cje
Full Member
Posts: 60
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Post by cje on Apr 30, 2012 11:42:19 GMT -5
Every since I go into reading about the Alamo (1960's - yeah I'm and old guy - old and cold - we're my vest!) I have read about the number of Mexican Cannon firing at the Alamo. If they fired on the Alamo for several days and nights, where in the world did they get all of cannon balls and powder.? Hard to believe they shipped all of this volume from Mexico to Texas. Just what sort of ammunition did a cannon have that went with it and just what sort of "Assortment," did they have?
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Post by Allen Wiener on Apr 30, 2012 12:17:03 GMT -5
Somewhere here there is a thread on this, which establishes that the Mexicans did NOT shell the fort around the clock at all. See the article Tom mentioned in Alamo Journal #159 for references to other Mexican reports on the amount of munitions that the Mexicans used during the siege. Also, I believe Alamonte's journal may lend some insight here. According to such info, the Mexicans did shell throughout the daylight hours, but not at night, so it was not constant bombardment that robbed the defenders of sleep (and which also would have done the same to the Mexican soldiers). The Texans were, however, kept busy during the nights repairing damage done by Mexican cannon during the day, which cost at least some of them sleep.
Most of this night work was done on the north wall, which was problematic from the start. Even though the Mexicans were not able to breach the wall, they were still able to scale it and get into the fort there. Overwhelming numbers probably had as much to do with that as the state of the wall's repair or the materials that were used to shore it up. There were clearly timbers used in some arrangement and the Mexicans were able to use them to literally climb the wall. So the breach repairs may have prevented the wall being knocked down, but ultimately worked against the defenders anyway.
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Post by loucapitano on May 1, 2012 16:26:30 GMT -5
Good point Allen.
Would anyone care to guess how much cannon shot was typically carried by a mexican caisson? I think a 6-pound charge was about the size of a softball and I imagine only a few hundred were at hand. According to the excellent translation in Alamo Journal #159, by Tom Kailbourne, Col. Ampudia was awaiting more ammunition and bigger guns, thus he could not breach the wall as hoped to, or was ordered to.
In re-reading the report, I came to wonder about Ampudia's claim to have silenced some troublesome guns on the Alamo's North Wall. If this was so, were they put back in operation before the attack on March 6th? If not, the North battery was at an additional disadvantage (as if being outnumbered 20 to 1 wasn't enough.)
I also kept feeling that Ampudia's after-battle report was so full of praise for Santa Anna and the individual acts of bravery by some of the officers and soldados, that something was missing or left unsaid. Perhaps it was his personal style or perhaps it was typical when making reports to a dictator in the Mexican army, but something just didn't ring through.
If anyone else got the same feeling, let me know. I'll have to read it a few more times to put my finger on the problem.
Lou from Long Island.
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Post by Allen Wiener on May 1, 2012 17:06:38 GMT -5
I think official Mexican reports all contained this kind of obsequious boilerplate. Officers saved their real opinions and harshest criticisms for their memoirs (De la Pena and Filasola, for example).
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Post by TRK on May 1, 2012 18:25:41 GMT -5
I also kept feeling that Ampudia's after-battle report was so full of praise for Santa Anna and the individual acts of bravery by some of the officers and soldados, that something was missing or left unsaid. Perhaps it was his personal style or perhaps it was typical when making reports to a dictator in the Mexican army, but something just didn't ring through. That's real typical of Mexican after-action reports. I've read a lot of them from the Mexican-American War, 1846-48, and virtually all of them follow the same pattern: a cursory account of the action or battle, mention of one or two officers who distinguished themselves, a list of the wounded from that unit, and a heavy dose of salutations and professions of loyalty to the commanding officer. Contrast that with U.S. after-action reports, where they usually went into great detail in their narrative of the action. |
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Post by Paul Sylvain on May 1, 2012 19:25:04 GMT -5
Allen summed it up nicely. All my reading indicates there was no 24/7 shelling of the Alamo, and the reality is, that sort of approach would have been equally wearing on the Mexican army as it would be for the folks holed up in the 'mo. The only thing that hints (to me) there might have been some intensifying of the bombardment perhaps in the last couple of days might be found in the oft-stated belief that the compound's defenders fell into deep sleep that last night after the shelling ceased. IF the shelling did not occur in the overnights during part of the siege, what would have been different that last night? Would they not have been fixing damage from the day shelling, as they had been, rather than not doing so that last night? Why were things so different that last night from the other nights, I wonder.
