Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[Crispianus]

My point was not to expect to look for the kind of scale he was listing as it’s unlikley to be at that scale to be found.

Ultimately we lack enough data to answer most of the questions in this thread which I’ve not fully read , I’m not even sure it’s all happening in one campaign season, but we do know that Romans fought 10 ranks deep, and there was 15 cohort equivalents present, which gives 720 in contact at any point in time to do the killing, so the rate of death can be adduced to fairly good number per hour in contact.2500 in contact is less reliable as Romans did not fight that way.

What is a stand out is the extreme outcome, much like Midway, combat models could not replicate the historical outcome, so the models were changed to allow for the statistically improbability event, this battle is just like that event, the outcome is way outside combat model prediction.

I’ll add Crummy to my to do list, ta for the pointer.

Sure, I can see the problem, one casualty every 3 minutes , you should also consider though its likely that more then just the front rank would be engaged particularly since their in close order, I would consider the first two ranks at least as the other 90% have in their possesion pilums etc.
I dont consider a battle lasting 6 hours to be realistic in any case as it sounds to me more a slog then slaughter and it doesn't read* that way for me at least.
I also think if there was significantly less then 10,000* that Tacitus would likely have said so, less men more glory, of course you can also increase the numbers of the enemy to compensate for a much more glorious victory...
But I would guess it has to be believable to contemporary readers, so just imply a huge force and give a lot of dead.

Tacitus* "for some there are that record that almost 80,000 Britons fell"

Pure speculation, but consider 80,000 is the size of the effective Celtic force not including voyeurs and the 34% casualties is realistic, with 2,000 Romans of a force of 10,000 in contact at any one time, they would "only" have to inflict about 13 casualties per man over the course of an hour, or an average of 2-3 for the entire formation.

I live for the day when the battle site is rediscovered...

*"Roman Britain" A Source Book. S.Ireland. Very usefull.