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

Battle of Adabiya

23 October 1973
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 Magen Div, 10,900 men under Bg Magen) attacked Egypt (Eg 3rd Army(-), 14,620 men under Mg Wassel) in Egypt. The CAA Database of Battles records 24 hours of fighting on a front of 13 km, a single envelopment, right rear against withdrawal, and that Israel won. Losses: Israel 75 (1%), Egypt 400 (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 Magen

Unit	Arm	Men
Israel left wing	Infantry	2,290
Israel centre	Infantry	3,053
Israel right wing	Infantry	2,290
Israel reserve	Infantry	1,908
Israel artillery (36 guns)	Artillery	540
Israel armour (164 tanks)	Armour	820
Bg Magen	Commander	—
In this plan		10,901

Egypt

Mg Wassel

Unit	Arm	Men
Egypt left wing	Infantry	2,971
Egypt centre	Infantry	3,962
Egypt right wing	Infantry	2,971
Egypt reserve	Infantry	2,476
Egypt artillery (83 guns)	Artillery	1,245
Egypt armour (199 tanks)	Armour	995
Mg Wassel	Commander	—
In this plan		14,620

What the sources report

	Israel	Egypt
Strength, this plan	10,900	14,620
Losses, this plan	75	400

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 584, “Adabiya”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 24 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Desert
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Hot, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Withdrawal
Front width: 13 km (attacker), 13 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Israelattacker	10,900	75	0	36	Single envelopment; Right rear; Breakthrough
Egyptdefender	14,620	400	0	83	Defensive plan; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · training +1 · morale +1 · momentum +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. 584 · 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.