In C.J. Chivers' The Gun he reviews British invasion of Zululand in 1879, in particular the invasion of Ulundi, the capital. He offers the following description as the British are encircled by Africans:

The British formed a square and watched, tightening ranks and readying weapons. The Zulu defenders, estimated to be twenty thousand men, merged and stamped their feet, harassed lightly by the Seventeenth Lancers, a unit of British cavalrymen, who opened fire and peppered the walls of Zulu warriors as their horses cantered in the shrinking open space. The Lancers were outnumbered by thousands. The enclosing circle grew smaller. The British cavalrymen taunted the Zulus, but they knew, like Colonel Custer's man, that they would have a small chance in a head-to-head fight. They withdrew within the square as the larger clash became imminent. The Zulus advanced slowly until the British artillery opened fire. Then the Zulus broke forward at a run.

Chivers goes on to describe how the British, having learned from Custer's folly, utilized Gatling guns to secure an overwhelming victory over the natives. But he emphasizes that with small arms and artillery at the time (minus the machines guns) the British were at a disadvantage to large hoards of charging natives.

Chivers later describes the deployment of the Maxim machine gun (a new implement at the time) against a rebellion of the Ndebele people (an offshoot of the Zulu nation) in The Matabele Wars. The account in the book was taken from George Rattray, A British gunman.

The book describes how the British column met resistance from two experienced Ndebele regiments and Rattray says the Ndebele were "mown down just as if with a scythe" by the British machine guns.

So, from Chivers description the British did not do well at all in hand-to-hand combat against Zulus and tried to avoid it. It was the distance and high rate of fire the machine guns offered that allowed them to avoid such engagements and secure victory.

The Zulu short assegai (or iklwa) was revolutionary for its time and place in that it was designed explicitly for stabbing the opponent, normally with an upwards thrust just under the rib cage and into the chest.

A Zulu warrior would use his shield to batter the opponent and turn his longer, traditional form of assegai aside, before delivery a fatal wound. The lethality of this form of warfare, together with Shaka's ability to control and manoeuvre bodies of troops in a similar fashion to European line infantry, ensured the hegemony of the Zulus over other Ngoni tribes in the region.

In a History Channelesque "Recoat vs Zulu" face off, it would be a question of the the reach and blunt force potential of a bayonet and rifle butt against the deflect/batter/stab combo of the assegai and shield.

As I stated below, we know that where the British were able to stand behind some kind of fortification that nulified the vast disparity in numbers, they would likely come off on top (Rorke's Drift). On the other hand, when British troops were caught in the open like at Intombe and Isandlwana, they had little chance of survival.

Interestingly though, David Rattray and Ian Knight both hold that at Isandlwana, groups of redcoats stood back to back were succesful for a time at defending themselves until their numbers where whittled down by thrown assegais.

Khambula is an interesting battle as there were incidents of hand to hand fighting. First, hand to hand fighting occurred in the kraal with the British being driven back, but in good order. The second and probably most significant was Hackett's sortie which cleared the Zulus from the kraal and drove them back into the ravine.

Ian Knight is a source I would give for this, and his book Brave Men's Blood was the recommendation of David Rattray.

Could someone chip in on this subject in regaurds to the Maori?

My senior thesis was on the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. Truly a fascinating and extremely complicated event. Do yourself a solid and read up on the event. There are a lot of first-hand accounts of the war, from both the British and Zulu perspective (including the Zulu emperor Cetshwayo)

Also, I'm very pleased and impressed with many of these responses. It's nice to see people who share the same interests as myself.

I've been to Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift. At Isandlwana one could scrape their foot across the dirt and turn up metal cartridges. The white stone cairns where the British buried their dead 5 months later are haunting.

edited due to broken 'm' button