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 | Zulu Casualties at Rorke's Drift - A Foggy subject? |  |
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Mike Snook
| Joined: 31 Aug 2005 |
| Posts: 130 |
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 Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 11:58 pm |
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Glenn,
No military force will take 25% fatalities and still be fighting, because it necessarily means at least a 50% and most commonly a 75% casualty rate overall. The ratio of wounded to killed might be as low as 1:1 in a close range fight like RD, but it is more typical, across all military history, for there to be 2 wounded to 1 dead.
351 dead for about 1,000 casualties in all is possible - but definitely not 1,000 fatalities. No way. That would mean either 2,000 or 3,000 casualties overall.
What percentage of the 600-700 wounded might subsequently have died of their wounds on the way home or of infection at their home kraal subsequently is another matter and can only be open to conjecture.
I would say that very few if any bodies would have been taken away in the night. Why? How? To what end? Most of the Zulus were exhausted and it would have been hard enough for them to get across the Buffalo as it was. The bloodied shields which for some reason some historians suggest were used to carry bodies down to the river (why?) are far more likely to have been used to carry wounded men, or may simply have been discarded on the river bank by uninjured men in order to make a better fist of getting a wounded mate over. Of course the walking wounded themselves had bloodied shields and probably took them as far as the river before abandoning them. 351 is an accurate body count. Allowing for some untallied bodies in outlying locations, (and we know from source evidence that they turned up from time to time), call it 380-400 dead tops.
But hey you know what I think already.
There is some utter nonsense being talked on the 'what really happened' thread. I have to say I find it quite distressing - but that's the idea - we are meant to. Such theories are nothing to do with history and everything to do with Brit-bashing. What really happened at Rorke's Drift is to be found in sources, in the words of the men who were there, which any military historian will tell you are most commonly highly understated and extremely modest. Few answers are to be found in the fanciful imaginations of cynics.
Regards
Mike
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Peter Ewart
| Joined: 31 Aug 2005 |
| Posts: 1797 |
| Location: Near Canterbury, Kent, England. |
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| Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 9:42 am |
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Glenn
But didn't Chard say they buried 351 Zulu bodies on the 23rd, not that they had killed 351 of the enemy? I'm not aware of the figure 351 ever having been stated as the total number of dead (but can't check at the moment). His figure therefore leaves open the calculation for the number of total dead, and always has.
It is true that many wounded would have managed to get away from the post and that some of them would have died later, but we have no idea at all how many. There is plenty of evidence of wounded Zulus recovering from horrific injuries during the AZW. And although it is also the case that bodies turned up in the general vicinity for some time afterwards, were there really "hundreds"? I'm not aware of any evidence - or even suggestion - that hundreds more died on top of Chard's 351 burial figure. Most estimates (by historians rather than eyewitnesses) tend these days to suggest 500/600 dead in all and Mike above reckons around 400 maximum, which sounds very likely to me.
With the other current thread in mind, I'd say there is plenty of contemporary evidence for an attacking force of c3500/4000, of which the majority were present at the fight for most or much of the time, and that they suffered fatal casualties of around 10% - plenty reason enough for the King to realise immediately that the combined losses in the three engagements of that day were a disaster for his army and also ultimately for his nation.
Peter
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paul mercer
| Joined: 04 Jul 2006 |
| Posts: 37 |
| Location: Tavistock, Devon |
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| Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 1:40 pm |
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I'm sure we've covered this before, but from all accounts it appears that a huge number of cartridges were fired, not only at Rorke's Drift but in other engagements, all for a relativley small number of casualties, considering the amount of warriors involved.
Even allowing for the possibility of a number of shots hitting the same man, at close range some may well have continued on to hit the man behind so why was there not more killed? I cannot believe all our regiments in the Zulu wars were bad shots, particulary at ranges of up to 5-600yards (or less) which are normally regarded as the effective 'killing ground' of a MH, or that massed volley fire was continuously used at individual or small parties of Zulus.
As for those crawling away to die, some undoubtedly did, but I have always understood that the big MH round inflicted a very nasty wound from which few would walk away from.
Still, if the count was indeed only 351 it is difficult to argue otherwise so perhaps there were no really big attacks but lots of small ones. But what about the other battles where there were massed charges against the volley fire (including Gatling guns) from the prepared defences of our troops, again, given the number of warriors involved and the number of cartidges fired one would have expected to find more casualties
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Neil Aspinshaw
| Joined: 05 Sep 2005 |
| Posts: 290 |
| Location: Loughborough |
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| Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 4:18 pm |
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Paul
There are closely linked factors into performance, escpecially at close quarters of the Martini Henry, which must be appreciated. It has been covered before but in short.
At ranges of less than 100 yards, accurate sighting can only be carried out by sliding the sight leaf to the 400 yard high point on the sight bed, and peering across the close range sight depression on the pin bed and under the leaf, it is not a quick sighting. If the sight is not set the bullet will fly well over a mans head, even if you go for a chest shot. At 100 yards the trajectory is approx 250mm off horizontal, at 500 yards the bullet will fly aprox 8 feet off horizontal at its apogee.
A man running flat out will cover 50 yards at a run in about the time it will take to pick a cartridge, load aim and fire, in that time they are on you and its the lunger I'm afriad. Volleys are no good here, you need someone in the rank behind you to fire whilst you reload, you a'int got that at RD.
The second factor is darkness, fire a Martini in the dark and you won't see anything but a flash glare for ten seconds, wake in the night, switch on a bright light and switch it off again and you'll see the bulb for ages!. But worse, as the smoke gets in you face, plus the boxer round had a tendancy to blastback if the case separated, the results of this is red hot fragments in your face, and the smoke, don't forget your eye is 100mm from the breech block. When we blank fire with the 80th I always shut my eye when I fire are the bl**dy thing often blows in your face, and my Mk2 has a breech as tight as the proverbial ducks a**e.
In the end, apart from those targets illuminated by the hospital, simply firing for effect, i.e blasting into the darkness is quite a physicological tool, both for the firer and the recipricant.
A good read is Khartoum, The Great imperial adventure,by M Asher, The battle descriptions will have you hearing boxer cases chinking in the sand around you, the nearest you could get to RD is probably Abu Klea, close range pandemonium. Once the Mahdists were in.... big problem, no controlled volleys then,... bayonet and sheer determination.
I love the smell of blackpowder in the morning!
Neil
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Neil
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