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

Battle of Mitla Pass

7 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.

Egypt (Eg 3rd Inf Div(+), 22,000 men under unrecorded commanders) attacked Israel (Is Yoffe Div(-), 7,250 men under Bg Yoffe) in Egypt. The CAA Database of Battles records 10.5 hours of fighting on a front of 1 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Israel held. Losses: Egypt 550 (3%), Israel 90 (1%).

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

Egypt

Unit	Arm	Men
Egypt left wing	Infantry	4,601
Egypt centre	Infantry	6,134
Egypt right wing	Infantry	4,601
Egypt reserve	Infantry	3,834
Egypt artillery (114 guns)	Artillery	1,710
Egypt armour (224 tanks)	Armour	1,120
Egypt command	Commander	—
In this plan		22,000

Israel

Bg Yoffe

Unit	Arm	Men
Israel left wing	Infantry	1,459
Israel centre	Infantry	1,946
Israel right wing	Infantry	1,459
Israel reserve	Infantry	1,216
Israel artillery (48 guns)	Artillery	720
Israel armour (90 tanks)	Armour	450
Bg Yoffe	Commander	—
In this plan		7,250

What the sources report

	Egypt	Israel
Strength, this plan	22,000	7,250
Losses, this plan	550	90

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 561, “Mitla Pass”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 10.5 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Flat, Desert
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Hot, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 1 km (attacker), 1 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Egyptattacker	22,000	550	0	114	Frontal attack; Repulse; Withdrew with heavy losses
Israeldefender	7,250	90	0	48	Defensive/offensive plan; Single envelopment; Right rear; Pursued

Attacker’s advantages none recorded

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. 561 · 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.