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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
#56
Quote:Boudicca's speech pours scorn on the Romans hiding in their camps/behind their embankments (from memory), another case for field fortifications. Paulinus would surely be nuts to do anything other than take the first British charge from behind prepared positions.
I've always read this comment as referring to Roman (auxiliary) forts - there's a note in Agricola that Boudica's forces bypassed or avoided a number of these during their rampages. Certainly Paulinus would have entenched his men in a camp - but Roman camps were not built as defensive fortresses, but rather to shelter a marching force from surprise night attacks. Once the enemy took the field, the force would leave the camp and take their position in the open. Which is what Paulinus seems to have done.

Quote:The two enclosures referenced are both 2.4ha, what size of force would a site of that scale contain, I had read 1000 infantry or 500 cavalry, any thoughts?
2.4 hectares gives about 5 acres for each camp. A full legion would have required an enclosure three times that size. Since Paulinus had a legion and a half with him, plus auxiliaries, you'd need to find another and much larger camp (or camps) in the vicinity. If these two earthworks are indeed Roman they would appear to be smaller auxiliary camps or forts.

Quote:my naive understanding was that a full Legion (XIV) would be carrying 60 Scorpio's as a matter of course, this I had assumed would be augmented by whatever they could purloin from the Twentieth and other sources, so a potential of around 100 units.
You're quite right - it is the accepted theory that a legion carried artillery with it. The numbers, though, are from Vegetius, with all attendant problems about date. Tacitus describes artillery in use at Cremona in 69, and ballistae are shown on Trajan's Column - but in these cases they were used against formations of disciplined troops and fortifications respectively. We could assume that Paulinus had artillery with him, but since no account of the battle mentions it in use it might be safer not to build it into prospective battle plans.

There are other problems: the artillery was attached to the legions, and therefore served by the legionaries. Every scorpion would have needed a couple of men to handle it, and this depletes the legion force, even if auxiliaries are used to support them.

Arrian describes artillery being used on the flanks of a formation, but your plan places the artillery so far from the flanks that any attack against the artillery positions themselves could not be supported by the main legion force.

I would think that battlefield artillery was generally useful in breaking up enemy formations. The British, however, had no such formation to break. Although I suppose the ballistarii could have aimed at the chariots...
Nathan Ross
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Messages In This Thread
Re: Calling all armchair generals! - by Ensifer - 03-11-2010, 03:13 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Nathan Ross - 09-06-2011, 03:06 AM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-18-2012, 06:26 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 12:02 AM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 02:50 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 05:40 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 11:26 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 05:11 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 09:42 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 10:10 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 03:11 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 03:25 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 08:36 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-26-2012, 02:57 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-27-2012, 01:50 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 08-05-2012, 02:24 PM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-07-2014, 02:18 PM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-08-2014, 01:50 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-11-2014, 02:03 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-18-2014, 07:54 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-20-2014, 02:37 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-25-2014, 08:29 AM

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