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RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - John1 - 09-22-2021
"Reducing battle length time" I was lengthening it , maybe double at least.
"Why bother with hand to hand" - well at 80,000 dead v 400 dead I think they probably didn't bother with much hand to hand contact.
"Were there archers present" - nothing stated that I am aware of but if the kit was available. I'm sure in that "fish/barrel" situation it could have been utilised to good effect by anyone, surely any martial person could turn there hand to volley firing arrows at a seething mass of naked Britunculi. I am hoping mass finds of scattered slingstones will be one of the final markers, but yet to get any options on that on any site. Although Dunstable was pimping pottery sling stones for a while.
"oriented towards London" - oriented to line of approach would be better here, anything from east to south west would be good depending on local terrain and terrain conditions in the immediate vicinity of the site. With Church Stowe there is an assumption of approach from both the South along Watling St and the East along the Nene valley accounting or the growing numbers as the Iceni flood the field from their home lands. Final approach and first point of retreat being Hunsbury Hill accounting for discarded weapons and quern stones.
"a large fort in an unexpected location close to a geographical feature" - I am content with several medium sized ridge top forts around said feature personally but I know there is an insistence in some quarters for the fort to be single and large, we differ on that. But terrain and timing trumps formal camp logistics for me. Needless to say Church Stowe ticks that box....
"I live for the day the battle site is re-discovered" - I suspect you are going to have a long life in that case ..... and maybe get a hobby
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Hanny - 09-22-2021
(09-22-2021, 01:34 PM)NJohn1 Wrote: "Reducing battle length time" I was lengthening it , maybe double at least.Battle length, would still be limited by hours of daylight and battles seldom ran outside the 2 5 hours range, so having it at 7 is already putting it outside the top range.WW2 And WBTS combat validation models show A combat unit at 40% casualties to become combat ineffective offensively , reducing mission success to a 90% failure outcome, and at 60% combat ineffective defensively.
"Why bother with hand to hand" - well at 80,000 dead v 400 dead I think they probably didn't bother with much hand to hand contact.
"Were there archers present" - nothing stated that I am aware of but if the kit was available. I'm sure in that "fish/barrel" situation it could have been utilised to good effect by anyone, surely any martial person could turn there hand to volley firing arrows at a seething mass of naked Britunculi. I am hoping mass finds of scattered slingstones will be one of the final markers, but yet to get any options on that on any site. Although Dunstable was pimping pottery sling stones for a while.
"oriented towards London" - oriented to line of approach would be better here, anything from east to south west would be good depending on local terrain and terrain conditions in the immediate vicinity of the site. With Church Stowe there is an assumption of approach from both the South along Watling St and the East along the Nene valley accounting or the growing numbers as the Iceni flood the field from their home lands. Final approach and first point of retreat being Hunsbury Hill accounting for discarded weapons and quern stones.
"a large fort in an unexpected location close to a geographical feature" - I am content with several medium sized ridge top forts around said feature personally but I know there is an insistence in some quarters for the fort to be single and large, we differ on that. But terrain and timing trumps formal camp logistics for me. Needless to say Church Stowe ticks that box....
"I live for the day the battle site is re-discovered" - I suspect you are going to have a long life in that case ..... and maybe get a hobby
So I see the battle and pursuit phase as two parts of the whole, the first part generates to one side that they in for ahidding by casualty generation, not all KIA, this mostly happens in the pursuit phase as the WIA are finished off in close combat, so somewhere around 40 to 60% of the casualties need to occur that then turned into fatalities.
Missile fire in antiquity was not very lethal, it was of course causing injury, even by the time of Gettysburg, it took 7 million rands of small arms to cause 58,000 casualties, of which 7k become KIA, so c 120 missiles to cause a wound. So 4.8 million sling arrows and pila to get a similar casualty rate from missiles. otoh bayonet charges that closed to combat produced lop skidded dead to wia numbers.
Slings were being phased out as being combat in effective in Roman use in this century, so would explain the absence, and in QJM ( quantity judgment model)the sling is a fourth as lethal at casualty infliction as WBTS shoulder weapon, so you have to fire 4 times to get the same output.
Yes your spot on with church Stowe as a strong contender.
