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Post by stuart on Dec 16, 2010 1:44:33 GMT -5
Considering the Alamo fort's original purpose, viz., as a compound to keep out Apache raiders, any military improvement to the perimeter would have only been helpful to the defenders. It should be remembered that the Alamo garrison were not all sluggards; even before Santa Anna arrived there is an occasional praise found in the letters written there for those who did put their back into it. A number of the defenses we now associate with the Alamo fortifications---such as the interior parapet defending the main gate---were Jameson's additions. True, but the very limited nature of them points to him doing what was achievable with the resources available rather than trying to do a proper job - this is wandering way off topic so I'll start another thread.
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Post by garyzaboly on Dec 16, 2010 7:13:19 GMT -5
Gary: I assume you have been through the doors leading into the long barracks. Only the smallest of guns could have been positioned inside its wall on the first floor without major work widening access.. At ground level, saying that they found a way to do this without leaving a gaping hole in the wall requiring backfill, any such gun would have been of limited value. The elevation was correct to maul any Mexican solder in the plaza. That however is not the issue. The cone of fire would be quite limited to a few number of degrees, bacause of a limited ability to traverse the piece inside of the building. If the first floor was tough in gaining access, the second floor would have presented even more of an engineering challenge. In addition a gun so placed would not only have the disadvantage of limited traverse, but in addition it would have been easier to get under the guns, because the gun's ability to depress would be also limited by the structure. Mounting a gun on the roof adequately protected by some sort of surrounding fortification, would have been much easier, and probably within the garrisions ability by lifting it into place. It does not solve the problem of the limited ability to depress. In addition the more fortification you put up surrounding the gun the more you limit the ability to traverse. None of the above negates the fact that had such work been done, and had a target presented itself, the effect of the fire would have been quite brutal, at least for one shot. It is obvious by the narative you cited that this happened during the assault on at least one occasion. Guns within fortifications that are designed from the outset solve these things by making sure the the fortification gives the gun the maximum ability to traverse. You see this in a lot of the older coast defense fortifications along the east coast. On the Mexican side, the emplacement and field fortifications they erected around these emplacements had this problem also. You show one such emplacement on page 138 of Alan Huffines book. You will note how narrow the embrasure you drew is. The more narrow the embrasure the more limited the traverse. This did not matter in this instance though in that the Mexicans knew where there target was and the Alamo was not going to move. Not so with infantry seeking cover and concealment as they conduct their assault. Field Artillery is at its best when it is mobile. It is conceivable from a field emplacement to be able to traverse 360 degrees, but not without a lot of hard work. The more you fortify the gun position in a field environment the more you limit this ability. Your answer above has not addressed the fact that had such a citadel existed it would still mean that the target area for Santa Anna's guns would have been much smaller, and that their ability to concentrate fire into a relatively small part of the compound, had he chosen to mass his guns, would have blown the place away in relatively short order. When faced with artillery fire the illusion of cover is not enough. In fact in my view there is never enough cover. Chieftain, Addressing the fact that Santa Anna's massed artillery would have "blown the place away" of course may be true as far as those parts of the convento exposed to such outside-positioned guns goes. It's a what-if scenario that never happened, and it does not negate the fact that Sanchez-Navarro knew that had the defenders arranged guns within or around the convento, Mexican casualties that day would have been much higher. That's all he was trying to impress upon the reader. Sanchez-Navarro had been Adjutant Inspector of Mexican frontier presidios since 1831, and an officer in the army long before that (in 1836 he was brevetted a Lt. Col. for the campaign), so he knew what presidios and other fortifications were capable of, defensively speaking. He had also personally charged into the hail of scrap and shot fired at Cos's column from the north and west walls on March 6. Most of Cos's add-ons to the Alamo were architecturally routine from a military point of view, others were improvised because the compound itself had not been designed to withstand a European-style siege; what potential the convento itself offered in terms of structural attachments can only be guessed at. As for getting a cannon inside a door too small for ingress: even when positioning guns on high platforms--when ramps did not exist---the gun and its carriage could be easily dismantled and reconstructed on the platform. This was pretty rote for the time; whether it would have been advantageous to do so in the convento is an open question. Nor was it too challenging to get a piece to the top of a roof in San Antonio, if one possessed the knowledge and skill. Cos did just that, on the top of San Fernando Church in 1835. Then there was the issue of the three "esmeriles" found in the armory after the battle. Had they been mounted in the convento---as Rick Range originally suggested, and was subsequently depicted by Mark Lemon in his book--clearly they would have done significant damage. Sanchez-Navarro never said where guns should have been positioned in the convento, so we can speculate from here to eternity. But his observation remains as an intriguing one, made by a participant, a soldier who knew forts and batteries from long experience, and whose plans and keys of the Alamo reveal an intellect somewhat the exception in the Mexican Army of his day.
