Time Astra

Schematic plan · Arab-Israeli, 1948

Battle of Hiram

All battles
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.
Rolling, Bare groundCentreCentreLeft wingRight wingLeft wingRight wingReserveReserveGunsGunsArmourArmourCommand0500 m1 kmN

Israel (Is Div, 6,000 men under unrecorded commanders) attacked Syria (Syr Rgt, 6,000 men under unrecorded commanders) in Golan. The CAA Database of Battles records 48 hours of fighting on a front of 3 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense, and that neither side won. Losses: Israel 650 (11%), Syria 2,100 (35%).

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

UnitArmMen
Israel left wingInfantry1,253
Israel centreInfantry1,670
Israel right wingInfantry1,253
Israel reserveInfantry1,044
Israel artillery (32 guns)Artillery480
Israel armour (60 tanks)Armour300
Israel commandCommander—
In this plan6,000

Syria

UnitArmMen
Syria left wingInfantry1,282
Syria centreInfantry1,709
Syria right wingInfantry1,282
Syria reserveInfantry1,068
Syria artillery (24 guns)Artillery360
Syria armour (60 tanks)Armour300
Syria commandCommander—
In this plan6,001

What the sources report

IsraelSyria
Strength, this plan6,0006,000
Losses, this plan6502,100

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 640, “Hiram”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
48 hours
Terrain
Rolling, Bare
Weather
Dry, Hot, Autumn, Desert
Defender’s posture
Prepared defense
Front width
3 km (attacker)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Israelattacker6,000650032Frontal attack
Syriadefender6,0002,100024—

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

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.