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Nathan Ross - 09-22-2021
(09-22-2021, 12:56 PM)Crispianus Wrote: Tacitus* "for some there are that record that almost 80,000 Britons fell"
Interestingly, Dio claims that 'eighty thousand of the Romans and their allies perished' during the revolt. Tacitus says instead that 'about seventy thousand citizens and allies' were killed in Cochester and London.
Dio alone records the size of Boudica's army as 120,000 at the beginning of the revolt, and 230,000 at the final battle. Tacitus alone reports the story that 'little less than eighty thousand of the Britons' died in the battle.
Needless to say, I believe all these figures are hopelessly unreliable and probably hugely exaggerated. Estimating crowd sizes is hard enough today (just compare the figure given out by organisers of a demonstration with that recorded by the police, and try and determine which is closer to the truth!) - in antiquity it was notoriously difficult.
A recent survey by the Museum of London, however, estimated that the civilian population of London in AD61 was c.10,000. Colchester might have been a little larger, St Albans much smaller. There were probably fewer than fifty thousand Roman civilians in the entire province of Britain, and many of them would have been far from the rebel districts.
Tacitus's estimate of 'around ten thousand' for Paulinus's force at the battle is perhaps more reliable; armies in regular-sized units are rather easier to count. If we give him c.9000 infantry, he would have had 18 cohorts. I do not think we can any more exact than that about army composition, and beyond their being 'in close array' (frequens ordinibus) we know nothing definite about how they were deployed.
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Crispianus - 09-22-2021
(09-22-2021, 02:22 PM)Nathan Ross Wrote: A recent survey by the Museum of London, however, estimated that the civilian population of London in AD61 was c.10,000. Colchester might have been a little larger, St Albans much smaller. There were probably fewer than fifty thousand Roman civilians in the entire province of Britain, and many of them would have been far from the rebel districts.
Crummy guesstimates a modest 15,000 for Camulodunum and rural area surrounding it... I've lived a good part of my life in Colchester and have a good idea of just how extensive it was, although I no longer live there I still consider it my hometown where roman remains were on daily view... not far away as the crow flys is the subject of my signature...
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Nathan Ross - 09-22-2021
(09-22-2021, 02:52 PM)Crispianus Wrote: Crummy guesstimates a modest 15,000 for Camulodunum and rural area surrounding it...
That sounds about right. It's unlikely that as many as twenty thousand civilians died in the entire revolt, and likely far fewer than that.
(Incidentally, could people quoting previous posts in their replies perhaps edit down the quotes to relevant bits only, rather than repeating whole chunks of text? - it gets a bit unwieldy to read!)
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Hanny - 09-22-2021
(09-22-2021, 04:08 PM)Nathan Ross Wrote:(09-22-2021, 02:52 PM)Crispianus Wrote: Crummy guesstimates a modest 15,000 for Camulodunum and rural area surrounding it...
That sounds about right. It's unlikely that as many as twenty thousand civilians died in the entire revolt, and likely far fewer than that.
(Incidentally, could people quoting previous posts in their replies perhaps edit down the quotes to relevant bits only, rather than repeating whole chunks of text? - it gets a bit unwieldy to read!)
My bad, I’m using the phone as on hols and it’s just easier for me to quote the whole thing.
Up till 19th century Uk Officers were taught how to estimate troop numbers in the field as part of their field craft and were pretty good at it, another lost art of warfare, now we have so much intel it’s knowing what’s not important rather than working out what is important.
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Nathan Ross - 09-22-2021
(09-22-2021, 04:24 PM)Hanny Wrote: till 19th century Uk Officers were taught how to estimate troop numbers in the field as part of their field craft and were pretty good at it
I was pretty sure I'd read of Roman officers doing a similar sort of thing, but a quick search yields no results! Maybe it's in Frontinus, or Vegetius? They count the number in one small area and then multiply, I think. Austen's Exploratio doesn't seem to have anything to say about it.
There's an interesting note in Caesar (Gallic War 1.29), which I've mentioned before in the depths of this thread. After the defeat of the Helvetii 'records written out in Greek' were found (conveniently!) in the enemy camp, giving a full register of all the tribal groups, both combatants and non-combatants. The total was 368,000, of whom 92,000 were able to bear arms - 1 person in 4, in other words - the rest being 'children, old men and women' (as Caesar puts it; we might be suspicious of the neatness of this calculation).
