Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Back of Beyond => Topic started by: Mark Plant on December 03, 2018, 11:11:19 PM
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I'm off on another of my forays into the murky world of the Basmachis. A couple of papers caught my eye.
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a485594.pdf is (https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a485594.pdf is) new to me. The low amounts of ammunition with the Basmachis is quite noticeable, but they did seem to have modern rifles at least.
https://pahar.in/mountains/Books%20and%20Articles/Central%20Asia/1987%20Revolt%20of%20Basmachi%20According%20to%20Red%20Army%20Journals%20(1920-22)%20from%20CAS%20v6:3%20s.pdf (https://pahar.in/mountains/Books%20and%20Articles/Central%20Asia/1987%20Revolt%20of%20Basmachi%20According%20to%20Red%20Army%20Journals%20(1920-22)%20from%20CAS%20v6:3%20s.pdf) is a particular favourite of mine. I'm not sure if I got it on-line or in paper form.
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The first link does not work :(
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Sorry, try url=http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a485594.pdf (http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a485594.pdf)
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Many thanks Mark. Just 'raising' a Basmachi force for our BoB Sitrucistan campaign...
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Thanks! Very interesting information.
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Great articles Mark, thank you!
Particularly liked how the Basmachi labelled all modern weaponry Satan's something, the aeroplane being 'Satan's Wagon' and the machine gun 'Satan's Machine', reminds me of when the Emir of Bukhara brought a motorcar back as a present from Nicholas II, the locals pelted it with rocks as they thought it was some sort of black magic, he had to keep it in his garage ever after!
I wasn't aware how significant a role the Dashnaks played in Central Asia either, but given the Armenian role in the early 1990s in Tajikistan, I suppose it makes sense, still, definitely something to incorporate in future games.
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I wasn't aware how significant a role the Dashnaks played in Central Asia either, but given the Armenian role in the early 1990s in Tajikistan, I suppose it makes sense, still, definitely something to incorporate in future games.
I've attached a document that is going to go up on PygmyWars soon, but I'm still sorting out the map I'm going to attach to it (since most people struggle to visualise where everything is down that way -- I really don't know where Bukhara and Khiva were accurately and I've been reading this stuff for over a decade).
It explains how the Reds were so short of manpower down in Turkestan that they felt forced into using Armenians, despite their terrible discipline. A 1919 Red force down there could be a hearty mix of committed railway workers and Internationalists alongside completely unreliable Armenians and local cavalry.
By mid 1920 you have proper Red Army, ChON etc instead. Although the Whites had evacuated to China by then there were still Whites crossing into Russia and Russians crossing into China.
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Cheers, looks like a cracking read.
RE the Armenians I presume they would have been dressed as other non-Muslims in the area, in European/Russian clothing rather than in traditional Dashnak garb?
Was the turnaround in quality of the Red forces solely due to Frunze and co.'s arrival in theatre or was there any degree of professionalisation amongst the Red troops already in Turkestan? Sorry for the bombardment of questions!
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Several photos Red Army in Central Asia:
http://siberia-miniatures.ru/forum/showthread.php?tid=421&fid=12&block=0
Dashnaks had uniforms of the Russian type. You will hardly be able to distinguish them from the rest of the Red Army in appearance.
But I have information that due to the long isolation from Russia, uniforms for the Red Army in Central Asia during this period were often made of leather.
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Solely due to Frunze and the Red Army, Dr Bogo.
That would be true of all the Reds though. The early outfits were very dodgy until the centre started to knock heads and insist on trained officers and strong discipline. That's what happens when not only do you not have professionals running the show but you actively despise the professionals and go out of your way to do things in a revolutionary manner.
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Thanks for the attachment (printed for readin) and the link guys. Much appreciated.
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Oh you are an absolute star of the first order Mark. Again. Thanks for sharing. Great stuff.
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(https://imgur.com/a/KlAfSZ3)
http://pygmy-wars.50megs.com/pygmywars.com/military/maps/turkestan.png (http://pygmy-wars.50megs.com/pygmywars.com/military/maps/turkestan.png)
The map for the article. Not sure why it isn't embedding.
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Many thanks Mark for the articles! Unfortunately the map link doesn't work for me.
Lon
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My family started to complain about the language I was using about Flickr, who were not letting me sign into my (admittedly very old, rarely used) account. And it turns out my PygmyWars host doesn't allow remote linking. This is starting to get on my nerves. Let's try with Imgur
https://imgur.com/y9I6Es9 (https://imgur.com/y9I6Es9)
If you copy the pygmywars link into your browser it should work BTW. I'll be posting it there properly soon anyway.
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Hi !
I think these could be very interesting ;)
http://pahar.in/
http://pahar.in/journals/
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WOW!!!!
Potentially a gold mine. Thanks Byblos
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That's fabulous Byblos. thank-you. I shall now download all of them -- I've been burnt by stuff disappearing too often.
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It's a good idea Mark, but it will take a lot of time !
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I will only do the ones relevant to my interests, so that's not so many.
You can get apps that download entire websites automatically though (I have an off-line copy of Cuprum's Siberia Miniatures, for example).
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Oh that's could be really interesting !