Suggestion about leaderless units

[denisonh]

And Grant has good enough ratings to pull such a move off without having an active Army commander. But in games turn, if such a move were to fail, Grant should drop in seniority to reflect his utter lack of regard for the chain of command.

In July of 61, the USA has no Army commanders with a Strat rating higher than a 2. I assume this is to reflect the difficulty the Union had in getting their top generals to do ANYTHING during the first 2 years of the war. However, all of the 1 and 2 star generals in July 61 have a Strat rating of 3. The way it is set up now, the Union player can bypass inactive army commanders and use their lower ranked but active generals to go on the offensive against the CSA.

That is just not how the game should play out i nthe beginning.

Thtat is exactly my point. That the Corps commander can execute IAW his judgement but will suffer more severe consequences for failure.

That is the penalty for more flexibility as subordinate commander.

[tc237]

Sir,
As a former NCO and tank platoon sergeant I understand what you are getting at (I was known to "take initiative" a little to much in my day).
Here is my view of the situation.

I assume that, in the game, an inactive Army commander equals an Army CO or staff that is in a planning phase and has not, yet, issued any orders for offensive operations to the Corps'. Meanwhile, the Corps' are operating under SOP's or orders for the routine daily training and reorganization. While also maintaining picketts and vedettes, of course.

What is your take on how they interact?

I cannot see an entire Corps moving many miles, by march, train, or ship, away from it's assigned sector, without the Army's approval.

Now, that being said, if it is allowed, how does the engine:
1)determine failure?
2)issue the "penalty"?

I just think it's not possible (I hate those words)
or Ageod doesn't have time to do it.

[denisonh]

Assuming that the Army commanders area of influence is the defined "Area of Operations", than in the absence of direct orders you can plan and execute operations. It may be as simple as informing your superiors of your plans and how they "support" thier assigned missions.

A read of Rommel's "Attacks" (required reading for any junior army officer) will inform one of the imperative execute initiative within the scope of the the higher commanders intent(and more importantantly the next higher commander's intent).

Solid leader's saddled with tentative or cautious superioirs can find a way to execute within the construct of the superiors instructions or influence thier superior to allow them to act. In most cases, the leader must be willing to assume risk and will more than likely have toa ccept consequences for his decisions. That is the essence of command.

I beleive that simply burdening subordinate leaders with talent and leadership as a matter of course because thier boss is something less so under represents the what can acually occur for talented leaders even in an environment of tentative leadership.

Given the communication delay of the day, it is not an unlikely scenario.

[pasternakski]

Solid leader's saddled with tentative or cautious superioirs can find a way to execute within the construct of the superiors instructions or influence thier superior to allow them to act. In most cases, the leader must be willing to assume risk and will more than likely have toa ccept consequences for his decisions. That is the essence of command.

Yah. Just look at the Duke in "In Harm's Way."

There was a similar discussion over in the BoA forum that seems to have gone dormant. I'm gonna rummage through that stuff for ideas and to see if there was any resolution.

[caranorn]

I'd like to go back to the Fort Donelson, Fort Henry example. There seems to be some confusion on this issue here. Assuming the orders indeed were as given here, then grant indeed went beyond those orders. Forts Henry and Donelson are separate entities, the first was almost undefendable (flooded iirc) and had a minimal garrison (a weak brigade and a few guns). Fort Donelson on the other hand contained the largest concentration of Confederate forces in the West, was decently built and down a bad road from Henry. So by moving to besiege Donelson Grant indeed went beyond his orders, had he failed he would probably have been reprimanded as others already explained, with the historic success it was probably the stepping stone for his career. The fact that Halleck was for game purpouses inactive did not hamper Grant in the execution of his independant move.

One little bit of the ongoing discussion I'd agree with. Give no positive modifier to the Strategic and Offensive ratings on a Corps Commander whose superior Army commander is inactive. That is no specific malus, but rather the absence of two of the possible three positive modifiers. It would then be up to debate whether possible negative modifiers (-1/2 to the Strategic rating) should apply or whether these should also be reduced to zero (so a positive modifier for non activated Army Leader).

[Dan]

I think the scope of this game has to be considered when talking about this issue. We are not talking about a subordinate general making a tactical decision on his own during a battle that contradicts the Army commander. This is not Sickles moving his Corps forward at Gettysburg or even AP Hill/Heth sending a force into Gettysburg in an offensive stance even though Lee wanted the army to be on the defensive. Inactive in this game is for 15 days, not one or two. There is more to being inactive than being drunk in your tent during a battle (tactical level). Inactive here means the Army commander either does not WANT to enter that hostile region/go on the offensive (does not issue the orders) or is UNABLE to do so (lacks the nerves to pull the trigger on the death of thousands of his own men.)

The scope in the game is McClellan sitting on 120,000+ men outside of Washington (or Richmond for that matter) and refusing to attack Lee only to see Hooker and/or Reynolds and/or Meade take their Corps and launch an offensive campaign against Lee many miles away without his orders. This type of thing did not happen (and should not) during the Civil War. There is a reason why very good Union leaders wasted away under very bad Union Army leaders during the first part of the war. They had to follow orders and if McClellan or whoever it was that happened to be in charge did not want to put his Army on the offensive, the army did not go on the offensive.

The way the command works in the game, the player is not really hampered by the bad Army commanders. I'm just suggesting that perhaps the ability of players to use parts of an inactive Army as independent commands to achieve Army goals is unrealistic and penalties should be put in place to limit this type of activity. There should still be the ability for limited action by an inactive army so the player does not find himself unable to respond to a critical situation (like leaving a major city or supply source unguarded/undermanned), but the penalty should be severe enough to make the player try to avoid such situations before they happen.

[runyan99]

Good point.