Using the same ratio on the figures given by Dio - assuming they are based on something genuine-ish, and also assuming (as Tacitus has Paulinus suggest in his pre-battle speech) that the Britons were all mixed up, unarmed women among the warriors - this would give 30,000 Iceni and Trinovante warriors at the start of the revolt, and 57,500 warriors by the final battle. That sounds at least plausible, although we have no way of judging its accuracy.
(on the numbers of Britons slain, it would be tempting to assume that whoever came up with 70-80K dead Britons just took the figure from whatever source Dio was using for the complete army and divided it roughly by three...)
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - John1 - 09-23-2021
"this would give 30,000 Iceni and Trinovante warriors at the start of the revolt, and 57,500 warriors by the final battle." I really like these numbers, I would buy into this structure (if ever asked).
The Brit forces would be light on armament and discouraged from serious martial practice following the 47AD rising, so not in the great shape and their key age group up to 30 would be very light on experience and battle culture.
The Brits would want to go in with a 3:1 advantage minimum, probably double that against prepared positions on disadvantageous terrain far from home, so these numbers look really plausible. The odds are looking less stacked against the Legions now thanks to Nathan.
Story telling and glory over all, I blame generations of Classics teachers .......
Regarding Daylight hours, my working hypothesis is that the engagement took place in June 61 AD, so about 16 hours of daylight to get in from a Brit muster point (Hunsbury Hill) engage (Church Stowe) and then maybe a little more pursuit time into the night.
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Nathan Ross - 09-23-2021
(09-23-2021, 08:55 AM)John1 Wrote: my working hypothesis is that the engagement took place in June 61 AD, so about 16 hours of daylight
My current estimate is that the battle happened on October 4th AD61. 11 hours of daylight; sunrise at 07.16, sunset at 18.40.
The main part of the battle was probably over by mid morning. Extended pursuit and rout could have lasted until the end of twilight at 20.32.
How do you like that for certainty?
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RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Renatus - 09-23-2021
(09-23-2021, 11:14 AM)Nathan Ross Wrote: The main part of the battle was probably over by mid morning. Extended pursuit and rout could have lasted until the end of twilight at 20.32.
How do you like that for certainty?
Fine, except that Dio (for what he is worth) says something slightly different, I think. He says that the armies contended for a long time and the Romans prevailed late in the day, killing many in battle by the wagons and the forest (wherever that was). This suggests to me that the battle might not have started until the afternoon.
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Nathan Ross - 09-23-2021
(09-23-2021, 11:32 AM)Renatus Wrote: This suggests to me that the battle might not have started until the afternoon.
Yes, that's also very possible - if the rebels did not camp somewhere close to the site the day before, they could have spent the morning on the march.
Of the two accounts, I would tend to trust Tacitus a bit more, but even he has the Romans sustaining 400 dead and 400 wounded, so it wasn't a straightforward massacre. Dio's account reads too much like a dramatised impression. The actual combat stage of ancient battles seldom lasted more than an hour or so, unless the sides were very evenly matched.
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - [email protected] - 09-24-2021
It appears that my too direct tone has annoyed some people and I have been warned to be more civilized. So be it. A thank you to Nathan for his comments on my website Boudiccaslostbattlefieldfound. Although it appears I wrote it from a modern militray viewpoint, that is strictly not the case. Yes, I used modern methods but the nature of conflict is still the same, whether ancient or modern. Before I embarked on this quest (ordeal?) I did my homework and against a number of mediocre books who still persist in wrong-footing everyone I would like to recommend two others; The Roman Army - A new History by Patricia Southern and The Great Invasion by Leonard Cottrell.
Tactics are tactics which is still dictated in land warfare by the ground. I heavily mentioned CSS-combat service support (logistics) in my article ("Amateurs discuss tactics; the professionals discuss logistics" -Bonaparte). If I had a pound for every time I dealt with CSS in my past I could embark on a 6-month tour of Australia. There is a saying which applies in this instance 'All you need for slaughter is ammunition, rations and water'. The Boudicca revolt was nothing but a battle for CSS by Suetonius who decided to go 'bucket and spading' in N. Wales at an inappropriate time (sounds familiar). He had to keep his supply lines intact and behind him for only the enemy was to his front. Although I explained two routes for his Legions, one follows the chain of Roman forts down the Welsh Marches before diverting east at Kingsholm to protect what was left of the remaining Roman towns west of London. Though we know that the rebels went for the easy plunder where the riches were. There was nothing for him in the north at that time - except a wilderness. Even now 2,000 years later, there is still a promise of levelling up the North! We also know that what was left of the Lincoln Legion IX did not participate in the final battle.
