Zulu Fiddler Crab.......

Subject: Zulu Fiddler Crab....... Fri Dec 21, 2018 8:47 am

Hi,

This is probably the bloody obvious and undoubtedly has been mentioned before.

I’ve been cutting out counters for an Isandlwana wargame (for me and my udibi boy) and one thing has struck me:-

The Zulu army was not deployed evenly into 4 bodies......

So if they say, that nTshingwayo planned to attack Isandlwana on the 23rd and if the army camped in the positions it would take in the battle line (albeit in the valley).

It would always seem that the Zulu commander identified the British right flank as the weak point, even prior to the potential British deployment (possibly because in part of the openness of the terrain)

The Zulu regiments in their Left Horn (and arguably left Chest), where the strongest and mostly youngest warriors.

The Right Horn only had around 4000 men, the reserve maybe slightly more but the Left Horn regiments (uMbonambi, InGobamakhosi and uVe?) had an estimated 7000 men.

So my proposition is that the “Buffalo Head” should be renamed the “Fiddler Crab” Joker

Cheers

Sime

Subject: Re: Zulu Fiddler Crab....... Fri Dec 21, 2018 10:33 am

Sime
Has your good lady overdone the brandy in the xmas cake again?
Done forget to take into consideration: 'they performed a turning movement and the left wing became the right.'
Also Three regiments were held back by Ntshingwayo. ive said often, and been taken to task quite voluably, that the beginnings of the advance were pretty undisciplined and out of control. More an attack to 'get the pommy buggers'. ( With all due respect to my English mates and drone pilots)
Merry Christmas

ho ho ho

» Did he take part in the Zulu War. William 'Zulu' Smith, was a veteran of the Zulu War of 1879
» Disparity in British and Zulu unit scale when wargaming larger battles of the Zulu War
» iSandlwana a Zulu account describing the Zulu discovery and battle