The Mexican gunpowder dilemma

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by Philip

Thanks, Jim, for initiating a thread on a very interesting subject.

It's true that black powder was made of just three ingredients. The procurement of sulfur would perhaps be more of a challenge than charcoal (the most plentiful, at least where there are trees) or saltpeter (typically scraped off the walls of livestock stalls and toilets). But aren't there volcanoes in Mexico?

Just having the ingredients is just the beginning. There's the issue of PROCESSING. Saltpeter and sulfur found in nature need to be purified. Having the best charcoal available is as important to a powder mill as to a barbecue chef, so the kiln operator has to really know his stuff. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say.

And just because the expertise is there, there's the question of the will to provide quality. Corrupt governments tend to provide avenues for profiteers taking advantage of lax oversight. A notorious example of government contractors providing substandard ammo could be found in 19th cent. China, where gunpowder supplied to the imperial government was frequently adulterated with sand or sawdust. The cheating was widespread enough for the foundrymen and inspectors in cannon workshops to pass off slipshod castings because they figured that weak powder wouldn't unduly strain a gun barrel anyway. Some excellent cannons and ammunition were made, but in French-run factories in the south of the country (the French trained the Vietnamese to be first-rate gun founders as well, comparable to what native workmen did at Macau and Chaul under the Portuguese). But the pigtailed Manchus who ruled China weren't too preoccupied with the problem -- the military officers' exams still revolved around archery on foot and from galloping horses, à la Genghis Khan, until these tests were abolished in 1905!

So you thought Mexico was in a pickle?

The Alamo is an excellent example for study and difficult to get to the root of considering the precise Gunpowder question . The other example and comparison with Vietnamese and with the situation with the Manchu is altogether fascinating ..
On ploughing through the weapons resupply much came from the British who clearly sold a lot of badly engineered weapons and quite likely some awful gunpowder...as part of the Triangular Trade England Africa The Americas. It is recorded that gunpowder was exchanged for slaves in Africa and we know that in The Americas cotton and sugar were bartered . Thousands of rifles were sold to Mexico and amongst that Baker Rifles and Brownbess made in India and of dubious quality. These weapons were condemned and should have been scrapped.
Mexican army administration was hopelessly inadequate; often supplying the wrong ammo to the weapons.. Somehow ammo was too heavily doped up with too powerful a charge actually too much charcoal which gave a bigger bang in the breach that simply blew back into the firers face and eyes..Soldiers got round this by firing from the hip..totally dangerous to their own men in front and utterly badly aimed. It was at the same time almost impossible to load on the move and in the darkness being whipped by their so called officers this attack although overwhelming in numbers must have been chaotic in the extreme with more chance of being accidentally shot in the back than in the front!

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Another question arises over uniforms and while it is clear The Mexican leader was obsessed with Napolionic dress it is odd he opted for British weapons although the Cannon were French I understand. …

The dress question comes up time and again on research on web sources and I point to~

http://johnwayne-thealamo.com/forum/...fcb0&start=160

and offers as a good guide to this entire phenomenon of dress.... Here below is another picture from the same source as to uniforms... It is clear these Mexican soldiers were tough by the fact they wore only sandals for most of their marches... although Sant Anna did try to show an interest in better foot ware for the soldiers later... I note a lot of the soldiers weren't Mexican but Indian and interestingly the point of poor training just keeps popping up.

[Philip]

Originally Posted by Ibrahiim al Balooshi

[B]…

I note a lot of the soldiers weren't Mexican but Indian and interestingly the point of poor training just keeps popping up.

Perhaps you are not aware that Mexico, like the United States and Canada, has a population which is a blend of ethnic bloodlines going back centuries. Europeans from the Iberian Peninsula arrived in the 16th cent. and besides conquering the indigenous peoples and Christianizing many of them, also started intermarrying. The Spanish then brought African slaves. Successive waves of immigrants followed on the heels of the conquistadores -- a trickle of Filipinos and Chinese coming with the trans-Pacific galleon trade, larger numbers of French, Germans, and Irish fleeing political, religious, and economic troubles in the 18th-19th centuries, and even Japanese and Russians at the close of the 1800s. By now the gene pools are quite mixed. Mexicans come in all sizes and colors and their culture is a pretty spicy stew. Beer is more popular than wine, and folk musicians like the tuba. Mariachi orchestras originated with French country wedding music imported in the 1800s. From France also comes a taste for refined cooking with delicate sauces in parts of the country, along with a liking for horse meat. There are Mexican citizens, whole villages of the original inhabitants, who even today don't speak Spanish and need translators if they are to have a conversation with someone from Mexico City or Tijuana.