Again, I will stick my neck out reference the Legion IX ambush. Having also completed a combat estimate on this, I have found a site which meets all the criteria (perhaps when looking for a ambush site it is best to have taken part (and taught) ambushes)) where 3 Heavy Infantry Cohortes were killed, some 1,440 men and not the 2,000 which seems to be the accepted version in a 'Kill Zone' of 1,080 metres.
Weapons are weapons and are used to kill people, whatever the age. Substitute Rocket launchers for Ballista, rifles for Pilum, rifles with bayonets - swords. It is still close combat. In my view (I am sure that someone will contradict me) that there is only one TV prog that has shown how the Roman front line actually fought. A pat on the back for the first person who knows it. Close combat is utterly exhausting. Again, I mentioned marching with heavy loads as I was part of a team tasked with the implementation of a loaded march policy. Normally, the modern military did their fitness tests once a year. The civilian expert asked why? as only at that point in time was your fitness level up. Surely it would be better for the tests to be conducted 3/4 times a yea?. Compare this with the Roman physical trg regime and you will be awed. An excellent book on the physical attributes required to match the Roman fighting abilities is in a book called ' The Warrior Diet' by an ex Israeli special forces soldier now Art Historian. Having done the exercises outlined in the book, it is the best trg I have ever encountered and an excellent way to get into the combat mindset of a front line fighting legionnaire.
Lastly, the order for the events, the Roman Procurator in London - Decianus Catus, sent 200 poorly armed troops to Colchester. Then as it was sacked (by the Trinovantes) the Eceni rebels ambushed Legio IX before they entered their tribal territory. Then Suetonius Legions began their march from N. Wales. Apart from my location having all the key attributes, a defile(s), woods to the rear of the Roman position, a major Roman road artery to the front, the remainder of the Roman towns to the rear etc it also has a wood to one side of the battle line. The wood is mentioned by Dio, not Tacitus, as where many were killed - a 'hammer and anvil' scenario.
As the ancient famous Greek philosopher Epictetus once said, "The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests'.
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Hanny - 09-25-2021
(09-22-2021, 02:22 PM)Nathan Ross Wrote:Re number of Cohorts, alegion and a half plus aux set out from the Legionary home bases at Manchester and Colchester,( for the campaign they start at Worcester and Usk now I look it up, ta Renatus) so a min of half a legion stayed back, campaign season starts in Late March, go to Iona, so any sick and wounded would be coming back to the legionary home bases, any any supplies coming towards them along the same route, and then the Iceni rise, first problem I see is there is time to sow the spring crop before you rise, how do the Iceni know what’s going on in any event?, depending on start date of course, where is the unused half a legion and gather up any walking wounded sick garrisons of the many fortified places, etc back along the line of supply, so it’s poss that the number of Cohorts was in the 20s, while total strength was still a tad under 10k. Number of ranks per Cohort would go down while the frontage of the aCohort would not, so getting a fix on number of Cohorts would be very helpful.(09-22-2021, 12:56 PM)Crispianus Wrote: Tacitus* "for some there are that record that almost 80,000 Britons fell"
Interestingly, Dio claims that 'eighty thousand of the Romans and their allies perished' during the revolt. Tacitus says instead that 'about seventy thousand citizens and allies' were killed in Cochester and London.
Dio alone records the size of Boudica's army as 120,000 at the beginning of the revolt, and 230,000 at the final battle. Tacitus alone reports the story that 'little less than eighty thousand of the Britons' died in the battle.
Needless to say, I believe all these figures are hopelessly unreliable and probably hugely exaggerated. Estimating crowd sizes is hard enough today (just compare the figure given out by organisers of a demonstration with that recorded by the police, and try and determine which is closer to the truth!) - in antiquity it was notoriously difficult.
