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Famed for its order and discipline, the Roman military would approach fortifications in a methodical way.
"It comes across a centre of resistance - in this case a hill fort - and it puts two camps to the north and south to seal it off," explains Dr Elliott.
"And those two levelled off areas, sited on a rise 30 metres above the fort, are the perfect place for artillery platforms, to bombard the area inside.
"The fort, with its triple ditch and bank closing off the headland is brilliant if you are fighting another Iron Age people, but it is completely useless against artillery."
Dr Elliott says the native tribespeople - the Corieltauvi - would "never have seen anything like this before".
"The psychological impact of missiles, either rocks or bolts or both, plunging into what they would have thought was a safe area, would have been huge," he claims.
After the barrage, Dr Elliott says those in the fort "would have surrendered, or the legion would have assaulted it".
"I think the battle of Creswell would have been quite a short-lived affair," he adds.
Dr Elliott acknowledges a few shadows on satellite images are not definitive proof but he has more evidence.
He has spoken to farmers nearby who say they have "turned up a fair bit of material" from their fields.
"This includes a weight from a groma, a Roman surveying tool used only by legionaries, and a piece of armour, known as lorica segmentata, which was worn only by the legions," he explains.

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