Talk:Bruce Ashbey

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Battle of Firezard

Always wondered about that battle that put the 730 Mafia on the map: Firezard in 738. Its said they 'led the Alliance to total victory'. But when you see the ticket parade they received, Ashbey had the rank of Captain, and the others had the rank of Commander. Now, assuming they each commanded a ship, Ashbey might have been in command of a battleship and the others might have commanded cruisers. So, at best, their military power in 738 was half-a-dozen ships.

The only thing I can see is that the Mafia, being talented well above the norm, did something particularly incredible with their committed teamwork, and turned the tide for the Alliance Forces in a decisive way. Ashbey is shown in a conversation with Seigmeister shortly thereafter, with the rank of Commodore, meaning the victory was significant enough for all those guys to be promoted one rank. FPA Forever

I don't think it is ever said what they did in detail. I would assume it would be something like finding the weakpoint in an enemy formation and causing the enemy formation to fall apart, or perhaps taking out an enemy commander's flagship, and the Alliance routing the Imperials after the disruption in the chain of command. However all this is speculative. Iracundus 13:47, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Keep in mind that while we do know the basic rank structure for the Imperial military we CANNOT know whether or not the responsibilities of each rank are analogous to anything in reality. Nor do we know how the military was composed. Each commander could have had a dozen or a hundred subordinate vessels--drone ships, perhaps, or there could have been a divide between ships captained by officers and those captained by enlisted men, or something of that nature. In the screenshots we see of that era, when we DO see warships, we see them in large numbers: numerically, they are depicted exactly as those of the FPA/Empire. It is, therefore, a bit much to assume their greatest military victory was accomplished with a half-dozen ships when a battle-group of like number would scarce be worth noticing in the FPA-Imperial War. As Iracundus said, it is pure speculation on our part--and almost entirely groundless at that. Canary 02:27, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually we do know roughly what each rank in the Imperial military does because we have examples of lower ranks and individual ship captains from the Gaiden, as well as Reinhard's ranks as he moves up the hierarchy. Even when making allowances for the smaller fleet sizes of the 2nd Tiamat era, we still would be able to estimate the general command sizes of the various ranks. We also in the Gaiden see for example that Reinhard first notices Bittenfeld because he destroys 2 enemy battleships while in command of just 1 himself, a task which one might think would be scarcely noticeable against the backdrop of the larger battle. Being in the right place and the right time, or taking over for a killed/incapacitated superior officer, can be enough to potentially turn the tide of a battle. Iracundus 03:45, 6 April 2012 (UTC)