Admiral or General?

[Martok]

Which do you think is more difficult to command, an army or a fleet? I'm not referring to just in combat -- I'm also thinking of things like supply, logistics, etc.

This has been one of those "in the back of my mind" questions that I've been mulling for a while, and I'm no closer to a conclusion now than when I first began contemplating it. I'm curious as to what your thoughts are.

[Adrian II]

Which do you think is more difficult to command, an army or a fleet? I'm not referring to just in combat -- I'm also thinking of things like supply, logistics, etc.

This has been one of those "in the back of my mind" questions that I've been mulling for a while, and I'm no closer to a conclusion now than when I first began contemplating it. I'm curious as to what your thoughts are.

I never gave it a thought. I know for a fact that in the 17th and 18th centuries the Navy was generally regarded as a wastebin for less talented (to put it mildly) sons of well-to-do families. Epitomized by Admiral Sir George Rodney telling his officers: "Gentlemen, the painful task of thinking belongs to me."

[CountArach]

I would say an Admiral because once things start going wrong, it is much harder to get them to start going your way again.

[Warmaster Horus]

I voted gah! simply because someone has to, and because I think their jobs are relatively equally difficult. Both have different things to overcome: an admiral has more difficulty changing things to his advantage and has to adapt to a dangerous battlefield (if there's a storm and a ship's out...), whereas the general has maybe more things to consider in an operation: civilian population, must sometimes adapt to guerrilla warfare (especially these days).

[KrooK]

Depends what kind of admiral or whats kind of general it is. I voted on general because he had more units to command. Admiral has some ships - usually few teens. General has some thousands of soldiers.

[Quintus.JC]

I voted Gah. Its an interesting topic though, I always had this discussion with my graphics teacher about this, my graphic teacher is a rather patriotic British guy and a huge fan of Admiral Nelson. As a player of TW I'm not much into naval warfare (not yet, at least) and generally I prefered Napoleon and Wellington. I have no idea about the responsiblilties of an admiral though.

[Adrian II]

I voted Gah. Its an interesting topic though, I always had this discussion with my graphics teacher about this, my graphic teacher is a rather patriotic British guy and a huge fan of Admiral Nelson. As a player of TW I'm not much into naval warfare (not yet, at least) and generally I prefered Napoleon and Wellington. I have no idea about the responsiblilties of an admiral though.

Basically both have the same task of thinking far ahead, like chess grand masters.

To put it simply: both have to make sure that the right mass of the right kind of people and goods are in the right spot at the right time to defeat an enemy. Both Napoleon and Nelson were past masters at logistics, psychology and the use of intelligence.

Commanding early modern armies and fleets was a bit like commanding a modern-day oil tanker or large cargo ship: such ships are slow and have huge momentum which means decisions have long-term effects that can't be undone. This starts with the process of loading, recruiting, gathering information &cetera long before the ship actually leaves port. A wrong decision taken in the port of departure can result in a crash or loss of the cargo's value thousands of miles down the line.

[Innocentius]

As with everything else, it depends on where and when. Let's say France in pre-roman days, I'd say a general had the tougher "job", since it was much easier moving by sea than through the endless and roadless forests that covered most of Europe. If we jump to the WWII though, I'd say a general had it easier thanks to the good infrastructure and not having to worry about mines and submarines (of course things could be mined or booby trapped on land as well, although it was less common during WWII than during later conflicts).

There really is no way to answer other than by "It depends".

[Quintus.JC]

Mmm... I always thought that Admirals were a bit boring. You know, field commanders can fight on horses or dismount (at least in the good old days), while Admirals basically did no fighting and was as good as dead if his ship sunk, not much fun in that.

[Paradox]

Didn't admirals spend more time with their campaigns than the field commanders did? Mainly in the 17th century.

[Ramses II CP]

I think the logistics of a naval campaign are substantially more complex, and on those grounds alone I would argue in favor of the Admiral. Ships are technology that must be maintained and understood by the men who fight them before they can be of any use in battle.

