Alderamin on the Sky

[KrayZ33]

How are their deaths meaningless, they outnumber them 5:1, even without the advantage of horseback and weapons. Them allowing to retreat will cost more Kioka (or whatever his country was called) lives than this little skrimish.

The battle itself had so many problems too, how the heck did Yatori even flank them from behind? On horseback, on a small cliffside like that? I expected so much more from this show but it's very, very shallow. And none of the horsemen stepped on the soldiers hiding beneath the straw? Even though they were like 30 of them several lines deep in? "lucky"...or maybe, if we use internet and this show's memes, "it's science"
Ikta surviving his encounter with the Kioka soldier because "someone" (who knows who in a mess like this) screamed "cease combat" was silly too.

[shinta|hikari]

Because Ikta bluffed that he had air rifle people placed strategically, unlike unsleeping dude who didn't do that prep. That means his forces will lose a lot more people than they were ever supposed to. Based on his discussion with Ikta, he's the type to take care of his men and doesn't want them dying if it can be avoided. In fact, he didn't want to fight in the first place and just wanted the enemy to surrender.

His home country losing more than what was at stake in that face off is not determined at this point. Since he can safely go home instead of possibly getting shot, he can come up with new strategies to make up for the loss.

What you have to consider is that Ikta and the others were desperate and had their backs against the wall. To unsleeping dude, this was just one fight among many, many to come in order to realize his ideals. The 10 percent risk wasn't worth it to him.

I didn't really think about the battle too much so no comments there.

[KrayZ33]

If he's not willing to take risks like that, he's a failure as a commander and should resign immediatly.
He didn't take the risk because his own life was in "danger", in which case I have to wonder why he even risks it by going to the frontline in the first place.

His whole presence was basically meaningless. A 9:1 chance of winning and you don't take it? That basically a declaration that you actually don't really want to win and you do this for fun and thus has absolutely no meaning to you, the soldiers who died so far died without purpose.. and their friends must hate that commander now.

[KrayZ33]

It's probably just me being absolutely disappointed in the battle that I see their conversation as such a big problem.

As for the airrifle units. I'm pretty sure he should've known that there aren't more than a handful at most. He knew about Ikta's manpower, he should know that he can't spare 80% of his forces if they want to maintain the firewall and so on.

[shinta|hikari]

He knew the risk was low, which he somehow pinned down at 10 percent. His caution is understandable. He, who was so used to controlling the battle completely the entire time, suddenly got surprised consecutively by the man he was negotiating with. A threat coming from such an existence wasn't something he could take lightly. What if that 10 percent is another of Ikta's surprises?

Where unsleeping dude lost in this fight isn't tactics. It's in profiling. Ikta profiled him from the start, trying to understand how he thinks, and then used it against him. This dude was way too arrogant in his abilities and forces that he didn't think about analyzing the commander on the other side, at least not as much as Ikta did to him.

[shinta|hikari]

I disagree. Dying there is a gigantic loss to his country. So is his resignation. He's a genius and a hero. It just so happened another genius and hero of his level or even greater existed on the other side.

As for going to the front lines, I imagine it's to better grasp the battle situation. Ikta does it too.

[Kraco]

They weren't fighting for Kioka there. Why the hell should he risk anything more than is leisurely possible? They were only a unit sent by their home country to assist the theocracy in their offense. For Kioka it was basically nothing but a distraction and something that could be used to weaken the Empire with any luck. For all we know Sleepless had been ordered by his superiors not to risk too much and absolutely come back with new information, experience, and weapon test results. If he had died there, it would have been a big loss for Kioka for absolutely no gain whatsoever.

You completely miss the big picture here, KrayZ.

[KrayZ33]

The anime didn't show it that way properly though. Not my fault.

It would've given the scene so much more meaning if they showed it like that, but they didn't. They also sent several elite units, special ops even... it's not like this doesn't mean anything to them. And saying they wanted field data, test results and so on is just a claim you made up as far as I can tell. Not sure if any of that has been mentioned.

Not sure why you think it's not important that the army gets through though, the empire and Kioka are at war. It's in their best interest that they succeed and deal as much damage as possible. It's actually more correct to assume the officer is there to assure that the alde-whatever-army succeeds...which is why they allow him to use important assets.