I'll close by saying that I don't see the connection between being an Indian and being a poorly-trained soldier. Remember the Aztec empire?

[Philip]

Originally Posted by Ibrahiim al Balooshi

. Thousands of rifles were sold to Mexico and amongst that Baker Rifles and Brownbess made in India and of dubious quality. These weapons were condemned and should have been scrapped.

I think that this statement needs some re-examination and possible emendation. As re the Baker rifle, may I refer you to the late Harold L Peterson's discussion of it on pp 141-42 of Pollard's History of Firearms. , 1983, with illustrations. By all accounts this was an excellent weapon in its day, one of the first regulation-pattern rifles issued in an era when the standard in just about every army in the world, including Britain and France, was the smoothbore musket designed for unaimed volley fire. As far as I am able to determine, the production of Bakers was limited to factories in England. At the period in question, workshops in India were not set up to produce a gun of this sophistication, with its rifled barrel.

The Brown Bess musket you mention is likely the so-called Ïndia Pattern aka Third Model adopted late in the 18th cent. It was indeed a simplified version of the earlier Besses, designed for lighter weight and reduced production costs, but it was by no means of "dubious quality" as you state. Made in England, it was "...a sturdy arm, giving good service until it was superseded by percussion-cap muskets in the 1840s" to quote Peterson, op.cit. If it was such a piece of junk, do you think that it would have remained in the service of the most powerful nation on Earth at the time, for a period of a half-century?

The deficiency of the weapons sold to Mexico by the British most likely lay with their decrepit condition, worn out after of hard service. Not because they were poorly made to begin with.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Yes you are correct and it is my poor choice of words which is wrong... If I can take the last point first what I meant was the condition in which these weapons were sold when probably they were BLR as army armourers would say today..Beyond Local Repair meaning they couldn't be fixed by a battalion armourer so were effectively condemned. I think they used to be designated with two arrows facing each other on the weapon...On the Baker I take your point that they were made in England and it was one of these that killed at long range Millam in an earlier battle shot in the head. This weapon had bayonet problems making it useless for this purpose but it wasn't a bad weapon otherwise... but again depending on what I called quality but meant serviceability. The Brown Bess was not a bad gun but difficult to load on the dash forward especially when NCOs and Officers were beating troops with whips and in the confusion of a pre dawn attack.

I read that the difficulty with Indian troops under training may have been due to a language difficulty..But I have to say I hadn't fully grasped the fact that the mixture of Indian and Mexican was simply normal procedure in which case that would also be missing the point... No inference was meant in the wording to suggest some racist point about either nationality or creed... absolutely not but I wrote it so its my fault!

Just staying with the different nationalities but on the defenders side I noted a big mixture of nationalities and the last few men to get through the Mexican cordon were in fact Ulstermen promised tracts of land after the battle.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Just to examine the Baker Rifle to some degree~

When it was introduced the weapon was used in special sharp shooting battalions of the British Army...

The accuracy of the rifle in capable hands is most famously demonstrated at the Battle of Cacabelos (during Moore's retreat to Corunna in 1809) by the action of Rifleman Thomas Plunkett (or Plunket) of the 1st Battalion, 95th Rifles, who shot French General Colbert at an unknown but long range (as much as 600 yards (550 m) according to some sources). He then shot Colbert's aide-de-camp, Latour-Maubourg, who went to the aid of his general, suggesting that the success of the first shot was not due to luck. In fact Plunket was using a now famous snipers shooting position lying on his back and the sling in tension around one foot.

[Jim McDougall]

Thank you guys for the outstanding perspective which surrounds this topic, and while not of course directly attending to the issues on the gunpowder, the context is certainly pertinent.
The Mexican forces under Santa Anna were indeed widely diverse ethnically, and while Mestizos were broadly considered of Spanish and Mayan mixed ancestry, there were over twenty Indian tribes in Mexico which also accounted for the mixed groups.