A soldier without a gun or sword can still pick up a rock or stick, or even use his bare hands, and be at least minimally effective. If someone blows a hole in your tank, or shoots your horse out from under you, you may still fight effectively on foot without much trouble. A sailor without a ship is shark bait, he serves no purpose but to force other ships and other sailors to attempt to rescue him.

Deep water is inherently hostile to human existence in a way that even the most inhospitable ground conditions are not. You will never encounter drinkable water just casually in your path as a sailor, while soldiers have historically carried very little of the stuff precisely because more than a few days rarely passed without finding some.

A soldier seperated from his unit can still fight and survive in the wild while trying to link back up. A sailor seperated from his unit, even if he is in the relative safety of a life boat, cannot fight and cannot survive on his own for any significant length of time.

An Admiral must account for all of these factors on top of keeping his technology, even if it's as simple as a straight mast, a well made sail, or a correctly braced and placed outrigger, operational in an environment where none of it can be replaced.

P.S. Note that I left out the complications of wind power and accurate navigation absent landmarks because those wouldn't in any way apply to a modern navy, but for 90% of the recorded history of warfare they were significant difficulties that land armies simply didn't face.

[Emperor Mithdrates]

compared to generals who command a man to move around (which is quite simple) Admirals have to try and gety huge and unmanoverable warships into battle formations in limited time while trying not to collide with other ships. Also communication is done by small flags and can take a while for orders to get across.

[Prince Cobra]

I think the Amdiral. In the past, a single storm could ruin your plans...

Yet most of the battles are on land and unless you are fortunate enough to live on island, you should rely on your generals. But that's another story. Voted admiral.

[Mangudai]

The General has the harder job. The general has to manage the morale of his men in a thousand different ways. He has to BE a man who inspires confidence in everyone around him. If the troops begin to loose confidence in their general, disaster is right around the corner. The general also has to understand and manage the attitudes of civilians.

The Admiral can do a good job with analysis and good judgement. He has less impact on morale than the captains under him, and in any case morale is less important because a sailors' duty is more straitforward.

Many of us computer nerds are good at tactics, but unless you were the most popular guy in high school you probably wouldn't make a great general.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

The General has the harder job. The general has to manage the morale of his men in a thousand different ways. He has to BE a man who inspires confidence in everyone around him. If the troops begin to loose confidence in their general, disaster is right around the corner. The general also has to understand and manage the attitudes of civilians.

The Admiral can do a good job with analysis and good judgement. He has less impact on morale than the captains under him, and in any case morale is less important because a sailors' duty is more straitforward.

Many of us computer nerds are good at tactics, but unless you were the most popular guy in high school you probably wouldn't make a great general.

I agree with some of your points here, but navies have been crippled by morale issues simply because ships cannot move without the sailors, and the sailors don't usually like being on the ships for extremely long periods of time without a chance to rip loose in a city. Just a thought.

[Wasp]

I voted for the Admiral, but mainly because of logistics. It requires a lot of thinking ahead. A General has to do that as well, of course, but can make last-minute decisions.

[Mangudai]

When a subordinate distracts you with some small matter unrelated and unimportant to your present chain of thought, what facial expression do you have? Little things like facial expressions and your reactions to trivial incidents are extremely important to the relationship you have to subordinates, especially when you have many subordinates and you cannot form a deep relationship with all of them.

I think this is one of the reasons why so many generals are incompetent tacticians, and many of the greatest tacticians are not generals. There are certain personality traits you have to be born with, they are outside of your conscious control.

The admirals role, I think, is more under his conscious control.

[KarlXII]

I had to vote Admiral.

Historically, army officers have been taught and have a natural sense of individuality. A General, of course, would plan attacks, defenses etc. However, how his orders are carried out fall upon every junior officer. If a General were to be captured or killed, especially in this modern day warfare, the other officers are able to effectively take command. If a unit were in retreat, typically, the commanding officer of that unit would be able to organize the retreat and find a proper point without the General's orders.

