Confessions of a madman

Regular readers will know that I ave been working my way through the Second World War day by day as a digitised board game.

In addition, way back in September 2015 I started a similar project but playing each day’s battle as a table top wargame. After a four year hiatus I have resumed this project.

But there’s more. I have long had the wish to try the “World War” game from Phil Dunn’s “Sea Battle Games” but for the real world. I recently got my hands on a copy of Phil’s “Your World At War”, an updated rule set for the same concept.

In the new rule set some aspects are simplified, particularly the resource management, but land and air warfare have been expanded.

I intend to combine both sets of rules, and in this game I will not be following actual history but the war will progress according to the economic abilities and desires of each nation. Before I can make a start a fair amount of preparation is needed.

I am lucky enough to own a world atlas dating from 1938 with a great deal of contemporary economic detail, as well as a potted history of the political and economic history of the first part of the 20th century (and some photographs that would now be considered racist). This detailed tome ucost me 25p from a charity shop. It is literally falling apart at the seams.

I have analysed and simplified the data. First population numbers were rounded to the nearest million, and any country with less than half a million was ignored.

Next I combined all food production, rounded to the nearest 10,000 tons per week, which is conveniently one ship load, and for my purposes will feed half a million people. Other world resources have been simplified to oil, coal, iron ore and steel production data, all calculated in multiples of 10,000 tons per week.

This gives me a basis of what needs to be shipped around the world. I know from the atlas the tonnage of merchant shipping available for the five major maritime nations, which is a start.

The atlas opens with a world map showing principal shipping, air and rail routes, with mileage and (for sea lanes) the number of days travel. All very useful information.

Today I have finished cataloguing the 330 or so named cities from the above map. (New Zealand is at both ends of the map). I need to sort these cities by country and will work on the basis that these are centres of distribution for resources.

All resources and population numbers will be split equally between the cities. I had thought about loading the capital cities but I think it’s complex enough without that.

After having worked out every city’s needs and resources I will start research on the armed forces of the major combatants from another book in my library:

It’s going to be a long job, but so far has been a satisfying and educational project.