TooFatLardies Oddcast - Episode Five: "The one about researching wargames rules"

For those enjoying our irregularly scheduled TooFatLardies Oddcast, the link to Episode 5 has arrived on

YouTube and

Libsyn

In this episode, we cover off a host of topics, wandering through our plans for 2018, and undertaking research for writing and adapting sets of wargames rules. As an update, and as suggested in the comments to this post by Ashley, I’ve added some notes below regarding the books we discussed on the podcast. 

The books reviewed during the section “In The Library” were:

"The Luftwaffe Fighters' Battle of Britain" - Chris Goss (Crecy Publishing, 2001)(ISBN-10: 0947554815)

"Battle Studies (Modern War Studies) - Charles Ardant du Picq" University Press of Kansas; 2017) (ISBN-10: 0700623922) 

“The Military Intellectual and Battle: Raimondo Montecuccoli and the Thirty Years War”, edited by Thomas Barker (1975) ISBN10: 0-87395-250-2. This fine book is out of print, but copies do appear on ABEBooks from time to time.

In the “Big Issue” discussion regarding research for war-games rules, we mentioned the following books:

“Storm of Steel” by Ernst Jünger (The 2003 edition ( ISBN-10: 0141186917) by Michael Hofmann is very easy to find, and is a fine translation. However, the translation loses a lot of the tactical, military nuances which are present in the older, 1929, translation by Basil Creighton, who was himself a veteran of the Great War, working for military intelligence, taking aerial photographs of German trenches. Go for the Basil Creighton translation if possible as, reading the translations side by side, it does make a difference.)

“Copse 125” by Ernst Jünger (2013 edition: ISBN-10: 0865274452)

As regards Ernst Jünger’s motivation behind these books and his other writings (military, literary, philosophical, political), I strongly recommend Dr John King’s DPhil. thesis “Writing and Rewriting the First World War: Ernst Jünger and the Crisis of the conservative Imagination, 1914-25”. The information I mentioned on the podcast regarding Jünger’s near obsessive re-writing of Storm of Steel in the 1919-25 period came from Dr King's thesis. There is an excellent analysis in Chapter Six of Dr King's thesis dealing with some of the literary and political motivation behind Jünger’s description of German stormtrooper tactics and activities, and the footnotes to that section are really helpful.  As anyone would expect with a DPhil. thesis, some of the arguments are heavy going, but a really fascinating read, as is much of what Dr King very generously has made available on his site “Ernst Junger in Cyberspace”, available HERE 

As regards contrasting views on history, digging deeper, and being wary of national myths, we mentioned (briefly) the following books, all of which are remarkable books in their own right (whether you agree with them or not):

"Battle Tactics of the Civil War" by Dr Paddy Griffith" (ISBN-10:1847977898)

"Waterloo Companion: The Complete Guide to History's Most Famous Land Battle" - Mark Adkin (ISBN-10: 0811718549), and

"1815: The Waterloo Campaign - The German Victory" (Greenhill Military Paperback) - Peter Hofschroer (ISBN-10: 1853675784).

Hope you enjoy the show!