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The Boxer Henry rifle ?
garywilson


Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 46
Location: Romania
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Does anyone know why , in Zulu , the rifle is refered to as a " Boxer Henry " and not a Martini - Henry ( by Chard in discussion with CS Bourne ).
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Sheldon Hall


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Posts: 377
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I'm no expert on firearms and others may want to correct me, but I believe the reference in Chard's line is to the ammunition used, not to the rifle itself.
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garywilson


Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 46
Location: Romania
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You could well be right , if i remember correctly the conversation is something like ; " its a miracle " - CS Bourne , " if its a miracle its a short chamber Boxer Henry .45 miracle " - you think that he refers to the ammunition not the rifle . Maybe someone knows if this type of ammunation was known by this name ?
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Sheldon Hall


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Posts: 377
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It's the kind of detail that John Prebble was wont to include in his scripts. He certainly researched the rifle, its bayonet and ammunition type, etc, while researching the battle.
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garywilson


Joined: 16 Apr 2007
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And a superb script it certainly was !
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Sawubona


Joined: 09 Nov 2005
Posts: 1179
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Neil is certainly the MH eminence grise on this subject, but I'll add my bit and welcome corrections. The "teenie" was originally designed to fire a .45 caliber (inch diameter) shoulderless round based on the work of Col. Edward Boxer of Woolwich arsenal, fitting into a "long chamber". It proved to be a bit of a failure and was redesigned as a shouldered cartridge that was shorter and wider in the propellent carrying area. This came to be known as the "short chamber" Boxer round. The new tapered case matched that of the .577 Snider rifle, the first to use the new Boxer cartridge, hence the more common designation of .577/.450 for the Martini round. I believe the .577 caliber was used because the tooling already existed for the Snider anyway. The rifling of the MH barrel was designed by a Scot named Henry (who has nothing whatsoever to do with the famous Henry repeating rifle of American Civil War fame). The bullet could therefore well be referred to as a "short chamber Boxer Henry point four five caliber miracle" after it had been fired (and I believe he does say "caliber" as well). I personally question the choice of "point four five" rather than "point four five oh" in the script, but than I've always thought that "ZULU" wasn't near long enough a movie! I respectfully concur with Sheldon on that score-- that is, the reference is to the bullet, not the rifle.
Aside from the ad nauseum observations that some of the soldiers are sporting Long Lee-Enfields, I must note Schiess is dragging around a MK IV at the end rather than the correct MK II (with a shorter ejection lever). Hope this is of interest and helps at least until such time as an expert chimes in. Paranthetically, I understand that one can't be too critical of props in a "costumer" type movie (you have to use what you have access to), but the bullets are wrong in that they're drawn rather than rolled (or coiled); Bourne should have a wavy bladed Yataghan style sword bayonet, not a triangular socket bayonet; and after a fascinating discussion on this very site, I, for one, am convinced that the OR defenders of Rorke's Drift would have carried the short, bushed Enfield bayonets, not the long '76 pattern shown in the movie.
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mike snook 2


Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Posts: 920
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Oh....I thought with a lot of help from Adrian Whiting and Neil that we agreed we couldn't be really sure in the case of the 1st Bn but that the 2nd Bn, B Coy included, would have left Blighty with P1876 ...or is my memory playing tricks on me? I'll have to go back and have a look on where we got to with that in an idle 5 minutes.

Been reading a memoir of the 8th CF War which refers to the fact that almost every ship from home brought out some new bit of kit for the regiments in Cape Colony - and that was almost 30 years earlier, so I would suggest that any doubts we might have had about how quickly new bits of kit arrived for service in the Cape can be influenced by this little snippet of evidence. That said real proof is always nice....the shipping manifests for example!!

Regards

Mike
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Sawubona


Joined: 09 Nov 2005
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It won't be the first time my memory has played tricks on me and you may well be right about the '76's, Mike. But where exactly is Blighty and why is it called that?
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mike snook 2


Joined: 04 Jan 2006
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Sawubona,

Blighty is [probably military?] English vernacular for home/UK/England. I haven't the first idea what its origins are but I think it dates from around the Second World War onwards. Could just as well be WW1-ish but I definitely can't recall its use in Victorian literature.

As ever

Mike
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Martin Everett


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Posts: 786
Location: Brecon
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Mike,

You have not got sufficent grey hairs........

Back to Blightly - was music hall show in WW1 (1916)

Blightly = England or UK

Hence the phrase 'a blightly bullet' = casvac to UK

But this still does not answer the question.

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Martin Everett
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Sawubona


Joined: 09 Nov 2005
Posts: 1179
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Ya gotta love the Internet. Google (now an acceptable imperative) "blighty slang" and you can learn more than you'll ever want to know about the word! But in interest of saving time for those of you who have only a cursory interest (although I can't imagine anyone so superficial), it's from vilayti (or something close to that) in Hindustani, meaning "foreign" and does in fact date from the British Raj. It's use is generally "self-consciously archaic" or if the speaker is "younger than the dissolution of the Empire" often ironic.
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Paul Bryant-Quinn


Joined: 14 Oct 2007
Posts: 551
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My father, who served in India until 1947, well remembered the Hindustani word vilayati / bilayati as meaning 'foreign' (by extension, 'Britain'). He also had rueful stories of being stoned to the accompaniment of "Jai Hind" ("Victory to India" or "Long live India"), Champakaraman Pillai's famous rallying cry.
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Peter Quantrill
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Two possibilities:The origin of 'Blighty' is from the word 'Vilayat' which was the division of 'sectors' of the Ottoman Empire. This has 'osmosed' into what we now know as 'Blighty' - which should be spelt without the 'gh.'
The Arabic is Wilayat, 'a kingdom, a province.'
Alternatively, and possibly more likely, the accepted etymology comes from the Hindi 'Bilayati'- a foreign land.No doubt 19 century British/India garrisons together with Kipling had some influence on the derivation and spelling.
Paul: I too was in India in 1947, albeit a 'chokra.' (Young boy.) Not only was 'Jai Hind' shouted, but often a Moslem response of 'Zindabad.' Heady days, partition,with the Raj much to blame for the present day Kashmir debacle. Another story!
garywilson


Joined: 16 Apr 2007
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Location: Romania
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Paul Bryant-Quinn


Joined: 14 Oct 2007
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Peter Quantrill wrote:
I too was in India in 1947, albeit a 'chokra.' (Young boy.) Not only was 'Jai Hind' shouted, but often a Moslem response of 'Zindabad.' Heady days, partition,with the Raj much to blame for the present day Kashmir debacle. Another story!


You would, I am sure, have enjoyed chewing the cud with my father, Peter: "heady days" indeed, and he had the kukri scars to prove it!

Smile

Yours aye,

Paul
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The Boxer Henry rifle ?
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