Insurrection in Mesopotamia, 1920

I just started reading a copy of The Insurrection In Mesopotamia 1920 by Haldane, James A. L. (ISBN: 0-89839-339-6) which I bought from Battery Press. It seems really interesting and is worth it just for Appendix IX alone (Notes on Arab Warfare) . I noticed there is an online digitized version available, so I'm posting this link:
http://www.dean.usma.edu/HISTORY/web03/resources/resource%20pages/Mesopotamia/insurrection_mesopotamia.html

Armored trains, planes, cavalry, MGs, fanatic warriors, etc.

Terrain I Recommend...

I have bought stuff from this guy (the Battlefield Architect) 3 times, with good results. Very solid and very basic. So... I'm recommending him. His stuff's on sale right now..
http://stores.ebay.com/Battlefield-Architect_W0QQcolZ4QQdirZ1QQfsubZ16453737QQftidZ2QQtZkm

Worst Photo Ever

Battlehonors Mounted Arabs (I believe these were sculpted by Soapy), some remounted on West Wind Ponies. Out of focus, no base treatment.

Arab Revolt(s) Perfect Storm

I guess I got the bug. I swore I wouldn't run Lawrence of Arabia games; I've had Brigade & Battle Honors Bedouin figures sitting around for awhile, but I always intended to use them as Turkish allies (Shaiba 1915, Arabistan 1915, Ctesiphon 1915, Sinai 1915-1916). Now with the Artizan/Brigade Games Arab Revolt range coming out and Osprey's Arab Revolt title being released I just had to read up on Lawrence's adventures. So I pulled out Setting The Desert on Fire by James Barr and have been glued to it. Almost all the figures I have will work with this sideshow and it'll give me an excuse to paint up more Gurkhas. The second problem is that I have been reading this paper from the Strategic Studies Institute about the Iraqi revolt of 1920 (http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub592.pdf) and it's fascinating. Isolated outposts maintained by Air resupply, flying columns escorting trains through the desert, desperate ambushes... all the stuff of good gaming. So I'll be painting more Bedouins.

Forty Thousand Horsemen

I accidentally discovered this link. It has little clips from an Australian film called The Forty Thousand Horsemen which apparently is about the Light Horsemen in Palestine.
http://australianscreen.com.au/titles/forty-thousand-horsemen/

Bedouins

(An image lifted from the book Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/17109)

The Bedouin cavalry that I had mentioned in previous posts have been sitting primed but unpainted; now they are finally under way. Five of the 11 are done and three more are in various stages of "getting dressed". They are Battle Honors figures which are sculpted as Arab Revolt figures, but initially I will be using them mostly as Ottoman allies. There are two packs available an Arabs on horses pack and an Arabs on Camels pack (http://oldglory15s.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=1_221_706_707&sort=3a). The horse-monted Arabs have four figures per pack with four variant figures on several horse variants. The camel riders are all the same, but there seem to be three camel variants. I am aiming for one large P-O-G unit which will probably quickly evaporate under fire. I have two units of dismounted Brigade Games Bedouin to paint, but it seems unlikely they will be done by the game Jim & I will (hopefuly) be running on Dec. 13th, so their place will be filled by Jim's Tuareg / Berbers. Hopefully I will have a picture or two to upload soon.

Real Terrain

Here's a real photo (lifted from an Israeli tourism sight) of the Judean Hills outside of Jerusalem. This is the kind of the kind of terrain I'm aiming for in my Palestine Games. As you can see lots and lots of stone fences (in ACW terms), broken ground and hills. The terrain around Gaza and into the Philistine Plains would not be that different, though the relief would be less. Does anyone know of a good source for "ragged" stone walls wargames terrain? We have some at the club, but to fill up a lot of the table will take much more.

The second picture shows the cactus hedges typical around Gaza. I would like to have something to model these but who knows how I would do it. I have treated these in the past as equivalent to 1 string of Barbed wire, providing cover to defenders.

The third photo shows Turkish troops "in action" in the Judean hills.