The Spanish Army of the period was formed by 100,000 soldiers and nearly 400,000 more in the active reserve. All those men were highly trained and a great number were veterans of the Carlist Civil War and the different interventions.

The Spanish Army was based in Conscription. Conscripts served for three years and for another eight more they were in the reserve.

The Spanish infantry regiments of the period were formed by 3 batallions with 6 companies each, for a total of 2,100 fighting men each regiment.

Spanish Army was armed with the M1855 rifled musket, a muzzle loading musket, with smoothbore carbines for the cavalry and artillery.

Spanish first line and elite units were armed with the infantry rifle M1859, a breech loading rifle built in Spain, 1855 Rifle

with a 15mm bore.

This rifle was the clasical solution of compromise between the real breech loading rifles and the ancient muzzle loading. As the cost of renewing all the weapons of a big Army were really expensive, all the major armies were

trying cheaper solutions. The British used the Snider system with their muzzle loading Enfields, to transfor them into breech loaders for an small prize. Spain did the same with this breech loading rifle, in fact being the

M1859 muzzle-load musket rifle, with a cut in the breech in Snider style to allow the introduction of the cartridge.

The cartridge was made of hard paper and brass bottom. The bullet in the cartridge had a hollow in the nose, for a better balanced flight. This was implemented only for accuracy but in the battlefield, this hollow was devastating. The bullet acted like a dum-dum , expanding the lead bullet when hitting the target.

Spanish artillery was using as their standard field guns a mixture of 12 pdr Smoothbore muzzle loading guns and 9pdr rifled muzzle loading guns, the Plasencia M1845 12 pdrs being substituted by the Plasencia M1857

9pdr rifled. The standard Howitzer was the 24 pdr. Smooth Bore Muzzle Loading

Howitzer. Some units of the 12 pdr. Armstrong Rifled Breech Loading Gun, under British patent, were built in Spain and entered in service. Also, some Whitworth Guns were bought by the Carlist Army and saw service in

As heavy artillery, Spain was using 68 pdr. Smooth Bore Muzzle Loading Guns, 32 pdr. Smooth Bore Muzzle Loading Howitzers and 68 pdr. Rifled muzzle loading guns.

As fortress artillery and besides the heavy artillery described up, Spain was building and having in service under foreign patent Armstrong and Blakely guns, being the Armstrongs 500 pdr and 300 pdr and the Blakely of

470 pdr. These guns were also named Plasencia, followed by the diameter in centimeters. For CWOL, can be named Plasencia and followed by the weight of the ball.