The mid- to late-nineteenth century was a time of great change for the military. 

At the beginning of the period, soldiers faced enemies armed with smoothbore weapons that were typically short-ranged, single-shot and not very accurate.  At the end of the era, their opponents boasted weapons that were so advanced as to remain fundamentally unchanged until the 1950’s.

This was not only a period of great technological change.  Improvements in transport and communication meant that the same soldiers could fight diverse opponents across a huge geography of theatres.  Marshal Achilles Bazaine, for example, in his career as an officer in the French army, successfully fought native tribesmen in Algeria, ill-trained militia in Mexico, and then faced and was defeated by the might of the Prussian regular army in France.  

Those wargaming the mid- to late-nineteenth century therefore need to understand and employ a huge variety of battlefield tactics, the most important of which are summarised below. 

Note

For convenience, I have divided the subject into three sections: 

1. commanding regular troops against native irregulars

2. the reverse i.e. commanding native irregulars verses regular troops

3. commanding regular troops against other regulars. 

Many of the doctrines expounded span all three sections but, for the sake of brevity, are not necessarily repeated.

Part 1:  Commanding Regulars against Natives  

"Nothing could stand against such a store of lead"

Corporal Skinner, Diary, 2 Sept. 1898 (National Army Museum)

Wining battles with small numbers of regular troops against hordes of mostly spear- and sword-armed natives is all about distance and firepower.  You must get your force into a position from which they can pour fire into the enemy ranks without the enemy ever managing to close to melee. 

This is because once melee is joined, the likelihood is that your force will be overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers.  The history of the period is littered with examples:  Isandlwana (British vs Zulus, 1879); Maiwand (British vs Afghans, 1880)  and Adoba (Italians vs Abyssinians, 1896) being three of the best known. 

Where a regular force has managed to concentrate its fire from a good defensive formation or position, especially in open terrain, the native irregulars have been mown down in their hundreds.  At Ulundi (British vs Zulus, 1879) the Zulus paid for Isandlwana many times over, and at Omdurman (British vs Dervish, 1898) the British killed (i.e. not including wounded) over 10,000 of their enemy whilst suffering only four deaths themselves.

Your battle plan must therefore be conservative, reliable and dull.  The desire to do something interesting is often the death of a regular commander when faced by fanatical natives.  Let’s look at what elements this boring-but-effective battleplan should contain:

Prior to the Battle

Scout, scout, scout and scout.  Do not let yourself be ambushed under any circumstances, or be drawn into an encounter battle with an enemy force whose size is unknown.

This is what your cavalry is for.  As we shall see later, they are pretty much useless for anything else once battle has been joined, so expend as many of them as you like for this vital function.

One name should be on your lips throughout this section of the battle or campaign:  George Armstrong Custer.  Lack of scouting at Little Big Horn (US Cavalry vs Sioux, 1876) led to his death, along with over 250 of his men, as they attacked what they thought was a village of some 800 fighting men to find over 1,800 warriors present.

Proper scouting also allows you to choose where to fight your battle:  it allows you to pick the terrain.

Terrain

The most important factor when choosing where to site your force is field of fire. 

The defeat of the Berkshire’s at Maiwand stemmed directly from the fact that the Afghans could make use of a gully to get close to the British square before charging. 

As Baden-Powell said, when he visited the battlefield in 1915:  

“Unknown to the British a deep ravine ran in a horse-shoe form almost entirely round the spot on which the brigade was standing. The brigade formed a square to receive the attack, expecting to see the enemy coming across the open, instead of which the Afghans poured down the nullah by thousands unseen, and then suddenly made their attack from three sides at once.”

Assuming that no forts are available - a fort being just about impregnable to native troops c.f. Chitral (British vs Afghan, 1895) and Gura (Egyptians vs Abyssinians, 1875) – then cover is also good, but still less important than a clear field of fire.  At Omdurman, for example, the British protected their frontage with zaribas (obstacles made out of lethal thorn bushes) but found that this meant that all ranks had to stand to shoot.

Choose a spot with plenty of open ground.  The Martini-Henry rifle is sighted to 1000 yards, so that much clear ground on all sides is just about right.

Formation

Your formation in any country where contact with natives is possible should maximise your defensive capacity.  This may mean that you move very slowly, but better than finding yourself at the mercy of your enemy’s womenfolk!  As Kipling said:

“When you're wounded out on Afghanistan's plains,

and the women come to cut up what remains,

then just roll on your rifle and blow out your brains,

and die like a good British soldier.”

Place your wagons and artillery in the centre of a column that resembles a large Napoleonic square.  Divide your force into approximately six equal parts.  One part fronts the column, two go on each side, and one goes at the back. At both Ulundi and Omdurman the British formed vast defensive columns such as the above.