As noted, the ethnicity had nothing to do with the efficiency or lack thereof in the tactics and warfare employed by Santa Anna, however it does seem was less than concerned on the well being of his troops, whom he regarded as expendable.

Getting to the guns, it seems that the 'Brown Bess' purchased in huge volume by Mexico (over 400,000) was the Third Pattern M1793 (Windus pattern) designed to replace the earlier Long and Short Land patterns which comprised the two earlier types.
Production of these was temporarily halted with peace with France in 1802, but peace ended quickly, and production heartily resumed. Over three million were produced by the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815. These were produced under the auspices of the 'Tower' in England, and the term 'India Pattern' was used for them, perhaps due to large EIC orders, of course quite separate from government orders.

Apparently, England decided to dispose of these, as many references deem a consistent reaction of England to peace, so some 700, 000 were sold off to Central and South America as well as Mexico, as these countries took independence from Spain .

So the disposal was not necessarily from poor quality, but from sudden surplus and opportunity to sell them off for profit and restoring the coffers after the long wars. The Baker rifle of course stood on its own merits for its accuracy , it was the ineffective long. heavy and awkward bayonet that was its issue.

I found that the British gunpowder was the 'best in Europe' and they apparently sold much of it to their allies, so I cannot imagine them not selling to Mexico and what countries bought the surplus guns. This was probably (I am assuming) that the tremendous supply of saltpeter coming out of India was the basis for such high quality powder.
This being the case, it seems likely that the powder may have been somehow adulterated or diminished in the also likely corrupt dealings of suppliers handling the Mexican powder.

What I have not been able to find is if it was produced in Mexico, or if they relied on outside suppliers.

With the firing of the Brown Bess muskets, in the original India pattern (Third pattern) that the Mexicans were using, it was given a rather poor review in criticism by Hans Buck about 1840s in "The Rifle and How to Use it" . The author claimed it was clumsy and worst contrived of any firelock in the world, and required the "largest charge of powder" and "its weight and windage were the greatest, its range the shortest, and its accuracy the least".

While this criticism years later was deemed harsh, it does seem that these muskets did require a notable charge of powder (it seems one revision to this pattern was a deeper pan and the charge was 6 drams). One soldiers account was that his shoulder was 'blackened' by the repeated recoil.

With this it would seem that the Mexican forces, not particularly familiar with the firing of these, would quickly resort to lowering the weapon away from their shoulders. If they were adding to the already excessive charge required then they must have been like hand held cannons, and the explosions into the darkness and disorganized masses (there were numerous redirections in the attack) simply devastating fire without aim.

This was the recipe for disaster, but with the defenders at the Alamo overrun, outnumbered, caught off guard, the outcome was still in Mexican favor.

Still, despite the obvious failings of Mexican force effectiveness overall with poorly trained troops, disrupted attack maneuvers etc. it was still the powder that played a large part in all of this, and this is the theme of this thread.

[Philip]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

With the firing of the Brown Bess muskets, in the original India pattern (Third pattern) that the Mexicans were using, it was given a rather poor review in criticism by Hans Buck about 1840s in "The Rifle and How to Use it" . The author claimed it was clumsy and worst contrived of any firelock in the world, and required the "largest charge of powder" and "its weight and windage were the greatest, its range the shortest, and its accuracy the least".

The Brown Bess had its fans and detractors on both sides during its day. Robert Held , in his classic The Age of Firearms (1957) quotes part of a report by a British officer complaining of the irregular bores and crooked barrels on many regulation-pattern guns (p 114); other writers mentioned soft steel on the frizzen faces resulting in erratic sparking and thus, misfires.

However, some things should be kept in mind. First, military muskets of any nation could never match the quality and performance of bespoke sporting guns for obvious pecuniary reasons. Moreover, the infantry tactics of the day did not call for great accuracy from the common soldier's weapon. The goal was for troops to load (as quickly as a muzzle-loading weapon could be) and fire in volleys at massed targets advancing at distances of well under 100 yd, more often as close as 50 or 30 before it was time to use the bayonet.