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Post by Chuck T on Dec 16, 2010 12:04:05 GMT -5
Gary; I don't believe anyone, and certainly not I, am arguing the point that mounting guns inside or on top of the long barracks is possible. It certainly is. I do argue however, that once done, unless major reconstructive work was done to this structure, these guns would be of limited value in delaying or defeating an infantry assault. That is not to say that the effect of these guns, were they mounted, might not have been devestating to those Mexican infantrymen that may have been caught in their cone of fire. It would.
From an infantryman's perspective though I would be much more concerned by well aimed rifle fire from windows and perhaps loopholes made on the building itself, particularly windows that may have been on the second floor.
Of course I do not have the advantage that Sanchez-Navarro had. He viewed the place at the time, and I can only rely on his drawing and others including your own and Nelson's. Based upon those I can only conclude, looking closely at heights and angles, that any such placement of guns, would provide few fire traps that easily could have been avoided, regardless of where the guns themselves were placed.
I would agree that the tactical solution to any fortification of the long barracks and the eastern courtyards formed by the ruins of the old convento, (i.e. the massing of artillery to the east) is purely speculative on my part. It is but one of many options. I believe though that any such move on the part of Santa Anna would have been devestating beyond belief. The Mexican Army was equiped with Shrapnel and case shot, which would have been used to clear the courtyards, driving the surviving defenders into the building. Once there solid shot from these guns would have brought what remained of the top floor down. Were that not enough, guns could be brought forward to fire point blank at whatever remained. It did not happen. My only reason for mentioning it is that for every move the defenders made, there was a possible counter move that could be made by the attacker.
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Post by garyzaboly on Dec 16, 2010 15:49:27 GMT -5
Chieftain,
Again, the best I can do is quote what Sanchez-Navarro wrote about the convento:
"If the enemy had made a second line of defense of this, it would have been very difficult to drive them out or to take it from them."
He's not saying that it would have been an IMPOSSIBLE position to take, but that it would have been "very difficult."
I've never heard that the Mexican army had Shrapnel; it did have grape and canister.
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Post by Chuck T on Dec 16, 2010 16:08:21 GMT -5
Gary: I am not arguing the point. I think it would be quite difficult to take this particular area by infantry assault. From that perspective Sanchez-Navarro and myself are in complete agreement. No position is IMPOSSIBLE to take by assault. None that I know of anyway. The only question then is how much are you willing to spend in the doing, or is there another way.
Difficulty is also in the eye of the beholder. I would think that when someone is shooting at you, the difficulty of making them stop rises with each incoming round.
I admit Shrapnel was an assumption, possibly incorrect, on my part. It had been in use early in the century, and I thought perhaps after twenty or more years it would have found its way to Mexico.
