German Morale: 1942

Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: The German-Soviet War 1941-1945 is a turn-based World War II strategy game stretching across the entire Eastern Front. Gamers can engage in an epic campaign, including division-sized battles with realistic and historical terrain, weather, orders of battle, logistics and combat results.

The critically and fan-acclaimed Eastern Front mega-game Gary Grigsby’s War in the East just got bigger and better with Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: Don to the Danube! This expansion to the award-winning War in the East comes with a wide array of later war scenarios ranging from short but intense 6 turn bouts like the Battle for Kharkov (1942) to immense 37-turn engagements taking place across multiple nations like Drama on the Danube (Summer 1944 – Spring 1945).

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Q-Ball
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German Morale: 1942

Post by Q-Ball »

Starting a separate thread on this vs. the forts.

To me, this is the other issue with 1942; the Wehrmacht morale problem.

The Blizzard inevitably knocks down the German Morale; 1 pt. per turn outside, plus another for losing a combat. The German infantry morale is still pretty cooked after the Blizzard.

Most of the Panzer units in 1941 have morale in the 80-90 range. That's probably gone come spring regardless; there is no way to recover morale above 70-ish for the Panzers.

I think "Morale" is more than just morale, it's a general representation of operational efficiency; the Germans should take a bit of a hit from 1941 to 1942. But I don't think it should crater, like it does now.

I would be in favor of a fix for this; some possible suggestions:

1. Grant every German unit at the end of Blizzard 10 morale points. You can't get bumped, though, above 90 for SS, 85 for Panzers, and 75 for Infantry (but if you are already there, you keep your morale)
2. Eliminate the morale penalty for being outside in Blizzard (NOT in addition to #1!). Units in cities do still escape attrition losses. This would be pretty easy to implement.

I kind of like #2, it's simple, and the impact would likely erode over time as the Germans lose battles, and thus not completely unbalance 43/44/45. The Panzers would probably emerge in good shape from a Morale standpoint; the Infantry would suffer from losing some battles, but they should. Really, the big difference in 41 to 42 Wehrmacht was in the quality and availability of infantry, not Panzers
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RE: German Morale: 1942

Post by ComradeP »

Removing the blizzard morale penalty might be a decent idea now that increasing morale when above the national morale is difficult. I've posted it on the tester forum. It has, of course, been talked about in the past but with the post-release changes to morale, it might be an idea to simply remove the blizzard penalty. There was a need for it when the Germans were running around with close to 99 morale/experience units, but now that most of them stay close to their initial levels, there's less need for it.
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RE: German Morale: 1942

Post by kevini1000 »

This morale thing might be what is creating alot of the problems.  I have not seen German morale increasing very much in 1941 and in fact I have it decreasing.  I'm certtain this will become worse when blizzard hits and then the 1-1 attacks become 2-1 with retreats.  Then the Germans lose morale while the Russian's gain and they are out in the open for more morale loss/Russian gain.  I think that by mid summer 42 the German army is much further degraded and Russian army much better in morale/experience terms then was ever the case.  At least for the 1942 time period.  I really think it was after Kursk that this edge the Germans had over the Russian's morale/experience wise began to seriously degrade and even then they were still tough.
 
 
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RE: German Morale: 1942

Post by Q-Ball »

The new morale rules really hurt the Germans.

If an SS Division at 90 Morale has 30 wins and 10 losses, chances are it will lose about 9 or 10 Morale over that period. It will end-up at lower morale, despite good combat results. Can anyone show me a Panzer unit with 85+ morale at the end of 1941? It's impossible, unless you park them.

Even if morale drops below the National Morale, the die-roll to increase is not favorable to the Germans.

The Russians, on the other hand, can get pretty much everyone to 55-ish morale, just by resting behind the lines.

I personally think you should ONLY lose morale on retreat results, NOT on "attack-lose" results. This would also really help the Germans into Blizzard.

Either way, the Wehrmacht has a morale problem that needs fixing

The Russians really don't; they can just rest to get to historical levels

I personally think National Morale should be an effective floor below which units will tend to go only temporarily, then bounce back quickly. Ideally, the Germans should have differing "Floors" for Panzers and LW troops (higher for Panzers, lower for LW). At the moment, it can take awhile to recover above National Morale.

