I was wondering the other day how much wood a temporary Roman encampment would need. Where would they get this? Do they set up camp always close by a forest to do so? Also, what if there is no/not enough wood available nearby, what would they do then?
How much time would it take for a Roman encampment to be build from scratch? Collecting all the wood, digging the ditch etc?
Final question, how long is a Roman legion on the march and when the first stop, when will the last one arrive and will the camp be nearly completed? Which people march in front and at the back?
Thanks for answering all my question (somewhat more than I expected to ask but they kept popping up)
While you're waiting, check out these previous threads. They don't answer all your questions but they're a good start:
When travelling, have Roman Legions (late Republic/Imperial) really built a full military camp for the night, every night? What if resources were scarce, in rocky or arid terrain? by /u/Alkibiades415
In addition to the links above, I wanted to address your question of wood specifically:
Caesar talks about lignatores several times, which are woodcutters—lumberjacks. These were soldiers who drew the short straw and had to go gather wood. When the Nervii attack Quintus Cicero's camp in Book V of Caesar's Gallic Wars, the Roman lignatores are attacked first while they are out doing their thing and relatively unprotected. We get the impression that they were not nearby, though it isn't clear. We later learn, however, that the legion had already stockpiled a large quantity of wood, and when the celts attacked, they used that stockpile to build a huge number of watchtowers (turres) along the walls of the castra to help repel the siege. Caesar calls this wood stockpile materia quam munitionis causa comportaverant (BG 5.40), "materiel which had been collected for the purpose of fortification," suggesting the legion intended to build towers at some point anyway.