Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 22: A New Generation of Military Equipment Part II



As much as Bruno spent his time developing new weapons for the Reich. Which hopefully would be adopted into service and mass produced in time for the upcoming Great War that would begin in the following decade, assuming the timeline had not shifted to the point where it would move up.

Bruno also spent a lot of his days with his wife, Heidi. While he would cook breakfast and lunch for her, because she was eight months pregnant, and he wanted her to rest as much as possible. He would often neglect lunch, as he was too busy with blueprints.

Causing the woman to voluntarily make a meal for the both of them, and bring it to her husband while he was hard at work in his home office. Despite Bruno's attempts to keep his wife off of her feet during such a crucial time. She very much enjoyed doing small things like cooking for her husband, and utterly refused to be robbed of it.

Forcing Bruno to accept her hospitality for at least one meal of the day. Which was most often lunch. Aside from spending time with Heidi after the day's work was over. Bruno continued to work on developing the next generation of equipment for the German Military.

In addition to this, he sent a letter of recommendation to his father to gain the licensing required to contract production of the Browning auto-5 shotgun within their own factories. It was a deal that would take much time to be negotiated. But frankly, Bruno knew it was the best shotgun of the era.

The Browning Auto-5 was a semi-automatic 12-gauge shotgun developed by John Moses Browning, an American gun manufacturer who was absolutely brilliant. And in my ways considered the greatest firearms manufacturer of all time. Even in the 21st century, many of his firearms designs were still employed in 21st century battlefields by modern militaries. The browning auto-5 had already been patented by John Moses Browning as early as 1898. But it would not begin production until a year from now in 1902. And because of this, Bruno intended to wait until it had begun production before sending his father a letter requesting licensing rights from the legendary firearm designer.

Instead, for the time being, he focused on more important things, as the shotgun, while having a role to play in the trenches, was not exactly a critical development needed to be adopted as soon as possible.

Bruno immediately began to work on military uniforms. The legendary field grey uniforms of the German Army had only begun experimentation within colonial units like the East Asian Expeditionary Corps, which was now disbanded. But they had seen service during the winter of 1900 within China.

However, it would still be several years before they were fully implemented across the entire German Army. For now, rather than go with the 1907/10 pattern uniform, which was already obsolete by the time the Great War began, having still made use of the old boiled leather pickelhaube helmets.

Bruno went straight to the most efficient uniform of the war. The 1915/16 pattern uniform with the matching Stahlhelm. This uniform not only got rid of superfluous designs such as the red lining on the edges of the uniform and the visible brass buttons, which made the wearer more visible while in the field.

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But it also added a hardened steel helmet which would protect the user from shrapnel and fragmentation. At the start of the Great War in Bruno's past life, every nation was still equipping their soldiers with either a cloth hat or a boiled leather helmet. Neither of which really did much to protect the wearer.

However, in 1916 the Stahlhelm was introduced to the German Army, around the same time other nations began adopting similar steel helmets. When these hardened steel helmets were introduced, it was said the 75% of all head injuries caused by shrapnel and fragmentation had practically disappeared over night.

This would do wonders to the German Army in this timeline if the German soldiers were immediately equipped with such uniforms. In addition to this, Bruno designed a new set of load bearing equipment.

The harness was made of brown leather and was based on the much later US Army issue ALICE harness. It was an inverted Y-strap harness. Which actually dispersed the load more evenly across the body than the earlier Y-strap style harnesses used primarily by the German Military.

In addition to this, this new style of load bearing equipment had four magazine pouches, each of which was designed to carry two 10 round G-43 magazines. Plus the one in the rifle giving the user 90 rounds of ammunition to use in a firefight.

Which, while may pale in comparison to modern load outs, was still about 10 rounds more than were standard issue to US riflemen in ww2 who were equipped with the venerable M-1 Garand.

Aside from this, Bruno designed a basic gas mask modeled after the m1915 gas mask issued to German soldiers in the Great War. It was carried in a canister similar in design to those soldiers during that time as well.

There was also a standard bayonet scabbard that Bruno introduced to the load bearing equipment, which held the k98k pattern bayonet Bruno had issued to the G-43 rifle variant he had designed for use in this timeline.

The other pieced of equipment that would exist on the load bearing belt, would be consist of a standard E-tool, a canteen, as well as a dump pouch. Where one could drop their spent magazines after using them.

Variations of this load bearing equipment were designed to make use of MP-34 magazine pouches, MG-34 belt containers, and even 12 gauge shells. Ensuring that no matter what the infantry load out, his soldiers would be well equipped for battle.