Either way, making National Morale a "floor" would really help the Germans. You could leave the Winter bleed in place, since making a FLOOR would make it only temporary
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RE: German Morale: 1942

Post by PeeDeeAitch »

The Germans certainly do lose an edge in the Blizzard - even coming out of it in OK positions, the mid-50S to 60s morale makes even the "snow rebound" worse off. Panzers, as has been noted, hurt a lot - if they are used in fire-brigade roles in the winter they are cooked by spring.

edit - forgot my range :)
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RE: German Morale: 1942

Post by kevini1000 »

The thing that is most irritating in 1941 is having at unit at 85 morale then you start the next turn and its at 84. When it did not even loose a fight.
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RE: German Morale: 1942

Post by Q-Ball »

The forts gets all the attention at the moment, but I think Morale is at least as important.

A Panzer Division can run wild, but one held attack, and morale drops. Not sure why this wasn't fixed when the morale gain for successful attacks was in place, since now morale can only move in one direction for the Germans, until it gets below 70.

German morale needs to be fixed
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RE: German Morale: 1942

Post by kevini1000 »

I agree if the upward morale movement is so hard downward morale should be as well or at least not that easy.
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RE: German Morale: 1942

Post by PeeDeeAitch »

Those of us that played through the first few versions remember when morale rose too fast (99 morale Romanians anyone?)
However, now the morale hits seem too harsh...
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RE: German Morale: 1942

Post by Baelfiin »

I think you hit the naill on the head with this one q-ball

Better morale would definetly help generate more movement in the lines.
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RE: German Morale: 1942

Post by Tarhunnas »

Some morale shots from my game against Q-Ball.

First a sample of the infantry. Doesn't look too bad.

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RE: German Morale: 1942

Post by Tarhunnas »

Motorized divisions.

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RE: German Morale: 1942

Post by Tarhunnas »

Panzer divisions.

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RE: German Morale: 1942

Post by Tarhunnas »

It is interesting that panzer and motorized divisions have no better morale than the infantry. I guess that is because I used them as fire brigades and for counterattacks in blizzard. I have a niggling memory that German units lose morale before every attack in blizzard. That might explain this. That makes it stupid to do counterattacks with armored units in blizzard. I am not sure that is so good, the Germans did precisely that, and I don't really see the rationale.
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RE: German Morale: 1942

Post by Q-Ball »

Tarhunnas's morale is a bit better than I expected actually given how much they were kicked around, but still....Panzers should have higher morale in 1942 than that.

I do agree that today's rules are better than the old ones where Romanian units had 99 Morale, that was out of control. But there should be a mechanism to keep the Germans whole.

Maybe just eliminating the Winter penalty would do it. For you Tarhunnas, that would have saved most of your Panzers exactly 12 morale. If I add 12 Morale to most of those units, they are close to 1941 condition

I can post a screenie, but in general, all Russian Guards for me are about 60-65 (mostly 60-62), and Regulars are almost all in the 50-55 range, with a handful higher. That seems about right for the Russkies, it's the Germans that are too low.
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RE: German Morale: 1942

Post by Tarhunnas »

Or maybe the Soviets should have 45 in national morale in 1942? According to what I have read Soviet morale was low during 1942 and started to go up after Stalingrad.
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RE: German Morale: 1942

Post by randallw »

Perhaps the Axis blizzard morale penalty could be a random chance of losing 1 point per turn ( or a chance based on a leader dice roll ) rather than automatic loss.
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RE: German Morale: 1942

Post by PeeDeeAitch »

I personally like the logic of keeping morale losses in the blizzard, then some sort of bump when the snow returns. In short this allows the Germans some measure of effectiveness in the snow turns, and perhaps to build a decent counter-attack possibility by the time clear rolls around, yet still keeps the grind of the severe winter in place - along with the sense of eroding capabilites in January and February as the Axis are forced to use ever more of their mobile reserves as fire brigades.
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RE: German Morale: 1942

Post by chasman »

With the new official patch, Germans are already much better in January 42 than they used to be. Let's not correct the first winter out of existence.
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RE: German Morale: 1942

Post by Aussiematto »

This thread picks up something I was discussing on the other one about 1942 problems. I've pointed to the problems of breaking through with good Soviet morale but, in fact, you are right here -- it's poor German morale which is as much of a problem. 
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