Paul
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Post by Allen Wiener on May 1, 2012 20:04:52 GMT -5
Paul, my guess is that the reason the men were asleep is that most of them were asleep every night. No one thought there was any reason to expect anything other than what the Mexican routine had been all along. There may have been another detail shoring up the north wall, but most men were probably asleep in the barracks. I personally find this another failure of Travis' leadership. The Mexicans had been reinforced on the 3rd, giving Santa Anna more than enough troops to mount an effective assault, but no one seems to have thought of that. It's possible that Travis didn't think they'd attack before punching a hole through the wall and that Santa Anna was waiting for larger siege guns. Whatever the reason, they were taken by surprise and suddenly roused from sleep as the Mexicans were nearly at the wall. Travis was asleep too.
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Post by Herb on May 1, 2012 20:33:53 GMT -5
March 5th, WAS just another night for the Alamo Defenders, I believe Joe said they were up working on the walls past midnight - I don't have Hansen with me to verify.
As Allen, said the evidence suggests that the Texans had been lulled into a routine, sheltering from the bombardment during the day, repairing the walls once the cannon stopped firing in the evening, then sleeping until the cannon fire resumed on the morning. Falling into this sort of routine is easy, and actually makes the stress of combat easier for men to handle, but any sort of routine in combat can be dangerous, and the risks of being predictable, must be,balanced by the commander with the benefits the routine may provide. The commander must However take steps to mitigate against those risks.
Travis, may have had no choice but to follow this routine, after all the Mexicans were dictating the tempo of the battle, but Travis took no real steps to prepare the garrison for the way the Mexican army attacked on March 6th.
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Post by Paul Sylvain on May 1, 2012 20:35:31 GMT -5
I suspect you're right, Allen. Th evidence does point to no continuous bombardment, but so much has been made about the supposed sudden stop of cannon fire lulling the men to a deep sleep, that it seemed out of the norm that so many would be sleeping. I guess that's why I posed the "what was different" question. But I agree, it must have been "just another night" to the men inside the Alamo's walls.
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Post by Allen Wiener on May 2, 2012 8:04:44 GMT -5
Herb stated this more clearly than I did -- it's the idea of routine, which I imagine is quite different in combat than it was for us during our respective tours in Iceland, but you get the idea. There is a certain security to the routine, but, as Herb points out, in a combat situation it can backfire on you.
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Post by Hiram on May 2, 2012 12:51:05 GMT -5
On 3 March, Travis writes a detailed letter to the President of the Convention. He states "at least 200 shells have landed inside our works without having injured a single man...." That's right at 20 shells per day (if you count March 3.)
The munitions report filed by Pedro de Ampudia indicates grenades, canister and shot numbering over 500 were expended during the siege. Ampudia also lists the consumption of 36,000 cartridges. This number seems high if the Alamo garrison were caught unawares on the morning of the 6th. I understand the number of cartridges would be for the entire siege, not just the assault; but even taking that into account, it still seems like a high number.
I've read enough posts on the ASF to realize that the vast majority of members believe that the Alamo garrison were surprised when the assault began. Perhaps it is time for someone to offer an alternative scenario. I have some thoughts on the subject that I would like to share at some point, just not at this moment. I will however share a military definition of "surprise": strike the enemy at a time, at a place, or in a manner for which is unprepared.
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Post by loucapitano on May 3, 2012 13:22:00 GMT -5
Hiram, the amount of cannon ammunition I suggested on 5/1 may have been available to the Mexicans prior to March 6Th seems to be within Col. Ampudia's reported usage. His supply must have been nearly exhausted for him to mention looking forward to the additional cannon and ammunition he expected to get from Gaona's Battalion on the 7Th or 8Th.
