Talk:James Ironwood/@comment-99.52.166.241-20150810032411/@comment-24891101-20150810033357

Reformatted for sanity:

I like Ironwood as a person. I think he's a good man with a good heart and the right priorities. However his grasp of proper strategy is... questionable. As is his decision making. He's essentially staged an internal coup to remove Ozpin from his role, from what I can see. Based on... one fairly easily contained incident and Ozpin not being as fast as he'd like? ... I think that Ironwood's letting his fear push him to rashness, and he's going to pay for that. Pretty sure Cinder has him and his army EXACTLY where she wants them...

And now an examination of his two major deployments that people are thinking of. First, the one I actually agree with. The mass deployment of military power to the one Grimm outbreak in the city was an appropriate move. It may be overkill, but actually, he had no good way of knowing how many Grimm were going to pour out of those tunnels, and what other forces might have been involved. It was the only way to respond to, thus far, the only breech in the city, and in doing so make sure to minimalize civilian casualties. I wouldn't be surprised if off-screen the human Atlas troops were directing friendlies away, setting up barricades, and rescuing civilians from the area until the Grimm could be contained. So while it may have been overkill, I believe it was fully appropriate.

However his opinions on how Ozpin handled the base in the Southeast and his own ideas for handling it were... well, misguided at best. One outpost is in the area, hidden, not easy to find, send soldiers to search. Okay, I admit that put enough men into it and they're likely to find the outpost... but Roman and his people would have found THEM before said outpost was discovered. A military deployment in that area would have been a big red flag, and caused Roman to deploy early likely long before the Atlas troops even noticed they had a hide-out. Now while this happened with RWBY's team, they were discovered mainly due to a stroke of luck with Ruby falling into the below, and would likely not have found them otherwise before the Team discovered Roman's operation. In addition, Ruby and her team were able to put a SERIOUS dent in White Fang manpower and waste pretty much all of their Paladins. Not to mention they had to leave early anyways, there's no telling how more prepared they would have been if Ruby and the others HADN'T forced the early departure.

And also, back to sending in Atlas troops, if the General had saturated the area with troops, and Roman and the White Fang, as I believe they would have, noticed and deployed early, then the Grimm outbreak would still occur... with all the troops scouring ruins instead of in Vale. While the Hunters and Huntresses of Beacon, including the students in training, would likely have been able to ultimately defeat the Grimm and White Fang forces as they deployed, there would have been far less forces there to fight the Grimm. Meaning that far more of the Grimm would go after civilians, likely spread farther and do more damage, resulting in far greater collateral.

In short, Ironwood is being foolish in my opinion, and I believe his fear is making him so. Not only with his proposed troop movements, but believing that by advising caution, Ozpin is somehow insufficient for his post. It's fairly apparent that Ironwood knows very little to nothing about how the enemy he's fighting thinks, and I believe that Cinder knows how he thinks perfectly well... He's played right into her hands I think. And I think I know how... but that's another huge wall of text, and I've ranted enough for now I believe.