Der Tag (Minden Games) : The Holy Grail of WWI North Sea HSF v GF Wargaming is found!

For the better part of thirty years I have been searching and experimenting with various rule systems that allow me to play WWI naval games, specifically North Sea actions between the Royal Navy (RN) Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet (HSF). This encompassed and included a vast fleet of 1/3000 Navwar ships (the Jutland Battle Pack and much. much more [ahem]) for use with General Quarters (I and II). I have acquired a shelf load of books and various boards games (Avalanche Press - The Great War at Sea Vol II - The North Sea and the Baltic and SPI Dreadnought to name two). There is the History of Wargames project's reprint of Fletcher Pratt's rules, a copy of "Si Vis Pakem" (Prof David Manley's WWI rules), an old copy of A&A's Sea Wars [1894-1945] and teh Jutland scenario booklet, XTR's Command Magazine Jutland zip-lock game and many other things I bet I have forgotten about, but all of which make me think "Jutland". The wilderness years are now over as Minden Games "Der Tag" officially does it for me (see below, a simple and brilliant game, designed originally as a solitaire game, but it was cleverly expanded by a ingenious friend to a multi-player system which we played over Zoom for myself (as Admiral Scheer) and some friends as the various RN "fleets" [most of the Grand Fleet at Scapa, some Grand Fleet elements at Cromarty Firth, at Rosyth the BCF and the "Wobbly Eight" of the Dover Patrol]):   

It is a high level operational game, German action cards initiating missions but there is a huge emotional buy-in during combat, from a simple but effective combat system that "gets it right". It is set in the 1916 Jutland year and plays for four turns of nerve racking play. We ran the game twice on consecutive days, each game lasting just over an hour of playing time. It was also a great conversational piece and highly entertaining to play as everyone got into teh mood. I can only say "I highly recommend it to you" if you are of a similar disposition as myself to WWI naval warfare. I just wish I had found it sooner! Please also see Board Game Geek's review (and if you get it, enjoy the solitaire version, but do think about translating it to a multi player version to spread the joy): 

• https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/316075/der-tag-1916-solitaire-ww1-naval-game

Footnote: My WWI naval addiction. I must also give a shout out to Paul Hague's two books of naval wargame rules. The first I discovered as a teenager in the Public Library and I ended up making 1:3000(ish) WWI ships out of bits of balsa wood (looking back I am amazed at the fortitude and ambition of that young man, I think I got the BCF, 5th BS and 1st SG of the HSF). The second book was purchased some twenty years later and was a welcome reunion to somebody returning to his hobby's "second life" in his late twenties. 

Board Game Geek Comments: 

• https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3168818/der-tag-is-der-game
• https://boardgamegeek.com/video/542479/der-tag-1916-solitaire-ww1-naval-game/coffee-with-kilroy-panzerschreck-issue-17-fall-202

Audible Book: Admiral Jellicoe and The Crisis of the Naval War

This was a fascinating subject as Jellicoe was very much a "war hero" for his services to the Grand Fleet, leading up to and beyond Jutland, but the inability to deal with the U-Boat threat was his Achilles Heal (see below, revealing more as a detective story of what was not said, what he was prepared to say and what he was focused or overly fixated on): 

All in all I found it a turgid read, but was totally fascinated by the way the man was consumed with detail but somehow missed the most facing pungent problem facing the Allies in WWI (he considered fighting U-Boars nigh impossible). The convoy solution to the problem was mentioned in passing (and is literally the oldest trick in the naval service book) as "logistical problems were eventually solved", no hint at the political issues (understatement, ahem) with Lloyd George and no admission of credit to which the crisis was turned around. Plenty of attention to efforts and energy of ideas and systems that did not really yield the results effective convoys did. A far cry from an account of the same period from these Wikipedia pages: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convoys_in_World_War_I

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jellicoe,_1st_Earl_Jellicoe

This is where my "love" of Naval Started, blame it on Paul Hague

Take me back thirty eight years to the tender age of 13 or 14 and I read this book from my local library cover to cover several times over. It therefore seemed apt and fitting to buy a second hand ex-library book (see below, the hallowed tome of infamy):

In fact with the ticket sheet intact in the front of the book, the first date in it [9 May 1983] bears a striking similarity to when I first would have read (a different copy of) it. Spooky to think "another wargaming soul" (albeit a Londoner .. as opposed to his opposite in the North)  would have been going through similar deliberations (such as how do I get my hands on an average dice and a d10?). It seems to have been well read until June 1994, an eleven year tour of duty before "retirement" (see below, badges on honour and a passage through many wargamers hands - spooky if anybody who had took this book out was actually reading this post):

This was the reason why my parents "worried so much about what I was doing in my bedroom with balsa wood, a modelling knife, strong smelling balsa glue, Cornflakes cereal packets (used for bases), matchsticks and Tamiya paints [Grey, Blue and White]". Did they not realise I was creating the Grand Fleet and German High Seas Fleet in miniature? I also have Paul Hague's later book which I found "good" too but 'wanting' in childhood memory first love sense (see below, submarines, aircraft carriers and WW2 battleships):

2020 could see the recreation of the four classic "sea battles" contained in "Sea Battles in Miniature: A Guide to Naval Wargaming". A definitive counter-point to Fletcher Pratt which has to be done in 2020 (maybe at CoW 2020?).