[Rupert]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Let's put the samurai to the side and compare two equivalent companies of contemporary infantry (the largest group you can reasonably influence with Tactics at TL8, as you can use it through one intermediary).

You won't be running a modern company through only one intermediary, because that means the platoon commander is giving individual orders to 30-40 people, and will rapidly lose control of them, and lose situational awareness as they overload trying to track and manage so many people spread out over a large area.

A platoon is a more reasonable unit - the Platoon Officer Commanding orders around squad leader/section commanders, and they order round their men. Even then it's a bit marginal, as squads/sections tend to be split into fire-teams or groups that are ordered as units to ease the workload of the leader/commander, who has the most soldiers directly subordinate to them of any position in the army (and who is a junior NCO or junior Sergeant with only a few years experience).

So we're looking at the Platoon OC, usually a Lieutenant's slot, as being the master tactician's place, commanding about 35 people.

Imagine the impact of one company led by a junior CO with Tactics-12 against one company led by a senior NCO with Tactics-24 (we will assume the captain of the second company understands well enough that his or her job is to push paperwork while their senior NCO gets the job done). What difference could we expect in performance when they are facing each other in combat (either combat exercises or real combat)?

Much as I admire senior NCOs, and god-like as Sergeant-Majors are, it's really their job to make sure that the CO's orders are carried out in a professional and skilled manner, not for them to be formulating plans, and by the time someone gets to be a CSM they'll have spent years doing admin, training, and managing day-to-day discipline, not commanding units. The more like master tactician, in my opinion, would be some old captian, frozen in rank for some reason and shunted off to be the senior platoon commander some place. The other option is simply that they're a 1st lieutenant and a tactical genius.