Admiral or General?

[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.