"Spanish Terrain: Arid or Green?" Topic

I am wondering what the Hive Mind thinks about the type of terrain that a war gamer should use for battles in Spain for the Peninsula War.

Should I go for a burnt grass look or something greener. I have read that the northern part of Spain is a lusher looking green than the south of Spain.

Looking up "Landscapes of Spain", the images of the Spanish countryside do not look arid to me.

It looks fairly lush and green for spring and summer.

Never been there though …..

Something I like to do is bring up Google Maps and use the Streetview feature out in rural areas/nature preserves to see what it looks like at different times of the year. (this is really important, because Isandlwana around the time of the battle looks very different than it did in the movies!)

I used this method when basing miniatures for central Italy (light green grass instead of arid pre mix terrain)

Hi, Der Alte Fritz,

"I have read that the northern part of Spain is a lusher looking green than the south of Spain."
You sum it up quite well. I could also answer "It depend", vegetation color varies a lot if the saison see a lot of rain or not.
For example, this spring it rained a lot, the countryside surrounding Madrid was a sea of green,now with the successive heat waves it probably turned into the usual(for the season) ondulating brownish, yellowy patchwork.
When you're flyng from France to Spain, a view from the window plane show you an stark difference between the two contries both in colours and topography.

a light beige, brown dirt with some light green grass patches could be a compromise.

Apologies for my clunky english.

Alberto

I settled long ago on a max of four--green grass, outright desert, urban and red-tinged Barsoom. That was largely money and storage, of course. There's no serious objection to jungle, snow-covered or arid, but none of us have infinite money and space. That said, I'd keep in mind that you'll never match all historical batles, and for horse and musket armies especially, most of the action takes place when and where there's forage for the horses.

Two pictures of the same battlefield (Los Arapiles / Salamanca)

BTW, the second link is from a good friend's website: "EL PRIMER EDECAN", who is a profesional guide specialized in the Peninsular War battlefields, highly recommended to all the TMP'ers if they visit Spain.

It's probably better to think of the Iberian peninsula as a subcontinent. It has most terrain types: all the forest types from dense to sparse and dry to rainforest, plains, deserts, mountains, hill country, open land, pastoral land, and farmland. It varies from lush to arid, depending on local climates. You need to know which part of the country the battle was in to model the terrain correctly.

The northern regions of Spain are said to resemble England or France -- check out Richard Lester's films "Robin and Marian" and "The Three Musketeers/Four Musketeers/Return of the Musketeers" saga, all filmed in Spain while pretending to be in England or France.

Bearing in mind of course that modern irrigation might have enabled a greener look than would otherwise have been the case in whatever month the battle you want to recreate occurred.

Cheers,
John

I've been all over Spain and Portugal at various times of year, and yes, it is varied. I wouldn't say the North is exactly like England (it is still a very long way south!) but it is quite lush.

In the main though, it is more arid than Northern Europe, as you'd expect. More like Italy, with a similar graduation I terrain and climate as you go further south.

Your project could be leveraged into a reason to buy the Sharpe series on DVD to get a general sense of the terrain and flora. Just be careful. A fair few of the episodes were shot in other places like Crimea and Turkey.

Flying from Madrid to the southwest in May or June, I remember nothing but brown out of the window.

I lived in Spain for over two years (1960-62). Varied terrain.

Or you could watch Dr Zhivago :~)

Just don't be fooled by the snowy railway scenes – that's Finland . . .

"Despite the endless ‘Russian' snowscapes, most of David Lean's epic but chocolate-boxy romance, based on Boris Pasternak's novel, was shot in sweltering heat in Spain, with the major sets – including a huge outdoor section of ‘Moscow' – constructed in Canillas, a suburb of Madrid.

The icy cottage, with its dinky icicles and plaster snow, was built in the mountainous region 100 miles northeast of Madrid at Soria, where more scenes were filmed around Candilichera.

Other Spanish locations included Granada; Guadalajara; Aljalvir and Aranjuez.

The railway scenes were filmed in Finland, on the track laid during the 1940 Russian invasion, at the town of Joensuu, in eastern Finland, 100 miles from the real Russian border. The refugees' trek was also filmed here, at Lake Pyhäselkä.

There was even a little second unit filming in the Canadian Rockies, providing more mountain views for the train scenes."

Cheers,
John

Der Alte Fritz
"I am wondering what the Hive Mind thinks about the type of terrain that a war gamer should use for battles in Spain for the Peninsula War."

Depends what time of year and which crops. I toured many of the Penisular War battlesites one hot summer. Generally, a lot of stoney soil is exposed.

Salamanca was overall: a light, yellowish beige colour. This comes from yellowing stubble, stoney, red earth with rocks at field edges and patches of green scrub. There are a lot of light-coloured stones under the hot sun so the effect of the soil from a distance is of a light grey, yellow beige-colour. I cover bases with patches of darker, short burnt grass flock and long, yellow grass over large stretches of builders' sand and a few patches of dark railway ballast.

I made some polystyrene terrain boards for the Peninsula and they are covered in real sand – beige or yellowish for uplands and redder sand with burnt grass in the lowlands.

Almeida and the Coa gorge area is covered in a lot of stepped vinyards where the paths are brown earth with stone shards – lighter grey -looking in the burning sun, and thick clumps of short green grass.

Vitoria was damper – terrian was more cental European: dark Earth, more green grass.

Wow, those two pictures of Salamanca are eye opening.