Roman battlefield found deep inside Germany

[P. Clodius Secundus]

Sounds like the Germans tried the old Teutoburger Wald ploy. I guess they didn't get the memo about those new carroballistae. Things turn out a lot different when your artillery is able to be brought into action immediately while still mounted.

I guess "they" just couldn´t imagine how the Romans should have brought their carroballistae up that hill. :wink:

On further reading it doesn't appear that they brought the artillery up the hill. They just sent the bolts up and followed up with an infantry assault. :wink: From what they say about the locations of the finds it wasn't a case of a spread out column being attacked, so no Teutoberger II. It sounds more like they drove the Germans up a hill softened them up with artillery and went in for the kill. That dovetails nicely with the assumption that this might have been part of a punative raid. More like a siege without fortifications than an open-field fight. If they were firing uphill at a steep elevation that would help explain why so many bolt heads were found. When arrows are shot upslope they tend to burrow up under the ground cover and are easily lost. When shot on level ground or downslope they usuallly wind up sticking out of the ground and are easier to find and collect. If That is what happened and these are just the ones not found, how many more might have been fired?