Schematic plan · Arab-Israeli, 1948

Operation Danny

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 groundCentreLeft wingRight wingReserveCentreLeft wingRight wingArmourGunsArmourCommand01 km2 kmN

Israel (Is Div, 4,500 men under unrecorded commanders) attacked Jordan (Jor Rgt, 2,500 men under unrecorded commanders) in West Bank. The CAA Database of Battles records 96 hours of fighting on a front of 5 km, a frontal attack against prepared defense, and that neither side won. Losses: Israel 150 (3%), Jordan 250 (10%).

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 wingInfantry961
Israel centreInfantry1,282
Israel right wingInfantry961
Israel reserveInfantry801
Israel artillery (14 guns)Artillery210
Israel armour (57 tanks)Armour285
Israel commandCommander—
In this plan4,500

Jordan

UnitArmMen
Jordan left wingInfantry523
Jordan centreInfantry698
Jordan right wingInfantry523
Jordan reserveInfantry436
Jordan artillery (8 guns)Artillery120
Jordan armour (40 tanks)Armour200
Jordan commandCommander—
In this plan2,500

What the sources report

IsraelJordan
Strength, this plan4,5002,500
Losses, this plan150250

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 656, “Jerusalem Corridor”, 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
Terrain
Rolling, Bare
Weather
Dry, Hot, Summer, Desert
Defender’s posture
Prepared defense
Front width
5 km (attacker), null km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Israelattacker4,500150014Frontal attack
Jordandefender2,50025008—

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.