A recent survey by the Museum of London, however, estimated that the civilian population of London in AD61 was c.10,000. Colchester might have been a little larger, St Albans much smaller. There were probably fewer than fifty thousand Roman civilians in the entire province of Britain, and many of them would have been far from the rebel districts.
Tacitus's estimate of 'around ten thousand' for Paulinus's force at the battle is perhaps more reliable; armies in regular-sized units are rather easier to count. If we give him c.9000 infantry, he would have had 18 cohorts. I do not think we can any more exact than that about army composition, and beyond their being 'in close array' (frequens ordinibus) we know nothing definite about how they were deployed.
When I’m back from hols I’ll look at the books I’ve asked to be sent over, and work up some numbers, and compare 230k to the other suggested numbers and a base line of effectiveness, in the mean time, we have Roman accounts of battle frontages for 9960 men in close array and ranks being 1000 Roman paces, so each legions pigs head wedge frontage can be adduced for different number of ranks as so give us entire Army frontage. Two legion pig head offensive deployment puts more men in contact than line abreast, which also means more officers in contact, as most casualties are inflicted by a minority of persons in combat, most seek to stay alive rather than seek to kill, example in ww2 a German ace pilot was far more likely to get a kill in a sortie than the average polite, 90%of air to air kills came from a fraction of German pilots, just the sharpshooters in Uk Regiments and US civil over achieved in hits per rnd fired, so a a Roman Officer was far more likely to kill you in close combat than a legionary, so more of them in contact makes the combat effectiveness go up disproportionally, just as has putting your best shots in specialist formations.
(09-23-2021, 08:55 AM)John1 Wrote: "this would give 30,000 Iceni and Trinovante warriors at the start of the revolt, and 57,500 warriors by the final battle." I really like these numbers, I would buy into this structure (if ever asked).16 hours from sunrise to sunset in June seems high for that latitude, Romans marched the way they were trained to do so, so they have food before they expect to fight, they take 80 mins to clear a legionary camp by all exists to deploy for combat, the march rate to where they expect to fight is either at 100 or 120 paces a min, so we can get fair idea of several hours from sunrise to get into position.Then there is the other side movement, Hunsbury to Church Stowe is 10 miles or so, so the slowest Iceni wagonselements could take all day to get there if we take the 230k number but we know they are there to hinder retreat at end of the combat, so perhaps 5 hours at 2 mph lost hours at a min and prob far more.
The Brit forces would be light on armament and discouraged from serious martial practice following the 47AD rising, so not in the great shape and their key age group up to 30 would be very light on experience and battle culture.
The Brits would want to go in with a 3:1 advantage minimum, probably double that against prepared positions on disadvantageous terrain far from home, so these numbers look really plausible. The odds are looking less stacked against the Legions now thanks to Nathan.
Story telling and glory over all, I blame generations of Classics teachers .......
Regarding Daylight hours, my working hypothesis is that the engagement took place in June 61 AD, so about 16 hours of daylight to get in from a Brit muster point (Hunsbury Hill) engage (Church Stowe) and then maybe a little more pursuit time into the night.
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Renatus - 09-25-2021
(09-25-2021, 10:36 AM)Hanny Wrote: Re number of Cohorts, alegion and a half plus aux set out from the Legionary home bases at Manchester and Colchester, so a min of half a legion stayed back
Where on Earth are you getting this from?
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - Nathan Ross - 09-25-2021
(09-25-2021, 10:36 AM)Hanny Wrote: Manchester (...Worcester...)... go to Iona
Do you mean Wroxeter, and Mona? Iona is in the Hebrides...
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(09-25-2021, 10:36 AM)Hanny Wrote: campaign season starts in Late March... is there is time to sow the spring crop
In Britain the campaign season started in the summer (Tacitus, Agricola 20) - in Gaul it only began in July (Ammianus 17.8).
As Paulinus had completed his operations on Anglesey by the time he heard of the revolt, it must have begun in late summer. The planting season missed by the Iceni, therefore, would be the main autumn one, in October. They would have completed their harvest, in August, before beginning the revolt.
(09-25-2021, 10:36 AM)Hanny Wrote: 16 hours from sunrise to sunset in June seems high
In the UK on the summer solstice (June 21st) there are 16 hours, 41 minutes and 5 seconds of daylight; sunrise is at 04.42, sunset at 21.23.
However, the battle almost certainly happened in the autumn.