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alt title(s): The Niedermeyer "You're all worthless and weak!!"
(complete deadpan) "You're all fired. Every fat, useless one of you."
A commanding officer with a complete lack of respect between himself and the troops. Because of his demonstrated incompetence, cowardice, willingness to sacrifice them for his own glory, or just being a psychotic level hard-ass, his authority is resented by the men in the trenches, and his orders are only obeyed because of chain-of-command.
In more upbeat war shows, he's usually forced to learn An Aesop about his awful command style and adjust his behavior in a way that either changes him into a likable officer or results in his resignation, demotion, or transfer to a more suitable post.
In more dystopian war movies there will be no escape from the petty and obnoxious brute, and the men simply grouse and wait for the day someone on the opposing side will get lucky and catch him in the crosshairs. The troops might even conspire to frag him if they get tired of waiting for the enemy to do the job.
If he is too tough to frag, though, the (un)lucky survivor of his tirades will become either a Yes Man with no more backbone than he started off with a sense of "loyalty" to him, or The Dragon who seeks to become his successor when he dies/moves on. In a best case scenario, the successor may show much competence and merely view the man as a Cynical Mentor or Drill Sergeant Nasty, but not always. In this case, the other troops will remain as spiteful as ever, but find that the converted will easily take care of any sort of mutiny they try to pull off.
Named after blowhard ROTC commander Doug Neidermeyer from the movie Animal House. In the end credits, it's revealed that he ended up being shot by his own troops in Vietnam. In the John Landis-directed segment of The Twilight Zone movie, we even meet the soldiers who shot him.
The Drill Sergeant Nasty is a Neidermeyer — or just acts like one — with the purpose of turning recruits into soldiers. A Sergeant Rock acts like the Neidermeyer but is nonetheless held in high regard because he wouldn't put his men through anything he isn't going through himself. The polar opposite of this trope is A Father To His Men. In many cases, a General Failure is basically a Neidermeyer with greater rank and thus even more scope for causing damage.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Brigadier General Fessler from the Fullmetal Alchemist manga might have set a record in shortest time between showing up and being offed by his own troops. In his few pages of life, his only plan of attack in a guerrilla war is to charge, he only thinks of glory for himself, and when the enemy attempts to surrender he refuses, at which point Colonel Basque Gran had had enough and shot him at point blank range. Maes Hughes then deems the shot a stray bullet, at which point everyone agrees (please note that no planning was involved).
- Archer in the first anime fits the trope pretty well too. Incidentally, the anime version of Gran isn't exactly the most lovable commander himself.
- Ax Hand Morgan from One Piece. Gives Luffy an extra reason to kick some ass.
- Also, Spandam can be considered one.
- Miwa Sakimori from Daimos is this, and a General Ripper. He mostly hides behind his soldiers, or Daimos itself from danger. And when opportunity presents, he'll show his extreme racism tendencies by shooting actually harmless Brahmins. And all that's in his mind is... well, you guessed it, promotions.
Comic Books
- In the Elseworlds mini-series Generations by John Byrne, Superman's powerless son Joel Kent becomes this sort of officer and is shot by his own men in Vietnam.
- Perhaps not surprisingly, an issue of Garth Ennis's Preacher features two examples of these. One is an incompetent lieutenant who gets a Viet Cong bullet when he's dumb enough to wear his officer's stripes while on patrol, and the other is a Jerk Ass sergeant who Jesse's father and Spaceman kill after he gets one of their friends killed.
Film
- Lt Marty Pascal, the executive officer of the submarine Stingray in the movie Down Periscope.
- In Full Metal Jacket, Private "Gomer Pyle" blows away Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, who had driven him into a psychotic breakdown.
- Captain Stillman from Stripes.
- Lieutenant Pavlov Dill in Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation was one of these, though he's more incompetent than mean.