Travis's "Victory or Death" letter claims sustaining a 24 hours bombardment which may have led people to surmise daily round the clock bombardments. I think we realize now how unlikely that would have been. Although it appears there were frequent night alarms caused by either side. That, plus the March cold certainly would have contributed to a face off between two exhausted garrisons.
Ampudia figure of consuming 36,000 cartridges is not surprising. Given more than 3000 men at arms, each soldado would have used about 10 cartridges apiece. That doesn't seem excessive for such a 13 day siege.
I look forward to your alternative scenario. The element of surprise is one of the most examined tactics of warfare. Yet, it has affected the course of history thousands of time. Every military man knows the danger of surprise attack and defends against it, yet they succeed time after time.
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Post by Hiram on May 3, 2012 15:19:44 GMT -5
Regardless of the number of assailants, we're still looking at 500 rounds per minute over the course of a 60-minute battle; assuming the Army of Operations had used as many as 6,000 rounds prior to March 6. That's one of the reasons I believe there was more than a perfunctory defense of the compound that Sunday morning.
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Post by Allen Wiener on May 3, 2012 15:28:48 GMT -5
I'm still not persuaded that most of the garrison wasn't asleep and taken by surprise. However, I'll admit there's a lot more to it than that. Some Texian cannon crews must have been in place if only to explain the hits the Toluca Battalion took. Romero's swing north and west may have been partly the result of flooded areas he wanted to avoid, but the batteries on the church may also have affected his movements and maybe the artillery in the corral areas. There also was confusion among the Mexicans once they reached the wall, and Cos found it necessary to swing around and down the west wall. And Santa Anna saw fit to send in the reserves, which may have been required or may have been a panicky move he made when he saw the troops foundering at the wall for a while. What I'm saying is that there were some number of Texans on the walls when the attack occurred and they were doubtless joined by some who were awakened by it, including Travis. But how many, how much of an organized or effective defense they could mount are still questionable. The alternative question is: What would the situation have been had Travis kept more of an alert status, kept a closer eye on things, and been more receptive to the idea that there just might be an attack.
I know I'm affected by the recent Titanic info deluge, but it sounds similar to the lack of preparation aboard the Titanic regarding the possibility of icebergs and the failure to spot the fatal one until it was too late.
Also - Wouldn't the number of cartridges reflect what was issued to the troops, not necessarily what was expended?
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Post by Hiram on May 3, 2012 16:34:15 GMT -5
The alternative question is: What would the situation have been had Travis kept more of an alert status, kept a closer eye on things, and been more receptive to the idea that there just might be an attack. Also - Wouldn't the number of cartridges reflect what was issued to the troops, not necessarily what was expended?
Travis gets little or no credit for maintaining a sense of order and control within the Alamo, yet going back to the original thread, 200 shells landed inside the compound with no casualties. There in lies evidence that orders were being followed; i.e. do not wander outside the protection of the buildings unless ordered or directed to.
It's never been my position that every defender is alert, on the wall with cocked weapon at 0600 hours. It is my position that a surrender had been demanded and the garrison had refused and were now being besieged in preparation for the inevitable assault barring any major reinforcements. Therefore, with officers communicating through NCOs, there would be some sense of maintaining an alert status. DLP credits Travis with ordering the men to have several weapons placed by their sides. Whether true or not, that's what he saw or at least wrote.
How does an army assault a well-fortified though undermanned position after being detected for 12 days? You assault under cover of darkness. That's common knowledge. As mentioned earlier, you can prepare for an assault, you can prepare for a "surprise" attack, but it is difficult to turn back particularly with a 10 to 1 disadvantage. With all due respect to my fellow Forum members, I think we should consider the possibility that the Alamo garrison was prepared for an assault and were simply overwhelmed by superior numbers.
The military technology was equal on both sides. The compound featured a variety of physical obstacles. So what makes up for that? Karl Von Clausewitz says superior numbers will overcome obstacles, particularly when both armies are invested with the same technology.
Allen, I've considered the same question...issued or expended? The report (translated) uses the word "consumption" and also says "during the siege." |
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