The blockhouse system requires an enormous number of troops to garrison.

Well over fifty thousand British troops, or fifty battalions, are involved in blockhouse duty, greater than the approximately thirty thousand Boers in the field during the guerrilla phase.

In addition, up to sixteen thousand Africans are used both as armed guards and to patrol the line at night.

The Army links the blockhouses with barbed wire fences to parcel up the wide veld into smaller areas.

"New Model" drives are mounted under which a continuous line of troops can sweep an area of veld bounded by blockhouse lines, unlike the earlier inefficient scouring of the countryside by scattered columns.