User blog comment:Samuelshadow16/Ironwood's REAL purpose/@comment-3146930-20140817161517

I think the biggest thing is that despite being told that they are in a time of peace, all the events so far are evidence to the contrary. Just in Vale, Roman has pretty much gone unchallenged for months now with no signs of stopping, Cinder has allied Roman up with the White Fang who were taking part in terrorism way before this, and Cinder has now infiltrated the school with two of her (presumably) highly trained assistants. Then Ironwood and Ozpin bring up how hard travel between kingdoms is and Ironwood mentions some stuff about information from Qrow. This is most definitely not a time of peace and Ironwood was right to tell Penny this.

As far as how Roman got his hands on a few Atlesian Paladins, they aren't supposed to be released until later in the year. That means that until then, they could just be sitting in a warehouse somewhere. Add in the transformative abilities of weapons and how when Yang punches that thing out it seems to crumple in such a way that it protects the pilot, lifting one with an airship may not be that hard. In fact with Ironwood transporting a large military force to Vale, he may have left his own main base under-defended, making it easy for Cinder's group to take a few Atlesian Paladins and transport them into the city.