Admiral or General?

[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.