Struggling with Bomber Morale in WitW – Need Advice

[AbeMuc]

A new major Let’s Play of mine for War in the West is about to start. I’ve already played through the first 4 weeks and am slowly making progress in the air war phase. Thanks to many contributions here in the forums I’ve already learned quite a lot — though mostly in theory, of course. In practice, things turn out to be much harder.
Right now there’s one topic that really troubles me: morale.

During the first two weeks I carried out very intensive strategic bombing. Sometimes up to 4 operational days with 2 missions per day. Morale dropped quickly as a result, mainly due to the heavy losses, especially in the USAAF.

After a 2-week pause, I launched new attacks in turn 5. For example, the 1st Bomb Division. Average morale was still around the mid-60s, but I felt the operation had to go ahead.



The strike on Leipzig was a complete success: just one raid, heavy damage to the city, and interestingly not a single Luftwaffe interception either on the way in or on the return flight. Only 2 bombers were lost to flak, and just a few got damaged. And yet morale — here shown by the 92nd LB Group — collapsed dramatically. On average it’s now down to the 10s.





What could be the reason for this? Simply because they had to fly so deep into Germany? I really can’t explain it. And I’d like to improve this, because right now I’ll have to ground the entire 1st Bomb Division for at least 2 weeks (probably longer).
Any hints would be greatly appreciated!

[Denniss]

AFAIR long range strikes cause a lot of fatigue which in turn will reduce morale. Maybe they'll get another hit for being unescorted a long way.

[AbeMuc]

I was also considering this. Maybe that is the case. In this example although the other Bomb Division made a trip to Leipzig (just 2 hexes away) and they don`t suffer such a big morale hit. But there are so many variables in play it is not easy to pinpoint the exact reason.