Re: "admirals" or "generals"

Michael Renjie Tom (renjie@uclink2.berkeley.edu)
Sun, 20 Oct 1996 18:35:14 -0700 (PDT)

Actually, if you think about it. I think that you have to give a little
artists license to some of these folks. the human/material logistics of
some of these campaigns are impossible even if we imagine that its in the
distant future. I mean, 50, 000 ships? Assuming that 50,000 ships with
some 200 to a ship (based on Star Trek figures), that leaves about 1
million to a fleet. Seems almost overwhelming that this wars been going
on for 150 years. Think that the individual ships where more equivalents
of mechanized infantry and the "Admirals" "Generals" whatever you call
them were the equivalent of field commanders. So whatever field
commanders or ranks or what-have-you tend to fall apart. Reminds me of
the Zentradi in Macross when Breetai was promising a ship of their own to
the three spies. "Yeah, big deal. Id rather have my Minmei doll" :} Its
like do this job well and you get to be in the- infantry :}
mike

On Sun, 20 Oct 1996, Wayne H. Yin wrote:

> At 1:10 AM 96.10.18, Michael Renjie Tom wrote:
>
> > keeping track of names for a series like LOGH is like reading War and
> > Peace and then picking up the sequel every few months later when it
> > gets fan subbed.
> >
> yeah, i've gotten confused just reading tom clancy before! ;-) thank
> goodness that in the LoGH TV series they have those captions with the
> character names when they appear.
>
> > As for the titles, always lumped the admirals together and that was that.
> >
> well, that's pretty easy to do, yes. but while it is true that yang
> and reinhard spend most of their time talking to other general/flag
> officers, the implications of ranking systems *below* the rank of general
> or admiral shouldn't be overlooked. as i said before, whether they use an
> army/navy style ranking system strongly implies their military organization
> and command structure. that was my real interest.
>
> in a navy ranking system, there's really nothing in-between a ship
> captain and an admiral. however, there are lots of ranks below captain
> (everything else, in fact), and a captain's a pretty big-shot in a navy.
> in fact, on his ship, the captain has the powers of a king or god that even
> an admiral dare not contradict while he's aboard. so a captain of his
> ship's company is a big deal.
>
> in an army ranking system, there's a lot of intermediate grades between
> a captain and a general. a captain and his company is simply a cellular
> unit within the battalion, regiment, and brigade. he gets called on the
> carpet all the time by his bosses, who really call a lot of the shots on
> the battlefield. in the army (and the air force, especially), captains and
> company commanders are a dime a dozen.
>
> that was my real interest in the rankings within the alliace army and
> imperial fleet: how the command structures within their fleets are
> organized. as i said before, the sheer size of fleets makes me inclined to
> think that they use an army system of ranks.
>
> a highly simplified example:
> (recall that a commodore is the equivalent of a brigadier general and
> commands a fleet)
>
> * it doesn't make sense that 10,000 captains report directly to one
> admiral; even 100 captains to one commodore, and 100 commodores reporting
> to one rear admiral isn't plausible from a command/control/logistics
> perspective.
>
> * however, something like 10 captains/major, 10 majors/lt.colonel, 10
> lt.colonels/colonel, and then 10 colonels/brigadier general (or = 10,000
> captains under the command of a brigadier general) is far more plausible.
>
> of course, i've grossly oversimplified things here, but i hope that this
> example gets my point across.
>
> sorry for not making this clear before. :-)
>
> --
> Wayne H. Yin
> why@mail.utexas.edu
>
>
>