snip about things I don't really disagree with.
The other reasons were they didn't need to control the seas but deny the seas to their enemy hence much less need for cruisers, the use of conscription and the ability to design ships for shorter range
But this is a bad plan. If the north sea is denied to shipping of both powers, it hurts Germany a hell of a lot more than it hurts Britain. And even to do that, you have to overcome an enormous RN advantage in existing material and a much longer naval tradition, and you do kind of need to control the seas if you want your own imports coming along.
The best hope for the Germans was to find an isolated British squadron that they could bring the full force of the High Sea Fleet against. The opportunity never arose
And the opportunity never arose because there's no compelling reason for the British to split up without the Germans providing some kind of distraction somewhere else that you'd need to commit capital ships for. It's not bad luck, it's bad planning. And that's what prompted the question to begin with: Short of a tactical blunder that Germany's going to have to detect and take advantage of in time to exploit, Britain is simply never going to expose its fleet in a manner that can be vulnerable to the HSF, unless you force them to do so in some fashion.
To do that, you'd need some kind of viable threat to the shipping lanes directly, and the sort of threat that requires a capital ship response. That means something big and tough enough that it can handle little boats, fast enough to slip a blockade, and long ranged enough to get into the Atlantic and operate for a while.
Now, such a wondership didn't exist and maybe couldn't exist. But unless you force the British to spread out and weaken their fleet in some manner, you're never going to get that opportunity. And the only way I can think of to force such a disproportional weakening is to threaten enough of a range at once that the British have to split up the fleet to cover a wider area.
I don't think the so called 'suicide rush' would ever come to pass. For one thing, to employ the Navy in such a fashion requires the permission of the Kaiser - although he was not a navy man and exercised no direct command over the Fleet, yet it was he who had made the Imperial Navy possible and as such he was (overly) protective. After all, the Grand Fleet still does outnumber Germany's navy in total number of dreadnoughts and battlecruisers. Even if they take a lot of losses, the bottom line is they have more than Germany does so it doesn't seem - to me at least - a very effective strategy.
Furthermore, Admiral Tirpitz and other high ups in the Navy might threaten to resign if the Navy is callously thrown away; then there is the strategic consideration. Although the High Seas Fleet did not do very much directly, indirectly it contributed to the defense of the nation - the congregation of Germany's heavy ships in the north sea ports prevented any gallipoli like campaigns taking place on Germany's coast. And who knows? Churchill was so damn crazy he might go for it if the HSF is sunk or severely beaten up.
The only really effective way for the Germans to challenge the Grand Fleet would be to force naval engagements when the odds are in their favor - and this is something I could see von Ingenohl going for. Imagine if he bagged the British battlecruisers? That would be quite a feather in his cap, as well as the HSF; a couple Jutland like scenarios that ended in German victory would put the Grand Fleet on the defensive and likely cause a shake up at the Admiralty.
Well, the point isn't to knock the Grand fleet out of action, which I don't think is ever going to happen. I don't have my book in front of me (lent it to a friend) and can't quote directly, but the idea is that the channel is closer for the HSF than the British, and that without British dreadnoughts to oppose the German ones, the Germans should have a small window of time where they control the Channel.
Then you sink any transport ships in the water, and more importantly, shell the harbors on both sides of the channel that are loading and unloading troops. Delay the BEF enough and suddenly that initial rush into France is looking very very different.
And yeah, Kaiser Wilhelm probably never conceived of such a thing. And it would certainly be idiotic to throw away your fleet if it turned out to be what everyone was kind of expecting in August of '14, a three month short easy war.
But let's say he gets a stroke of inspiration, this is an alternate history board. He suddenly forsees that it's going to be a long, terrible grind to get anything done on the Western Front if he doesn't win and win quickly. And that the sacrifice of the fleet might keep the British from landing troops on the Continent for a long while, if you can wreck the harbors badly enough.
I'm not even saying it would work, I'm saying that the possibility of enabling that first throw against the West is the justification for such an expensive and risky venture, not an attempt to draw the Grand fleet into an early battle in a situation that would favor them, not the Germans.
And if you present it in those terms, a noble sacrifice aimed at overrunning France quickly, do you think the plan could be sold to the bigwigs at the German Navy?