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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
Quote:particularly useless if most of you were never in London or St Albans.

Bah, heresy! But if you're starting to imagine this sort of thing then it does indeed throw everything wide open.

However - Paulinus believed he could not defend London with ten thousand men. That implies to me that he at least believed he was facing a massive enemy army, not just a few freebooters from Colchester!



Quote:but what about 4-5 days to Mancetter? where is the break point? maybe the Nene or the Ouse from where they could float back home?

I make it 68 miles from Dunstable to Mancetter - at least a week's steady haul for the Britons, if they kept up their pace. More likely twice that (see 'carnival' below!). Dunstable/Manshead is only 9 miles from St Albans and 30 from London.



Quote:a bit of a carnival. carnival = parade? come on lets agree if it existed it was a parade...

Nope, no parades, please! The word suggests serried ranks marching in step, day after day, which would be absurd (which is why you keep using it, of course!)

Carnival, on the other hand... sounds more like it. A day on the road, then a day of looting, drinking and feasting, a bit of bardic inspiration, a bit of human sacrificing perhaps, another day of arguing about war aims and leadership, then another day on the road (maybe in a different direction...) And so on.



Quote:returned home via their units told their dads, uncles, brothers, cousins, aunties etc of the walk over in Colchester and the fun the lads were probably having torching London and St Abans with no resistance

So why did they want to return home again, with all this 'fun' available? Once you've raised a massive intertribal host, armed it illegally and inspired it to attack the Romans, why let it all drift away? And how much harder would it be to raise a bigger host a second time when there's no easy looting in store, just a hard fight with some well-prepared legionaries?



Quote:the rv close to where the roman force had been scouted.

And how did they know where the Romans would be? Paulinus could move quickly. The Britons couldn't. Unless you imagine Paulinus sitting around for weeks waiting for the Britons to find him...



Quote:not if their heads were on sticks at Bartlow and their buddies were in full flight to Longthorpe

I was thinking of Paulinus's cavalry. But, as above - if it was any less than a full army of Britons bearing down on London, Paulinus would have been unlikely to withdraw.



Quote:on site it looked hard/impossible to guarantee the opponents couldn't take the ridge by simply moving east or west

That's why the Romans send the cavalry onto the ridges to either side of the defile!



Quote:neither could effectively be "closed off at the rear by woods.

Are you sure? The slopes down from the ridge on the north-western flank are steep and heavily wooded even today. Anyone getting up onto the ridge would have a hard job getting down again in that direction. Plus, as I've said, the area of Dunstable itself was probably woodland at the time.
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 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 Nathan Ross - 11-05-2014, 11:27 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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