Lt. Dike and Bad Leaders

[Runyan99]

The bewildered Lt. Dike from Band of Brothers this week reminded me of the recent thread suggesting bad leaders for the CM series games. Lt Dike was a perfect example. He did not merely give no bonuses to his platoon, he obviously gave them negative bonuses (in CM terms) for Combat and Morale.

This occurred in an elite unit full of combat veterans. Imagine how many other bad leaders were floating around the ETO in less experienced units! Imagine how many clueless and/or misguided lieutenants and commisars were leading men on the East Front!

As for those who say that bad leaders would not be used in CM, I refer back to the BoB episode. They knew Lt. Dike was ineffective, but they HAD to use him, because it was his platoon, and there was no one else to command the platoon. The battalion CO, (Winters) could have taken over the platoon, and he almost did, and that is an option that CM players would have too. However, using higher echelon leaders in this way is still something of a handicap, and seems very realistic, in any event.

So, let's see some crappy leaders in CMBB.

[gunnergoz]

The only good thing about bad lieutenants is how short their lifespan was on the battlefield...unfortunately it was a bit longer than the better variety of LT who stuck his neck out for his troops, but short nonetheless. It seems the best LT's were the battlefield promotee types and once the war was underway, the Germans used them almost to the exclusion of any other commissioning source, IIRC.