Pilot Morale changes

[Marshall]

I am running into a mysterious Morale changer for my fighters.

I am aware that combat and airfield bombing affects morale as are operational losses, but in my whole Japanese Air Force i now see units having 56 morale, while it was 99, they are training indicate no losses last turn and it is Random on all airfields.
its like the plague.
other units have 99, then at the same field, at a remote location another unit has 56 or 60.

The units have full stock of planes and a 120% of pilots.

And these units have not seen combat, or any enemy plane over their fields ever!

Anyone with ideas on why?

[Yaab]

Very strange, no idea. Are they in a malaria base?

[Marshall]

Not all in Malaria zones, even my japanese homeland based squadrons are effected

[BBfanboy]

I have seen that also - at certain bases all or most of the aircraft can do training with no fatigue whatsoever and morale remains at 99. Shift one of those squadrons to another base of the same size and suddenly they get fatigue and morale drops after a while.
The flip side of this is bases where most squadrons suffer the usual fatigue and morale issues, but one or two squadrons never suffer any.

I don't know if base administration has anything to do with this - never paid much attention to it - but you might look at whether the squadrons are aligned with the HQs and BF.

What I know for sure is:
- even on training, there is fatigue and morale can drop if there are no breaks for the pilots over weeks of training. Every once in a while they need to be stood down for a while so they can go "cherchez la femme".
- training should be done at range 0 or fatigue will increase very quickly as will ops losses
- malaria does have an effect at bases under size 9 and in that zone. I think cold does that in the Arctic zone.
- lack of aviation support can cause the pilots to become fatigued. They need their cooks and hot showers.
- transferring between bases causes fatigue, and frequent transfers accumulate fatigue that has not been shed by resting
- quality of the squadron leader affects morale and recovery from fatigue. Perhaps the quality of the Air HQ leader (in range) does as well.

[Marshall]

I fixed it,

Even with 120% pilot allocation, fatigue came to some units, i noticed the following:

-The affected units where long range of their air HQ, they had been moved at some point but i failed to link them to a new HQ of that region
-Their CAP distance was set to 2, normally it shouldn't be a problem if you keep CAP numbers at around 40/50 percent.
-Some pilots where set to reserve, so they didn't participate in the rotation, on the front side you see 12 fatigue, but the pilots flying are actually around 26-30. hence accidents happen and morale dropped.
-Support level at some bases was lower then needed, but not major. but it may affect it on long term.
-Long time training, no breaks given.
-Commanders with low motivation skills, but high air skills

>i now employ a new rotation schedule, making sure after a 5 days of service a rotation with a fresh squadron is done, 2 days rest, and then rotate back.plenty of time to "cherchez la femme"
>I use Air commanders with higher skills for motivation and morale, they might be worse in air combat, but i keep them as reserve pilot in the squadron.
>I make sure the air unit is attached to an air HQ in range.
>Training squadrons get a break from training as well after 2 weeks training

It seems to work, morale is getting back up, and performance as well, just shot down 50 fighters over Burma, for the loss of 6 of my own.

Many thanks to my opponent admiral Dadman for giving me 4 days to get my air force into operations again.

October 1943, the happy days for Japan are over, the cold winter arrives!