In the current research, the factors of success and foundational principles of war are vaguely described; this is in spite of their prominent occurrence in military doctrines. There seems to be a lack of empirical evidence underpinning the theories of Wayne P. Hughes (2000) and Geoffrey Till (2014) and also few or none precursor studies that apply these frameworks to the analysis of modern sea battles, which reduces their theoretical validity. This paper aims to address the gap in empirical research in the field by applying the theories of Hughes and Till to a case-study examination of the Yom-Kippur war 1973 and to determine their utility and relevance for analysing modern naval warfare. The findings of the case-study indicate that Hughes’ theory in particular can contribute to the theoretical analysis of modern naval warfare since all factors of success were fulfilled. Nine of the eleven factors of Till's theory were identified in the analysis, and these nine are regarded as having high explanatory power. The remaining two factors partly identified in the analysis are regarded as having less relevance as factors of success for modern naval warfare. More empirical studies have to be researched to allow generalization of this papers results.