Pte. Alfred Henry HOOK V.C. - poor treatment in "Zulu" film (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Monday, December 29, 2014, 00:48 (3467 days ago) @ Roger Griffiths

Thanks Roger,
Yes the Rorke’s Drift website is excellent, and has helpfully answered my own query raised after reading on Wiki that the Welsh-sounding John Williams VC was of Irish descent ? – I see he was actually John Fielding !
http://www.rorkesdriftvc.com./vc/williams.htm
The action's full Rollcall shows a few more men serving under assumed names, including another of “my” Jones’; Pte Evan Jones of the Borderers was actually Patrick Cosgrove, I guess also of Irish descent !
http://www.rorkesdriftvc.com./battle/roll.htm

I wonder if this list includes any more Foresters ?.

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Yes the M-H Rifle was indeed a powerful weapon, especially in good hands and given good ammunition. Our own Alfred Hooke apparently said “We were using Martini's, and fine rifles they were too”, I won’t argue with him.

My comment earlier related to it’s reported cartridge problems at Isandlhwana, reminiscent in my mind to our “dud” shells at the Somme and Jutland many years later. This has been much discussed, there was even a tv documentary filmed in South Africa maybe 10 years ago. I believe the reported “jamming” problems were much-exaggerated by the British Army, to hide their own leadership failures which led to their shock defeat to “spear wielding natives” at Islandlhwana.

Your post confirms another oddity I spotted in the film, the orders to fire at “100 yards range" - no doubt good for dramatic effect, or for Napoleonic muskets, but surely far too short here ?
http://www.martinihenry.com/zulu-wars.htm

However it should still be remembered that a weapon that’s good on paper, or even the factory ranges, may struggle in actual service. Official proving tests for a new Victorian design would not have used suspect cartridges, or simulate the increasing stresses of repeatedly firing within a hot and dusty environment, both potential killers for a complex mechanical assembly. When I started in Defence work in 1984, almost a century after the Zulu Wars, I was amazed at the demanding specifications our equipment had to be proven to satisfy, seemingly incredible extremes of temperature, vibration, etc etc. However the First Gulf War still proved that even these tests on expensive modern equipment don’t always ensure survival in the field, especially when heat and sand-ingress are present !
And yes, a few M-H rifles were still in use at this time, possibly including copies manufactured in the Khyber Pass region near India. This perhaps puts it on a par with another alltime classic firearm, the Russian AK-47 assault rifle, designed in 1945 but still in service worldwide due to good performance, easy manufacture compared to Western equivalents and supreme reliablility in all conditions.