Gatling gun limber: progress with research

I posted a request for information about limbers on the Egypt and Sudan Campaigns, 1882–1898 Facebook forum, and received a fascinating reply.

The correspondent posted extracts from a contemporary report by a US naval officer, Report of the British Naval and Military Operations in Egypt, 1882. It’s an absolute gold mine of detailed records and descriptions of pretty much everything one might wish to know about, water bottles to warships:

Link: Report of the British Naval and Military Operations in Egypt, 1882

Therein is also the clearest rendering of a limber I have seen, and certainly helps me with developing a drawing for my model.

I also discovered that W Britain used to make a limber, one modified for drawing by mules. The detail corroborates the drawing except for twin ammunition boxes. I do not know which source the Britain’s piece may be based on, but the single ammunition box tallies with eyewitness drawings and the description in the manual cited in an earlier post.

Gatling gun and limber

Left: limber prepared for drawing by mules.
Right: W Britain’s model.