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

Battle of Nakhl

8 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 Sharon Div, 18,780 men under Bg Sharon) attacked Egypt (Eg 6th Mech Div, 18,450 men under Mg Hassan) in Egypt. The CAA Database of Battles records 4.5 hours of fighting on a front of 12 km, a double envelopment against hasty defense, and that Israel won. Losses: Israel 60 (0%), Egypt 625 (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 Sharon

Unit	Arm	Men
Israel left wing	Infantry	4,104
Israel centre	Infantry	5,472
Israel right wing	Infantry	4,104
Israel reserve	Infantry	3,420
Israel artillery (72 guns)	Artillery	1,080
Israel armour (120 tanks)	Armour	600
Bg Sharon	Commander	—
In this plan		18,780

Egypt

Mg Hassan

Unit	Arm	Men
Egypt left wing	Infantry	4,032
Egypt centre	Infantry	5,376
Egypt right wing	Infantry	4,032
Egypt reserve	Infantry	3,360
Egypt artillery (72 guns)	Artillery	1,080
Egypt armour (114 tanks)	Armour	570
Mg Hassan	Commander	—
In this plan		18,450

What the sources report

	Israel	Egypt
Strength, this plan	18,780	18,450
Losses, this plan	60	625

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 563, “Nakhl”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 4.5 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Flat, Desert
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Hot, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 12 km (attacker), 12 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Israelattacker	18,780	60	0	72	Double envelopment; Breakthrough
Egyptdefender	18,450	625	0	72	Defensive plan; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · training +1 · morale +1 · momentum +1 · initiative +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. 563 · 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.