Schematic plan · Arab-Israeli, 1956

Battle of Abu Agelia-Um Katef

30 October 1956
Sinai
Victory for Egypt

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 Div, 4,700 men under unrecorded commanders) attacked Egypt (Egy Rgt, 4,800 men under unrecorded commanders) in Sinai. The CAA Database of Battles records 48 hours of fighting on a front of 6 km, a frontal attack against fortified defense, and that Egypt held. Losses: Israel 318 (7%), Egypt 3,000 (63%).

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

Unit	Arm	Men
Israel left wing	Infantry	944
Israel centre	Infantry	1,259
Israel right wing	Infantry	944
Israel reserve	Infantry	787
Israel artillery (27 guns)	Artillery	405
Israel armour (72 tanks)	Armour	360
Israel command	Commander	—
In this plan		4,699

Egypt

Unit	Arm	Men
Egypt left wing	Infantry	991
Egypt centre	Infantry	1,322
Egypt right wing	Infantry	991
Egypt reserve	Infantry	826
Egypt artillery (32 guns)	Artillery	480
Egypt armour (38 tanks)	Armour	190
Egypt command	Commander	—
In this plan		4,800

What the sources report

	Israel	Egypt
Strength, this plan	4,700	4,800
Losses, this plan	318	3,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 650, “Abu Agelia-Um Katef”, 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
Winner: the defender
Terrain: Flat, Bare
Weather: Dry, Hot, Autumn, Desert
Defender’s posture: Fortified defense
Front width: 6 km (attacker), null km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
Israelattacker	4,700	318	0	27	Frontal attack
Egyptdefender	4,800	3,000	0	32	—

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. 650 · 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.