Re: [SG2] leader loss

On Sat, 26 May 2001 14:02:46 -0400, "Thomas Barclay"
<kaladorn@fox.nstn.ca>
wrote:

>I have to, OTOH, disagree entirely with Allan's 
>comment about NOT leading from the front. 

Well, I didn't mean "out of harm's way" sense. I meant in the "don't do
a
charge into close combat with your company commander, thinking he's your
best
soldier" sense. I was trying to show the problems with using your
commander in
a GW way. 

>This applies particularly at the platoon 
>and company level, but even at the regimental 
>level. 

And higher. This isn't restricted to WW2. Remember how "Stonewall"
Jackson was
mortally wounded...

>Men will follow officers 
>who take the risks and who demonstrate they 
>won't ask anyone to do what they would not 
>do. And it helps get a stalled unit moving again, 
>even if the officer is injured or killed. This is one 
>of the reasons the Aliens CMC model of the Lt. 
>back in the APC wouldn't be too likely. 

Except that the main reason leaders lead from the front is to get a
better
tactical feel for the terrain and relative troop positions. Reading
Ambrose's
"D-Day", it's interesting to see that pinned troops were often pinned
not out
of intense fear, but out of fear mixed with not knowing what to do. The
troops
started moving on Omaha beach mostly because everyone from Sergeants up
to
Generals started giving them orders. Transfer of actions, in a SG2
sense, if
you will. 

But as I said, the point of my "not lead from the front" comment wasn't
in the
sense that troops don't or shouldn't do it. It's in the sense that I
like to
show the problems with doing it in a game sense (versus those games that
encourage it to the point of silliness).

Allan Goodall		       awg@sympatico.ca
Goodall's Grotto:  http://www.vex.net/~agoodall

"Now, see, if you combine different colours of light,
 you get white! Try that with Play-Doh and you get
 brown! How come?" - Alan Moore & Kevin Nolan,