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

Battle of Naba

16 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.

Jordan (Jor 40th Armd Bde(+), 11,500 men under Bg El Majali) attacked Israel (Is 240th Armd Div, 11,000 men under Mg Laner) in Syria. The CAA Database of Battles records 4.5 hours of fighting on a front of 9 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense, and that Israel held. Losses: Jordan 450 (4%), Israel 100 (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

Jordan

Bg El Majali

Unit	Arm	Men
Jordan left wing	Infantry	2,264
Jordan centre	Infantry	3,019
Jordan right wing	Infantry	2,264
Jordan reserve	Infantry	1,887
Jordan artillery (48 guns)	Artillery	720
Jordan armour (269 tanks)	Armour	1,345
Bg El Majali	Commander	—
In this plan		11,499

Israel

Mg Laner

Unit	Arm	Men
Israel left wing	Infantry	2,213
Israel centre	Infantry	2,950
Israel right wing	Infantry	2,213
Israel reserve	Infantry	1,844
Israel artillery (48 guns)	Artillery	720
Israel armour (212 tanks)	Armour	1,060
Mg Laner	Commander	—
In this plan		11,000

What the sources report

	Jordan	Israel
Strength, this plan	11,500	11,000
Losses, this plan	450	100

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 598, “Naba”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 4.5 hours
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Rugged, Bare
Weather: Dry, Sunny, Hot, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense
Front width: 9 km (attacker), 9 km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Jordanattacker	11,500	450	0	48	Frontal attack; Repulse
Israeldefender	11,000	100	0	48	Defensive plan; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages none recorded

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. 598 · 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.