Talk:Cristovão da Gama

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It is said the numbers of Portuguese who fought with Don Christopher da Gama was 450 ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.163.101.13 (talk • contribs)

According to the sources, da Gama had 400 musketmen and 130 military slaves. (I'm not quite sure how a "military slave" differs from an average combatant, although I suspect they were servants & laborers who had some familiarity of the battlefield, rather than actually entrusted with weapons.) Miguel de Castanhoso also mentions that the Bahr negus provided to da Gama 500 of his own men, but he rarely mentions what part they had in the several battles -- if any; it may be that they were entirely absent at the Battle of Wofla, which Ahmad Gragn appears to have won thru weight of numbers.

Whatever the case, da Gama relied on at most 400 musketmen -- & often had fewer than this number -- in his battles. I suspect that, despite their bravery, his opponents rarely had the unit cohesion & discipline to successfully charge into a hail of gunfire, & thus the advantage of their overwhelming numbers was never properly exploited. -- llywrch 17:53, 9 May 2006 (UTC)