How much is learned?

[Ratzki]

Having played a number of people over the last several years, I have noticed that there is a subtle yet very important difference in how the guys at the top of the ladder use their units compared to the rest of us. It does not take very long to learn the effectiveness of the various tanks, guns, artillery, and such, but these are not what set the top players apart. Same goes for tactics, we all know that we should use some form of over-watch while moving, use the terrain to our best advantage and concentrate fire where possible to overwhelm our enemy, but this too, is not what makes the good players good. There are excellent posts on every subject that you can think of, threads on strategies to bust bunkers, fire mortars, and traverse through gaps in the terrain tiles, but still most of us seem to lack the one thing that could take us to the top of our game. It’s out there, I see it, often it shows itself in comments that I make to myself while watching a turn play out on the screen; “Crud, his armour got out of there just in time.”… “Now why would there be a gun there?”… I have arrived just a little too late.”… “It all fell apart for me last turn for some reason.” What you see over and over is the good players doing what should be done when they should be doing it. There is no hesitation, no pondering, they don’t wait too long to move of fire, and they do not fire too soon. In their games, nothing is wasted, not movement, fire, artillery rounds, nothing. It is this intangible skill that they have that makes them come out on top time and again. Something that cannot be taught, like good Generals, they feel it. I think that some players just have it, that ‘what it takes’ to see, really see, the battlefield and all that is going on between the forces being used. When you get an opportunity to play a game against one of these guys, see how often you find yourself talking to the screen in disbelief.
My question is...
Are great generals made that way by learning, or are they born that way?