A vast fleet brings twelve thousand troops but one engineer

The British assembled 29 ships of the line, frigates, bomb vessels, hospital and fire ships, transports, merchantmen, newly raised Marines, regular infantry, and colonial troops. Surviving totals are not fully compatible because some counts may overlap merchantmen, transports, fire ships, and bomb vessels, so more than 200 ships is safer than a false exact figure. About 12,000 troops faced roughly 6,000 Spanish regulars, militia, colonial troops, Indigenous archers, and sailors, giving Britain a two-to-one manpower advantage on paper. Naval guns added immense firepower to that numerical strength. Yet an assault on modern fortifications arrived with only one engineer, fewer than the Spanish defense possessed. The imbalance between mass and specialist capability becomes one of the battle's central lessons in force design.