- Lieutenant Colonel Owen Thursday in Fort Apache (modeled on the real-life George Armstrong Custer) is an arrogant martinet to his own men; out of class snobbishness, obstructs the path of True Love between his daughter and a young lieutenant because the latter is the son of an Irish noncom; sees war as a path to personal glory; provokes a conflict with the Apaches that better diplomacy could have avoided; and, worst of all, gets most of his regiment slaughtered through tactical incompetence and stubborn refusal to listen to Captain York, who knows the Apaches much better. For all of that, York credits him with improving the quality of the regiment through his strict discipline.
- Corporal Himmelstoss from All Quiet On The Western Front. He bullied the squad the movie focused on, and was relocated to WW 1's frontlines after "nearly killing a squad of rookies on the muddy field". He doesn't learn any Aesops, though - he just dies.
- In The Dirty Dozen, Wladislaw is in prison awaiting execution for shooting his commanding officer, who, according to Wladislaw, was absconding over the hill with all of his unit's medical supplies.
- Ummm, how about the Trope Namer? Douglas C. Neidermeyer from Animal House (and assorted Twisted Sister clips).
- Lt. Gorman in Aliens almost certainly qualifies for this, due to his relative inexperience and the lack of respect from his troops.
Literature
- General Lord Ronald Rust from the Discworld novels doesn't actually get shot by his own men in Jingo, but his overbearing superiority and tactical incompetence make it very tempting. As a captain in Night Watch, he is knocked him unconscious by his own men when he orders them to fire on civilians.
- Corporal Strappi from Monstrous Regiment.
- While not in a military organization, Sergeant Fred Colon quickly becomes this after being promoted to Acting Captain in The Fifth Elephant. By the time Carrot returns to resume authority, Colon has fired or driven off all members of the Watch, with only a handful hanging around informally enforcing the law.
- The Sharpe books were full of these. Some of them learned their lesson (kind of), some of them just ceased to be Sharpe's problem, and some were mercilessly bayoneted by their own troops.
- Sharpe himself was The Neidermeyer for a while, after he first became an officer. And yes, his men did attempt to kill him. Luckily for him, that's easier said than done.
- Captain Styles of the USS Excelsior is this in the Novelization of Star Trek III. We don't see very much of him in the movie, but the characterization is plausible from what we do see.
- General George Armstrong Custer in Harry Turtledove's World War I Alternate History trilogy The Great War is like this. Although he lacks the "You're all worthless and weak!!" part, he is still more then willing to send the unfortunate men under his command into needlessly costly and bloody offensives that end up gaining little. He constantly tries to seek glory wherever he can and also is more then willing to hog it all and push all the blame on others when something fails. However, by the end of the trilogy, he later proves to be a competent officer when he disobeys the US general Staff's orders on not using tanks in a concentrated formation. This leads to the US occupying Kentucky and later forces the Confederate States to surrender once other officers begin copying it.
- Lieutnant Lammio in Väinö Linna's Unknown Soldier. Surprisingly, he survives the war.
- Generation Kill has several: Captain America, Encino Man ("Echo Mike"), and even though he's an NCO, "Casey Kasem." (After the events of Generation Kill however, Kasem proved to be more akin to Sergeant Rock as a platoon sergeant when it came to combat.)
- Captain Fisher, a.k.a. "Billy Liar", in Kim Newman's Alternate History novella Teddy Bear's Picnic. He gets fragged by his own troops using a white phosphorus grenade; a practice know as "white saucing." For the record, white phosphorous grenades are basically thermite, they burn at 5000 degrees
 or so. Not something you want on your ''flesh''.
- Captain Queeg of Herman Wouk's Caine Mutiny and the movie and play (The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial) based on it.
- Captain Morton in Mr Roberts by James Heggen. Played in the 1955 movie by James Cagney, he is a tyrant, but the whole situation is mostly played for laughs.
