Morale Levels

[REVS]

I'd love to see some sort of quantifcation of morale levels in CM. As an old Squad Leader/ASL player, I'm accustomed to Germans and Russians and British boys being "7" as basic, and Yankee boys as fickle "6"s, and Elite fellas as 8s, but what's the offficial word on morale? So far my experience is that US troops seem to be heaps braver in CM than in ASL/SL. Well, who's right? Avalon Hill or BTS?

[dalem]

BTS has it "righter" in that you can have brave GIs and brittle Germans, and or the reverse.

ASL's method works very well for an already complicated board game with lots of counters and factors and charts to keep track of. With CM, all of the details are crunched by the game engine, so more variation, detail (and arguably, more 'realism') can be part of the game experience.

-dale

[CombinedArms]

I think Combat Mission has it right to allow all units of all armies to be rated Conscript to Elite. That allows the scenario designer or QB constructor the right to assign the appropriate level of experience/combat ability. Some scenario designers may be overly generous to US forces in assigning experience levels--but this may also be true of Axis forces--one rarely seems to see representation of some of really lousy Axis units that were out there along with the plain vanilla Heer troops and the elites.

As to the historical question of whether US troops should rank below, equal to or above Germans or Brits, I would say, as I implied above, that the combat ability of units in all armies was quite variable depending on a lot of circumstance. The German forces may have been the most variable of all--some extremely well equipped, experienced and motivated units must be balanced against units comprised of raw youths and doddering oldsters or even units in some of the "static" divisions comprised of Russian/eastern European prisoners serving under duress who were apt to kill their officers and NCOs and surrender if the Allies got close enough to their positions.

The US units were cut to a more standard pattern in terms of equipment and training, but unit effectiveness varied a good deal based on experience and leadership. Some units, like the 90th Division, which was badly led initially, began problematically and eventually covered themselves in glory. I think this is generally representative: as the US divisions gained experience and identified effective combat commanders, they became increasingly effective combat units.

Overall, the US forces that fought in the CMBO theatre and timeframe lost very few battles (even when outnumbered, as they often were in local conflicts) while winning many, and the overran a vast amount of territory fighting in all kinds of terrain in a surprisingly short amount of time. Even when massively outnumbered in the Ardennes counteroffensive, only one quite raw division cracked and the rest hung on tenaciously to the shoulders of what became the "Bulge" and put up an extremely stiff defense. Compare the amount of dug in firepower and ready armored reserves the Russians needed to stop the German offensive at Kursk. I'd put the defenders of Bastogne, St. Vith, ahd Elsenborn Ridge--who were a mixture of elite, veteran, and even pretty raw units, mostly understrength due to recent combat losses--up against anybody.

So I'd say:

1) a presumption of US inferiority on the part of ASL/SL is misplaced and historically dubious, certainly by August 1944 or after, and possibly earlier.

2)CMBO has it right to allow variable experience levels for all units, based on historical circumstances and/or the preferences of QB constructors.