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Post by TRK on Feb 4, 2012 18:22:23 GMT -5
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Post by Herb on Feb 4, 2012 18:26:46 GMT -5
Rich, I THINK, S-N is showing both batteries relative to the whole siege. Somewhere, perhaps a discussion with Tom Lindley, i'm under the impression that the 4 pounders weren't used. They were just too light for anything other than firing canister during the siege. The 6s and 8s and the howitzers were the work horses. We're all aware that Santa Anna was angry when the 12 pounders didn't arrive with the March 3rd reinforcement, but that battery also included 2 six pounders and 2 more howitzers. Not receiving that battery led to the shift to the north, though I THINK, his intent was to keep the river battery active and deploy the new battery he was waiting on at the northern position. Gaona supposedly really got chewed out for not sending that battery with Cos, etc. (Somebody mentions this, but I can't recall who).
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Post by Rich Curilla on Feb 4, 2012 18:36:07 GMT -5
Thanks Tom. Actually, now that I see the way the detailed maps are framed from the full map, I must have actually downloaded those from the site for my notebook so I had a better view of what Rick provided. Thanks, I was trying to figure out how to post a copy. |
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Post by Herb on Feb 4, 2012 18:41:25 GMT -5
Jake, on March 3rd, Travis basically says the wall is "proof" against the Mexican artillery. However, Brooks, at Goliad wrote on March 10th, that every shot from the North Battery "goes through the walls." This is apparently based on the final dispatch from Travis that Allen is supposed to have carried on March 5th.
I expect the difference is due totally to the much closer range of the North Battery,
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Post by Rich Curilla on Feb 4, 2012 18:42:58 GMT -5
Herb, what about the Mexican reinforcements that arrived on March 3. Did they have any of the smaller guns with them? I hadn't heard about the possibility that the 4-pounders weren't used.
Another thought I had since we started this discussion was that perhaps Almonte was correctly translated. Two batteries were set up at night on February 25 at the sites indicated in the Merrick map but, due to fire power from the Alamo, were moved back to the La Villita site -- or simply retrieved and then later added to the north battery.
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Post by Herb on Feb 4, 2012 19:09:40 GMT -5
Rich, I don't think so, i'm trying to remember a source. I did find something interesting check out Filisola in the Alamo Reader, last paragraph on page 388.
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Post by Hollowhorn on Feb 4, 2012 19:33:08 GMT -5
doesn't it seem strange that there was so little damage from cannon fire going either direction? All those big guns violating any reasonable safety precautions (OSHA would have a fit), and we hear virtually nothing about shot or shell destroying this or that -- well, there was the dismounting of the sw corner gun, I guess. Good point, it's true that no-one seems to mention much in the way of damage to San Antonio, the only instance I can think of is the shot that hit Santa Anna's HQ. I guess it was down to the lack of decent powder as far as shots from the Alamo are concerned. It was down to poor powder was it not? The had enough balls (titter ye not) no? I did strike me as odd why the garrison resorted to sorties to burn down the houses at La Villita when they could have blown them away without risk. The did have enough decent artillerymen, did they not? |
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Post by Herb on Feb 4, 2012 20:26:06 GMT -5
While powder quality is a factor, it's more about the distances involved. Think about a Sherman tank in WWII, you had to get awful close to knock out a Tiger.
At the Alamo we talk about the 12 pounders like they were siege guns, but true siege guns designed to bring down walls were 18, 24, or even 36 pounders. The bigger guns throw larger mass, at greater velocity, giving you more bang for the buck. While those Alamo cannon on both sides could kill out to great ranges, it's just a lot easier to penetrate wool, than stone. Simplistic, but ....
