Re: Leading from the front, reprise

On Mon, 28 May 2001, "Thomas Barclay" wrote:

> In WW2 and (as you point out) 
> other wars, people of high rank did motivate 
> (transfer command, but a lot of times it was 
> "with me!") troops to get into a fight. There is 
> a time and place for your COs to step up to 
> the mike. I find the SG2 rules promote the Lt 
> sitting in the far corner of the board using 
> his radio all day instead of staying with his 
> troops (seen it done many times). Keeps 
> him safe and he can still do his job.... <ick!>

Okay, I do agree with you there. I had to change things a bit for my SG2
ACW rules, because of that. There is no way you can move and transfer
actions in SG2. Since transferring actions is so critical, you're hard
pressed to give a command element anything to do but to sit back and
transfer actions.

I'm not sure how you'd "fix" this...

> --> He wasn't the guy saying "They're a mile 
> away! No one can hit from.... 
> <Bang>...<Thump>"..... I seem to recall 
> some general discovering the enemy had a 
> new rifle....

Union Major General John Sedgwick, Corps commander at the Battle of
Spotsylvania, said, "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..." as
his last words. Shelby Foote describes it as something like, "They
couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." Men chuckle around him.
"What was that, general?" He repeats. "They couldn't hit an elephant at
this dist..." He was hit by a sharpshooter. I've seen sharpshooter
rifles at Gettysburg. They were huge, and capable of taking out a target
at 800 yards. I looked at the scope they used, and figured it was
similar to the 400mm lens that I had with me. Yes, it would be feasible
(if difficult) to hit a target on Little Round Top from Devil's Den
(General's Weed and Vincent died this way, Weed hit in the head bending
over to listen to Vincent as he lay, dying, on the ground).
 
> --> This is one major reason. I _really_ don't 
> think you should sell short the morale effects 
> of leading from the front at platoon level 
> though. When officers are seen to not be 
> putting it on the line, often their troops 
> perform in a very unmotivated fashion. 

Most of what I have seen suggests that leaders first over the wall were
some of the first to get shot, which had a bad effect on morale. If they
were in the area where the fighting was going on, they had a good
effect. In charges, leading from the front had a good effect... as long
as they weren't killed doing it. 

Modern training does not put the officers out of harm's way, but teaches
them not to take stupid risks. I think that's what I'm getting at. If a
leader jumped to lead from the front of a charge every chance he got, he
wouldn't be around for long.

> 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. 
> 
> --> A training issue perhaps? 

Nope. These were amongst some of the most highly trained men ever
assembled for a specific mission. It was due to the situation not being
what they expected. Command cohesion broke down, and the troops just sat
around until someone told them what to do. It was due to confusion,
fear, and a lack of information. When someone gave them a job, though,
they did it. The fear didn't go away, but often just moving into a
better position (even if it meant coming under fire) was better than
sitting on the beach, waiting for a random shell.
 
> It also prevents you giving bad 
> orders because your whizzo tech mapboard 
> doesn't show the gully the ESU are using for 
> cover and you figure you've got them cold. 

I think that's a level of detail that SG2 doesn't cover, to the same
extent that I disagree with modelling fireteams in SG2 because I think
it's one step down in detail that isn't covered by the rules.

Allan Goodall - agoodall@canada.com
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