The Tents Were Struck.

Posts : 1093 Join date : 2009-01-14 Location : East London

What doe's is mean to strike the tents. At Isandlwana there was a fuss because the tents had not been struck, At Kambul the tents were struck. But why was this done just before battle commenced, surly this would have be time consuming, not the kind of thing,one would want to be doing when you have thousands of zulu's bearing down on you. No doub't this was army regulations but I can't work out the reason for doing this. The tents would have been more usefull left in place and erected, as this would have been a good defence against zulu snipers. Of cause I could be completey wrong and there was a good reason behind it.

Subject: tents were struck. Sun Feb 07, 2010 1:53 am

hi oh2.
To strike the tents is to pull them down or pull out the centre pole to collapse them. The tents need to be struck so
you have a clean field of fire , and also anyone looking from a distance seeing the tents struck would know a battle
was iminent . One of the reasons for the massacre at Isandlwana was the tents not being struck, if Milne had seen
they were struck , C"ford would have known earlier that the camp was under threat of iminent attack. Also when the
troops attempted to withdraw back onto the camp , they did not see the zulus coming from behind the camp because
of no clear field of sight . As for the zulu snipers I dont see it as a major threat , due to their lack of expertise in using
the older weapons. Also they didnt have much idea on sighting their weapons. so, summing up , the tents needed to
struck and it wouldnt take long just pulling down the centre pole , At Khambula WOOD had plenty of time , as his scouts
had seen the zulu coming from a long way off. I may be wrong but from memory he had at least a couple of hours to organise
his defence which was already done , as they were well encamped on the hill for sometime previously.
cheers 90th.

Posts : 2593 Join date : 2009-04-24

Good answer 90th. But was there not a threat of entanglement. In the event of a retreat being made by the British.

Subject: the tents were struck. Sun Feb 07, 2010 10:53 pm

hi ctsg.
I dont think a retreat was in the minds of the british officers during the zulu war . Their main worry
was , as they thought " To get the zulus to attack in great numbers " . So they would have a quick
decisive victory with the use of their firearms and artillery etc , etc. I am positive 100 % that entanglement
wouldnt have been seen as an obsticle .
cheers 90th.

» Men were killed as they came out if their tents. Isandlwana.
» style of tents in the british army in 1879.
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