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

Battle of Bir Gifgafa

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.

Egypt (Eg Armd Bde, 3,500 men under unrecorded commanders) attacked Israel (Is Tal Div, 3,600 men under Col Gonen) in Egypt. The CAA Database of Battles records 3 hours of fighting on a front of 5 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Israel held. Losses: Egypt 450 (13%), Israel 60 (2%).

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	768
Egypt centre	Infantry	1,024
Egypt right wing	Infantry	768
Egypt reserve	Infantry	640
Egypt armour (60 tanks)	Armour	300
Egypt command	Commander	—
In this plan		3,500

Israel

Col Gonen

Unit	Arm	Men
Israel left wing	Infantry	780
Israel centre	Infantry	1,040
Israel right wing	Infantry	780
Israel reserve	Infantry	650
Israel armour (70 tanks)	Armour	350
Col Gonen	Commander	—
In this plan		3,600

What the sources report

	Egypt	Israel
Strength, this plan	3,500	3,600
Losses, this plan	450	60

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 564, “Bir Gifgafa”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 3 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Flat, Desert
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Hot, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 5 km (attacker), 5 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Egyptattacker	3,500	450	0	0	Frontal attack; Withdrew with heavy losses
Israeldefender	3,600	60	0	0	Defensive/offensive plan; Double envelopment; 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. 564 · 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.