- Averted in The War Against The Chtorr ("A Matter for Men"). The hero Jim McCarthy, having just been made an officer after killing a rampaging Chtorran; tries to bully Dr Fletcher out of some Chtorran specimans. First she takes him down a peg by showing McCarthy that the Chtorran he 'killed' is still very much alive. Then she points out that everyone wants to look up to their superiors, so an officer's job is to inspire people, not boss them about. She finishes by congratulating McCarthy on his shooting, and asks him to bring flowers next time. McCarthy is highly embarrassed, but learns from the experience. In "A Season for Slaughter" however, when pushed too far by incompetent Major Bellus, McCarthy doesn't educate this Neidermeyer, he demolishes him. On worldwide live television.
- Pretty much everybody in a position of authority in Catch-22 falls under this.
- Except perhaps Major —- De Coverley, he's more of a Memetic Badass with an awe-inspiring reputation and fearsome appearance, but no real authority beyond renting apartments. Of course, like anyone who's not a complete bastard, he dies or disappears.
- And Major Major, who really just wants to be left alone.
- Imperial captain Joak Drysso, in command of the Super Star Destroyer "Lusankya" in the X Wing Series. Near the end, with his ship damaged and obviously beyond hope of winning the battle, he refuses an offer for surrender and orders the engines to full power, with the intention of ramming the planet and dying with his ship and crew in a blaze of glory. He is promptly shot by a subordinate, who then acts as captain and accepts the offer to surrender.
- With the exception of the Paran siblings (Ganoes and Tavore), every single noble-born military officer in the Malazan Book Of The Fallen series. Every one.
- The Honor Harrington series is overflowing with these, including:
- Pavel Young, and every one of his friends and/or relatives.
- Pretty much any senior officer appointed by the High Ridge government.
- Most of the "People's Commissioners" in the People's Republic of Haven's navy.
- One could argue Honor herself was at the beginning of On Basilsk Station. Though assigned to a backwater through no fault of her own, most of the crew blamed their exile on some unseen incompetence on her part.
- Every Orc officer in all versions of The Lord Of The Rings.
Live Action TV
- Major Frank Burns, from M*A*S*H - especially notably because he isn't an Enlisted Personnel.
- M*A*S*H also had several Foe of the Week commanders who either learned a lesson or were otherwise removed from command by the doctors.
- When Major Burns left the series (due to having a psychological breakdown caused by the marriage of Major Houlihan- which led to him causing havoc in Tokyo while in Rn R), the Army, in its infinite wisdom, promoted him to Lieutenant Colonel and gave him a cushy job in a stateside Veteran's Hospital... which is extra disconcerting given that Major Burns was always made out to be as incompetent doctor. Is there a trope about that? Either of those?
- [[Kicked Upstairs]]
- Colonel Crittendon on Hogan's Heroes is one of these. The Heroes' plans to murder him weren't entirely sarcastic.
- General Melchett from Blackadder Goes Forth. Melchett is distraught by the death of his pigeon "Speckled Jim", yet blissfully uncaring about the fifty thousand men a week dying in the trenches. His bizarre tactics that help expedite the latter include "doing precisely what we've done eighteen times before" and "climbing out of [the] trenches and walking very slowly towards the enemy". Sadly, both are to some extent Truth In Television.
- Band Of Brothers had two real-life examples in Captain Herbert M. Sobel, and Lieutenant Norman Dike. Sobel is portrayed as a petty tyrant whose harsh training earned him resentment from the men under his command. However, it was the catastrophic incompetence he showed in combat exercises that caused a number of his NCO's to flat out refuse to serve under his command. Although his behavior sparked a literal mutiny, some soldiers later admitted that his training methods had been effective in a round-about way. Lt. Norman Dike is given command of Easy Company during the war. It is implied that he got his position due to his pedigree and family connections, but is himself an "empty uniform" who can only feign competence. As Lipton put it; Dike wasn't a bad leader because he made bad decisions. He was a bad leader because he made no decisions. In the series, the only thing that holds the unit together is Sergeant Lipton's tireless efforts to maintain morale. After breaking down during an assault, Dike is immediately replaced with the vastly more competent Ronald Speirs.
