I figure any ship fleeing will defend itself. But Im talking Squadrons. If a BB gets hammered its support ships will cover its retreat. Most ships sunk were defending bravely trying to retreat from the battle unless the destruction was given that fast. Time is a big factor in naval fights most battles were completed fast compared to land battles. Only to start again when ships were caught or found again somewhere else.

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"Official Naval Boffin"

In systems which assign victory points for the destruction of enemy ships, pulling damaged ships out of the battle will deny VPs to the opponent, which is often enough to encourage players to disengage ships from the battle. Simply assigning each ship a point value and saying that you get 50% of that value for a cripple and 100% for a kill will work.

I personally don't like morale rules much as a rule for most games. It either comes up so infrequently that it has no real effect on the game at all (WH40K) or the entire game is decided by one die roll (random chance forcing your biggest unit to retreat). It is very useful in some games though, particularly infantry combat games.

my goals on this subject was to cause ships and fleets to act semi historicaly as they actually did not to control the game. Also to prevent ships fight to the death unrealictly. but since then the idea has been dropped.

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"Official Naval Boffin"

I personally LOVE morale rules.

Games that continue on to the last ship always seem to drag on and on and on. I also agree with previous statements that it is very un-historical.

One game that has great morale rules is Battleground by Your Move Games. Each unit has three "zones" of damage. Green, Yellow and Red. The unit has to make a roll when the damage it takes crosses into a new zone, it also has to make a morale check if in combat in the red.

The chances it will run of course increase with each zone. Units in the Red zone are close to death and highly likely to run.

The zones are different for each unit, some units are more likely to fight to the death than other units. Units also have different levels of morale which is rolled on 2-d6. Units that fail morale turn and run, but may make a morale checks to heal/repair until they are off the table on the friendly side, then they are gone for good.

Morale Rules allow for games to play out much faster. Yes, it is annoying when 2 hours of gaming hangs on a morale roll...and you lose the die roll. But really is that any different than 2 hours of gaming hanging on a lucky critical hit?

Morale rules ought to be really quick and fast. Morale for each ship, and when the fleet is down to 50% (pick a reasonable %) loses, morale for the entire fleet.

Peace