Schematic plan · Arab-Israeli War, 1968

Battle of Karameh

21 March 1968
Jordan
Draw

All battles The event in the chronicle Wikipedia

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 Gonen Task Force, 11,940 men under Bg Gonen) attacked Jordan (Jor 1st Inf Div, 16,168 men under Mg Haditha) in Jordan. The CAA Database of Battles records 15.5 hours of fighting on a front of 5 km, a frontal attack, double envelopment against prepared defense, and that neither side won. Losses: Israel 201 (2%), Jordan 497 (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 Gonen

Unit	Arm	Men
Israel left wing	Infantry	2,471
Israel centre	Infantry	3,294
Israel right wing	Infantry	2,471
Israel reserve	Infantry	2,059
Israel artillery (67 guns)	Artillery	1,005
Israel armour (128 tanks)	Armour	640
Bg Gonen	Commander	—
In this plan		11,940

Jordan

Mg Haditha

Unit	Arm	Men
Jordan left wing	Infantry	3,481
Jordan centre	Infantry	4,641
Jordan right wing	Infantry	3,481
Jordan reserve	Infantry	2,901
Jordan artillery (91 guns)	Artillery	1,365
Jordan armour (60 tanks)	Armour	300
Mg Haditha	Commander	—
In this plan		16,169

What the sources report

	Israel	Jordan
Strength, this plan	11,940	16,168
Losses, this plan	201	497

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 568, “Kerama”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 15.5 hours
Winner: the draw
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Temperate, Spring, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense
Front width: 5 km (attacker), 5 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Israelattacker	11,940	201	0	67	Frontal attack; Double envelopment; Penetration; Stalemate; Withdrew
Jordandefender	16,168	497	0	91	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages 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. 568 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Battle of Karameh · CC-BY-SA-4.0

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.