Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[Hanny]

we do know that Romans fought 10 ranks deep, and there was 15 cohort equivalents present,

Where is this coming from?  I see nothing of it in Tacitus or Dio, nor six hours for that matter.

It’s the maths of the frontage of the cohorts, the max deployment is all the cohorts in line abreast, prob the battle was fought not like that but we are after the max deployment frontage, so 15 cohorts each with 48 man frontages, and it’s an example of how long they then take to inflict the reported losses.

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Regarding numbers, 240, 000, or 10% of the population of Brittania, seems way too high. 

Regarding contact period, 6 hours seems a short period for a killing orgy.

Regarding method, I was thinking maybe 50% of casualties were at a distance, i.e.  archers, sling stones, ballistas, scorpios, kitchen sink etc..... The topographical description suggests to me a dense mass of Brits being pelted from above. It'll be a nightmare to find evidence if a large proportion of that material was rough hewn stone.....  that would be an economic way to dispatch all comers in relative safety and fits the description for me..... did I mention the ridge top stone quarries at Church Stowe? Maybe geology is a re-provisioning factor that needs to go into the matrix along with perched water tables (I suspect no support from the mudstone and chalk candidates - too soft)

Reducing battle length time to normal battle length runs into the problem of generating even higher casualty rates per hour.50% casualties to all missile fire is a very high number, why bother with hand to hand if missile fire was that effective, Dupoy combat models don’t give antiquity that kind of lethality.Are there archers present?.

What may be of use is determining the prob Roman battle frontage, they picked the battlefield so they prob made sure the flanks were secure but still gave the celts the impression they could use the number advantage they had, there will also be 10k legion Fort close to this geographical feature, so using sat technology your looking for a feature wide enough for that deployment, orientated towards London, close to a Roman road and however many days march from London you work it out to be.So a large Fort in an unexpected location and close to a geographical feature that fits would be what your looking for.