These pictures are all of a previous version of the model. This one shows the breach of the north wall, and most of these pictures are meant to show the bad light of twilight dawn, since the attack started about 5 a.m. The Mexican army in a force of about a thousand broke through the north wall and "poured through like sheep" according to a witness.
The attack on the palisade-reinforced east wall that ended badly; it's my belief that a number of Mexican soldiers at this point fled the scene and were killed by their own lancers lurking behind the Alamo. The attacking column was in any event deflected and swung around the corner to go in at the breach.
Interior of the Alamo chapel, showing the long ramp and three guns that covered the eastern side of the fort and inflicted high casualties on the Mexican army. My chapel is currently undergoing drastic rebuilding.
Shameless recreation of the death of Crockett.
The last three pictures show an assault on the palisade and abatis at the south end of the Alamo; sorry to say that this didn't take place like this even though it's in every movie. What did happen here is some action involving cavalry and lancers, some of them dismounted, who were ordered to approach "within pistol shot," but also to cut down anyone (of either side) who tried to leave the battle. In reality, some of them went in on foot in order to do some looting if possible; but it all turned bad when the alarm was sounded.
You can see some of the cavalry in the background-- some of them dismounted and firing at the barricade. The palisade, it turns out, was a single row of cedar logs instead of the double row packed with dirt. This seems to have been settled by an archeological dig at the site in the 1970s, and I've since rebuilt it.
The structure in the background (adobe, on the right) is the mission kitchen building, but I have now rebuilt it to show it more accurately as a larger but more ruined building. The stone building on the right is the east end of the "low barracks" which was demolished in the late 1800s to put in a trolley line. The abatis is simply uprooted small trees (in this case, probably fruit trees that once grew within the fort) grown down to force attackers to climb through or over dead branches aimed at them. Timing is crucial; an extra minute fumbling through debris is another fusilade, the chance for the defenders to reload one more time.
