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

Battle of Zaoura-Kala

9 June 1967
Syria
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 Mendler's Bde, 5,850 men under Col Mendler) attacked Syria (Syr 11th Inf Bde(+), 8,560 men under Col Amir) in Syria. The CAA Database of Battles records 8.5 hours of fighting on a front of 1 km, a frontal attack, single envelopment, right flank against fortified defense, and that Israel won. Losses: Israel 230 (4%), Syria 500 (6%).

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

Col Mendler

Unit	Arm	Men
Israel left wing	Infantry	1,210
Israel centre	Infantry	1,613
Israel right wing	Infantry	1,210
Israel reserve	Infantry	1,008
Israel artillery (24 guns)	Artillery	360
Israel armour (90 tanks)	Armour	450
Col Mendler	Commander	—
In this plan		5,851

Syria

Col Amir

Unit	Arm	Men
Syria left wing	Infantry	1,669
Syria centre	Infantry	2,226
Syria right wing	Infantry	1,669
Syria reserve	Infantry	1,391
Syria artillery (82 guns)	Artillery	1,230
Syria armour (75 tanks)	Armour	375
Col Amir	Commander	—
In this plan		8,560

What the sources report

	Israel	Syria
Strength, this plan	5,850	8,560
Losses, this plan	230	500

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 567, “Zaoura-Kala”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 8.5 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rugged, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Hot, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 1 km (attacker), 1 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Israelattacker	5,850	230	0	24	Frontal attack; Single envelopment; Right flank; Penetration
Syriadefender	8,560	500	0	82	Defensive plan; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · training +1 · morale +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. 567 · 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.