Helping The Soviets

[J6A]

The trouble with a basic morale number is that it becomes inflexible. ASL had some things of interest and a good example was its treatment of Americans. In PG, they are generally 8 moraled so that you have a chance of getting them to do what you want to try and do with them. This 8 morale compares with the best (heck US Paras are bloody 8/8 !!). Yet in ASL, they were often a point lower in morale than the other big nations BUT had the ability to rally quicker in game terms with a higher number AND did not suffer from DM (desperation morale).

In PG terms, that for example might equate to putting them as '7' morale, but have them recover from disruption with a rolled 7 rather than the "1 less than your morale value" as per other nations. No DM might be no compounded demoralisation or indeed only on 4 higher rather than 3 higher .....

I think this is built in to leaders with morale bonuses, and varying morale for various quality troops. What you're theoretically suggesting is giving them something like 7/8 morale, which would be way out of what any other PG nationality does.

The Soviets recovering from DEM is not really that significant given how many times in a game you actually roll for demoralised units. I rarely achieve the double 1 (rightly) so a 3 or less might give 1 more unit per game if that. Also, for them to then continue forward (in combat movement), the recovered platoon would still need a leader with it anyway.

You don't need to roll double 1s, because you're too busy rolling them on your fire attacks and good order morale checks. Giving the Soviets triple the capability of anyone else to recover to instant good order is a HUGE advantage over other nations, especially in bigger scenarios. I think the whole point of the Soviets is that you have a lot of them. You're going to lose a bunch in the attack, which reflects reality. The Soviets won not from any great tactics (although they did have some very capable generals), they won because they had huge manpower reserves. It didn't matter if 100,000 died in an assault that killed only 20,000 Germans, as they could send another 100,000 tomorrow.

I just think its fun to toss around a few national characteristics (the Italians have the surrender rule as strangely do the South Africans ?). You also forgot to mention about us drinking Tea, but we only did that when our German cousin were munching down on their wurst !

I think the morale and leadership mix already accomplishes this. The Italian Surrender rule reflects Italian behavior at the specific battles to which it applies. If there were Soviets who bounced back quickly, I think it would be a special rule for that scenario or just reflected in higher morale/more leaders.

Basically, I'm not in favor of this rule.