- And when Dike genuinely tries to give orders... he gets two men killed.
- And before that, he told the whole company to stop in the open, and later stretched them far without getting anywhere.
- In the Babylon 5 movie "In the Beginning," General Lefcourt approached then-commander John Sheridan to be the first officer to Captain Michael Jankowski. Sheridan refused, stating that Jankowski was a loose cannon and referenced how so many of his peers thought Jankowski an incompetent risk taker. In a twist, it is revealed that Hague knew this all along and wanted Sheridan to take the job since he needs someone competent to keep Jankowski in line. Then Jankowski started a war with the Minbari over his pride and stupidity, and we know how badly that went. Though to be fair, the Minbari captain was equally pigheaded, even going so far as to disobey a direct order from his government's leader, Dukhat to not take an aggressive stance.
- At least the Minbari had the excuse of following an age-old tradition of keeping their weapons out in the open, instead of hiding them behind their backs, so to speak. The humans in turn interpreted the show of power as an intention to use it. This, coupled with the Minbari's scanners causing interference with the Earth ship's sensors caused Jankowski to panic and open fire.
- Though he isn't shown on-screen, in the Firefly episode "The Message," Mal and Zoe recount an instance where one of their superior officers acted exactly like this. However, in this case, the man was drunk off his rocker, and passed out, at which point one of the troops cut off the man's mustache and glued it to his own face.
- Cadet Corporal Elkanah Bent from North and South is an amoral egomaniac with delusions of grandeur who delights in harassing and abusing Orry and George.
- Arnold Rimmer from Red Dwarf is a subverted one of these, as though having all the requisite personality traits, he lacks real authority, and the people he does outrank refuse to listen to him. Plus, he's dead already, so fragging's out of the question.
- He does once get command of a small army, and actually manages to force a draw against a numerically superior enemy... though he did it by sacrificing all but two of his troops in a charge across an open minefield in broad daylight to serve as a distraction.
- To be accurate, he got all of his Wax Droid troops slaughtered. Most in the aforementioned mid-day minefield charge, several melted as a result of the training he put them through, and the sole survivor was dispatched as an assassin with the full understanding/intention that she would die in her mission of killing the Evil Wax Droid leaders. The only reason he was remotely able to claim this as a victory was because, while the enemy forces were distracted, Kryten was able to get to the planetary temperature controls and adjust the planet's heat so that all of the Wax Droids melted. Lister was not impressed.
- In other words, he single-handedly wiped out the entire planet...yeah.
- Red Dwarf also had the ship's backup computer Queeg 500, who was installed for an episode when the crew got sick of Holly's incompetence. Queeg turned out to be so strict that even Rimmer got sick of him.
- And then it turns out that Queeg was Holly all along.
- Edward Jellico in Star Trek The Next Generation is a subversion: placed in temporary command of the Enterprise, he systematically alienates most of the crew thanks to his hard and uncompromising command style, even removing Riker from his position. The audience, hating him, is all set up to watch him fail in his mission and for the primary Picard-is-captured plot to yield the answer, showing him up. And then he succeeds brilliantly, defeating the Cardassians with his experience and tactical genius.
- AND he makes Troi wear a real uniform instead of her bunny suit...
- And he's directly responsible for Picard's release at the end of the episode.
- It's worth noting the HBO adaptation of Generation Kill, discussed above, for how its portrayal of Captain America is a flagrant (but accounting for production times, probably coincidental) Expy of Captain Bannon from World In Conflict, below. Though it isn't saying much, Encino Man loses the tiny amount of sympathy he may have had in the book, with the actor playing him nailing the concept of the nickname perfectly; a man who's problem isn't lack of experience so much as lack of basic common sense.
- North and South (the US one). Elkanah Bent treats Orry and George like scum. He gets Orry crippled by Mexican artillery. Orry cripples him, he murders Orry then George hangs him.
