"your objection could be raised against any site that meets the criteria."
- with one clear exception. The one where a steep sided "Y" shaped ridge, moated by a marshy willow choked valley prevents movement along or behind a ridge top enclosing a dead end valley. So closed at the rear, topographically, and closed at the rear and flanks by woodland... must be unique.... certainly is in this debate..... It is.... drum roll.... Church Stowe....
- Blue = boggy streams choked with willow scrub, the only woodland impenetrable to light infantry.
- Red lines and open boxes on the ridgetop spring line = field fortifications directing any approach to the opening of the throat to the east. These are the prepared positions Alan predicts, and excitingly extant so can be tested....
-Red closed box = Roman infantry core "in" the valley.
- Green = the core line of approach, that of least topographic and military resistance from the British RV at Hunsbury Hill (you know the one chock full of abandoned querns and Iron Age weapons)
-Reverse the green line and that's the flight along the Nene to Iceni territory only 30 miles away, marked by the yet to be discovered Roman camp at Wadenhoe, then onwards to the slaughter of the innocents by Paulinus as they tried to shelter at Stonea Camp...
- Then back to "x" there are roman friezes depicting a military slaughter... as the victory monument overlooking Watling Street choke point through the great limestone ridge separating Britannia Superior from Inferior in a place called "Stonewall Field"
-Then shunt to "y" and you have Telford's finds of numerous "African" skulls and strangely shaped horse shoes (hipposandals and auxiliary cavalry anyone? XX was recruiting in North Africa around then after all)
"Nothing in what Alan has said so far negates any other candidate"
- well you read it differently and negate any value in a military perspective if such observations cannot filter out sites of such dispersed geography... I wonder what Alan and Steve think of our very different interpretations of Alans statement?
"by rushing up onto the high ground on either side"
- hardly rushing in... they could bimble along those ridgetops or the Icknield Way for many miles over open chalk down or metalled road before having to worry about getting contact.. and you are hardly closed at the rear by mature clay woodland if you are facing light infantry.
"interlocking fields of fire, obstacles and minefields... a low rampart or ditch to break the enemy charge... light artillery to be positioned on the slopes"
-so a cleared battle site in the valley bottom to provide clear arcs for ridge top artillery whose raining down of shot into massed ranks accounts for the disproportionate casualty figures....
"we don't know whether Paulinus would have brought it with him from Anglesey"
- nor does he need to if the Romans had a depot in the vicinity, maybe in the middle of the country, connected to river and road, at the jumping off point for the campaign on Mona... you know like at Weedon, oh gosh that's Weedon (Heathen Temple on the Hill) right there.... then again he probably did bring it with him as a cautious commander...
656, 566
- with one clear exception. The one where a steep sided "Y" shaped ridge, moated by a marshy willow choked valley prevents movement along or behind a ridge top enclosing a dead end valley. So closed at the rear, topographically, and closed at the rear and flanks by woodland... must be unique.... certainly is in this debate..... It is.... drum roll.... Church Stowe....
- Blue = boggy streams choked with willow scrub, the only woodland impenetrable to light infantry.
- Red lines and open boxes on the ridgetop spring line = field fortifications directing any approach to the opening of the throat to the east. These are the prepared positions Alan predicts, and excitingly extant so can be tested....
-Red closed box = Roman infantry core "in" the valley.
- Green = the core line of approach, that of least topographic and military resistance from the British RV at Hunsbury Hill (you know the one chock full of abandoned querns and Iron Age weapons)
-Reverse the green line and that's the flight along the Nene to Iceni territory only 30 miles away, marked by the yet to be discovered Roman camp at Wadenhoe, then onwards to the slaughter of the innocents by Paulinus as they tried to shelter at Stonea Camp...
- Then back to "x" there are roman friezes depicting a military slaughter... as the victory monument overlooking Watling Street choke point through the great limestone ridge separating Britannia Superior from Inferior in a place called "Stonewall Field"
-Then shunt to "y" and you have Telford's finds of numerous "African" skulls and strangely shaped horse shoes (hipposandals and auxiliary cavalry anyone? XX was recruiting in North Africa around then after all)
"Nothing in what Alan has said so far negates any other candidate"
- well you read it differently and negate any value in a military perspective if such observations cannot filter out sites of such dispersed geography... I wonder what Alan and Steve think of our very different interpretations of Alans statement?
"by rushing up onto the high ground on either side"
- hardly rushing in... they could bimble along those ridgetops or the Icknield Way for many miles over open chalk down or metalled road before having to worry about getting contact.. and you are hardly closed at the rear by mature clay woodland if you are facing light infantry.
"interlocking fields of fire, obstacles and minefields... a low rampart or ditch to break the enemy charge... light artillery to be positioned on the slopes"
-so a cleared battle site in the valley bottom to provide clear arcs for ridge top artillery whose raining down of shot into massed ranks accounts for the disproportionate casualty figures....
"we don't know whether Paulinus would have brought it with him from Anglesey"
- nor does he need to if the Romans had a depot in the vicinity, maybe in the middle of the country, connected to river and road, at the jumping off point for the campaign on Mona... you know like at Weedon, oh gosh that's Weedon (Heathen Temple on the Hill) right there.... then again he probably did bring it with him as a cautious commander...
656, 566
