JonS Posted June 8, 2011 Share Posted June 8, 2011 I think it's unfair to accuse Ambrose of crafting Sobel's persona to fill a stereotype. We're talking about Ambrose here. I believe the accusation is more than fair. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieseltaylor Posted June 8, 2011 Share Posted June 8, 2011 Pak 40 Ambrose , the liar and plagiarist, has a lengthy thread here. You will note that despite plenty of evidence he has never altered the errors in his books. Nice guy. Never let truth interfere with a story. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=97219 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holman Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 Bumping this again. I'd really love to know more about what leader bonuses actually do. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vincere Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 It is interesting when you have a bunch of "warrior" personalities together...they can sometimes instantly "sniff out" who among them is the weak link. When I was attending Naval Aviation Officer Candidate School in the mid 1980's, we were all being trained by Marine Corps NCO's to become naval aviation officers - mostly pilot candidates, some naval flight officers (think ASW and Jammer operators) as well as naval intelligence officers and maintenance officers (me, for one.) Mind you, this is officer school, not the advanced schools we would go to after commissioning to learn our actual specialties. At the end of the course, just prior to graduation, the Marines did an interesting thing...they allowed the entire class of 30 or so to vote on the ONE member whom they lacked confidence in and the person receiving the most votes would be kicked out without obtaining the naval officer commission that he or she otherwise would have earned. Yes, we got to choose, not the Navy. In the end the class mostly voted for one gangly, geeky smart young fellow who was the class know it all but was also very accommodating and not very aggressive. He also happened to be on track to become an air intelligence officer after commissioning. But no, after this, he was kicked out and became a civilian again after 14 weeks of training for no good end. I asked some of my classmates why they had voted him out. Almost without fail it was because they felt he was not a team player and that they did not have confidence that he would have been able to stand up and tell them bad news as a potential intelligence officer and rather would have told them what he thought they wanted to hear. As pilots, their survival would eventually depend upon accurate, in your face intel about the target and opposition and not one of these guys felt that particular candidate had the guts to tell them they might die performing a particular mission. In other words, he was perceived as being too soft and not "one of us." What was said to happen to Sobel made more sense to me in the context of what I saw happen in Pensacola that year. Mind you, I'm not saying that Sobel (or the young man kicked out of my AOCS class) were weak, only that their peers perceived them to be unsuited for their military role. Those perceptions can be as damning as one's own behavior, maybe even more so. Missed the replies to this thread since posting. Yeah, I'm no expert on Ambrose so not about to debate his merits; just what I read and took what Myles had to say about the lack of bredth and depth at face value. i'd say historical record is important when a book/movie is kind of trashing his performance. gunnergoz- yes that's interesting. I don't think this type of group dynamic is limit to military. In fact I've seen it with civilians and also in female dominated groupd too. Seems like a common dynamic to overly emphasise faults with one person while a different perspective would identify faults in the wider group too. We digress- yes more on undertanding of C2 woudl be good. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoolaman Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 Bumping this again. I'd really love to know more about what leader bonuses actually do. I guess the only way we'll know is for you or someone else to do some testing. Some of the variables that I can think of: Related to "Motivation" * Ability to prevent degradation of morale. * Ability to rally already rattled troops. Related to "Experience" * Influence on combat abilities like arty strike times and accuracy. * Influence on accuracy of fire eg Tanks or ATG hits. Just as a guess I'd think that any given unit would only be influenced by their direct superior HQ ie the one that shows the C2 links icons. But then maybe a low HQ could be bumped up by a higher HQ and pass its bonus along. There are so many variables along the way that it would be very difficult and time consuming to get meaningful results I would think. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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