[mikwarleo]

NB. This is written for those who have a good general understanding of the game and how rank works. If you need to school up read the game manual and the GJS Strategy Guide.

Guide: Replacing your company commander (after he dies)

What's the purpose of this guide?

It seems from people I speak with that most don't know you can replace your company commander after he dies. This is obviously an advantage (however slight) for those of us in the know. So far as I know this isn’t explained anywhere else. It takes a bit of explaining but it's simple ...


What is a company commander?

As you'd expect, the company commander is your highest ranking soldier. When your BG is fresh the leader of first platoon will always be the company commander. The company commander can have a 'game rank' of 7 or 8 whereas platoon leaders go up to rank 6 and normal units max out at rank 5.

Any leader unit can have the ‘company commander’ but you can only have one company commander deployed at any time.

You can identify the company commander by their rank insignia. To see what I mean go to the force selection screen with a fresh BG. Select leader of first platoon and hit the ‘soldier’ bottom. Below is a list of rank insignia for commanders, if you use rank mod this is rank 7 or 8 respectively:

German: 1 or 2 gold 'pips'
English: 2 or 3 gold 'pips'
American: 1 or 2 silver bars


What happens with leadership when the company commander dies?

When the company commander dies the game appears to assign command of the company to another unit from the battle. This is what you would expect but the problems are: this process is automatic, hidden, command is not assigned according to rank and at the next selection round you cannot assign a new company commander until the hidden command unit is sent back to the force pool.

You want to deploy a new company commander if the old one dies because you can't identify the hidden commander in battle and you wont have the advantages that a proper company commander provides.


How to identify and replace a hidden, low rank company commander?

If your commander has been killed, you could return all units to the force pool and deploy a new command unit. The commander of this unit will be a new company commander (rank 7/8). But if you go this way you’ll be returning a lot of veteran units that you'd probably prefer to keep.

Instead you can identify the hidden commander by a process of elimination. Send a few units back to the force pool, then deploy a new command unit. If that command unit is led by a company commander (rank 7/8) you know one of the units you just sent to force pool had the hidden commander.  If not, send a few more units back to the force pool and try again. Note that the hidden commander will only be in a unit that survived the previous battle. Once you’ve narrowed it down hit the REVERT button, repeat the process sending back one unit at a time from your short list until you identify the specific unit with the hidden commander.  Once you've located the hidden commander, hit REVERT again. Then send back just the hidden commander's unit and bring in your new company commander. I suggest you do this at the start of force selection before selecting other units. Once you've got your company commander you can continue your force selection like normal.


Why is a company commander important?

I’m not really sure how much benefit your company commander provides over and above that of a platoon leader however in my observations I'd say they are slightly better all round and the company commander has a larger command radius.

Tactically the dilemma is that you want your commander where things are toughest to achieve maximum benefit but this also puts him closest to danger. While you now know your commander can be replaced if he dies your troops in that battle will be affected for the duration of the battle. As you would expect, this applies not just to troops in his command radius through the loss of bonuses, but the entire force will take a morale and performance hit if the commander dies.


Other points to consider:

In game some units are listed in the force pool as 'company leaders' and others 'platoon leaders'. This has no bearing on their command ability; any command unit can have either a company commander or a platoon leader.

A platoon leader is the leader of any command unit that is not the company commander. Platoon leaders can have three different ranks, the highest of which (rank 6) is higher than the best rank ‘normal’ unit leaders can achieve (which is rank 5). The rank insignia for ranks 6, 5, 4 are, respectively:
German: Silver Bar, two silver pips, one silver pip
English: One gold pip, oval patch, 3 chevrons with dot
American: One gold bar, 3chevrons up 3 arch down, 3 chevrons up 1 arch down

After a battle the game can sometimes move veteran units to different slots in the selection screen. If your commander survives he might not be in the same slot at the selection screen. I'm not sure why the game does this, seems to be a bug but to easily identify the commander here and on the battlefield it's best to rename his unit.

Where possible my commander is located in a command tank. Crews of all ‘tank leader’ tanks are still mobile after the tank is knocked out (unlike normal crews which are stationary after their vehicle/gun is destroyed). The commander will still disappear after battle if his tank is destroyed as is normal for crews.

The company commander is an individual soldier in a command unit. If he is killed but his unit survives the battle he might not be replaced with a platoon leader instead of a company commander. You might miss that he died in battle so it's a good idea to be in the habit of checking your commander's unit during force selection.

Please comment if you got something out of the guide or have questions.

[chessmaster]

yeah thanks for explaing me 2 mike very usefull

[McHara]

I've made a list of the icons of the unit ranks in CC5 default game. I dont use any rank mod and I think this could be useful for people like me. Thank you for posting this info about the section leader, i didn't knew that before reading it. Now i'll improve my strategy in order to keep my officers alive and earning medals.