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Military History – South Africa – Europe – England 19th Century
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were pleased with their achievement in this, their first engagement.
See also:
Ladysmith; Talana, Battle of.
Reference:
Baker, Anthony, Battles & Battlefields of the Anglo-Boer War 1899–1900 (Milton Keynes, The
Military Press, 1999); De Wet, Christiaan, Three Years War (London, Archibald Constable and
Co., 1902).
Rifles
The temporary success of the Boers in holding off an entire British army could be explained to a
significant extent by their possession of up-to-date high-velocity rifles. Although the British had had
weapons of similar performance for some years, they had used them against forces with less
sophisticated armament and thus had had no need to devise tactics to overcome an enemy who were
their equal in firepower.
The smooth-bore musket was, by 1840, being replaced in general use with the muzzle-loading
rifle in which the spiral grooves in the barrel imparted a spin to the bullet. This resulted in greater
range and vastly improved accuracy. However, the weapon remained clumsy and time-consuming to
load and a steady fire could only be maintained by groups of well-drilled troops firing volleys in
succession and reloading as others fired in turn. In such circumstances the individual could not be
permitted to take the initiative of firing at will on selected targets of opportunity. The discipline
required to maintain successive volley fire was to prove a handicap to the British when improved
weaponry offered advantages to less regimented troops.
The perfection of the brass cartridge opened the way to reliable single-shot breech-loaders and
further developments led to the quick-firing rifle, drawing rounds from a magazine. At the same time
the introduction of smokeless powder of greatly increased efficiency raised the muzzle velocity of the
bullet to previously undreamed of levels and thus gave the benefit of a flatter trajectory to attain the
same range.
In order to do damage to the enemy, that is, to inflict a wound (killing is less desirable as a rule
because one wounded man requires two fit men to carry him away, thereby taking three men out of
action), a soldier needs a weapon that creates the maximum ‘dangerous zone’, the area in which
someone is likely to be hit. The dangerous zone extends from the point of ‘first catch’, the point at
which the target can first be hit, to the end of its flight. For cavalry, first catch is defined as eight and
a half feet above ground and for infantry six feet, so the faster the bullet is going, the flatter the
trajectory, the longer the dangerous zone and the more useful the weapon to its owner. The trajectory
of the early German Snider rifle meant that, to attain a range of 2,000 yards (1,830 metres), the bullet
rose to 866 feet (264 metres) above the line of sight, a Martini-Henry bullet to 357 feet (109 metres)
and the Lee-Enfield to only 194 feet (59 metres).
A flat trajectory and a high-velocity missile thus have four advantages. First, the dangerous zone
is extended. Second, the bullet itself is much more
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