This product is sold as an unpainted kit.

Additional Image.

1. Instruction Sheet. A copy of the sheet is supplied with the kit.

2-4. A lovely wagon and team from the collection of Roy Boss.

TRANSPORT AND LOGISTICS

‘Transport had to be effective if adequate logistical support was to be guaranteed to the troops. A British battalion had nine tons of basic impedimenta, which meant about 17 wagons and carts. In Zululand Lord Chelmsford calculated he would need 1,800 tons of stores to supply 16,000 fighting men for a 6-8 week campaign. His agents scouted South Africa and bought 977 wagons, 56 carts, 10,023 oxen, 803 horses and 398 mules, collecting 90% of the transport beasts and vehicles in Natal. One officer was also sent to Texas to buy 400 mules; others came from Cyprus, Spain and Italy.'

'Following Bugeaud, Lyautey preferred to load equipment on mules rather than men – but this created a boom in mule prices. British transport officers in upper Egypt in 1885 paid £16 for camels – up to twice the usual price for beasts that were often old and sick – but when they could not procure enough, they searched as far as Aden and Somalia. In the hunt for Morenga, the Germans requested 1,000 camels for pack transport, while in Ethiopia in 1868 the British used no less than 41,723 transport animals – from donkeys to elephants – to support 14,600 soldiers. For the Adowa campaign in 1896 the Italians bought 8,200 camels and 3,000 mules in the space of two months.’

Ammunition and Weapons. 'An infantryman cold carry 50-70 rounds per man, with more in an army ‘field reserve’ (some 480 rounds per man in the Zulu War). The prodigious rate of fire of modern weapons meant that these figures were really not high. The standard allowance of 3,000 rounds for a Maxim, for instance allowed only five minutes’ continuous fire. In 1899 the British in South Africa had stocks of only 200 rounds per field gun, but 151,000,000 rifle cartridges (of which 44% were of the recently banned ‘Dum Dum’ type) – ie a total of almost 2,000 per man.'  

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.