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Additional Image.
1. Mahdists taking a table top fort with British forces looking on. Image by kind permission of 'All Things Jacklex' blog
THE
AFRICAN USE OF FIREARMS
Varied Moroccan horsemen had been using matchlock and
flintlock muskets – often beautifully crafted weapons – for three centuries in
an impressive but largely ineffective style. Riders would approach the enemy,
halt, fire a shot then retire to reload in best 16th century manner –
a tactic much appreciated by their opponents armed with breech-loaders. For
most Africans firearms were a recent innovation, useful in slave-raiding or
elephant hunting, but causing few changes in traditional tactics.
The Zulus used rifles largely to cover the attack of their
impis, but were completely unable to contest the British fire superiority (eg
at Kambula, when they had captured modern weapons but found them strange and
mysterious items).
Ndebele warriors believed that by pushing the sights as far
forward as possible they would make the bullet strike home harder.
Mahdists often shortened the barrels of their Remington
rifles to make them easier to carry. There was no real appreciation of Europeans’
overwhelming superiority in training, and at Omdurman the Mahdists were
confident that their riflemen would be a match for Kitchener’s.
The Ethiopians used modern rifles as assault weapons,
firing as their massed formations closed for combat. In contrast to this, there
were some peoples who made an effective combination of traditional fieldcraft
skills with modern firepower.
The German Official History maintained that the Hottentots
and Herero were more dangerous foes than the Boers, because of their sniping from
cover.
Equally in Somalia the Mullah’s forces employed an
efficient ‘fire and movement’ system of short rushes in extended order, making
careful use of brush cover.
Source: Battle in Africa 1879-1914,
Howard Whitehouse, Field Books, 1987. One of, if not the best introductory book
I have read on the subject of campaigning and fighting in the colonial period.
A must for the wargamer.
Jacklex Miniatures Colonial
Nineteenth Century 20mm metal wargame figures.