[devilbunny]

It doesn't get Death Valley hot (few places do), and Germany has no deserts. Combine that with the German fascination with the Old West and you've got a recipe for disaster. They see the terrain, figure they can handle it because they go hiking in mountains all the time. They can handle the terrain; what they can't handle is the environment.

[pohuing]

Germany does have a desert, though tiny(only second largest in Europe) and made by a forest fire followed by tank tracks over decades of training.

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieberoser_W%C3%BCste

[devilbunny]

That's a wasteland, but probably not a desert. Per the link, it gets 569 mm of rain a year; dry, certainly compared to most of Germany, but most definitions of "desert" run around 250 mm/yr (consensus, but even if the cutoff is off by a little bit, it's over twice that). By comparison, Denver, which is arid but not a desert by anyone's imagination, is around 368 mm/yr.

[pohuing]

Ah interesting. In German the definition is based on the lack of vegetation, not the amount of rain

[devilbunny]

I'm making this a separate reply because I just realized that this is one of those language confusion things. If Germans think a desert is a place without plants, regardless of water resources, they will wander out into places that Americans and Australians call deserts, which are insanely dry, thinking that of course there must be water somewhere. In the US and Aus, if someone says "that's a desert", you should be carrying 10+ liters per day per person and some extra if you get into trouble. Do not assume that you will find water anywhere.

[devilbunny]

For reference, Death Valley gets about 57 mm of rain per year. It is extremely dry.