Given the relatively low bar to cross, it's not surprising that things like barrel quality might be uneven (this was a very demanding part of the manufacturing process in an age before advanced mechanization (still mostly by hand throughout the 18th cent). But the task of producing a large number of weapons at an affordable cost to the treasury was something faced by all states and there does not seem to be any evidence that the British with their Brown Besses were any worse at doing this than was any other Western power.

Historical documents and the experience of subsequent generations of shooters tell us that a well-made smoothbore musket loaded with a tight-fitting patched ball and good powder can bring down a deer at 120 yards without much problem. Not too shabby.

However, military drill of the first half of the 19th cent., and for the previous two centuries, didn't allow the leisure of careful loading with patched bullets. A somewhat loose ball (the differential in diameter was to compensate for the buildup of powder residue in the bore after repeated volley shots) was dropped "naked" down the bore atop the powder, with the crumpled up paper from the cartridge pushed down on top with the ramrod to seat the charge. Since the projectile could be expected to "rattle" its way down the bore upon firing, it didn't make much difference if the barrel was perfectly true or not. The soldier had to keep up with the drummer's cadence and fire when his buddies did, when ordered. Tardiness on the training ground was typically rewarded with a brutal flogging. The idea was for opposing forces to face a hail of lead before closing in with cold steel. Also, keep in mind that these guns usually had only a rudimentary front sight, on some models attached to the front barrel band, which could shift if there was any play in that component.

Regarding poor sparking, the face of the frizzen had to be surfaced with steel of sufficient carbon content, and the surface was usually laminated onto an iron base, or the unit was case-hardened. Excessive wear after a long period of service, even on an otherwise well made gun, would require refurbishing or replacement of the frizzen.

in short, the manufacture and performance of military weapons in a particular culture or age needs to be examined in context.

[Jim McDougall]

Beautifully detailed and explained Philip, thank you!
As I had noted, the critique by the author I noted in the material I was reading was described as pretty unwarranted and over three decades later. As you say, the volume of weapons being produced would experience many flawed components, and of course would not match the carefully made sporting or personal weapons.

Again, the goal was not to discredit the muskets nor training or the soldiers themselves, but to illustrate that these weapons apparently required an unusually heavy charge (at least that was the description) in the first place.

If these troops were being supplied with either adulterated powder, or poorly made powder from a Mexican source, then that would explain the heavier charge which caused them to fire from the hip. Not only the recoil, which was powerful as the muskets were initially produced, but the flash and sparks in the face......would have these inexperienced soldiers avoiding such dynamics very quickly.

It seems wherever I have looked, there is patently zero mention or data on any gunpowder supplier, maker or source for the Mexican army. Whether any powder they had was 'damaged' (as Mrs Dickinson described it at the Alamo, and her husband was a gunner) or somehow otherwise adulterated remains a question. Could its transport from Mexico have rendered it inert from weather or some sort of alteration to make it less volatile have been at hand?

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Thank you guys for the outstanding perspective which surrounds this topic, and while not of course directly attending to the issues on the gunpowder, the context is certainly pertinent.
The Mexican forces under Santa Anna were indeed widely diverse ethnically, and while Mestizos were broadly considered of Spanish and Mayan mixed ancestry, there were over twenty Indian tribes in Mexico which also accounted for the mixed groups.

As noted, the ethnicity had nothing to do with the efficiency or lack thereof in the tactics and warfare employed by Santa Anna, however it does seem was less than concerned on the well being of his troops, whom he regarded as expendable.

Getting to the guns, it seems that the 'Brown Bess' purchased in huge volume by Mexico (over 400,000) was the Third Pattern M1793 (Windus pattern) designed to replace the earlier Long and Short Land patterns which comprised the two earlier types.
Production of these was temporarily halted with peace with France in 1802, but peace ended quickly, and production heartily resumed. Over three million were produced by the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815. These were produced under the auspices of the 'Tower' in England, and the term 'India Pattern' was used for them, perhaps due to large EIC orders, of course quite separate from government orders.

Apparently, England decided to dispose of these, as many references deem a consistent reaction of England to peace, so some 700, 000 were sold off to Central and South America as well as Mexico, as these countries took independence from Spain .

So the disposal was not necessarily from poor quality, but from sudden surplus and opportunity to sell them off for profit and restoring the coffers after the long wars. The Baker rifle of course stood on its own merits for its accuracy , it was the ineffective long. heavy and awkward bayonet that was its issue.

