Generally, it is the place of a GOOD commanding officer to (a) have
a reasonable idea of the difficulty of most tasks (b) trust his men
when they tell him otherwise... it is the responsibility of command
to keep the personnel under pressure but not demand impossibilities
(sorry, Captain Kirk, We can't all be Scotties). It is and should be
the responsibility of the underling to point out such inconsistencies
and he should be allowed to do so without fear of reprisal. This is
rarely the case in the American military, which is why discipline is
such a mess in many units, or in American business (Except, interestingly,
in most Fortune 500 companies. I wonder why?). The Japanese attitude that
one cannot admit failure produces strong results, and a lot of suicides
and drinking deaths. Make of that what you will. (This may or may not be
a subliminal message to the PBEM ref |-> )
metlay