"How Many Rounds for British?" Topic

How many rounds would a typical Colonial British infantryman carry?

I'm thinking of skirmish Zulu of Afghan scenarios in which a few soldiers are cut off and each round must count then resort to the bayonet and rifle butt.

It depends what equipment they were wearing and what rifle they were armed with.

Martini Henry and 71 pattern valise equipment, 20 rounds per pouch, plus another 20-30 in the spare pouch. (Call it 70 overall).

Lee Metford/Long Lee Enfield and 88 pattern Slade Wallace, 40 rounds per pouch (80 overall).

Lee Enfield/SMLe and 08 pattern webbing, 150 rounds according to one site (I thought it was 100, buy hey ho).

So plenty to shoot lots and lots of Zulus/Pathans before any bayonets required.

Like Martin said, it depends when are asking about. Troops fighting the Zulus would have 40 rounds, plus some extras in a bag. In the late 1880s you get the bigger pouches.

So…

Here's what I'm thinking:

A small group of soldiers (say half dozen or so) get separated during a battle. They've already been fighting for a while so they have already fired quite a bit of ammunition.

Seeing the small group of soldiers, the native inDuna sends a group of warriors to take of them. Say, about three times the number of British soldiers.

Let's say, that the British soldiers each roll a D20 (D10?)to determine how many rounds each has left. After which, it's down to bayonet vs. assegai.

I've been reading the Open Combat rules which are designed for pre-gunpowder. However, there's certainly nothing preventing their adaptation to a scenario like this. There is shooting (bows) in the rules which could be adapted for javelins, muskets, and rifles in a limited sense. The limitations on ammo, in this case would serves to raise the tension and to prevent rifle fire from dominating the game.

Thoughts?

Counting ammunition sounds potentially a bit tedious to me.

It is certainly doable. I would not let the native player know about the round count of the Brit's ammo supply.

P-08 webbing is 150 rounds. Each pouch holds 3 chargers. I have 2 sets of originals and you can see the dividers.

Mr. Monkey

Yeah, it would be an onerous task if there too many soldiers. I'm talking a half dozen. shouldn't be too bad.

Tail-end of the battle, they're almost out of ammo (D10 rounds left for each). 2x2ft game board. In (yet to be determined) turns the game ends because they get saved by the arrival of more British troops.

Mr. 79th,

Agreed. The native player doesn't know.

D10 rounds each sounds like a v big risk that some of the soldiers will only have 1 or 2 rounds, unless they can share their ammo. 2x DAv would guarantee at least 4 rounds per man, or 2x D5 (re-roll 6s) would mean no-one only has only 1 round.