Sort of OT: National Morale of Western Allies

[Speedysteve]

Of course but what part of the France Debacle was down to British Morale?!?[&:]

[Oleg Mastruko]

ORIGINAL: Speedy

Of course but what part of the France Debacle was down to British Morale?!?

Well here we have issue of what morale really represents. Again, France is usually everyone's favorite whipping boy, helped by the fact most French don't speak English good enough to argue on Internet forums [:D]

(Same goes for Italians.)

So, lesson number one - learn the language of international propaganda if you want to be over-patriotic on the Internet [;)]

Now seriously, in my opinion, any nation that went through worst of WW1 slaughter, Verdun etc without giving up had at least solid morale. Not WW2 German or WW2 Soviet style solid, but pretty solid. Better than WW2 Japanese I would dare say.

French collapse in WW2 wasn't due to what I call "pure morale", it was due to being completely outsmarted on operational level.

Again, I prefer to discuss "pure morale" as I honestly have very little idea what "morale" represents in WITE and what effects it has on the results.

[karonagames]

Morale is a dynamic concept, that is influenced by a gazillion factors and can change by the hour, so what ever number is chosen as an abstraction of this is meaningless.

I don't care what the numbers are as long as the game, when it comes out in 6 years time, is fun.

Why did I say 6 years? Because it is a number that means as much as the numbers under discussion here.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: color

When you talk about Dunkirk and try to retrieve any conclusion about morale of the british units involved,
it would be wise to first take into consideration the fact that Hitler stopped the panzers dead in their tracks.
I've heard about two theories about this decision:

1) A favour to Gøring so he could bask in the glory of his luftwaffe finish off the british - which he eventually could not do as the luftwarre failed to stop the british evacuation, so that would be an EPIC FAIL there Gøring. [:D]

2) Intent by Hitler to allow the British to escape without too much of a humiliation so they would be more receptive to a negotiated peace.

Don't know which is correct, but it's pretty obvious that apart from national morale, there were some factors in that escape which arguably played a sizeable role.

Warspite1

The fact that - for whatever reason - Hitler halted his Panzers is irrelevant to national morale. By giving this order the Germans allowed time for more of the Allied armies to escape. Had he not done so, less would have escaped - simples.

But the point is, if the British and indeed the French had turned into a rabble, then even with the halt order being given, the Germans would still have mopped up the bulk of the Allied forces in the north-east.

Let's be absolutely clear, no one can say that Dunkirk was in any way a victory for the Allied armies. The Royal Navy (yet again) were the heroes of the day, Anglo-French armies were beaten ones. But what is being argued is that the beaten British army remained largely intact to fight another day - something that was only possible thanks to their remaining a cohesive unit.

[Q-Ball]

National Morale though doesn't really mean "Bravery". Far from it. Certainly, the French and Italian Armies each had very strong instances of fighting hard and Bravely, and any battlefield performance says nothing about the individuals in that country.

William Shirer wrote an excellent book about the Collapse of the Third Republic. The 1930s in France were hard times, with the polarization of politics, government after government, the Spanish Civil War, just all kinds of issues. Shirer does a good job describing the malaise that afflicted many Frenchmen, and the lukewarm suppoort of the war from many quarters. This was reflected in the attitude of it's military generals, who literally fell apart in the first days of the war. Several including Billotte and even Gamelin suffered quasi-nervous breakdowns.

The Italians had poor leaders and bad eqiupment, but also a lack of reason to fight. The average Italian began to question, with good reason, why they were fighting for the Germans in Africa and Russia. It got even worse when the Allies landed in Sicily, the Italians surrendered in droves. Their "National Morale" was very very low at that point. That doesn't mean they were "Cowards", it means they were "Sensible".

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

National Morale though doesn't really mean "Bravery". Far from it. Certainly, the French and Italian Armies each had very strong instances of fighting hard and Bravely, and any battlefield performance says nothing about the individuals in that country.

William Shirer wrote an excellent book about the Collapse of the Third Republic. The 1930s in France were hard times, with the polarization of politics, government after government, the Spanish Civil War, just all kinds of issues. Shirer does a good job describing the malaise that afflicted many Frenchmen, and the lukewarm suppoort of the war from many quarters. This was reflected in the attitude of it's military generals, who literally fell apart in the first days of the war. Several including Billotte and even Gamelin suffered quasi-nervous breakdowns.

