Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Back of Beyond => Topic started by: Jim French on 14 September 2011, 10:43:03 PM
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I recently read The British Invasion of Tibet, 1903. Colonel FE Younghusband of the Indian Army is sent to Tibet to settle a border dispute. After a 6 month wait with the Tibetan monks--mainly the Lhasa big monastery monks and the Dalai Lama--obfuscating and obstructing every overture made, the British move north into Tibet. They fight one battle against 2000 Tibetans armed mostly with swords and matchlocks, with a few Russian breechloaders at a town called Guru. It was an interesting read and if you don't want to follow actual history, it would make for a good campaign. The British had 2 7 pounder guns and some maxim machine guns.
Younghusband attributes the Tibetan stubbornness to the monks' wanting to maintain their priestly power over the population.
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I recently read The British Invasion of Tibet, 1903. Colonel FE Younghusband of the Indian Army is sent to Tibet to settle a border dispute. After a 6 month wait with the Tibetan monks--mainly the Lhasa big monastery monks and the Dalai Lama--obfuscating and obstructing every overture made, the British move north into Tibet. They fight one battle against 2000 Tibetans armed mostly with swords and matchlocks, with a few Russian breechloaders at a town called Guru. It was an interesting read and if you don't want to follow actual history, it would make for a good campaign. The British had 2 7 pounder guns and some maxim machine guns.
Younghusband attributes the Tibetan stubbornness to the monks' wanting to maintain their priestly power over the population.
Ah, Younghusband... I've read a bit about him. What a nutter.
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Successful nutter though!
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who won, then?
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Bit one sided gaming wise I'd say. Matchlock musket meets Lee-Metford and Maxim gun.
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Not our finest hour :(
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Not our finest hour :(
Having just seen the last episode of 'The Hour', neither was the Suez crisis. ;)
Sorry, back to topic.
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Not off topic at all. I understand that successive managers of the England football team are wont to recite a mantra of 'well compared to the Suez crisis or Tibet......'
;)
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Obviously that was before the debacle that was the last world cup lol
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Could make quite an interesting game and a fantastic excuse to make a dzhong/dhzong :D
cheers
James
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Obviously that was before the debacle that was the last world cup lol
Ouch!
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Guys, please stay at least a little bit on topic.
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It would have to be heavily modified to be playable I think. The area itself is way out back of the Beyond.
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If you like comics, I recommend the White Lama series, by Jodorowski and Bess.
http://www.humanoids.com/album/141
The story starts just with the invasion. The rest of the story is quite surreal and metaphysical, but I really like it.
Only a few manufacturers do make Tibetans though...
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If interested I would recommend the Wikipedia article which to me is not bad and gives a good summary plus references.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_expedition_to_Tibet
From what I have read here and elsewhere the campaign would be very one sided with the Anglo Indian forces having a clear edge in weapon's technology. You would have to fudge events to give the Tibetans any chance.
Also. IMHO, Younghusband a fascinating character in his own right,seems to have been fairly diplomatic during this episode. The military commander with the great name of Brigadier-General James Ronald Leslie Macdonald,seems to have been the one responsible for most of the bloodshed.
A great read that covers this and earlier events is Peter Hopkirk's: The Great Game : On Secret Service in High Asia This book also covers Afghan events . There was a paperback edition in 2006
Ted
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Second the recommendation - Hopkirks works are a must for anyone interested in BoB IMHO.
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Trying to make a fair game out of this would be more of a challenge than the actual invasion itself I suspect.
The only thing I can think of is change history and actually have some Russians help the Tibetans. Younghusband invaded because he suspected Russian agents were at work, so he wouldn't be surprised to find them there. Alternatively they could rely more on their Kham cavalry. The Kham were wild Steppe Cavalry and less pacifist than the rest of Tibet. They still only had swords and old muskets though.
The 1950 Chinese invasion though could just about be made into a game. The Tibetan army had by then been remade into a nineteenth century one by then, so they were only 50 years behind the opposition rather than 300.
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It probably belongs elsewhere in the Forum, but Fighting Dirty has a good chapter on the US training and equipping the Tibetans in the 50s and early 60's. It discusses training in the US and transporting them back into Tibet. There are also some fotos.