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

Battle of Tel Shams

11 October 1973
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 36th Mech Div, 16,100 men under Bg Eitan) attacked Syria (Syr 7th Inf Div(-)(+), 19,400 men under Bg Berakdar) in Syria. The CAA Database of Battles records 15.5 hours of fighting on a front of 5 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that Israel won. Losses: Israel 525 (3%), Syria 1,200 (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

Bg Eitan

Unit	Arm	Men
Israel left wing	Infantry	3,324
Israel centre	Infantry	4,432
Israel right wing	Infantry	3,324
Israel reserve	Infantry	2,770
Israel artillery (60 guns)	Artillery	900
Israel armour (270 tanks)	Armour	1,350
Bg Eitan	Commander	—
In this plan		16,100

Syria

Bg Berakdar

Unit	Arm	Men
Syria left wing	Infantry	3,865
Syria centre	Infantry	5,154
Syria right wing	Infantry	3,865
Syria reserve	Infantry	3,221
Syria artillery (110 guns)	Artillery	1,650
Syria armour (329 tanks)	Armour	1,645
Bg Berakdar	Commander	—
In this plan		19,400

What the sources report

	Israel	Syria
Strength, this plan	16,100	19,400
Losses, this plan	525	1,200

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 594, “Tel Shams”, 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 attacker
Terrain: Rolling, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Hot, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 5 km (attacker), 5 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Israelattacker	16,100	525	0	60	Frontal attack; Penetration; Stalemate
Syriadefender	19,400	1,200	0	110	Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages leadership +1 · training +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. 594 · 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.