vacuum formed terrain boards

[rdenman62]

Ok...I have a question and I'm not sure if starting a new topic is where this needs to be asked but here it goes...When I was stationed at Ft Hood 1980-1983..I was at a building in 2nd Bde area don't remeber if it was the field house or not but seems like it was anyways and there was this room where they had a HUGE wargaming board..now as I remember it it was made up of 2x4 plastic vacuum formed terrain sections..I'm guessing this play area was quite large in size and it was highly detailed and just amazing to look at. all painted up with brush, trees, roads etc.....now my question is this..what were these called? I remember seeing a post I think on another forum or even this forum what these were called but can't seem to find it anywhere...man what I would give to have that stuff today...any help would be appreciated..Thanks

[Bruce Morris]

Sounds like you're describing the old Dunn-Kempf boards. I recall seeing some back around '85 in the Training Aids shop here at Fort Benning. I picked up a Wargamers Digest in the 70's with an article on the Dunn-Kempf system with a scenario ( I still have it!) and that's what got me hooked on GHQ MicroArmour. Another scenario on the Isreali Egyptian battle at the Chinese Farm sealed my fate!

Bruce

[MTB]

I remember the plactic DUNNKEMPF boards from 1980-1984 in our National Guard Armory (2 Bn / 152nd ARMOR). However, all of the trrain was painted, i.e, there were no separate trees, buldings, etc. The GHQ models were pretty beat up too...lol.

I seem to recall an article about a GHQ sponsired terrain board from back in the 80's. The pictures were outstanding; trees, contours, villages, etc. It depicted an area of Germany and the Army was using it to "wargame" various scenarios. I think it was in WARGAMERS DIGEST too. It wasn't done with "terrain-maker".

Perhaps this is the board that was a Ft Hood?

Mitch in Iraq

[voltigeur]

I remember 2 types of terrain boards from the 80's. One was a 1:50,000 model of Yakima Washington. The next was a vacume form terrain board with holes and sponge caps. You would drop a screen and move your pieces then raise the screen and your opponent would drop his screen and move his. reat system when you have billions of dollars in goverment sponser ship.

I also remember the "First Battle" wargame from the military. Actually I still have a copy and use it for my home grown rules. Was actually fun making the unit counters and you could play on any contour map with a 1KM grid on top.

[Cav Dog]

The Army had the DUNNKEMPF terrain boards in a couple of places. I used the one at Ft Hood that rdenman talked about. There was another one at Ft Rucker that was a model of terrain around the Fulda Gap. I was already a micro-armor gamer at the time and wantrd to know how to get a job at the Sim Center!

What was really cool though was the early version of the AH-1 flight simulators; they were huge terrain boards with trees, roads and houses on them. I forget the ground scale but it had to be 2mm or so. I think the board was 125' x 75'. The crew in the cockpit moved the flight controls which moved a tiny camera around the terrain board through a computer link. The opfor vehicles were placed on the screen electronically by the instructor as were weapons effects.

The really great part was that invariably some sort of insect would get onto the board and there was nothing like zooming around a ridge line and coming face to face with a 50' cockroach!

[WHM]

Actually there is another set of vacuum boards the Army was using about 9, 10 years ago. Don't recall what they were called and they weren't the "wide open" vista thet Dunn Kempf had. They looked like they were meant for microarmor but we used "matchbox" size models. Certainly ruined the experience for me at least.

About 25 - 30 years ago there was an outfit that sold as a set of 4 vacuum formed terrain boards. They were unpainted and had a bridge molded unto one. They were if I remeber right about 18 inches square. I had two sets of them but some how they disappeared and I don't know where.

Someone posted about an addof someone who had a Dunn Kempf for sale and I went so far as to contact the person, but all they had was a lot of beat up old microarmor.

Like most I would love to get my hands on one of those ols sets of boards.

The buildings were like "Monopoly houses".

[ferret701]

There was a similar set apparently used by the Marines up on eBay about 3 years ago. I believe it had 6 or 8 boards, all quite large. I was turned off by the shipping (was like $75) but looking back, I'm absolutely kicking myself. Included coastline boards, not just FRG stuff.

Pat Callahan

[voltigeur]

Since someone mentioned the Sim Center at FT Hood. Anyone remember Chuck the Warlord? He did several conventions using the Army's system. Not sure where he is since 89. Love to game with him again. My room mate and I might even be up for a road trip if he is still in the FT hood area.

[Le Scronge]

Dunn-Kempf terrain consisted of 10 2' x 4' vacu-formed boards scaled approximately 50 meters to the inch. All the terrain features were either painted or molded on except the buildings which were a bit larger than Monopoly houses and glued into shallow recesses in the boards.

When I was browsing a TRADOC catalog of training aids, I discovered a reference to another set of vacu-formed boards for a training simulation called “Blockbusterâ€￾. There are 14 2’ x 4’ boards in the set and are 1/285 scale. The set comes with vehicles, weapon systems, buildings, rubble, rules, random number tables, and result tables. The sim pits a US company team against a motor rifle battalion. Has anyone seen the terrain for this sim?

[rdenman62]

Thanks to all for the information regarding these Dunn Kempf boards...greatly appreciate the info and stirring the memory banks of this old fart..........ah the good old days,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,