Corrected entry: During the last attack, one of the cannons is turned around against the Mexicans that have breached the wall. We see it loaded with canister charge (random pieces of metal) instead of a proper cannonball or grapeshot. When the cannon fires, there are many Mexican troops lying on the ground. Canister charge is a gruesome weapon that causes a cannon to work like a giant shotgun and will reduce a human being to slivers of bloody flesh in an instant - there's no way the Mexicans could avoid being completely butchered. (01:46:30)
Phoenix
8th Nov 2004
The Alamo (2004)
13th Oct 2004
The Alamo (2004)
Corrected entry: During the final attack, the Mexicans charge a corner of the fort guarded with wooden stakes set at an angle in the ground. As the Mexicans temporarily fall back, the stakes can be seen wiggling like rubber. Though it could be green wood, no defender would use green wood as a stake intended to stop attackers from charging onto it exactly because it would bend. (01:41:50)
Correction: The wiggling that you see is more reasonably attributed to the natural spring of the wood. A six foot long pike made of juniper or cedar (the most likely woods used, as they are the most abundant trees in this area of Texas which produce branches like these) would spring like this if a grown man or a musket were to strike it like they do in this scene. Also, these pikes would not need to be hard and unbendable, as their purpose is not to stop attackers, but merely to slow a charging line and break it up into single files, which are easier to defend against. For this purpose, they only need a sharp point at the end; if they were still green, it wouldn't matter.
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Correction: The "canister charge," (in this case nails, etc.) poured into the barrel would not tear corpses nor the living apart into shredded flesh any more than a shotgun would.