Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[Hanny]

Obviously i was asking how he got to Anglesey from Wroxeter, since we were discussing roads. As I am sure you know.

I already laid this out earlier.
He has to build the roads to get to around Chester from Wroxeter, c120miles through allied lands, from there he lacks roads and heads across N wales rugged hills for 60/70 miles through hostile lands to the narrow channel to cross over, here he stops and spends c5 days to cut trees, manufacture enough flat bottom craft to assault Angelsey with. So, perhaps you can tell me if 5 days is enough manhours to constuct a fleet of ships for your 20k army then, as i did not do so for that size of force?.Caeser gave orders for c600 new flat bottomed barges to be built over winter, so 200 a month, how many are you thinking are needed for your 20k? if Caeser need 600 for 27K.

I literally quoted these authors, with exact references, saying that crops were sown in the autumn.

I have quoted the same authors, here i all add modern work* on when spelt necame a principle crop, in the flavian period following annexation of client states post the iceni revolt. Trinovates burnt Colchester, colchester grain is both emmer and spelt, emmer in rural and spelt in roman villas, Colchester used Roman land management rules as well as traditional. In any event its how much grain and when/if its sown that counts.


*APPLEBAUM

"There is some archaeological evidence for assigning this work to the Flavian period, and the unit of measurement used may have been a Belgic one, possibly reflecting an adjustment of native rights with those of new settlers. Our acquaintance with Romano-British crops has been much increased by the work of Messrs Helbaek and Jessen: the identified grains are triticum vulgate, triticum sativum, barley, oats, great millet (one isolated find), triticum turgidum and compactum, spelt, possibly emmer, and rye. Spelt is now a principal crop, and the oat, previously grown but probably not as a cultivated plant, is well established: it is found preponderantly in the north, where its spread is likely to have been encouraged by the introduction of Roman cavalry."

Iceni were still using celtic field system, when Rome annexed them the Emp now owned and ordererd the admistration all their land, manu Cæsaris. So the Emperor agent enacted the policies set by the Emperor through his agent the proculator of the province. These policies are to insure the land users deliver their dues, vectigalia, to the proculator. Romans replaced celtic field systems with their own ideas of land ownership, awarding a set jugertha of land to be worked and taxed, its tempting to think T knows how many Iceni and Trinovantes there were involved in the revolt from tax records based on vectigalia/census records, without which you cant how much you can get from the number of people being taxed.

You have provided no quotes, only vague references which do not say what you think they say. Your idea about the 'four month fallow period', for example, apparently comes from Pliny's discussion about planting spring beans..

Incorrect i have have provided the quotes, and the Butser data from following the seperate ways to grow the crops listed, here again you directly contadict the author pliny, who wrote "There is another rotation again—when the ground has been cropped with spelt,383 it should lie fallow the four winter months"* spelt has a 4 month fallow period. As i explained many times, its the lack of manure, solved by adopting manure in the crop cycle.

*http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137%3Abook%3D18&force=y

Orbis gives 9.9 days for a courier London to Rome, 8 days Rome to Cologne, 18.5 days march Cologne to London. 36.4 days total.

Coverd this already, you have the same man riding 24 hours a day every day for 37 days, which is not how the courier sytem worked. It worked that the same man rode at the most 150 mpd, so 14 days to get to Rome, 14 to get to the Rhine, and thats as fast as a human on a horse can get there, 44 days maybe 42 depending on route taken.

"Caesar’s letter carriers reached Rome from the coast of Britain in 27 days" using the same system, https://histos.org/documents/2017AA01RaaflaubRamsey.pdf

Did you not notice the mule I mentioned in the paragraph you quoted?

The ones that you claimed were not needed when you started, and now you need them have re appeared, yes i noticed that.

Ha, no - it's not so easy I'm afraid.

Actually it is.

There are 7 principle* recent Uk works on the subject only one has the whole Army with P go to London, S Kaye, everyone else has him go to recon with a small mounted element.
Barry Horne
Grahame Appleby
John Pegg
Sullivan & Kinsella Clifton
John Waite
Graham Webster

Its a mathmatical certainty, that how easy it is, you have to get to london to be resupplied there or run out of supplies in your timeline.

Tacitus (not my timeline) tells us that Suetonius Paulinus marched to London. He describes what he did when he got to London, and that he was considering fighting a battle there, then he tells us how and why he left.

None of which includes any dates or distances, you provided those, and its they that dont work.

Any notion of logistics that makes it impossible for Paulinus to reach London from Anglesey must therefore be ruled out of our considerations.

Not at all, its your timeline that can be rulled out as being implausable due to the logistic grounds its based on. You have a 14 day period of 250 miles movement, inc going through hostile land at start a cross hill and valleys, and finish going througha province in revolt.

And this, you see, is why I keep asking you to try and work it out for yourself.

I have done your maths for you to show you how wrong your explantion is, you have given Roman a 4 to one movement ratio to the iceni, and advatage that has no parrllel in any other conflict of the ancient world and twice that of authors who looked at this conflict on top of giving the romans an operational range that is beyond human capacity to fullfill.

If you do, and realise the impossibility of what you are proposing, you will swiftly see that your logistical calculations are giving you the wrong answers.

