"Historically modelling NA/Tunisia terrain?" Topic

I've been thinking about getting into NA/Tunisia (currently am more of an Eastern Front gamer).

One of the first points of call is a gaming table for Tunisia/NA. Game is Flames of War so company level wargame.

I would like the table to represent realistic battlefields of the period.

However it seem that both North Africa and Tunisia are relatively flat or at least with Tunisia have lots of wide and open spaces:

E.g. Pics of Panzer Wrecks (you can see it's quite flat in the background)
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El Guettar

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NA/Tunisia in general

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Sidi Bou Zid

I assume the terrain should be open with an emphasis on hills and dunes?

What about villages/farms? The other thing is Orchards. However I've not seen many photos of palms in Tunisia.

Tunisia had quite a few olive groves IIRC. Robert

Depends upon the terrain in the locality. The terrain around the battles of Steamroller Farm link and Longstop Hill link in Tunisia wasn't exactly flat.

"He had been attacked by a mad tank battalion which had scaled impossible heights and forced him to withdraw".

I was in Tunisia ten days ago and had chance to travel around on bus tours.

Tunisia varies from Mediteranian terrain in the north to sand dunes in the south with mountains along the west border and large flat areas in the middle.

The nothern part of Tunisia is hilly and has olive trees in neat rows as far as the eye can see. The soil sand varies from beige to pale teracotta.

The middle is flatter and has less plants but you still see olive trees and aloe vera plants. There are also salt lakes, which are often simply flat areas of sand with a whitish crust for most of the year.

Twenty five years ago, I visited the southern part and saw desert oasis areas with dense groups of date palms. The area south of Douz is sahara sand dunes.

Wow Mick. That's some great info!

Remember that most of the Tunisian Campaign was fought in the winter and wet and/or cold weather was not uncommon. As a conseqence a lot of Tunisia was actually very green when the fighting was taking place – something commented upon in several accounts, including that of Lt Col John Frost of 2 Para. His battalion dubbed one battlefield 'Happy Valley', as it was so lush with vegetation and covered in flowers.

Dear Thomas,

Send me a mail to farnworth AT bluewin DOT ch
I have some photographs of Carthage and El Jem and surrounding areas. They may be useful for your project.

Mick

Von Armin had real problems commanding his troops in Tunisia, he just couldn`t adapt to the close terrain after serving in Russia.

Lots of hills, very wet and cold too. If you look at photos of 10th Panzer or Dak vehicles you`ll note lots of vegitation used for camouflage.

The terrain in the Western Desert, fought over before the fighting reached Tunisia was different though. Much of it was sand with low scrub. There were wide expanses of flat plain, but even a lot of that undulated enough to hide vehicles. Rocky hills and escarpments were often strategic positions, and I believe these are inland of the coastal plain. The armies didn't really venture further south into the Saharan 'sand sea', the hollywood sand dune type terrain. The sand was too soft and best left to LRDG types….

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Even the 'flat' desert would be full of undulations and low lying ridges and hollows…..
Have a look at this easy and cheap method using paper and tape under a cloth for desert terrain (the roads etc are good too!) (Followthe You Tube video- about 4 min 10 secs in )
blog.gamecraftminiatures.com

Some real interesting pics … thanks for sharing !

Thanks too from me.