Crew Morale = Crew Performance
 

I used to be a fisherman. I sailed on a sterntrawler, a big factory ship with a crew of 40+. Morale could get pretty damm low. We could be out at sea for as little as 19 days to as much as two months.

What happens is: people get annoyed with eachother. Big time! Especially on the ship I sailed on. Basically, I sailed with 40 guys who all hated the other 39 guys. Fight were commen, hell, we even had one guy who wanted to cave one of the mates head in with a fire axe. It took four of us the hold him back.

And the longer we were out at sea, the higher tensions grew. But! In all this, it never had an effect on the quality of our work. Why? A sense of selve preservation. If you screw up, you could get hurt, badly. You could even get killed. Luckily, we never had a fatality in the time I was there. But it happend often enough on other trawlers.

But long story short, in my personal experience: morale didnt effect our work (self preservation remember?). But it could seriously disrupt (already bad) relations between crew members.

It would be interesting to see, how this would play out in a U-boat sim. Seeing the crew get into highly tensed arguments and fights, usualy about trivial things.

My question to people on this forum is: are there any other (ex) sailors, fishermen or navy men around here? Have you had simular expercience as far as morale is concerned? And for any (ex) military guys out there, how would a drop of morale effect the performance of your unit/vessel?

Hi there and welcome to Subsim :DL

To answer breifly, I think (and someone will correct me if im mistaken) for SHV, the devs have mentioned that your patrol length will indeed effect the crews morale - which in turn effects they way the perform their duties.

I dont belive there will be any fights or arguments amongst them, though
it would be very funny to watch if there was! :haha:

Cook: "Hey captain.. you wanna ta-...."
Captain "Oh f**k off Marcus!"

hey - cool nickname BTW :D

Thanks JU_88.
The name is an inside joke between me and a girl I know.
Part of it is: she loves donkeys (she finds them o so cute).

And I like Don Quichotte, in Dutch it's pronounced in a way that sounds like Donkey Shot.

If my name seems familiour, that's probably because it is. I've made this new account, because I've lost the password to my old account. Normaly I'd ask for a new password, but problem is: I can't acces my old e-mail adres any more :damn:.

Anyway, the main point of my post is: that I don't think bad morale equals bad performance. But it sure as hell equals bad blood between crew mates.

I was wondering if different people have had similair experiences.

In the navy I can only see one difference, and that is the expected performance from the military. We had an ocassional fight on our destroyer, but discipline was strictly enforced and everyone knew that such behaviour could be dealt with very strictly. Usually wasn't, but could be.

But morale is influenced by many factors, including the relationship between captain and officers and men. If the men trust and respect, and even like, their officers, then low spirits do not necessarily equal low morale. True morale problems occur when the men feel they are not being properly led. Then performance can suffer. But even when things are going badly and spirits are low, I agree - that doesn't always equate to bad performance, or even bad morale.

I went to sea (merchant navy) when I qualified as a mechanical engineer at the age of 20.

Morale was seldom an issue because we were youngish men mostly, earning good pay and visiting some pretty much nice places around the world.

The best chance of getting caught up in a spot of bother was when you went ashore and visited 'establishments' that perhaps you shouldn't have :O:

In SH5 terms I don't see the devs going into too much detail/depth regarding morale, other than 'low morale will amount to a longer timescale for various tasks'.

"But even when things are going badly and spirits are low, I agree - that doesn't always equate to bad performance, or even bad morale."

That's what I suspected. Having not spent any time in the military, I cannot judge what the atmosphere aboard a navell vessel could be. But what I've always spected is that, even if morale was poor, people would still do their job proparly and as effectivly as they could.

Granted, as a fisherman, I had noone activly hunting me an trying to kill me. But still, if you're in an enviroment wich is dangerous, where, if you slip up, you could get yourself killed: you have ample motivation to perform well. Even if for nothing else than a sence of self preservation.

I would imagine that, on a naval vessel where, I suspect, group cohesion would be actively encouraged: morale would not impede crew performance. I would imagine that, even if you'd hated your commanders guts, you'd not want to let your crew mates down. And if nothing else would want yourself and you shipmates to survive.

Where I can imagine low morale effecting performance is: when you are utterly cornered with no oppertunity of escape. When a sence of impending and total defeat sets in, people would just give up in desperation.