Now, naval officers, historically, have been taught to follow the orders from the commanding officer in the flagship. A ship does not allow her officers the same tactical flexibility an Army unit does. The only individual options are the issues of fire control and maneuver. It is the Admirals job to plan and direct ships into battle. The fact the admiral is in the midst and must make tactical decisions on the spot causes a fair amount of stress. If a ship were to have an engine malfunction, or if she listed, the Admiral would need to slow down the entire fleet in order to keep that one ship in line. If the flagship were to be destroyed, and the admiral killed, history has shown the fleet is, in effect, a large mob of floating steel with cannon.

[spmetla]

I voted neither. Both jobs entail a lot of responsibility but that responsibility is also passed down to subordinates. While both are responsible for vast amounts of equipment and men they do so through a chain of command which should mean that they are operating through a manageable number of people.

[Tabuu]

So did I. Neither is a good choice if you're taking too long. (Or if you start thinking, "Gah!") Otherwise you have to make a choice. Mine was neither. "Gah!" was good choice!

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Admiral, because it is harder to keep contact with the captains of the ships once the battle begins.

[Karl08]

I think logistics is a far more complex and difficult problem for the general. The ship carries its own supplies and depends on either ports or supply vessels to replenish them. On land, however, carrying supplies requires carts/wagons/trucks/etc., that is, you have to bring extra stuff along simply to allow you to take extra stuff along. A ship, on the other hand, is its own container, and will not be slowed down by its supplies. Nor does it have to stop in order to rest its men, or spend a lot of energy setting up camp. And weather will far more significantly hamper movement on land than on sea, especially when considering the ocean has but one terrain (water) whereas on land you have all sorts. Hills, forests, valleys, mountains, rivers, swamps, etc. etc. And it is also arguably easier to have one's supply lines cut on land than by sea, at any rate.

[Audacia]

Modern era=General

With the lack of radio communication in the 18th and 19th centuries however, I might lean Admiral

[The Lurker Below]

went with neither. todays theater commanders come from the ranks of any of the eligible services, including the coast guard (speaking for U.S.)
the logistic, personnel, and political considerations for any of the branches is so considerable that (for the most part) only extremely compitent leaders emerge at the top.

historically without doubt the most difficult was ADMIRAL - for evidence let's look back at the discussion on empires. It took a great deal of determination to make an overseas occupation succeed in the past, few countries made it happen for an extended period of time. We can look at most any country and find "great" generals, only in a select few are their admirals successful enough to get equivelant press.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

While both are challenging, I think that the difficulty of naval construction as compared to mustering troops makes the admiral's task one involving higher risk.

I remember Churchill writing about Jellicoe that Jellicoe was "the only person on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon."

[rory_20_uk]

I think that the devil is in the details.

What period one is talking about
Which army one is commanding / fleet is leading
What are the prevailing conditions
What threats are about

I think that this variance means that the difficulty is likely to be statistically similar.

[Karl08]

went with neither. todays theater commanders come from the ranks of any of the eligible services, including the coast guard (speaking for U.S.)
the logistic, personnel, and political considerations for any of the branches is so considerable that (for the most part) only extremely compitent leaders emerge at the top.

historically without doubt the most difficult was ADMIRAL - for evidence let's look back at the discussion on empires. It took a great deal of determination to make an overseas occupation succeed in the past, few countries made it happen for an extended period of time. We can look at most any country and find "great" generals, only in a select few are their admirals successful enough to get equivelant press.

The reason overseas occupations are difficult is because the logistics on LAND is difficult. The sea-bit's the easy bit.

[Fisherking]

By far, the army is the more complex organization. Only in the pre-gunpowder era would the fleet be more complex, due to maintenance but not supply.

Also, at sea you have the advantage of all of your units being able to see each other.

Ships are self contained and the needs mostly overseen by the skipper of the vessel. When supplies run short it is easier to move to resupply.

An army doesn’t have that option, for the most part. It has to be supplied and equipped over land and typically has more people , animals, and weapons systems to be cared for.

Generals may be more popular due in part to the fact that they are in closer contact with their men than the admiral. An Admiral is a more distant figure to the men on the ships than his land based counter part.