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

Battle of Kfar Shams-Tel Antar

15 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 240th Armd Div(-), 11,000 men under Mg Laner) attacked Israel (Is 3rd Armd Div, 12,000 men under Bg Lafta) in Syria. The CAA Database of Battles records 3 hours of fighting on a front of 20 km, a single envelopment, right flank against hasty defense, and that Israel won. Losses: Israel 100 (1%), Israel 200 (2%).

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 Laner

Unit	Arm	Men
Israel left wing	Infantry	2,242
Israel centre	Infantry	2,989
Israel right wing	Infantry	2,242
Israel reserve	Infantry	1,868
Israel artillery (40 guns)	Artillery	600
Israel armour (212 tanks)	Armour	1,060
Mg Laner	Commander	—
In this plan		11,001

Israel

Bg Lafta

Unit	Arm	Men
Israel left wing	Infantry	2,305
Israel centre	Infantry	3,074
Israel right wing	Infantry	2,305
Israel reserve	Infantry	1,921
Israel artillery (70 guns)	Artillery	1,050
Israel armour (269 tanks)	Armour	1,345
Bg Lafta	Commander	—
In this plan		12,000

What the sources report

	Israel (attacker)	Israel (defender)
Strength, this plan	11,000	12,000
Losses, this plan	100	200

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 597, “Kfar Shams-Tel Antar”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 3 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Rugged, Bare
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Hot, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 20 km (attacker), 20 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Israelattacker	11,000	100	0	40	Single envelopment; Right flank; Penetration; Stalemate
Israeldefender	12,000	200	0	70	Defensive plan; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages leadership +2 · training +2 · intelligence +1 · initiative +1 · surprise +2 · air superiority +1 · 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. 597 · 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.