Post by marklemon on Jun 9, 2007 17:20:56 GMT -5
In keeping with my practice of trying to limit my comments to those things which I either know, or have a strong reason, based on pretty hard evidence, to believe, here's a nugget:
In constructing my model in 1/48 scale (much, much bigger than it sounds)of the Alamo compound, I came a cross a rather startling fact that has to my knowledge, not been previously pointed out. The platform of Fortin De Teran was configured as follows (according to the formal military rules of defensive positions as have been seen to apply at the Alamo)...24 feet deep, 54 feet wide, and with a ramp of about 51 feet in length. As I have previously stated in another post, the guns fired through embrasures, and sat on a platform about 8.5 feet high. My point is that if, as has been reported, Travis fired a shot or two from his shotgun before getting hit, and tumbling backwards down the ramp, rising to a sitting position, running a Mexican general through with his sword before he himself died, etc, etc.. well, he would have to have been superhuman. Leaving out the rediculous idea of a man being shot in the forehead being able to do anything like rising up and stabbing anyone else, we are still left with the reeling backwards, tumbling down the ramp, etc, part of the story.
Here is where my model was very helpful. One simply cannot look at this massive platform, 54 feet by 24 feet, and accept that anyone so fatally wounded could have reeled anywhere at all, much less a whopping 24 feet. In all likelihood, he dropped like a sack of 80 pound concrete after being hit in the head, and reeled nowhere. This puts the lie to Joe's story, or, perhaps, this part was added by the enterprising reporter who transcribed it. Either way, no one should ever realistically believe that Travis ended up on the ramp, unless dragged there after death. I more stronly believe that his body was found either on, across, or near to, a gun carriage.
Mark
In constructing my model in 1/48 scale (much, much bigger than it sounds)of the Alamo compound, I came a cross a rather startling fact that has to my knowledge, not been previously pointed out. The platform of Fortin De Teran was configured as follows (according to the formal military rules of defensive positions as have been seen to apply at the Alamo)...24 feet deep, 54 feet wide, and with a ramp of about 51 feet in length. As I have previously stated in another post, the guns fired through embrasures, and sat on a platform about 8.5 feet high. My point is that if, as has been reported, Travis fired a shot or two from his shotgun before getting hit, and tumbling backwards down the ramp, rising to a sitting position, running a Mexican general through with his sword before he himself died, etc, etc.. well, he would have to have been superhuman. Leaving out the rediculous idea of a man being shot in the forehead being able to do anything like rising up and stabbing anyone else, we are still left with the reeling backwards, tumbling down the ramp, etc, part of the story.
Here is where my model was very helpful. One simply cannot look at this massive platform, 54 feet by 24 feet, and accept that anyone so fatally wounded could have reeled anywhere at all, much less a whopping 24 feet. In all likelihood, he dropped like a sack of 80 pound concrete after being hit in the head, and reeled nowhere. This puts the lie to Joe's story, or, perhaps, this part was added by the enterprising reporter who transcribed it. Either way, no one should ever realistically believe that Travis ended up on the ramp, unless dragged there after death. I more stronly believe that his body was found either on, across, or near to, a gun carriage.
Mark