Finally, after spending much time designing the new uniforms, Bruno moved onto artillery. The list of different artillery pieces fielded by the German Artillery alone during the Great War was... Extensive...

To put it simply, Bruno wanted to simplify the production of artillery into four specific models. Each of which filled a different role and utilized a different caliber. The smallest of which is Bruno based on the interwar period 7.5 cm FK 16 nA. Which was utilized by the Wehrmacht in the early days of the Second World War during Bruno's past life.

As the name suggested, this artillery piece utilized 75mm shells. It was of the horizontal sliding block design, which was standard among German artillery units. And quickly became the norm in Bruno's past life for most modern artillery, as it was a robust, reliable, and efficient means of operation for a large bore field gun.

In addition to this, it had a hydro-pneumatic recoil system. Which would also become the norm during the second half of the Great War within Bruno's life, as the earlier Hydro-Spring recoil mechanism proved to fail under the substantial round counts which the war effort

demanded.

But even hydro-spring recoil systems were not yet the norm, and were only now being developed for service. Meaning the introduction of the superior hydro-pneumatic system was a huge improvement over the current generation of equipment being developed by all of

Germany's rivals.

The 7.5cm field gun also utilized a gun shield to protect the artillery crew from enemy fire, and was transported via box trial for ease of transportation by horses.

As for the second artillery piece which Bruno designed, it was much larger in scale, but still the second smallest intended for service. Whereas the 7.5cm gun had an effective firing range of 12,300 meters or 13,450 yards. The 10cm, or 105mm gun design had an effective firing range of 16,500 meters or 18,045 yards.

It was a big step up in terms of firepower, and range over its little brother. Other than being chambered for a larger shell, and having a longer barrel. It really was just a scaled-up version of the 7.5cm field gun. Having a similar overall design and function.

The third piece of artillery was even larger still. Unlike the previous two designs which were either made at the end of WWI, or introduced into service during the interwar period in

Bruno's previous life.

This field gun was the standard piece of heavy artillery by the Wehrmacht in WW2 and was a devastating overall design. So much so that the 21st Finnish army still operated a modernized variant of it by the time Bruno died in his past life.

The 15cm SFH 18 Howitzer fired a 15cm, or more specifically a 149mm shell at an effective range of 18,200 meters or 19,900 yards. This was however, with rocket assisted projectiles. Otherwise, its range was actually inferior to that of the 10cm field gun. Firing at an effective range of 13,325 meters or 14,572 yards.

Still, Bruno beefed up the design, and extended the barrel, making it fire a 155mm shell, instead of 149mm shell. And increased the bore size and barrel length to accommodate this. In addition to this, he added a gun shield, which was far more important in the Great War than it

was in WW2.

Bruno also changed the carriage system, originally designed to be carried into position by trucks from a split trail. The gun was instead given a box trail that was compatible with being

towed by horses.

As for the final piece of artillery Bruno designed was both the largest caliber of the various howitzers that were intended to see service in this new era of warfare. While at the same time

having the shortest firing range.

The 21 cm Mörser 16 was technically classified as a mortar by the German Army in Bruno's

previous life. But it was, in actuality a very large bore howitzer. And was used by both the Imperial German Army during the latter stages of the Great War, as well as in the Second World War, which followed a mere two decades after.

Its effective firing range was 11,100 meters or 12,100 yards. But it made up for its inferior range with a massive 211mm shell. Which would cause anyone unfortunate enough to get within proximity of the shell's detonation to have a very, very bad day.

Bruno also made sure to employ the variant of the gun that had its shield. As it not only increased the aesthetics of the piece but also protected the crew from gunfire and shrapnel alike.

With these four artillery pieces introduced in 1914, as well as the three lightweight mortar designs currently being experimented in the 60mm, 81mm, and 120mm calibers. Bruno was confident that these advancements in artillery could provide an enormous initial advantage at the outbreak of war.

Of course, like the next generation of firearms, which he had already designed the initial

concept blueprints for. These new uniforms and artillery designs would need to undergo multiple layers of prototyping, testing, military trials, and political bickering before ever being adopted for service, let alone mass produced.

All in all, Bruno expected it to take anywhere from six to ten years before the German Army actually began to field such masterful pieces of equipment. But with his father's support, and the power of the Junker coalition behind him. Bruno genuinely believed that by the time the Great War finally began, the Imperial German Army would be in a much better position than

its rivals.

In the coming years, there would be one critical piece of equipment that needed to be

invented, but it would have to wait until the Wright Brothers invented the first airplane in 1903. Bruno may be ambitious, but he had no intentions of stealing the credit for such a critical invention by the men who were actually responsible for its creation.