Niyahow, don't exaggerate and act like they were just pastoral nomads fighting with sticks. Somalis in the early modern era were familiar with stone fort building in both
Koonfur and
Woqooyi whether through indigenous masons or imported Arab and Indian ones and had gunpowder weapons like
rifles and
cannons. They even
had sizable Dhow ships they could use to travel to places like Yemen, the the Persian Gulf, India and Zanzibar as well
as colonize along their own shores. The British even had to actively stop Somalis from importing arms from Arabia
via their own Dhows when the Sayyid was around:
Until the gaalo started employing things like airplanes that were beyond Somalis at the time they were routinely losing battles to groups like the Darawiish. They had heavier artillery and numbers but the Somalis were more than capable of causing them a lot of trouble which is why the gaalo often preferred protectorate deals over head-on and continued conflict.