- In Stargate Universe, Colonel Telford is The Neidermeyer, enforcing rules when they shouldn't apply, expecting civilians to follow military orders, and usurping Young's command. In the episode "Earth", he abandons the Destiny after Dr. Rush makes him think that the ship is about to explode, and gets away with it.
- No he doesn't, after that his suggestions get ignored and the people on the Destiny won't trust him anymore.
- Gordon Ramsay follows this trope in Hells Kitchen, and any of his American-produced shows. However, Ramsey's behaviour on the UK original of "Kitchen Nightmares" puts him much more in the Sergeant Rock personality trope. He may be harsh on the incompetent or misguided cooks, but he's doing it to the diners get the best experience and the cooks realize their own potential.
- Crashdown in Battlestar Galactica attempts to lead a squad on a hostile planet surface. Things go wrong. He gets two of the squad killed then is shot when attempting to force a needless suicide mission.
Machinima
- Sarge of Red Vs Blue is this type of leader, a bloodthirsty madman whose plans are fueled by his irrational hatred for the lazy and insubordinate Grif and his enemies the Blue team, being the only one to make Serious Business of the otherwise cold war between the two. Nonetheless, he is usually followed by the other soldiers, particularly the kiss-ass Yes Man Simmons.
- Or he would be if he wasn't so funny. The best order he's ever given was "Scream like a woman!"
- I don't know. Operation Meatshield certainly had it's merits.
Newspaper Comics
Tabletop Games
- Most of the Commissars in Warhammer 40000. In fact, the 'Nam-inspired Catachan Jungle Fighters require a special saving roll before the game even starts to prevent them from fragging the Commissar (Oops, sorry sir!).
- Similar to the Dinobots example listed below, one of the reasons Imperial doctrine normally prohibits Space Marine commanders from leading large-scale actions and campaigns in which the Marines and Imperial Guard fight together is that they tend to work the normal troops as hard as their Super Soldier battle brothers, often with fatal results.
- Common Imperial Guard tactics employed usually boil down to "throw men at it by the regiment like a battering ram until it breaks." A noted battle cries of commissars is, "We will drown them in our blood and crush them under the weight of our own dead!"
- Heck, every Imperial Guard officer above Lieutenant (and sometimes below) is either incompetent, a jerk, a glory hound, cowardly, or any combination of those. This goes up even into the Munitorium.
- Subverted by Ciaphas Cain, naturally, who is Genre Savvy and certainly aware of this trope. He treats his men well and while he does genuinely care about them, he finds comfort in the fact that not being like every other Commissar in the guard greatly reduces his chance of being the victim of friendly fire.
- Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM, himself actually comments on how a great many Commissars die "heroic deaths" suspiciously far from the front lines. He spent his later years attempting to teach commissar cadets to subvert this trope, with admittedly mixed success (most who are chosen for the Commissariat are simply not the right personality type to be taught how to lead through respect rather than fear). Ciaphas Cain himself certainly wanted to avoid such a fate; "I want to die in a bed, preferably someone else's."
- Same goes for Colonel-Commisar Ibram Gaunt.
- On the other hand, there's the legendary Lord Commander Solar Macharius, whose armies conquered a thousand worlds for the Emperor in the space of seven years. There's also Lord Castellan Ursarkar Creed of the Cadian 8th, Colonel "Iron Hand" Straken of Catachan, and Commissar Yarrick, who wears a Power Klaw he ripped off of an Ork Warboss, all of whom are competent and admired by their men.
- In the computer spin-off, Dawn Of War, Imperial Preists often shout "WE LOST BECAUSE YOU"RE ALL WEAK!" when their squad regains morale.
- Captain Jasper Stone from Deadlands was a really bad version of this. He was shanked by his own troops in the Battle of Gettysburg... only to rise as an undead and become Death's right hand man.
