Lit General vs Admiral

In theory, a general commands ground forces. => ARMY
In theory, an admiral controles space forces. => NAVY

So, why is it many general serve on the bridge of a capital ship. Technically, they have no authority.
Can a general give orders to members of the navy?
What happens when a ship is boarded. Who is in command, the general or the admiral?

A couple of examples:
-) In TESB, General Veers serves on the Executor. He, however, only has an authority role when the ground battle (the Battle of Hoth) commences.
-) In ROTS, General Grievous is in control of the navy as well as the army. Why? Yes, he is the supreme commander, but still...
-) In the Jedi Academy Trilogy, General Cratas is constantly advising Admiral Daala. Although he is a member of the army, he has authority in space.
-) General Calrissian and General Madine, who technically were part of the army, led the the spave forces during the Battle of Endor alongside Admiral Ackbar.
-) In the new comic series Star Wars, a colonel takes command of the Devastator.

 

Generals are also flag ranks in Star Fighter Command. AdmiralNick is the expert on this, but its not uncommon to have joint theater commands. Same with Colonels.

I was under the assumption that General Grevious' rank was cultural, and not really granted by the confederacy.

 

That's always been my basic assumption too.

The officers we see the most in the books always strike me more as the overall task force commanders, rather than just the naval flag officers, even if we usually see a guy standing on the bridge of a Star Destroyer.

Look at Thrawn. He's not just ordering ships around; he's in charge of his entire military contingent, which has warships, starfighter squadrons, army regiments, the whole shebang. I treat generals like Madine or Solo as pretty much serving in a similar capacity, having taken on an assignment that's above their particular division of the military, with them having been appointed the overall commander of [whatever the task force was] for a particular operation. You get similar kinds of things in real life when a general is put in charge of any and all military operations in a particular country, etc.

 

About me being the expert about these things? Good assumption.

Joking aside, the EU isn't consistent on this. In some cases, the generals in charge of fleet operations are former fighter pilots. In Starfighter Command, it is apparently possible to transfer to Fleet Command for naval duties but keep your flag rank. The EU also points out examples where flag officers were allowed to keep their native ranks, ala General A'baht, who was technically an admiral but called a general as that was his rank in the Dornean Navy. Things get murkier with things like Admiral Gavin Darklighter, who was a former pilot now commanding fleets and eventually leading the Galactic Alliance Marines.

As you can see, flag ranks in the EU are a total mess.

--Adm. Nick

 

IRL Example would be an admiral placed in charge of US Central Command, which is primarily known for fighting ground engagements. This happens quite frequently.

In the end, major operations are going to have joint components. Wedge may command a fighter group, but that group operates out of carriers. Why have an admiral command that fleet of carriers when its primary goal is to deploy star fighters?

 

In a sense, Star Wars is ahead of its time in this regard, as more than once I've read suggestions from people who think the separation of military divisions may cease to be as polarised in the future with them bleeding back into each other one day.

Basically, I've seen people say the current arrangements were made more for WW2, but that as technologies change, new approaches will probably be needed to how to "split" things, and obviously Star Wars is in a very different place to where we are.

 

As an aside, watching the films made me think as a kid that admiral was just higher up than general and there wasn't any other separation.

 

From Clint Eastwood's Letter from Iwo Jima
<Navy guy>
That guy's trouble
Army types usually are, sir.
</Navy guy>

 

I noticed this too reading the first Star Wars comic last week. I think it would be on a case by case basis, and I would take it to mean he is command of a larger operation. As a Navy man myself I know I wouldn't want a general or a colonel commanding a individual ship though, I know it sure bothered me to no end while watching Stargate

I would think over time, and as technology advanced in terms of space travel, that the Air Force would be blended in with the Navy. I think most sci-fi's reflect that fact. In the case of Star Wars I can see a much smaller Air Force like branch existing for hyperdrive capable fighters operating independently through out the galaxy.

 

I just considered that Gavin Darklighter probably either a) transfered services or b) had his rank changed based on a new command structure.

Most of the Generals we see are New Republic Starfighter command. It is very likely that there might have been a merger when the NR restructured as the Galactic Alliance. I can't think of any GA-era generals commanding fleets, but I could be wrong.

 

This happened in WW2 on occasion. For example, General Eisenhower was given command of all Air, Land, and Sea forces. Now since Eisenhower was more a political general than a fighting general (i.e his job was more overall strategic planning and therapist for the multitude of generals under his command) he invariably let the "experts" in each branch sort of run their own show so long as it fit into the overall strategic plan.

As others have stated, I think it's more the General being in overall command of all units involved in an operation than just commanding a "naval" ship. Though given the seemingly few competent commanders shown in Star Wars, I think eventually it was just, "Let's find the best man for the job and who cares if he's from a different branch as long as he can do the job."

 

Eldo Davip is a General and he's navy, albeit in command of a plantary garrison instead of a fleet.

 

Missed an opportunity for a "general knowledge" pun, though. For shame.

 

Before Warlordism set in anyway. Then people just started calling themsevles whatever they felt like.

 

Ah Warlordism....

 

I wonder if Bel Iblis' rank is in any way a carry-over from the Corellian Military, just as A'Bhat was still referred to as General from his Dorean days.

 

Most of the "fleet generals" we see are in the NR. Of them, almost all of them are Starfighter Command officers or were at minimum promoted as Starfighter Command officers and may have kept the form of their rank when transferring to Fleet Command as some sort of courtesy typical in Star Wars militaries (this would explain Admiral Gavin Darklighter; he transferred to Fleet Command before he achieved general rank). We seem to have a precedent for that sort of combined forces command situation. Of the others in the NR, we've got Han, who appears to have been initially promoted as an army general and would fall under the same system, and Etahn A'baht, who explicitly was allowed to keep his rank as general from the Dornean Navy, which apparently didn't use a traditional naval rank system. We then further have Bel Iblis, whose first recorded appearance as a general is as the commander of a personal military unit during the Clone Wars. His rank could have come from any source -- personal choice, warlord-style; a Corellian commission when he put together the unit; a Corellian commission or Judicial commission from before his Senate service -- but it's best to assume that it fits within this system, and he had his "general" rank grandfathered in on the basis of a previous commission as such, either "starfighter general" in origin or "local idiosyncratic rank system" in origin. He's almost certainly not an army general, as we've never seen him in a ground command role and he's known as a virtuoso fleet commander. General Ceousa, a namedrop, would be the last NR fleet general I can think of off the top of my head, and he's probably another Starfighter Command case. Outside the NR, I don't recall seeing any proliferation of fleet generals, and one could speculate that it's a particular idiosyncrasy of the Rebellion and NR borne out of their desire to let the famous Clone Wars hero General Bel Iblis keep his already idiosyncratic Corellian-volunteer-unit rank.

For the other army-ranked fleet officers, they seem to mainly be Imperial colonel-captains created by KJA. Cronus was a warlord officer, so who cares. Colonel Ardax of Carida got a whole retcon from WEG; Thrawn transferred several ships to the Army for garrison duty over fortress worlds. Whatever other remnants are left of the matter can probably be explained on a case-by-case basis.

 

i may be mistaken, but IRL didn't the marines begin as a semi-autonomous faction of the navy?
edit: the marines are currently a separate service branch operating within the Dept of Navy...

so the Gavin Darklighter example is not really a mess at all

 

Hmm, some interesting thoughts...
I think in most cases when a general is commanding a naval force it is because he is given command of all forces. I think the Eisenhower example of ILNP really clarifies things. Thank you all!