Schematic plan · Arab-Israeli War, 1973 (October War)

Kantara-Firdan

8 October 1973
Egypt
Victory for Egypt

All battles Operation Badr (1973): engagement 5 of 5 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.

One of the 5 engagements of the Operation Badr (1973) recorded in the CAA Database of Battles (number 5 in date order). Israel (Is Adan Div, 25,850 men under Mg Adan) attacked Egypt (Eg 2nd Army, 67,440 men under Mg Mamoun) in Egypt. The CAA Database of Battles records 11 hours of fighting on a front of 27 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that Egypt held. Losses: Israel 700 (3%), Egypt 700 (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

Israel

Mg Adan

Unit	Arm	Men
Israel left wing	Infantry	5,410
Israel centre	Infantry	7,213
Israel right wing	Infantry	5,410
Israel reserve	Infantry	4,508
Israel artillery (44 guns)	Artillery	660
Israel armour (530 tanks)	Armour	2,650
Mg Adan	Commander	—
In this plan		25,851

Egypt

Mg Mamoun

Unit	Arm	Men
Egypt left wing	Infantry	13,266
Egypt centre	Infantry	17,688
Egypt right wing	Infantry	13,266
Egypt reserve	Infantry	11,055
Egypt artillery (639 guns)	Artillery	9,585
Egypt armour (516 tanks)	Armour	2,580
Mg Mamoun	Commander	—
In this plan		67,440

What the sources report

	Israel	Egypt
Strength, this plan	25,850	67,440
Losses, this plan	700	700

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 573, “Kantara-Firdan”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 11 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Rolling, Desert
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Hot, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 27 km (attacker), 27 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Israelattacker	25,850	700	0	44	Frontal attack; Repulse; Stalemate
Egyptdefender	67,440	700	0	639	Defensive/offensive plan; Single envelopment; Left flank; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages leadership +2 · combat effectiveness +2

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. 573 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.
Wikipedia contributors, Operation Badr (1973) · 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.