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diagralex
Joined: 31 Aug 2005 |
Posts: 208 |
Location: Broomfield, Essex |
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Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 1:36 pm |
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An officer would supply all of the equipment he felt necessary for a campaign. To begin with he would require at least one horse- three to five for a Staff officer, which amounted to a considerable investment. If a horse was killed, the officer could claim the cost of it back from the govenment, but the process took time.
He would also supply his own uniform - made by numerous military tailors who knew exactly what was required of them.
Swords, revolvers and other equipment were purchased according to the particular officers requirements. Although different makes of revolver were used, they conformed to standard issue calibres.
Naturally, there would have been slight variations in the shades of colour of equipment, but an officer in the field stood out from his men already, so any differences woud hardly be noticed.
Lieutenant Linmitte of the 21st, summed up the whole process of equipment purchase. He served at Laings Nek, where he had his horse shot from under him :-
"My helmet had fallen off, my sword dropped out of my hand, and I lost my field-glasses. It was a dashed expensive day ! "
Graham
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Mike Snook
Joined: 31 Aug 2005 |
Posts: 130 |
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Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:26 pm |
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Graham
Yes, I have the (very general) impression that they might have had around three dozen rounds, though this will obviously vary from officer to officer. If the general practice was to buy and carry large quantities in their baggage (say a hundred), then one wonders why Smith-Dorrien had a problem in the first place, and why Gonny B could only spare the famous eleven rounds.
I seem to recall reading that the 7th US Cavalry had only two dozen revolver cartridges each when they went into action at LBH - the weapon of first choice being the carbine.
There is, however, that description in Maori Browne of him coming upon one of his (colonial) chaps left behind in the camp. He is propped up against a rock and surrounded by more than a hundred revolver cartridges. I think I reduced this to 'dozens' in HCMDB to allow for a bit of probable Maori-hyperbole! Anyway some chaps were obviously well supplied.
Revolvers are very definitely a weapon of last resort. As I understand it officers had to fire the annual Martini-Henry test. Not that they were ithen issued with a government rifle. I fancy a few of the subalterns might have got into the habit of carrying one in the bush fighting in the 9th CF War. But that's conjecture really. Carriage of rifles became commonplace in the 2nd Boer War as a function of camouflage and concealment - to stop brother Boer picking off officers. Though there was a general return to revolvers for 1914 and subsequently. I guess on the basis that a machine gun doesn't care who its killing.
As a subaltern I distinctly remember being told that I had no business firing my rifle - that there were much more important things for officers to be worrying about in a fight. So I think the general form in 1879 was that one wore a revolver but never really expected to use it in anger.
Of course apart from privately purchased revolvers the offrs of 1879 also tended to have a whole raft of privately owned hunting rifles and shotguns in their baggage. You will probably be aware of the stink that occurred as a result of Fred Burnaby using a shotgun on Mahdists in the Sudan. Not that it stopped Captain C B 'Bloody-Minded' Piggott doing exactly the same thing at Abu Klea, as the Kordofani tribesmen were dodging back and forth around and under the bellies of the baggage camels in the centre of the square.
The subject of 'spare' rifles on 22 Jan is quite interesting; whilst digging (metaphorically not literally) around RD I gained the impression that spare rifles were in distinctly short supply. I think, from memory, that it was Gunner Howard, who as a RA man would not have had his own rifle, who used Sgt Maxfield's M-H in the fight. Chard didn't have a rifle to begin with either - until later on - when Cpl Scammell saw him looking for cartridges - I suspect he was using Dalton's rifle by that stage. Conversely Dalton, who again would not have been entitled to a rifle in his own right, defintely had one from the very beginning, which I imagine he would have taken from one of the more seriously incapacitated patients.
Hey ho. Long post about nothing in particular. Aren't bank holidays great.
Regards
Mike
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John Young
Joined: 30 Aug 2005 |
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Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 10:52 am |
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Sawubona,
Sadly, many people who view an artist's impression of a soldier or an officer in the Anglo-Zulu War, take that impression as gospel.
We have had this debate in the past relating to Mike Chappell's work in Ian Knight's Zulu Isandlwana & Rorke's Drift... Mike has shown a Colour-Sergeant wearing the wrong insignia for the serge frock, yet some will take that information as correct, because of the author of the work and Mike's own knowledge of military dress and equipment. Please don't get me started Plate D2 of the work by the way, or I will have a field day!
A closer examination of the Mike Chappell's work in the same book reveals other anomalies: the Natal Carbineer supposedly with a Swinburne-Henry carbine, yet the carbine doesn't have the distinctive Swinburne action's hump-back or external cocking handle. Look at Plate C, Mike's depiction of a Captain in the 24th, has him wearing the very thing you have a 'bee in your bonnet about', an other-ranks waterbottle strap. Yet in Angus McBride's Osprey publication The Zulu War, Angus depicts an other-rank wearing a brown leather strap, there other major inconsistencies in Angus' work, which you may find to be total inconsequential, but frankly I don't.
Christopher Wilkinson-Latham's work Uniforms & Weapons of the Zulu War should be the 'bible' for this particular forum, yet Jack Cassin-Scott's depictions of the British and Colonial uniform put pay to this assumption. Jack's illustrations with regard to accurate uniform details are found wanting, in my opinion. Leather straps for 'other-ranks', again!
I'm all for Coll's comment on another post, about posting illustrations and photographs, at least it would, hopefully, clarify certain differences of opinion. But in the meantime, I'll agree to differ you on the subject of waterbottle straps.
Haydn,
Back to your original posting, those figures would happen to be the old Hinchcliffe range would they? If they are you will notice a variation in the painting instructions on the release of the extended range which included the personalities, from the initial release. I know, because I wrote the second issue of the painting instructions!
John Y.
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