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Post by garyzaboly on Dec 16, 2010 16:20:52 GMT -5
It is amazing how our opinion of the Alamo garrison is one of a bunch of shiftless lazyasses. To be sure, Jameson in early January had noted how the men "will not work." By January 16 he was writing that the "officers of every department do more work than the men." On February 2, fifteen days after Jameson complained about the men not working, Bowie wrote to Henry Smith: "We are still laboring night and day, laying up provisions for a siege." On February 16 Jameson noted, "Taking into consideration the scarsity of Tools we have done well in mounting & remounting Guns and other necessary works." So the impression to be drawn from all this is that, yes, at first the garrison grumbled about no pay and clothing and refused to do much of anything, but as word came back of the Mexicans on the march they actually made up for their earlier lackadaisacal and even indifferent attiude by contributing much more to the work at hand. But how much remains unknown. Jameson's earlier plan offers up renovations done in red ink, but we don't have that original copy.
Had the garrison had more weeks of grace to work with, who knows but that they might have actually built Jameson's elaborate half-moon appendage to the south, with drawbridge and moat! They might have even done something with the convento and other second-line defense works.
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Post by Chuck T on Dec 16, 2010 18:19:34 GMT -5
I for one do not share that opinion. Mine is that the men who defended the Alamo were no better or no worse than any barely trained volunteer militia at the time, and the officer and non-commissioned officer leadership was inadequate to the task.
Further I believe that had some or all of Jameson's modifications been made as illustrated in the only one of his plans I have seen, that it would have been an easier, and not more difficult place to successfully assault. Butter on bread will spread only so thin and then the bread starts showing. Of course Jameson was making his plans on the idea that the Alamo would be reinforced in a timely manner, which did not happen. I am certainly not criticizing him for either his plans or his work. In fact had the garrison recieved his expected reinforments, the plans he laid out would have materially effected the ability to defend the place.
Only with an adequate garrison of a thousand or more in place before the Mexican Army arrived, well supplied with food, ammunition, and water, would there been any hope of successfully defending the Alamo. Then and only then would any of Jameson's planned improvements strengthened, rather than weakened the defenses. Even then I believe it would have been a close run thing.
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Post by Paul Sylvain on Dec 16, 2010 22:13:31 GMT -5
Only with an adequate garrison of a thousand or more in place before the Mexican Army arrived, well supplied with food, ammunition, and water, would there been any hope of successfully defending the Alamo. Seeing as we're playing a friendly round of "what-if", I'm wondering what would have happened if there had been 1,000 defenders inside the Alamo at the time of the siege? I'm thinking Santa Anna might have opted for simply keeping the defenders penned in, starving them out and cutting off their water, etc., until they had no choice but to surrender at discretion, instead of an all-out assault. It's easy to assume SA would have attacked like he did -- and considering the size of his force, he might have chose to do so just the same -- but I'm wondering if he would have pursued a course of action with a holding force in place to keep the Alamo's defenders walled in while he pursued Houston. Paul
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Post by Chuck T on Dec 16, 2010 22:28:26 GMT -5
Paul: The truth is I don't know, nor I suspect does anyone else.
Having a thousand man garrision in the Alamo, and remember I specified that they were adequately supplied, meaning supplied for a long seige, it would have required quite a large force to keep them penned in. I would suspect that it would be a larger force than Santa Anna could spare if he had any hopes of tracking down and defeating Houston.
If Santa Anna tried to assault the Alamo with that size of a garrison, he would have to achieve four or five to one odds, and even then I do not believe there would be any certainty that he would prevail. I don't believe that he had that many forces available to him, but I have never counted noses of all those that were available somewhere in Texas. If he gambled, concentrated his forces and then lost, it was over for him in both a military and political sense
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Post by stuart on Dec 17, 2010 2:04:33 GMT -5
If there had been 1000 Texians in Bexar I doubt if we would be talking about the Alamo at all. That would have been Houston in charge for a start, rather than the two colonels, and whether he would have fought Santa Anna in the open or made a run for it is not for me to speculate, but he certainly wouldn't have thrown everybody into the Alamo - apart from anything else while the real defenders spent their days hoping that a relief force would turn up, if 1,000 men were in Bexar in February we would be looking at one of two scenarios, either (a) that was it and once Santa Anna bagged them there would be no more rebellion - just as at the Medina, or (b) if the Texians could spare 1,000 men to hold Bexar that could only be because Grant's general revolutionising was in full swing all over northern Mexico - in which case Santa Anna had far more to worry about.
