British Lancers in action (1880 NWF) - advice pls

[Silent Invader]

I'm adding some 9th Lancers to my 2nd Afghan War game (1880 and thereabouts) and am stuck with regard to the troopers' weapons.

They have lances and a sword AND a carbine. I've found a training manual from the 1860s that covers each weapon but I can't find anything that covers or otherwise portrays the switch between weapons.

For example, would the sword and carbine only be used if the lance were dropped or broken? Or would the lance be rested in its stirrup socket and retained by the loop at the elbow? If the trooper dismounted what did he do with the lance?

Basically, I've read (somewhere) that the nature and terrain of the 2AW disfavoured the lance meaning that the carbine had more use (but imagery shows all 3 weapons being carried at the same time). I want to portray the 9th using lance, sword and carbine, both mounted and dismounted, and am struggling with how it was actually done!

Any help with the composition of poses and weapons would be greatly appreciated

[Mad Guru]

SI,

I was going to post this reply on your earlier thread featuring your fantastic Afghan tribesmen converted from plastic Perry ACW Zouaves, but now that you have started a new one dedicated solely to the 9th Lancers in the Second Afghan War, I will post it here instead.

You probably know of Tony Barton, sculptor of AB Napoleonics.  You may also know he scratchbuilds amazing 12" Action Figures.  A few years ago he built one of a 9th Lancer in Afghanistan.

Here's a couple of pics, which somewhat show the method for slinging the Lance while remaining on horseback...





Here's a LINK to visit the page where these and many other pics of this 12" Lancer are featured, over on the onesixthwarrior forum:

http://www.onesixthwarriors.com/forum/sixth-scale-action-figure-news-reviews-discussion/631852-ninth-lancers-afghanistan-1879-a.html

You might also know already that the 9th Lancers took a larger than usual number of uniform variations with them to Afghanistan, which as you will be converting your own Lancers using all plastic figures, and only doing a relatively small number of them, you may be in a good position to take advantage of.  For years I've wanted to convert/scratchbuilt a unit of 9th Lancers wearing the quilted cold weather jacket their commanding officer had custom-made for them before they embarked for service in the war.  They also wore the long cape in the cold, rain, and snow.  In addition to the quilted jacket, they had a more common blue frock, and also a khaki Norfolk type jacket.

Re: service of the 9th Lancers during the war... you can find examples of just about every type of action, from dismounted skirmishing in rough terrain with their carbines, to one or two full-blown charges at the gallop with their lances.  But the majority of their service was doing scouting, piquet duties, and providing mounted escorts for key figures such as messengers, important British military or political officers, and Afghan prisoners.

It's very true that much of the terrain in Afghanistan is unfriendly to cavalry, and because of that they spent much of their time serving on foot, but I believe this was always with their horses in the immediate vicinity.

A useful source for your purposes might be the Osprey Men-At-Arms title: "British Cavalry Equipments, 1800-1941," by written and illustrated by Mike Chappell, which happens to feature a colour plate or two of 9th Lancers serving in Afghanistan:


 

[Silent Invader]

Thanks very much MG. That is all very, very useful.  I know Tony B's 1/6th creations and both his craftsmanship and research are meticulous.  I suspect that I shall stay with the hotter/drier locale for the moment as my little project is presently an imagination of post-Maiwand stragglers and last-standers, etc. Using the 9th as scouts etc immediately post-Maiwand is stretching the history but could add an interesting element to games.  I'm afraid that I'm not committed enough to go for the full on historical recreation as you did with Maiwand.  

Regarding the poses, I've since had some luck with locating imagery with the different weapons. The clearer images are of non-British Lancers but in each case I've found something similar of British lancers with elements from the same pose (though probably from the 2nd Boer War rather than the 2nd Afghan War).

German lancer with carbine has lance looped at upper arm; British lancer looks to be drinking from a canteen with lance secured in a similar way:





Lance staked in the ground while dismounted:





A Russian lancer with carbine and a clearer image of a British lancer with the lance secured to free the right hand:





I've no idea on the sources of any of these images, as they are the result of semi-awake trawling of the web!

I haven't found any images of the sword being used with the lance still carried, which makes sense to me. Swinging the sword arm (as opposed to steady aiming with a carbine) with any precision seems practicably impossible with the loop dragging between elbow and shoulder and the lance thus hindering movement.

PS: Mods, if you feel it would be better to merge this thread with my Afghan one then that us of course fine, I just thought it'd be easier to segregate what are two very different sets of information (albeit part of the same project).