Schematic plan · Arab-Israeli, 1948

Battle of Mishmar Hayarden 1

6 June 1948
Golan
Victory for Syria

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.

Syria (Syr Rgt, 4,000 men under unrecorded commanders) attacked Israel (Is Rgt, 2,500 men under unrecorded commanders) in Golan. The CAA Database of Battles records 96 hours of fighting on a front of 5 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense, and that Syria won. Losses: Syria 250 (6%), Israel 2,500 (100%).

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

Syria

Unit	Arm	Men
Syria left wing	Infantry	833
Syria centre	Infantry	1,110
Syria right wing	Infantry	833
Syria reserve	Infantry	694
Syria artillery (2 guns)	Artillery	30
Syria armour (100 tanks)	Armour	500
Syria command	Commander	—
In this plan		4,000

Israel

Unit	Arm	Men
Israel left wing	Infantry	542
Israel centre	Infantry	723
Israel right wing	Infantry	542
Israel reserve	Infantry	452
Israel artillery (16 guns)	Artillery	240
Israel command	Commander	—
In this plan		2,499

What the sources report

	Syria	Israel
Strength, this plan	4,000	2,500
Losses, this plan	250	2,500

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 638, “Mishmar Hayarden 1”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 96 hours
Winner: the attacker
Terrain: Flat, Mixed
Weather: Dry, Hot, Summer, Desert
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense
Front width: 5 km (attacker), null km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Syriaattacker	4,000	250	0	2	Frontal attack
Israeldefender	2,500	2,500	0	16	—

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. 638 · 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.