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Post by garyzaboly on Dec 17, 2010 6:08:05 GMT -5
Only with an adequate garrison of a thousand or more in place before the Mexican Army arrived, well supplied with food, ammunition, and water, would there been any hope of successfully defending the Alamo. Seeing as we're playing a friendly round of "what-if", I'm wondering what would have happened if there had been 1,000 defenders inside the Alamo at the time of the siege? I'm thinking Santa Anna might have opted for simply keeping the defenders penned in, starving them out and cutting off their water, etc., until they had no choice but to surrender at discretion, instead of an all-out assault. It's easy to assume SA would have attacked like he did -- and considering the size of his force, he might have chose to do so just the same -- but I'm wondering if he would have pursued a course of action with a holding force in place to keep the Alamo's defenders walled in while he pursued Houston. Paul If there had been 1,000 men inside the Alamo after February 23, they would have launched strong, probably decisive sorties against the most vulnerable Mexican positions, not just cowered inside the fort. They would have contested the attempted Mexican encirclement, and done considerable damage. As it was, even with only 150 able-bodied men, they managed to strike here and there at Santa Anna's force, if sometimes that meant just the burning down of nearby jacales.
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Post by garyzaboly on Dec 17, 2010 6:11:32 GMT -5
I for one do not share that opinion. Mine is that the men who defended the Alamo were no better or no worse than any barely trained volunteer militia at the time, and the officer and non-commissioned officer leadership was inadequate to the task. Further I believe that had some or all of Jameson's modifications been made as illustrated in the only one of his plans I have seen, that it would have been an easier, and not more difficult place to successfully assault. Butter on bread will spread only so thin and then the bread starts showing. Of course Jameson was making his plans on the idea that the Alamo would be reinforced in a timely manner, which did not happen. I am certainly not criticizing him for either his plans or his work. In fact had the garrison recieved his expected reinforments, the plans he laid out would have materially effected the ability to defend the place. Only with an adequate garrison of a thousand or more in place before the Mexican Army arrived, well supplied with food, ammunition, and water, would there been any hope of successfully defending the Alamo. Then and only then would any of Jameson's planned improvements strengthened, rather than weakened the defenses. Even then I believe it would have been a close run thing. That was my essential point, Chieftain...with the "more weeks of grace to work with," reinfocements would have obviously arrived, and Jameson's additions would have made the place far more formidable.
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Post by Chuck T on Dec 17, 2010 11:39:51 GMT -5
I am not sure that I made my point clear enough. Therefore, had Jameson proceeded with his plans, even given a few more weeks or even a month, the essential ingredients to the possible successful defense of the Alamo were both the addition of adequate personel for a garrison (which I would estimate to be at least a thousand), adequate supplies of food and ammunition of all types, and a sufficiency of water supply, all to sustain a garrision that large for an extended period of time. If any of these were missing then a defense was doomed from the outset, despite any improvements in fortification.
I do not believe it is a given that these reinforcement in both men and material would be forthcoming. Perhaps so,. Perhaps not. There were other forces at work in Texas at the time. Most of them mitigated against a reinforcement. The meager band of defenders had no way of knowing this however. All they knew is that none of their requests so far had been fullfilled. Yet they had hope when the enemy was in sight that all Texas would rush to their aid. The point then is when the enemy was in sight it was then to late.
