I was interested to read D.B.Clark's Battle Report on a Zulu War Battle using the rules he had described at length in earlier issues of the Newsletter. Its results completely justified my opinion of Mr. Clark's article and his description of the battle faithfully followed the course I predicted, which is the inevitable conclusion of any battle fought under the type of rules he describes. Although Clark has obviously spent much time reading Morris's book "The Washing of the Spears" he evidently had misunderstood the tactical engagements of the war. Although he wrote several pages on the war, he failed to present any real opinion or new concepts. All his article basically consisted of was a precis of facts from "The Washing of the Spears", accompanied by a simple set of rules. Not, I hasten to add that I dislike simple rules, in fact my own rules have a basically simple structure. What is important is that D.B. Clark's particular set of rules fell into all the old traps of writing rules for Colonial wargames. In essence D.B. Clark's rules say what can concisely be expressed in two formulae: Case 1: nZ to nB = BV nZ is the number of Zulus nB is the number of British BV is British victory. Case 2: nZ + M to nB = ZV where ZV is a Zulu victory M is the vital marginal number of extra Zulus required to overcome the (accurately estimable volume & accuracy) firepower of nB, the the number of British troops. These formulae are the basis of all rules that I have encountered (ex for the Zulu War and are responsible for hours of boring wargaming. I consider the following sentences to be far more significant than anything so far written by D.B. Clark on the subject of the Zulu War. 1) "During actions in the Zulu War the British would always win, provided that they did not over extend their front, remained tactically on the defensive and at all times ensure that they had an adequate field of fire." 2) "The Zulu's most important weapon was not the assegai or the rifle, but surprise." 3) "The most effective deterrent to a Zulu attack was not volume of fire, but accuracy of the fire delivered." (Remember, in a broad tactical situation it is possible to limit your front to the forces available, and this is what should be done). These three sentences convey more useful information to the wargamers of the Zulu War phenomena than the six or so pages written by Mr. Clark. Rules can only develop when opinions supplement definite fact as an integral part of the rules system. As far as the Zulu 4ar is concerned, fact has been extensively covered in Mr. Clark's articles but fact can only go a limited way to formulating a set of rules. D.B.Clark simply did not progress from the simple facts stage to the use of personal concepts. The three quoted sentences have formed the basis of the set of rules I use for the Zulu Jar. Back to Table of Contents -- Wargamer's Newsletter # 120 To Wargamer's Newsletter List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1971 by Donald Featherstone. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com