"Re: Ian Heath's Central Asia and the Himalayan Kingdoms..." Topic

I have this volume and I would say that it really isn't suited for descriptions prior to the 19th century. He mentions the occasional tidbit from earlier times if there isn't any information for his time frame but as a whole, there is information included that is based on travellers etc. who passed through the regions from the early 19th century on. Knowing nothing of prior history in this area, I am unable to say how this information compares to earlier times.

In reference to the firearms though, he has quite a bit to say and here are a couple of tidbits: "At what point flintlocks appeared among the Tibetans is not clear, but certainly the troops encountered by the British in Sikkim in 1888 had at least some muzzle-loading flintlock muskets, though according to a Tibetan who was present even these took them about five minutes to reload." "However, neither flintlocks nor percussion muskets ever came into widespread use, so that in effect, Tibet jumped from matchlocks to breech-loaders late in the 19th century, when local production of modern firearms was begun at Lhasa, possibly as early as c. 1888 and certainly by c. 1894."

Well, for the Tibet section, of 22 line drawings, two are in armor – one mounted, one foot. The author notes in the descriptive paragraph that "These figures (the armored ones) come from photographs taken during the British invasion of Tibet in 1904". Not really a whole lot about armor in the big picture but he does show the pronged musket as being carried by a number of figures in this time period.

There is an illustration of a Bhutanese officer in chanmail stating "wears armour typical of that once found in Sikkim as well as Bhutan". For Jammu & Kashmir there is one illustration of a Khola Fauj lancer in chainmail and that's it for armor. I would not recommend this book if your focus is armor.

While his two pages of source texts are in English, they are not all written by Englishmen judging by the names of the authors. I would wager that if you have others of Ian Heath's works and were not satisfied, you will get more of the same. He does use a lot of period references but I prefer that for the "flavor" of someone who saw the items/peoples/incidents etc. with their own eyes. He has to make the best of sometimes contradictory accounts and he cannot delve too far into the intricacies that need a book by themselves to cover.

Although entitled "Armies of the Nineteenth Century, Asia: Central Asia and the Himalayan Kingdoms", strictly speaking (for those that are interested), the books aren't just an army description. There is generally a somewhat vague map showing the boundaries of the kingdoms in question and then a chapter on each of the kingdoms with a short history before delving into the various other subjects such as organization, uniforms, arms etc. There are various line drawings but no color plates. The style reminds me somewhat of the old "Armies & Enemies" series by Wargames Research Group – but more professionally done. A lot of the information is derived from the accounts of the British who fought large numbers of these peoples in the 18th & 19th centuries. I find the books to be fascinating because I have never heard of nine out of ten of these kingdoms/peoples etc. and the detail presented is pretty much all I need to generally know. I can always research the particulars (if available) later. However, they aren't cheap…