Russians in The Great Game - 1905

[huevans]

More a random idea than a developed project. I ran across this article from a Twitter link.

https://cartographer.substack.com/p/the-creation-of-the-russian-imperial



And that sparked the concept of a Russian punitive expedition into Afghanistan or neighbouring tribal territory in the early 1900's. There are complete ranges of figures for such a game from Empress. The "Jazz Age Imperialism" range has Afghan tribesmen with various rifles - from relatively up-to-date Lee Enfields back to Martini-Henrys and Lee-Metfords - as well as cavalry and a machine gun.

And the Empress / Tsuba range of Russians for the Russo-Japanese War would fit perfectly.

The game could be the flip side of any British colonial expedition - a rescue, pacification or reprisal conducted into a tribal stronghold.

[carlos marighela]

Nice article.

The Russians were quite busy elsewhere in 1905 you know.

[has.been]

The Russians were quite busy elsewhere in 1905 you know.
/quote]

Maybe that would explain a limited Russian Force.

[Tom Dulski]

 This sounds like a marvelous idea, are there many mini's to represent the Russians during this time?

[huevans]

This sounds like a marvelous idea, are there many mini's to represent the Russians during this time?

https://www.empressminiatures.com/russians-62-c.asp

https://www.empressminiatures.com/jazz-age-imperialism-14-c.asp

[CapnJim]

Interesting idea.  If you do this, the Soviet adventure in '80-'88 would then be a Return Engagement! 

[carlos marighela]

Better than playing it out as two home and away games.

Still, if the aggregate scores are equal after the return game will there need to be a tie-breaker, extra time or just a penalty shoot out?

[huevans]

An interesting possibility is that the Russian unit could contain subversive or mutinous elements and morale might be shaky. There were widespread mutinies in the Russian army in 1905 and 1906.

https://books.openedition.org/psorbonne/52431?lang=en

https://publish.iupress.indiana.edu/read/mutiny-amid-repression-russian-soldiers-in-the-revolution-of-1905-1906/section/2248b0d6-c3ff-4101-87ba-5de57134b7b8

[carlos marighela]

Not just the army. I take it you have not seen this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_bkBbrdyyw

1905 was, shall we say, a suboptimal time for the Russian armed forces. When they weren't getting their clocks cleaned by the Japanese, goodly portions of the forces were either assisting in suppressing a Revolution or mutinying themselves. There was also a lesser known but fairly large scale inter-ethnic struggle going on between the Tartars and Armenians. Think late 20th C Balkan wars scale massacres for that one.

Another difficult foreign engagement on the fringes of the Empire would have been a surefire morale booster..... not.