The second point. Had Jameson completed all or most of his planned improvements and the reinforcements expected did not show up then the Alamo would have been worse off in my view because it is a natural tendency to try to defend the works that you have put your sweat and backs into. "He who attempts to defend everything in truth defends nothing" (I probably mangled the original statement, and I am not exactly sure who first said it. Frederick the Great I think).
So yes Gary, had everything fallen into place the Alamo would have been a much harder nut to crack.
As far as how the reinforced defenders of the Alamo would have defended the place I cannot say. Trying to put your arms around the amature soldier is difficult. They can dismay you with incompetence one moment, and baffel you with brilliance the next. There has been many a time throughout history when the gifted amature has beaten the snot out of the trained professional.
To Stuart's point. I think you are correct in what you stated. Let's consider for a moment what would Santa Anna done when as he approached San Antonio and found that there were a thousand or more in the garrison. I think he would refuse battle and draw off temporaily. I would have been foolish in my view to attempt to surround a thousand or more, with just over a thousand in his vanguard. What would he do after that? I am not going to speculate.
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Post by garyzaboly on Dec 17, 2010 12:25:48 GMT -5
I am not sure that I made my point clear enough. Therefore, had Jameson proceeded with his plans, even given a few more weeks or even a month, the essential ingredients to the possible successful defense of the Alamo were both the addition of adequate personel for a garrison (which I would estimate to be at least a thousand), adequate supplies of food and ammunition of all types, and a sufficiency of water supply, all to sustain a garrision that large for an extended period of time. If any of these were missing then a defense was doomed from the outset, despite any improvements in fortification. I do not believe it is a given that these reinforcement in both men and material would be forthcoming. Perhaps so,. Perhaps not. There were other forces at work in Texas at the time. Most of them mitigated against a reinforcement. The meager band of defenders had no way of knowing this however. All they knew is that none of their requests so far had been fullfilled. Yet they had hope when the enemy was in sight that all Texas would rush to their aid. The point then is when the enemy was in sight it was then to late. The second point. Had Jameson completed all or most of his planned improvements and the reinforcements expected did not show up then the Alamo would have been worse off in my view because it is a natural tendency to try to defend the works that you have put your sweat and backs into. "He who attempts to defend everything in truth defends nothing" (I probably mangled the original statement, and I am not exactly sure who first said it. Frederick the Great I think). So yes Gary, had everything fallen into place the Alamo would have been a much harder nut to crack. As far as how the reinforced defenders of the Alamo would have defended the place I cannot say. Trying to put your arms around the amature soldier is difficult. They can dismay you with incompetence one moment, and baffel you with brilliance the next. There has been many a time throughout history when the gifted amature has beaten the snot out of the trained professional. To Stuart's point. I think you are correct in what you stated. Let's consider for a moment what would Santa Anna done when as he approached San Antonio and found that there were a thousand or more in the garrison. I think he would refuse battle and draw off temporaily. I would have been foolish in my view to attempt to surround a thousand or more, with just over a thousand in his vanguard. What would he do after that? I am not going to speculate. Chieftain, A lot of "what ifs," but all I was saying is, had the Alamo been further reconditioned and revamped a la Jameson, and had by that time the absent Texian volunteers fulfilled their domestic duties and returned to the war front (Bexar)---allowing that Santa Anna had delayed his march by a few weeks, of course---then the fort would have been a stronghold of very formidable stamp, ditto its garrison. It is often forgotten that Travis wasn't alone in thinking that the Mexican army would not show up before the Spring; most of Texas (including Houston) thought so too: the documentation tells us this. By that time the volunteers also figured to return to the fighting. The Alamo would have had its reinforcements. By marching north much sooner than expected, Santa Anna trumped what few cards the Texians still held in the late winter of 1835-36. The rest, as they say, is History.
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Post by Chuck T on Dec 17, 2010 14:31:45 GMT -5
I have not forgotten that Travis and others made the assumption that Santa Anna would not march north until spring. Assumptions though have a way of becoming fatal assumptions.
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