Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[Owein Walker]

I don't think that we are in disagreement about much of this.  My point is that the 'rampart' issue applies to his position in the defile and how the topography provided him with protection.  It has nothing to do with how his camp may have been fortified.  I am not suggesting for a minute that his camp was in the defile.

A side issue is whether he still had the civilians with him.  We are told nothing about this.  My guess is that he would have wished to leave them as soon as possible after he had got them away from the area of immediate danger.  However, on this your guess is as good as mine.  Alan may have some input on this.

Thanks, I see SP building a camp that is large enough for his 10,000 troops plus the usual supports.  I do not see him keeping a swarm of civilians with him and would be rid of them at the first safe opportunity.  That said if any were veterans amongst them then he may well have embodied them into ad hoc units and employed them to garrison the camp or another duty (see below).  

Building a camp and leaving a defensive force there is what my reading says is a Roman Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) that would be done in every day on campaign.  But where would this camp be?  From Tacitus there is a wood securing his rear.  In normal circumstances it would be the camp that secures his rear - close enough to fall back on but here we are told of a wood.  This, to me, implies that he camp is in a clearing in the wood or on the other side of it.  

Digression to modern military experience ... for a wood to "secure" the rear it would need to be garrisoned with at least a blocking force to prevent an enemy force sneaking through.  So did SP place a force there (veterans)? We will probably never know.

In a battle like this while terrain is important, so is weather and time of day.  Even today the first two parts of a briefing are Ground and Meteorology summaries.  Troops may be hungry/thirsty, sun in eyes, shadows hiding troops, time remaining for pursuit etc.

"small dispersed camps of 2K troops would be vulnerable"  - dadla

I'm not thinking dispersed, I am thinking thoroughly commanding a ridge top with interlocking fields of fire/observation. The scale dictated by terrain rather than standing orders.

The problem with this defence of a ridge top, apart from it's supposed to be covered in trees, is it can be rolled over from one end to the other. Unless it is one or two, nearly continuous defences with nearby water supplies, then it only weakens SP's position.
It sounds a bit like the film version of Waterloo, unless I am mistaken.

The scale dictated by terrain, OK, but the terrain chosen by SP.

 Ask yourself why he would choose a site where his best plan is to divide his troops into smaller, weaker groups that could be isolated, even attacked during the night and picked off one at a time ?

Sorry John. I don't think he would have got through the Atlas mountains fighting like this.