On this day in 1879
From The Barrel of a Gun reminds us:
On this day in 1879, roughly one hundred able-bodied men of the 24th Regiment of Foot, accompanied by some 40 wounded men, despite being grossly outnumbered and outgunned, engaged and defeated a force of some four to five thousand Zulu warriors at the mission station of Rorke's Drift, South Africa.
Comments
They don't like it up 'em.
(And yes, I know Jonesy was referring to Omdurman).
Posted by: David Gillies | January 23, 2008 10:14 PM
four to five thousand Zulu warriors some of whom were seriously lit-up on some jungle-juice combination of speed, psycho-hallucinogenics, and variations of cannabis to make them feel invincable - and still they vinced. Heh.
Posted by: DirtCrashr | January 23, 2008 10:43 PM
Fire by ranks... An outstanding rate of fire... Was it Ze Germans who thought we had machine guns on the battlefield when, in fact, our chaps were firing in ranks?
Anyway, makes me want to go and buy a Martini-Henry for the wall.
Posted by: Angry Steve | January 24, 2008 12:16 AM
I once worked this out on a fag packet. If they were assaulted by a full strength impi and it's reasonable to assume they were, the odds were hovering around 32/1.
Conventional military wisdom states that in order to assault a defended position, a 4/1 superiority must be achieved.
Not a bad piece of work lads, clean your weapons and fall out.
Posted by: Mac the Knife | January 24, 2008 12:34 AM