What i have done is provide a range of examples of actual miles a day achieved in campaigns, these are historical reality checks to yopur number values, here ill add others, what you find is your timeline has no parrellel in miles moved in 14 days, leaving aside the fact that the 7 days before are spent fighting and building a fleet.

Waterloo campaign, French cross at Charleroi on the 15th and fight Waterloo on the 18th, 10mpd to get there.

Gettysburg campaign https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gettysburg-Camp...4845695ANV in thee columns peels away from camps around Fredericksburg June 1 and marches seperatly into PA, the lead column marches 225 miles by 28th, the others follow behind so move less distance, on 28th Lee concentrates ANV at Gettysburg, adding 40m more miles to lead Corps movement. 9 mpd.

Paulinus, in my projected timeline, only needs to move fast for fourteen days; a single expediti march, on established roads and lines of supply, to confront an emergency.
Once he learned of the Iceni revolt, he would have supplied an expeditio force of c.6-7000 men with marching rations for 14-17 days, drawing from the supplies remaining for his campaign force.

Except he is moving far to fast, and carrying twice what he has been trained to carry, expediti means "lightly equipped", ie fighting kit only no rations or baggage as explained by Caeser, and again by livy,expediti means no impedimentia, ie no rations no army train, this is how the army moved in the expectation of combat, the other kind of movement with rations/army train, is the "heavily equipped" and is the normal march mode not in the presecene of the enemy.

"will correspond to the speed of a standard march or iustum iter known from Caesar Bell Civ 3.76, defined as a normal route-march on good roads in good weather between camps, leaving time to build the camp and curare corpora and leave in time the next day".

The longest forced march Caeser records is a 7 day one, which he did once, to a distance of c175 miles. He averaged 16 mpd. P in your time line is 18mpd on average, and 252 miles, max effort. "If so, a rest day would normally have been scheduled after every fourth or fifth day of marching."https://histos.org/documents/2017AA01RaaflaubRamsey.pdf If we give Caeser he same problem, he says, nope cant do it.


https://histos.org/documents/2017AA01RaaflaubRamsey.pdf
"Polybius and Livy provide information about extreme feats of Roman armies in the Punic Wars.44 We are here less interested in what an army could accomplish in great emergencies than in average marching speeds and distances. We note, however, that the maximum distance achievable over several days seems to have been 60 R mi (55.5 mi or 89 km) but only if the soldiers carried no baggage whatsoever and at the risk of total exhaustion."

We have his march rates down pretty good, what we do not have his his legions carrying 100lbs and marching 14 days back to back, but that dont exist in any military history elswhere either.

Information gathered from Caesar’s own text. Caesar uses the expression ‘a day’s normal march’ to describe a distance of c. 16 R mi (15 mi or 24 km) covered inroughly five hours.15 Hirtius refers to ‘normal daily marches’, but without specifying their length.16 In 57, Caesar covered the distance between Vesontio (Besançon) and the Matrona (Marne, perhaps at modern Epernay) in 15 days.17 The average daily distance covered was 20 km (c. 12.4 mi) if Caesar made no pause, 21 km (13 mi) with one rest day, 23 km (14.3 mi) with two.18 Distances covered in a day’s march increased substantially if Caesar was in a hurry. For instance, also in 57, he traversed the distance from the site of the battle at the Axona (Aisne, near Berry-au-Bac) to Noviodunum (near Soissons)—c. 50 km,augmented by 25 per cent = 62.5 km (39 mi)—in a forced march and attacked the town directly from the march but failed to take it.19 In the late fall of 54, having received a message about the predicament of Quintus Cicero’s winter camp that was under siege by the Nervii and their allies,20 Caesar sent a mounted messenger around the eleventh hour (in winter between 3 and 4 p.m.) from Samarobriva (Amiens) to his quaestor Marcus Crassus, whose camp was 25 R mi (23 mi or 37 km) away, ordering him to
leave his camp, even in the middle of the night, and come to Samarobriva as quickly as possible. Crassus received the message early enough to leave presumably not too long after midnight. His advance party informed Caesar of his impending arrival around the third hour (c. 9:30 am).21 Crassus thus covered the distance with a fully encumbered legion (including its baggage train) in a night march of 8–9 hours, traveling at a speed of slightly more than 3 R mi (2.7 mi or 4.4 km) per hour. Setting out immediately (at the third hour) and hurrying to bring aid to Cicero’s embattled camp, Caesar covered 20 R mi (18.5 mi or c. 30 km) on that same day.22 Had he been able to leave earlier, he probably would have added another 10 R mi.
In June of 52, Caesar left his camp at Gergovia early in the morning with lightly equipped legions, covered 25 R mi before engaging in a peaceful confrontation with Aeduan rebels, let his army sleep three hours early in the night, and marched back to Gergovia, reaching his camp before sunrise.23 Thus legions that were unencumbered (legiones expeditae) and clearly in a great hurry were able to cover 50 R mi (46.25 mi or 74 km) in 24 hours, with a break ofonly 3–4 hours.
In May 58, while occasionally battling mountain tribes that tried to blockhis path, Caesar marched with five legions in seven days from Ocelum at the entrance of the road across the Mt. Genèvre Pass to the territory of the Vocontii24—an estimated distance of 195 km (122 mi). Caesar’s army thus covered 28km (17.5 mi) per day, even in the mountains and against sporadic opposition,although most likely only with pack animals, no wagons.