery	1,080
Israel armour (100 tanks)	Armour	500
Bg Tal	Commander	—
In this plan		12,150

Palestine

Mg Hasni

Unit	Arm	Men
Palestine left wing	Infantry	3,617
Palestine centre	Infantry	4,822
Palestine right wing	Infantry	3,617
Palestine reserve	Infantry	3,014
Palestine artillery (114 guns)	Artillery	1,710
Palestine armour (134 tanks)	Armour	670
Mg Hasni	Commander	—
In this plan		17,450

What the sources report

	Israel	Palestine
Strength, this plan	12,150	17,450
Losses, this plan	55	626

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 559, “Gaza Strip”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 28.8 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Hot, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense, Fortified defense
Front width: 9 km (attacker), 9 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Israelattacker	12,150	55	0	72	Frontal attack; Breakthrough
Palestinedefender	17,450	626	0	114	Defensive plan

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · training +1 · initiative +1 · surprise +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. 559 · 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.