I found that the British gunpowder was the 'best in Europe' and they apparently sold much of it to their allies, so I cannot imagine them not selling to Mexico and what countries bought the surplus guns. This was probably (I am assuming) that the tremendous supply of saltpeter coming out of India was the basis for such high quality powder.
This being the case, it seems likely that the powder may have been somehow adulterated or diminished in the also likely corrupt dealings of suppliers handling the Mexican powder.

What I have not been able to find is if it was produced in Mexico, or if they relied on outside suppliers.

With the firing of the Brown Bess muskets, in the original India pattern (Third pattern) that the Mexicans were using, it was given a rather poor review in criticism by Hans Buck about 1840s in "The Rifle and How to Use it" . The author claimed it was clumsy and worst contrived of any firelock in the world, and required the "largest charge of powder" and "its weight and windage were the greatest, its range the shortest, and its accuracy the least".

While this criticism years later was deemed harsh, it does seem that these muskets did require a notable charge of powder (it seems one revision to this pattern was a deeper pan and the charge was 6 drams). One soldiers account was that his shoulder was 'blackened' by the repeated recoil.

With this it would seem that the Mexican forces, not particularly familiar with the firing of these, would quickly resort to lowering the weapon away from their shoulders. If they were adding to the already excessive charge required then they must have been like hand held cannons, and the explosions into the darkness and disorganized masses (there were numerous redirections in the attack) simply devastating fire without aim.

This was the recipe for disaster, but with the defenders at the Alamo overrun, outnumbered, caught off guard, the outcome was still in Mexican favor.

Still, despite the obvious failings of Mexican force effectiveness overall with poorly trained troops, disrupted attack maneuvers etc. it was still the powder that played a large part in all of this, and this is the theme of this thread.

I think it reasonable to assume since the absolute facts seem to be few and far between on the gunpowder question that the Mexican supply of weapons also included gun powder. The most obvious factory appears to be Faversham; Please See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favers...ry#World_War_I

The factory supplied all stations East via the EIC and also is noted as instrumental in the Industrial Revolution where explosives played an important role in blowing tunnels and roads ...another vital ingredient being gunpowder... Emphasis however, though my own , seems to place the Ports of Liverpool and Bristol in their trade with Africa and the Americas and Mexico (Triangular Trade) where it is noted that gunpowder could be used at African ports for exchanging for slaves. It would seem logical that in transporting gunpowder there must have been an exchange also in the Americas and particularly since a lot of weapons were being sold to Mexico from Tower armouries.

As an add on note having absorbed a load of detail on The Brown Bess, while I agree on the importance of decent gunpowder the weapon was not the ideal candidate for an assault on a fortification and was more used in the mass lines of infantry against an enemy advancing in packed ranks in a long line at least two files deep and occasionally at very short range around 30 paces. The great danger was in firing too high as often the undergrowth behind the targets at Waterloo (using the Indian version), for example, were cut short as rounds were too high. The Brown Bess was no sharpshooters weapon since the barrel gave it more the feel of a shotgun.The barrel in fact had a variable calibre and almost no two weapons were of exactly the same bore...It had no grooves, but even so, well aimed it could when fired on mass decimate an enemy advancing in the open.

[fernando]

I wonder whether the guy in uniform at the Alamo site went, in his synopsis, as deep as to enlighten the audience on the gunpowder saga. I was too far i couldn't hear him, or understand what he was saying ... a cheap excuse for my lack of patience.
But i have read anecdotes about the subject, namely in a narration of the Palo Alto encounter, in that:
"Mexican gunpowder, for example, was of such poor quality that artillery barrages often sent cannonballs bouncing lazily across the battlefield, and the American soldiers merely had to step out of the way to avoid them"
(Zachary Taylor ?).

Or in the Bejar siege (translating):
" In some cases, Mexican bullets slided by the Texian soldiers bodies, causing little damage beyond a bruise.
(Stephen L. Hardin)

Perhaps the following article by Stuart Reid, not objectively dedicated to the discussed topic, helps cracking the riddle and suggests what the solution to solve the problem should have been; one visibly not put into practice by the Mexican forces.

.