Video Games
- Mouri Motonari in Sengoku Basara. Unlike most Neidermeyers, he still manages to be popular by just coming off as a jerk, it helps that he's actually COMPETENT on his own; in Samurai Warriors and Warriors Orochi, it's Ishida Mitsunari who fills the role of sometimes-jerk up until through osmosis the "friendship" ideal from Sanada Yukimura and "honor and justice" from Naoe Kanetsugu rub off on him in his Samurai Warriors 2 ending. Then again, considering that in that ending he declares the end of rule by the majority, maybe he hasn't lost that.
- Orson Perrault, the commander of the protagonists' air base in Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War is this as well as corpulent, a horrible shot (he doesn't know that how emptying the magazine into the doorway where the targets were when the lights went out is a bad idea), and without giving Wardog Squadron and Pops a chance to explain themselves he assumes them all to be spies.
- Admiral Greyfield of Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. A complete coward and a sub par commander who's greatest skills are taking credit for victories, and shifting blame for loses. He threatens executions for any failure to follow his orders to the letter, especially the order to win the battle. His cowardice is so much that he relentlessly hunts down any that don't adhere to absolute rule no matter how many of his own men are sacrificed or caught in the blast of the super weapon used to kill a single dissenting captain, even resorting to executing enemies after surrender.
- General Damon of Valkyria Chronicles. A completely inept commander who only attained his rank because of his noble status. He holds all of the militia as Cannon Fodder, possibly all of Gallia's citizenry, as his solution for attacking a notably larger Imperial force is to draft all the citizens they could into the militia and throw them all on a frontal assault. Bastard even had the balls to claim Welkin's victory at Ghirlandaio as his own. Though Selvaria's Final Flame in the citadel made that a sort of good thing.
- We are losing this battle! Start fighting or I will find someone who can!
- Captain Bannon from World In Conflict is this trope to a T, panicking when faced with opposition his men should be able to handle, whining when fighting at a disadvantage instead of focusing on how to keep the fight going favorably, deriding the player's character for his competence, and shooting enemy infantry who were trying to convey their wish to surrender by waving white flags. In the end, however, he becomes arguably the most heroic character among the Americans followed by the narrative, volunteering to sacrifice himself to a friendly nuclear weapon so the approaching enemy will plow towards him into the blast radius, as retreating would've clued the Soviets in that something was wrong.
- Kraze and Kanaan from Suikoden, who you'll grow to hate very much early on in the game. Kanaan is more or less a classic example of a real dirtbag who wants all the glory to himself but hides behind his soldiers. Kraze is more or less the same, but at least he he isn't given an option to be spared unlike most of the Imperial commanders.
- You COULD spare him. But since not sparing him doesn't penalize you with not getting the best ending... well... Sure Why Not?
- Lee Linjun from Super Robot Wars quickly makes himself known as a complete jerk. He constantly argues with the pilots (especially Excellen and Katina), is clearly jealous of Tetsuya (even though Lee outranks him and commands a ship), and fully cements himself as a Neidermeyer when he makes it clear that everyone is expendable, and he really doesn't care if any member of the crew lives or dies. Then he just defects to the Shadow Mirrors.
- There are games in which the characters' actions are commanded from an unseen force in the sky, controlling their every move. Truly, the uncaring monster ordering them to their deaths is a Neidermeyer indeed.
- Sufficiently unhappy nobles in Dwarf Fortress act this way, ordering beatings and hammerings to any dwarf that ignores (or is incapable of fulfilling) their demands. Unsurprisingly, players tend to respond to such behavior with their own form of capital punishment.
Western Animation
- Zapp Brannigan of Futurama, who's especially fond of saving himself by sacrificing those under his command. Samples:
Bender (with his Patriotism Circuits activated): Sir, I volunteer for a suicide mission!
Zapp: You're a brave robot, son. But when I'm in command, every mission is a suicide mission.
- "Stop exploding, you cowards!"
- "I simply sent wave after wave of my own men at them [The Killbots], until they reached their upper kill limit and shut down." (Technically a good way of preventing civilian deaths if one is such an idiot no other solution presents itself...)
