Why are generals important? What happens when in war, a general is killed?
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It depends on the military/nation. But in general (hahaha), they are the strategic leaders of the military organization. They don’t (or shouldn’t) dictate tactics, but will develop the overall strategy for the war. Such as how forces may be split, what priority targets are, and how the efforts of the war will go. In reference to large force units, not single platoons, fire teams, or smaller units. Lower level commanders develop the plans for how to accomplish those strategies, some of which may also be generals. In the U.S. there are multiple flag officer ranks (flag officers are generals/admirals).
A general being killed can result in little to no effect on the war/military to a complete breakdown of that particular campaign or battle. Again, it depends on the military. Some are designed with the lower ranks trained and expected to follow the orders given to them and nothing else. So the loss of leadership leaves effectively without a head and unsure of what to do. Others develop adaptive chains of commands that are trained and expected to continue the mission and make decisions for themselves when a loss of leadership occurs. Losing a general in this situation will have some detrimental impact on that units operations, but potentially minimal to unnoticeable.
Generals make decisions in the army. An army without generals is just a bunch of people with guns standing around doing nothing. Could the individual soldiers decide to attack on their own? Sure, but they would probably be attacking alone, which is a bad idea. A general will issue orders and, ideally, ensure that forces are organized and cooperating so that the attack will succeed.
If you kill a general, the army won’t be as effective. There are generally other people who can step up to command in these cases. However, they’re probably not as familiar with the situation as the general is, so they will need some time to pick up the pieces and determine the best course of action. And, since it’s a different person, they may have different priorities, goals, or perspectives, so their plan of action may differ from the previous general. Having those orders trickle down to the individual soldiers will take time, during which the enemy will be more effective.
Generals are typically people who have gone to Military Academy for years and have earned equivalent of masters or doctorate in military strategy. And then afterwards have a long career as a high ranking military officer gaining experience and pioneering new strategies before they get promoted to the rank of general. These are people who have studies and practiced military strategy all they lives and likely faced tactical and logistical problems in war and performed well in those scenarios. When a general retires, is fired or dies their role is taken over by someone more junior without as much experience and who often take longer to make a decision and might not make the best decision.
There is also an immediate effect of losing a general in war. The entire army structure is based on orders from trusted superiors. And if a superior like a general is killed and maybe several of their immediate staff it is going to cause a bit of confusion about who is in charge and what the orders are. In theory all officers have a lieutenant (next in command) with them at all time who they share all information with who can take over command immediately if needed. But this is not always very practical. For example it may be some confusion about if they have been put in charge and have been kept up to date. And even generals have commanders in the form of superior commanders who might take direct command going past the new commander which could cause duplicate orders from different commanders or even contradictory orders being issued. It can cause some confusion which takes a bit of time to clear up.
They are like mathematicians for the pew-pew.
They study a lot, do experiments by using own troops to simulate actions. They make theories and plans.
When war comes, a good general can do 2+2 and see an opportunity, they can see the enemy moves and come up with a trap or counter to them.
Example: WW2 Yamashita set up the Japanese army to go very fast in jungle terrain, engaged the British on the coast while a second section would go super fast in the jungle, go around the entire British line using terrains the other generals considered “unusable” and hit the rear of the British, cutting all the supplies and forcing them to surrender. It worked so well he was able to repeat it few times and the British couldn’t find a counter to that, as they never planned so never prepared to counter such move. Even understanding the move, they didn’t have the training or tested tactics to deploy; they did improvise but, the enemy was simply more prepared than them for that territory.
Seems simple, but there’s a lot of math to make it work, takes years to invent and train a battalion that can go in the jungle and still carry some sort of artillery, supplies, etc. Then you have to do tests to see if it practically work or if it works only on paper, then you have to drill until every soldiers knows what to do by memory.
Imagine if a general does all of that preparation for the wrong scenario. That’s 5-10 years of wasted resources, plus now you have a weaker army.
One good general can outplay another general and win a war by himself.
A bad decision can lose a war in an afternoon.
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