The Italians had poor leaders and bad eqiupment, but also a lack of reason to fight. The average Italian began to question, with good reason, why they were fighting for the Germans in Africa and Russia. It got even worse when the Allies landed in Sicily, the Italians surrendered in droves. Their "National Morale" was very very low at that point. That doesn't mean they were "Cowards", it means they were "Sensible".

Warspite1

+1

[Speedysteve]

FWIW I won't be commenting in this subject again due to the potential of it being too over-patriotic. What will be, will be.
 
[8D]

[Tarhunnas]

The average Italian began to question, with good reason, why they were fighting for the Germans in Africa and Russia.

I thought it was the Germans who were fighting for the Italians in North Africa. Interestingly, it didn't seem to affect German morale though... [:D]

[HMSWarspite]

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

Guys with nicks HMSWarspite and warspite1 discussing English morale, and - what a surprise - agreeing that it should be set pretty high: priceless [:D]

I am sorry, I know this post is not a meaningful contribution to the discussion, it was meant as comic break, please continue.

On topic, I still think that rating Brit morale higher than Soviet is just plain wrong.

Other than saying I more or less agreed with Q-Ball, who said 65 (i.e. same as late war US), please indicate where I said anything about where it should be. I was countering some comments that implied it had to be low (like Belgian low), without providing any evidence, or even subjective justification.

Your thoughts? Or better yet, evidence. You do know that the war started in Sept 1939, and UK was engaged (actively) on land against Germany/Italy from April 1940 until May 1945 I take it. And that significant advances were made by this low morale (but actually more like small unit effectiveness) outfit.

Ah, and as for Bagration, this was after 3 years continuous learning. The Desert war was fought from Sept 1940 to 1942 - i.e. that was the learning bit for the UK!

[HMSWarspite]

ORIGINAL: Mehring

Given that doctrine is included in morale, would it be possible to have distinct defence and attack morals or a bonus to British on defence?

To get this debate on to a more even footing, I would love to have the (oft repeated) German comment explained. Does 'predictable/slow & methodical' on attack mean 'unsuccessful'? Or does it mean 'you know exactly what is going to happen, they dont surprise you, they just get the job done'?

I would be the first to conceed that the British lesson from WW1 was: attacks have to be carefully coordinated, and methodical if they are not to suffer higher than necessary casualties and be more prone to failure. Never over extend your attack, never go beyond artillery range, or the counter attack will push you right back. The possible failing is that the British tended to apply this to apply to 'blitzkrieg' opportunities too often, which kind of defeats the object (except for Arnhem, which has to be viewed as proof that Monty smoked dope on at least one occasion! [:-] ).

To put it another way (game terms if you like), you could offer the British 2 combat results tables: a)
roll result
1 defender holds, attacker takes x casualties
2-8 attacker advances, attacker takes x casualties
9-10 attacker advances 2 hexes takes x casualties

and b)
1-4 defender holds, attacker takes 2x casualties
5-6 attacker advances, x casualties
7-8 attacker advances 2 hexes, takes 2 x casualties
9-0 attacker advances 4 hexes, takes 2 x casualties.

The British would take table a) every time. Why? Because I have a 90% chance of pushing the defender back 1 hex or more (average gain 1.1hexes) , and expected casualties are about x per attack (or 0.9x per hex) . With table b), I have only 60% chance of the advance even though on average I push them back 1.4 hexes. Also I take 1.8 casualties on av, which is about 1.3 casualties per hex gained. And I have a 40% chance of having to do the attack again...

Is this what the Germans mean? Or do they mean 'you can hold the British whilst attacking, all day? [>:]' (Which is what I suspect a lot of people think they mean)

Patton would take table b) every time I suspect, because he has a 40% chance of getting 2 hexes or more, and 20% of 4 hexes. The rate of advance is faster...

Anyone? (Or have I now entered the Twilight Zone?[:D])

[Smirfy]

ORIGINAL: color

When you talk about Dunkirk and try to retrieve any conclusion about morale of the british units involved,
it would be wise to first take into consideration the fact that Hitler stopped the panzers dead in their tracks.
I've heard about two theories about this decision:

1) A favour to Gøring so he could bask in the glory of his luftwaffe finish off the british - which he eventually could not do as the luftwarre failed to stop the british evacuation, so that would be an EPIC FAIL there Gøring. [:D]

2) Intent by Hitler to allow the British to escape without too much of a humiliation so they would be more receptive to a negotiated peace.