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Post by Rich Curilla on Feb 5, 2012 0:08:16 GMT -5
Rich, I don't think so, i'm trying to remember a source. I did find something interesting check out Filisola in the Alamo Reader, last paragraph on page 388. Shoots that theory down. LOL. Filisola says for February 25, "During the night two trenches were constructed [not "batteries"] adjoining the houses located in the cottonwood grove at the Alamo for the infantry." He says nothing of "batteries." If he is speaking independently from Almonte, then he is not corroborating Almonte's cannon batteries. If he is simply repeating Almonte's diary (probable), then he is evidence that it was translated incorrectly into "batteries" instead of "trenches." O.K., back to the drawing board. Good catch, Herb. However, there is still the indicated batter locations on the Merrick map -- unless he was just "quoting" the Almonte translation, which was incorrect, and then (worse) guessing at specific locations for the batteries. |
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Post by Allen Wiener on Feb 7, 2012 14:23:05 GMT -5
Don't know how appropriate this is for this discussion, but came across the following in the book Enemy at the Gate by Andrew Wheatcroft, describing late 17th century palisade fortifications. The book focuses on the 1683 siege of Vienna and the seemingly endless war between the Hapsburgs and Ottomans. Describing the work of Georg Rimpler, "one of the best fortress engineers in Europe," who constructed Vienna's defenses against the Ottomans, he describes the following:
"The raw materials Rimpler needed were at hand: stout baulks of timber or even tree trunks, sharpened at both ends, ready to be hammered into the earth. Roped together, or strengthened with wooden cross-members, buttressed with more timbers behind, they could be used to make an open wooden wall. A thin man could turn sideways and slip between the staves, but an attacking mass of men would be brought to a halt.
"The Ottomans themselves were expert in using palanka, solid blockhouse, made of logs and earth, and Rimpler was constructing something very similar. Using wooden barrels or gabions he created a line of blockhouses along the timber-covered way that ran along the top of the steep inner wall (counterscarp). The defenders could then fire down on any Turks who penetrated the old moat. Each one was a little fort, and the Turks would have to eliminate them one by one."
Sounds kind of familiar re: the Alamo and I wonder if this sort of engineering had changed much in the 150 years or so between the events.
Allen
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Post by Jake on Feb 8, 2012 17:57:52 GMT -5
Allen, that looks like a good book -- I think I'll track it down and see what else it says. I love that kind of almost first-person description. Mahan, in describing a palisaded defense, says that generally they were tall sharpened stakes about 10.5 feet long, set into the ground about three feet, and about 3 inches apart, usually at the bottom of the defensive ditch. He doesn't mention the thing about setting them apart enough that troops would be able to squeeze between them, but we're talking about 150 years of difference in the methods of warfare, although it wouldn't be a major change. The Ottoman "palanka" sounds very much like the progenitor of the "tambour," although blockhouse defenses on wall tops probably have a different name.
In fact, as you say, not much changed over the 150 years between the two events. My trusty copy of Vauban on the arts of field fortification is here somewhere, and there's no big differences between him and Mahan or Wheeler, and those as a result of improvements in musketry and cannon.
So I want to do one more sketch cross-section of the stockade wall, showing a kind of unified reconstruction of what seemed to be going on, and then I want to start a new thread on the defenses in the cattle pen, the north courtyard of the convento.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Feb 9, 2012 9:53:32 GMT -5
Jake - it is a good read as far as the siege and battle are concerned and especially on discussion of battlement design and construction. The account of the siege and battle, especially the end of the battle; very exciting. It's chronology prior to that is confusing and circular at times and I sometimes got lost, but that did not interfere with my enjoyment of the main section, which is the heart of the book. I had never even heard of the 1683 siege of Vienna, so the whole story was very riveting for me. Regarding the "palanka," there are some good maps and one diagram of the city's defenses; it reminds me of Fort McHenry and the "pointed bastions" (don't know the actual name for these features) that jut out all around the place, giving it the appearance of a "star" or something like that. It sounds like this and similar construction of stockaded palisades remained very similar for the next 150 years. I don't know how much this was dictated by the weaponry/technology of that period or the tactics, neither of which changed that much either.
Ottoman siege tactics were interesting; they'd bombard the defenses, but the major effort was to tunnel underneath them and set off explosives that were intended to bring them down. Apparently, this worked fairly well.
I look forward to seeing the new sketch and the discussion of the other Alamo fortifications.
Allen
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