09-22-2021, 10:06 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-22-2021, 06:08 PM by Crispianus.)
(09-21-2021, 01:25 PM)Hanny Wrote: To kill 80000 persons in 6 hours requires each front rank man to kill a person every 20 seconds, this rate of death infliction was not matched in the first hours of the Somme with 15 rands a min shoulder arms, 600 rand a min MG and so on, so a casualty infliction rate of that order is unlikely to have occurred here.Then add in 50 mins to do rank relief every 15 mins and your at 7 hours for the battle making it one of the longest in antiquity.
I think the figures are a problem there, at three men a minute or 180 per hour, and assuming 25% of the force or 2,500 Romans were in contact at any given moment, in six hours the romans would have inflicted 450,000 casualty's in other words they would have wiped out the entire Celtic force.
For 80,000 deaths to occur 13,333 have to die per hour, if 25% of the roman force is in combat at any given time, assuming that is 2500 men, then each man in combat would need to kill or disable 5.3 enemies per hour or one about every 10 minutes, assuming 20 % or 2,000 engaged it would be 6-7, at 15% it would be 8-9, at 10% it would be 13+ per hour, but the fewer men engaged the more rested they are, and therefore the more capable of continuing the struggle.
I would agree that the total both for time and numbers seem unrealistic, except perhaps againt a confused and broken enemy who were unable to escape easily and spent the majority of the day being slaughtered, but even that isnt strictly true since if the figures are to be believed then the majority of the Celtic force escaped (according to Crummy*/Dio 230,000 Celts took part so 150,000 survived to tell the tale, or about 34% casualties)...
As to physical evidence for that you need to find the site....
I think the only similaritys between the first day of the Somme and Boudicca's last, is that in both cases they underestimated the enemy, I should add as well with the exception of the Somme, that I dont take any of these figures at all seriously.
*"City of Victory" P.Crummy, is a good read and he makes some good points on numbers.
Ivor
"And the four bare walls stand on the seashore. a wreck a skeleton a monument of that instability and vicissitude to which all things human are subject. Not a dwelling within sight, and the farm labourer, and curious traveller, are the only persons that ever visit the scene where once so many thousands were congregated." T.Lewin 1867
"And the four bare walls stand on the seashore. a wreck a skeleton a monument of that instability and vicissitude to which all things human are subject. Not a dwelling within sight, and the farm labourer, and curious traveller, are the only persons that ever visit the scene where once so many thousands were congregated." T.Lewin 1867