- After relating the above tale, he offers to throw wave after wave of his current crew at whatever problem Leela had and yells "Right men?" Cue complete silence from said men except for one lone guy shouting "You SUCK!"
- In the Generation 1 Transformers, Megatron was competent, but selfish. This and his ego led him to doing quite a few stupid things and even abandoning Devastator in one episode. To be fair, it's really Starscream that was made out to be incompetent by the cartoon's writers, though his comic and toy bios show that he is far more brilliant.
- The real gem, however, is Galvatron. This insane psychotic warfreak shot at his own troops and did more damage to his own army than the Autobots. Needless to say, if it weren't for a number of certain extenuating circumstances, the Decepticons would have recycled Galvatron a long time ago, no matter how powerful he was. Said circumstances mainly being that, because of the backstabbing treachery endemic in their ranks, the first thing that would happen when Galvatron got slagged would be civil war breaking out due to there being no clear-cut successor to Galvatron's rank. And this would doubtlessly be fatal to the Decepticons, due to them being stuck on a burned out world and barely scraping together enough fuel, parts and ammo to survive from day to day.
- Actually, there is a clear-cut successor. Cyclonus was asked by Decepticon rank and file on more than one occasion to take command, but his response to this is always to reiterate that Galvatron should be in charge. In a way, it mirrors the attitude of his rival, Ultra Magnus.
- Sentinel Prime from Transformers Animated is an example this kind of character among the good guys. Even in his younger days, he had zero respect for his peers, blaming the more responsible Optimus for Elita-1's presumed death, and as soon as he gained a command of his own, promptly began treating his men like worthless garbage, causing poor Bumblebee and Bulkhead much pain and suffering. He remains a jerk in the present day, taking every opportunity to viciously mock Optimus and his team's lower positions.
- And it got worse when he became acting leader of the Autobots. How did that happen?
- Grimlock is occasionally shown to be a bit of a Neidermeyer in the comics when he's put in command of units other than the Dinobots, largely due to the fact that most Autobots aren't used to doing things The Spartan Way like the Dinobots are and Grimlock being unwilling to accommodate them. When he briefly took over the Autobots he threw the rulebook out the window—literally.
- Many sub-commanders within the Decepticons fit into this trope, but none moreso than Motormaster, leader of the Stunticons. His team is a big ball of crazy, and he loves to do things like order the silence-fearing Wildrider to remain quiet on missions. It's no wonder that their merged form, Menasor, is completely insane and uncontrollable.
- In Invader Zim, Zim is shown to be this type of leader in the episode Hobo-13 in that he needlessly sacrifices his squadmates so that he himself can get to the end of the obstacle course, including using his last remaining soldier as a battering ram to open a door. The Drill Sergeant (ironically played by R Lee Ermey) who meets him at the end chooses to fail Zim due to his horrendous leadership skills and challenges him into combat in order to pass (which Zim does by cheating).
- Of course, The Tallests are seen as worse than Zim, being a pair of petty, self-serving, and egomaniacal Jerkasses, treating everyone beneath them with contempt and mockery, particularly the shorter Irkens. In fact, the Irkens are pretty much a race of Neidermyers.
- In The Simpsons, Principal Skinner was shot in the back when he was a sergeant in Vietnam when trying to get Joey Heatherton to put some pants on. The depiction of his army career is basically the same as his current one, just with soldiers replacing Willy . That’s of course you assume he’s telling the truth in any of his flash backs, what with him not really being Seymour Skinner.
- Capt Marcus of Exosquad tries to liberate earth with only half of the Exofleet which was easily overwhelmed by the Neosapien fleet. Plus he's dumb enough to starts a mutiny so he can do it again, with the same disasterous results, which leads to his death at last.
Real Life
- It should be noted that this sort of thing actually occurs in Real Life. While fraggings are uncommon (though they did occur in Vietnam), plenty of stories get passed around the modern military about which officers to avoid and who's a dirtbag.
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