Don't know which is correct, but it's pretty obvious that apart from national morale, there were some factors in that escape which arguably played a sizeable role.

Off course there is the reality that Hitler and the high command having actual experience of fighting the British in WWI on the same terrain which was full of inundations thought it was not a good idea to blunt their armoured units when most of France remained unconquered and no one could dream of evacuating 330,000 men off a beach in 1940. Langemark and the Marne were both deeply etched on the German psyche in 1940, the spectre of 1914 was the most decisive factor on the decision making process

[Smirfy]

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

ORIGINAL: Smirfy
Could the Russians have lauched attacks like Veritable or Infatuate. These were highly sophisticated operations, morale we are told are to reperesent doctrine. By 1944 the British army was an efficent fighting machine.

[X(]

Could they? They launched Bagration for god's sake. Let alone half a dozen highly successful offensive operations after that, each of them probably bigger than Veritable and Infatuate taken together.

However let me state again that in this discussion I prefer speaking about MORALE as PURE morale. Obviously, in WITE morale represents all sorts of things, proficiency, training ability, tactical prowess, who knows what else. Obviously, whatever "morale" represents in WITE is highly subjective and flexible, but in pure morale, no army, not even the fanatical Japanese, could beat Germans and Russians IMO. Those two armies are like way above all others.

Since we don't exactly know how morale works in game, we can discuss it only rhetorically, ie "how would I rate morale of some army in some year of WW2 in some hypothetical game".

By the way the difference between the Berezina and Dunkirk was at Dunkirk the Army survived. A 20th century army 330,000 men was evacuated off a beach, tell me who else achieved a comparable feat?

Solid part of Nappy army survived Berezina, in fact he was waging, and winning, biggest battles in history to date, less than a year after Berezina.

If you want to look at Dunkirk as victory, something I have problems with, then that's more of a navy feat than army. We are talking about army morale here.... Navy games usually don't model morale, but for what it's worth obviously Brit Navy would get very high morale ratings. RAF too. Army, however, IMO does not deserve any such high rating. Again, probably lower than Russians, certainly not bigger (equal would be reasonable compromise).

The key word here is sophisticated not size, that requires soldiers having more than basic skill, which the British Army in 1944 had. Sure there was not the same elan in 1944 because the troops knew the war was won and they did not want to miss the victory celebrations therefore the British mounted elaborate operations.

Napoleon did not fight with his army that he took to Russia he left it there that is the difference. Stalingrad was a defeat, Kiev was a defeat, Tobruk 42 a defeat ask the Chinese if the Long March was a defeat.

[Muzrub]

Germany- mid to late war- I would say morale was low, but desperation was high.

[HMSWarspite]

We keep getting lost. The parameter called 'morale' in the game represents a whole host of things, of which moral fibre/will to resist is only a small part. I thing someone said 'doctrine' would be a better term. I think of it as effectiveness. That is, all else being equal, which division/regiment/whatever will (on average) come out better. I tried to say it earlier. If a unit is fanatical for some reason, it might fight better. Take those same troops, and put them in an army where supply distribution to company level is really bad (even when there are loads of supplies at division/corp/army level) and the rating would be lower. This is because they will fight less effectively (because they are hungry/out of ammo for periods etc). The moral fibre, culture, or plain suicidal insanity of the squaddies and their junior officers is just the same, but the outcome is different.

Likewise, I think it represents tactics/style of combat. In this system, your average Japanese Army unit would NOT score highly, since their doctine tended to default to one of attack, even when that is not effective. Look at Iwo Jima... when units were surrounded and things were getting down to the last few rounds a charge was not infrequent. This was generally not effective, since it just got them out in the open to be mown down. Fanatical, yes, but no more effective than a typical western power unit which would probably surrender in this situation. Some other nations (Russia?, or less controversial, VietCong/NVA) might try and melt away, or stay hidden and force dugout by dugout clearance, which could be MORE effective than the (admittedly cliched) IJA picture.

I think this thread (and subject) will be impossible until we agree on this (the wider content of 'morale', rather than my example above [:)] )

Of Course, the big mistake was calling it morale:)