"Top 5 Qualities of a Bad Battlefield Commander?" Topic

What makes a bad general bad?

Wow ! Where do you start !?

drunkenness?

1) Lack of resolve
2) Sloth
3) Hubris
4) The drunk thing doesn't help either

- Paralysis or indecision when facing an opponent.
- Give battle when conditions seem unfavourable.
- Lack of proper communication with subaltern officers.
- Muddled thinking and unclear orders
- Doesn't want to take a calculated risk at the right time.
- Takes a calculated risk at the wrong time.
- Starting to believe your own hype
- Despise those above you, be nasty to those below you.
- Only tolerate yes-men around you.
- Delude yourself the enemy has a 10-1 or greater advantage.
- When in doubt don't charge.
- Ignore logistics.
- Remain cold and distant to your men.
- Try to micro-manage at every possible level.
- Get promoted beyond your ability.
- Inability to read terrain features.
- Never plan for the unexpected.
- Assume that the enemy will keep on making the same mistake forever.
- Look for personal glory instead of winning the war/battle
- Ignore where the elements of your army are going.
- Insist on feeding troops piecemeal into the battle.
- Try to use the same tactics as your personal hero, if it worked a thousand years or two ago, it's good enough today.
- Forget your dice and tape at home.
- Use unpainted figures
- Always buy only one side and don't check if other players have armies to match.
- Forget to move the screen to see what's happening outside your field of view.
- Always believe the other players when you notice their setup looks like a bad idea and they tell you it's perfectly fine.
- If something goes wrong, try again, must be a glitch. If it keeps going wrong, keep trying it definitely is a string of glitches.
- Assume you know your commander's orders better than they do.
- Always correct an enemy when he's making a mistake.
- If you do fail, make sure there are lots of aggravating circumstances to make sure you end up in the annals of hell.
- Blame everybody but yourself.
- If you have colleagues of equal level, they are now the main enemy to focus all your energy upon.
- Set up a potential rival to fail, if they succeed against all odds blame them anyway.
- Never ignore an opportunity to shoot/charge at your own men.
- If you find yourself in a good, easily defended position, move to the nearest spot of exposed ground.
- Even if victory is handed to you on a platter, smack it rudely away.

Blindly believing the enemy will conform to the plan.

Hooker had a great plan at Chancellorsville. Then he froze.
Having a decent opponent who can predict what you will do next doesn't help.

Burnsides also had a great plan at Fredericksburg. Then the pontoons were 2 weeks late and he was too stubborn to go to Plan B.

Gates at Camden. So much wrongness there…

The Landgrave of Hess Cassel convened a Court of Inquiry to determine what went wrong at Trenton. They ended up blaming all the dead officers. At the very least, try not to get killed so you won't get the blame.
I wonder how History would judge Wellington had he been killed early at Waterloo. He had no real plan but did react well.

Indecision, vague orders and an unwillingness to go all in.

And Winston's right: historically, a huge percentage of mistakes are made by people who are dead before they can write their memoirs. (This is also true of atrocities, by the way: give an order for a serious atrocity, and I can almost guarantee you'll be dead before the court convenes.)

Bad dice rolls?

Not holding the initiative and having to react to his opponents moves

All good choices.

- Always correct an enemy when he's making a mistake.

But if you are playing a friendly club game against someone who either isn't familiar with the rules or the period (or both), then helping him by pointing out gross errors is good sportsmanship.

However if he knows the rules and the period, then we always choose "don't interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake."

Jim

#1) Being me.

2. Doing what I would do.
3. Not doing what I wouldn't do.
4. Asking me for advice.
5. Forgetting to ask for tactical compensation in the game when forced to "pick" me last for their side.

drunkenness?

Well Grant was a drunk and he was the man Lincoln was looking. And he did the job …

Legion 4, I'd have to disagree. Grant drank, certainly, and sometimes to excess. But he never seems to have been drunk when he had a campaign to plan or a battle to fight.

I knew an officer like that once. He was just flat brilliant as long as you gave him something to do. If he got bored, he headed for the O Club. There's no shortage of "combat drunkenness" if you will, in the 18th and 19th Century US armies, but Grant's not an example.

Yes, you are correct, he didn't drink in combat, etc., per se … But he did drink when he was bored, etc., in between. IIRC, Lincoln even had an civilian "advisor" with Grant in some cases, behind the lines, away from the action. To "guide" him a bit, away from the "bottle" . As needed …

And no doubt he was a brilliant combat commander … and very much sober when needed, when it counted, etc., …

Yes, I know as an officer, I and many other's used to go to the O'Club, etc., and drink a "few". Sometimes to excess … But of course none that I remember were as "brilliant" as Grant, Sherman, etc.,

"Grant stood by me when I was crazy. I'll stand by him when he's drunk."
—-Sherman

I'll drink to that !

Albeit many thought Sherman was crazy !

Crazy is not a qualifier for a bad commander, but maybe helpful for a good one.

bad commander?

#1 indecisiveness
#2 lack of grit
#3 jealousy / put himself before his men and mission
#4 lack of field experience

Good commander
#1 commits to his mission
#2 commits to his men
#3 decisive and trained
#4 field experience
I'd add "think out of the box" but that is not all that mandatory IMHO, super good to have though

You don't need a thousand criteria. Just these should suffice to separate the good from the bad.

#1 Losing!