But, if there's even a small chance of survival, my guess is: people would more often and then not do their damdest what's necissary to survive.

Every patrol on my boat there was the infamous "Hate Week." Usually occurred after the first week and lasted for about a week or so. Never got physical. Never effected our performance. About the only thing that did effect our performance was a lack of sleep that happened during an inspection. But even then it was an inspection so we would push ourselves.

No Navy experience here, Army for me, but I think there's a certian dynamic between men when encountering a shared stressful experience, that I always assumed was nearly universal. The gist of it is this:

As long as the leader is universally hated, all is well.

What I mean is that in my experience, as long as the crew/joes see a singular source of their discomfort, as the road gets tougher they put aside their individual differences and band together to fight their common enemy. Of course, it's not always the Captian that's enemy, sometimes it's the XO or the Platoon Sargeant. Also, the men need a leader they can love, i.e. First Sargeant/Cheif of Boat that they see as their protector from said enemy. It's kind of a good cop/bad cop thing, but I've never seen it fail.

Nothing about SH5, I'm sure, just my 2 cents on the subject.:salute:

yes i agree, good points. served in army also. :salute:

I wouldn't mind women associating me with donkeys; could only be good for my reputation. ;):cool:

Anyway, in my experience (of watching the highly realistic and bible-of-the-sea series "Sea Patrol"), I thought that, what with the ongoing unresolved sexual tension, dramatic jeopardy, and constant white-knuckle action, there'd be no time left to fight each other when aboard a Navy boat. :rotfl2:

I spent about four years on frigates and we were always having punchups both at sea and on shore runs. Mainly alcohol fuelled shore runs but not always the case (our navy wasn't a dry navy). As for the crew performance during periods of extremely low morale I'm not sure. I was lucky enough to spend 6 days flying home in a C130 Hercules and make it home for christmas when my shipmates didnt get back until Febuary (Persian gulf Deployment).

ha the old fat albert!! herc c130 done 22 jumps from them, x airbourne parachute regiment, many memories, not always for the good, landed once in a rabbit hole and twisted tendons on my ankle not pleasent, very sore. :salute:

A little late here, but like Steve said, you haven't seen low morale until you have poor leadership that doesn't take care of it's people. At the same time, I haven't really seen the routine of deployment affect performance much, people just develop their own hidey-holes to get away from it all and use that to manage things. In my own estimation, fatigue was a bigger factor, measured in days from the last liberty port. You could try to mitigate it with any number of things, but bottom line was that at some point people needed to unwind. But poor leadership is a killer and if a boat sucks as a whole, just look at the chain of command.

And having relevant operational missions pulled from you. I don't know if it was just my experience but nothing felt quite like getting up for a big game and then finding out it was cancelled. If it happened more than once people started to adopt a "they are just going to cancel it/retask us so why should we give a ****?"

Not really the best attitude to have and it didn't happen all at once but it happened.

As far as it's relation to SH5, I imagine consistently missing targets while still managing to get beat to hell by depth charges would rather quickly fall under the poor leadership. Or the super-long, thrice extended patrols some players are fond of running degrading performance; less a morale issue and more an acknowledgement that running around working nineteen hours a day on two to four hours of sleep is exhausting.

I have a different perspective having spent 8 years in a funny green suit. Interpersonal tensions often created problems - but not of a morale kind. Force the people to work together, understand that they have to tolerate each other, etc, and usually all works out well in the end.

Low Morale however is another issue. Ever run short of potable water, or ammo, or not get the mail? Certain things you need - but don't have, can devestate the willingness to "get the job done". Sure, some highly trained folks can push through alot, but I never had a full bird come to me and say "Good news, none of your future deployments are going to be alongside standard line units". The mentality is entirely different, and little things such as no word from home for a month can tear the heart out of some people. Instead of simply blocking out what was lacking, they dwell on it. Everything from keeping focused on a patrol, to how fast and well they packed gear. I have seen aircraft TI's no-go a repair because a mechanic didn't have his head in the moment, and screwed up a fix. I've seen kids thinking about the what ifs at home, instead of looking to spot the guy getting ready to release their brain from their cranium. I could go on and on.

There are all kinds of ways low morale can equal a lack of performance. Its not just about if the job gets done - its does the job get done as efficiently as it should.