As I read the Ch 11 Morale Drop-In, I would interpret it much as you have described...
If the unit has a morale of 12 then does that mean that every stand in the unit hass a morale 12 and the morale modifiers for each stand are subtracted from 12, regardless of the die roll?
The unit itself has a morale of 12 (presuming that was after unit-level morale modifiers), so each stand starts with a 12.
1D20 is rolled. As your case describes, you rolled an 8.
Then stand-specific modifiers are applied to each stand in the unit. Each unit has that die role of 8, but they may have circumstances that make them more (or less) fragile than their unit-mates.
Stand X with one hit would subtract 2 from it's morale level of 12 resulting in using the morale line 10 on the chart; the roll of 8 is "no change"
Stand Y has one hit and 'fired on from rear so subtract 2+5 from 12 resulting in using morale line 5. The rolle of 8 is "down one level".
That's how I would read it, and play it. You got an 8. The unit itself is OK. Stand X is OK. But Stand Y is not.
All of that said, that's based on reading the chapter, but not based on playing it. For me, I find I don't need the morale drop-in. I find the combat mechanics generate enough morale impact on the gamers themselves that I don't need to rules to tell me which units are going to pull back (as soon as they can) despite what the owning player wants them to do. I find that the owning player himself will pull them back despite what he wants them to do.
I don't say this lightly. It is a fairly remarkable thing about the way the infantry combat works ... at least to me, to my gaming experience. The whole issue of suppression and loosing your ability to do anything for your activation except trying to un-suppress, and then if you succeed finding you have used your action to do that, and you're just going to get suppressed again since you aren't shooting and suppressing the enemy, so that un-suppressed units really can't DO anything except use their bonus moves to get out of the enemy's fire ... it means that once you start losing the fight for firepower dominance, once your units are being suppressed more than your opponent's units, then you (the player) will feel ENORMOUS pressure to pull your units back out of the direct line of fire until you can get them re-organized. Doesn't take any morale rules to make that happen. And for me it was an eye-opening experience the first time it happened in a game.
It touches on one of the things I always look for in wargaming rules. It is a spark of insight, a glimmer into why commanders make the decisions they make in battle. You can litterally feel that the firefight is going to go against you even before you start to take too many casualties. You can see that you're not keeping their heads down as much as they are keeping your heads down.
I once had a guy I worked with, a Vietnam vet of some experience, explain to me his vision of how a firefight worked. 1) You heard one or two shots ring out. 2) Both sides emptied their magazines in the general direction of the enemy. 3) As everyone reloaded, they did a silent calculation of which side had made more noise (in his experience it always was clear enough). 4) The side that made more noise started maneuvering for advantage, while the side that made less noise started withdrawing.
Your tankage may vary,
-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)
