Mass Combat battle strategy: Destroy enemy element!

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by Skarg

I have a hard time seeing how there could be a generic rule for it. As I wrote before, I think the difficulty and effects would depend way too much on the specifics.

"Concentrate fire on that super star destoyer!" - "Ok, there it is, let's aim and fire."

"Concentrate on killing the enemy king and his generals!" - "Um... ok, where are they? In their rear somewhere? What about the 6,000 footmen between us and them?"

1941: "Concentrate on the enemy tanks!" - "The few anti-tank weapons we have will, and if we ever get close enough, we may try some grenades, but otherwise, most of us just have rifles and machineguns, which can't really do anything to their tanks, and they have lots of infantry too, so surely you can't mean we fire bullets at their tanks, right?"

Well, at Cunuxa, Cyrus the younger tried to decapitate the command and control of the opponent. He failed.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Other problems: this might make it too easy to try and "decapitate" other PC forces by attempting to Destroy Specific Element the enemy C3I elements.

This is an entirely valid tactic - it's just not that easy. AFAIK it was performed successfully against the Iraqi Army during Desert Storm, which did a lot to precipitate their rout, but that was achieved with a significant tech advantage.
The penalties, as already noted, should be severe.