Your cavalry should scout ahead, to the sides and to the rear of the column:  one third out scouting, one third resting, and one third kept as an emergency sacrifice force to be hurled at the enemy as a delaying tactic in case of ambush.

In difficult terrain, such as the mountain passes of Afghanistan and region, you may be forced to adopt a long, narrow-fronted column that is vulnerable to both sniping and ambush charges. 

The key here is to control the high ground.  During the Second Afghan War (British vs Afghan Rebels, 1878-1880), Lord Roberts used light infantry to move along the ridge tops running parallel to his column marching down below in the passes.  These light troops could winkle out any snipers and spot any ambushing force well in advance of there being danger to the main column.  Watch the 1939 version of the film Gunga Din for an example of how a column (here a whole army) without proper high-ground scouts can be ambushed.

Usually you will be moving towards an objective such as a native village to be burnt as a punitive strike.  Your tactics should involve keeping formation at all costs and just plodding slowly towards your target.  This should force the enemy to attack you on your terms.

First Contact

As soon as the enemy is spotted, then the column must shift into fighting mode.

Halt. 

Laager any wagons, hobble any pack animals. 

Artillery deploy evenly around the square, but primarily at its weak points:  the corners. 

All cavalry withdraw behind the infantry line:  they are dead meat if caught out in the open as even charging they don’t have the numbers to resist a huge mass of enemy troops (see the charge of the 21st Lancers at Omdurman as a good example).

Infantry form their best firing position.  This could be behind the wagon laagers, in three ranks, or behind zaribas (which are apparently surprisingly portable).  Try to make sure that you have at least some veteran troops on all sides of your square.  It’s volume of fire from steady infantry that you’re going to need.

All this deployment takes time.  Ideally your scouts will have spotted the enemy at a distance, giving you plenty of time to form square properly.  If you are surprised, you need to make time to deploy.  This is where your cavalry reserve comes into play.  Hurl them at the enemy and form up your infantry and artillery as your brave horsemen push the enemy back, then get overwhelmed and slaughtered to a man.  Cavalrymen love the opportunity to nobly sacrifice themselves!

The Battle

After that it is really just a matter of blazing away at the enemy with everything you’ve got until (a) you run out of ammunition or (b) they run out of warriors.

However, as most tabletop wargames do not account for ammunition expenditure, running dry will not normally be a problem, so don’t bother to hold your fire until you see “the whites of their eyes”:  shoot with everything you’ve got as soon as you see the enemy. 

If your system does monitor ammunition, then remember that your defensive square has pack animals loaded with bullets at its centre, only a short distance away. 

Just make sure you have the right tools to open the ammo boxes.  At Isandlwana one reason given for the British defeat is the fact that they couldn’t cut the brass bands securing the ammunition boxes, but this is probably apocryphal as it’s been proven that you can easily smash one open with a rifle butt, especially if there are 26,000 iklwa-armed Zulus about to ritually disembowel you!  Far more significant was the dispersed formation adopted by the British, combined with a failure to laager wagons and a lack of respect for the fighting ability and morale of their opponents.

Once you have broken the enemy attack, and they are starting to drift away of their own accord, then your surviving cavalry can be released to ride them down and slaughter as many as possible of them from behind.  This is what lancers are for.

The Dangers

Given the above, no native force should get close enough to you for contact to occur:  you should shoot them down before they can attempt to overwhelm you in melee.

However, if we take a worse case scenario and assume that your enemy do manage to make contact, then the danger is that your square collapses in on itself and destroys its own integrity.

At Maiwand, for example, one wall of the Berkshire’s square collapsed into the back of the other, and even a sacrificial cavalry charge couldn’t give the infantry time to reform properly before they were over run.

At Abu Klea (British vs  Dervishes, 1885), the British had adopted exactly the tactics described above.  However, the going was so rough that no scouts had been deployed.  The Dervish hoard appeared suddenly from behind a ridge and slammed into the British square despite taking many casualties on the way in. 

For a time it looked as if the British column was doomed, but the Ansar attack was halted when it hit the hobbled pack camels in the centre of the square.  This gave the British time to reform and, after fierce fighting, the square was re-established and all intruding Dervishes destroyed.  Even to get to contact was an achievement.  As Kipling recorded:

"So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan;
You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man;
An' 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your 'ayrick 'ead of 'air -
You big black boundin' beggar - for you broke a British square!

To counter this danger, therefore, there should be a small reserve in the centre of the square which can be used to reinforce  places where the enemy attack is strongest. 

If, for example, it looks as if one part of the square is going to collapse, then this reserve should form a second firing line a short distance behind the first.  As the first collapses, the second pours fire into the enemy, who, flushed with impending victory, are not ready for such an assault, then advances to fill the gap.

Summary

Scout.

Never break your defensive formation.

Never try to be clever.

Shoot them down before they get to contact.