Mexican counter to the "flying artillery"

Dorozhand

Banned
Part of the reason Mexico lost the Mexican-American War was the inferiority of its artillery.

Mexico used older guns which were very slow to move and essentially had to be fixed on the battlefield, while the Americans employed much lighter guns.

Using a doctrine called "flying artillery", in which the artillery would be fired and then quickly moved to a different position, they made the wide Mexican infantry lines terribly vulnerable and their artillery totally outclassed.

Santa Anna attempted to use cavalry charges to catch the American artillery out in the open, but the men were so fast that the cavalry couldn't get to them quickly enough to avoid a countercharge from the enemy cavalry.

Barring actually improving its artillery, which would require political stabilization so that Mexico's economic and intellectual power could develop properly, what tactics could Mexico have employed to effectively counter this American advantage?
 
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Sior

Banned
Part of the reason Mexico lost the Mexican-American War was the inferiority of its artillery.

Mexico used older guns which were very slow to move and essentially had to be fixed on the battlefield, while the Americans employed much lighter guns.

Using a doctrine called "flying artillery", in which the artillery would be fired and then quickly moved to a different position, they made the wide Mexican infantry lines terribly vulnerable and their artillery totally outclassed.

Santa Anna attempted to use cavalry charges to catch the American artillery out in the open, but the men were so fast that the cavalry couldn't get to them quickly enough to avoid a countercharge from the enemy cavalry.

Barring actually improving its artillery, which would require political stabilization so that Mexico's economic and intellectual power could develop properly, what tactics could Mexico have employed to effectively counter this American advantage?

Buy a load of Congreve rockets from the British!
 
Buy more long distance rifles and have your sharp shooters take out the gunners and loaders? Shoot the horses and make the cannon stationary? Get a leader other than Santa Anna?
 
Horse-drawn artillery is not as effective as heavy artillery against well-fortified positions. Delay the Americans wherever possible by digging trenches in mountain passes leading to Mexico City, robbing the light artillery of their advantage.

Not only that, but delaying would give more chances for disease/winter/guerillas to work its magic on the US army. It would also deny the US a chance to claim a battlefield victory, which would have resulted in more Congressional opposition and thus less enthusiastic prosecution of the war. Of course, that would require Santa Anna to realize that he was bad at pitched battles, and also requires the Mexican Congress/people to patiently accept, for a time at least, the loss of massive amounts of territory.
 
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