Kentucky Long Rifle or Pennsylvania Rifle. Calibers .36 to .45.
.61 caliber British Baker Rifle. Effective range 270 yards.
British Brown Bess. .71 Caliber.
The best firearm was a British Baker rifle that some elite Mexican Troops carried. It was a rifled black powder arm that was effective to 270 yards. .61 Caliber. The Mexican line troops were armed with .71 Brown Bess Muskets. They weren't much good over 70 yards. Mexican Cavalry Units had .61 Pagent carbines and pistols.
Texicans were armed with an assortment of military and civilian arms. Most carried their personal weapons. .36 caliber "squirrel guns" were common, though shotguns and pistols were as well. The best rebel rifles weren't much good over 250 yards, max, with 200 being the common effective range. Just not enough muzzle velocity from the powders of the day.
There is a rifle on display in the Alamo today which was said to have been pulled from the debris by a local and hidden. It was in in Pennsylvania by gunsmith Jacob Dickert. It has a 45 inch .55 caliber barrel and weighs 8 1/4 pounds.
Everyone had a knife of some kind as a weapon or a personal tool.
Hard to imagine the close quarters the combatants faced each other over. Texican artillery from their biggest cannon could shell downtown, though they only fired twice. Mexican artillery moved closer and improved their position and eventually would have collapsed every wall.
3 comments:
Good post, and yes the Alamo is actually tiny, and was probably one of the worst possible places to be bottled up. I'm sorry, but I'm suspect of that particular weapon having actually been there... It may be period correct, but where is the provenance?
They actually have a little. Old San Antonio family.
Your provenance is that the Alamo flag is in the Chapultepec castle south of Zacatecas. Their militia used the .61 Baker against San Ana but lost. Santa Ana was a French Mason Jewish snake. He changed his skin from royalist, rebel, and 'Texian'.
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