Talk:James Ironwood/@comment-162.197.96.15-20150706055748/@comment-24891101-20150707010047

I'm assuming a baseline of operational art.

Ultimately, it seems, this does come down to interpretation of his line. I'd suggest that the sentence structure, absent hysteron proteron, indicates that finding out what's going on comes before eradicating any forces in their path. I paraphrase it as: Let's get our people over there, find out what's up, and steamroll them; whereas you suggest: Let's get our people over there and destroy everything in our path until we find out what's going on. In my interpretation, finding out what's going on could not be accomplished other than by recon.

As to wasting robots: he's not throwing them away or anything. He'd be committing more than strictly necessary so that the engagement is much less dangerous for his side, via Lanchester's laws.

As to your last, Ozpin's wait and see resulted in the breach, which Ironwood's show of force very visibly help clean up. Hindsight, et cetera. But it's not really relevant to the politics of allowing him in in the first place.