Erich had been dispatched on a mission to silently eliminate any threat behind the scenes to the war effort. Whether within the boundaries of the Central Powers, and the borders of the nations that it was composed of. Or abroad. Deep behind enemy lines, he was the type of man best left to his own devices after he had been given a task to complete.
Frankly speaking, the less Bruno knew of how the man completed his task, the better it was for everyone. An apt comparison would be to say that Erich was like a fire and forget missile system. Simply point him at a target, lock him in, and pull the trigger.
After that, one did not need to concern themselves with the matter any longer and could engage other targets of priority. There was nobody better at the job Bruno had tasked his old friend with than the man himself.
Because of this, Bruno shifted his focus towards other priorities as he prepared for the upcoming invasion of the Italian Peninsula. The objective was simple: transport the German 8th Army and its supporting elements to the Alps.
And there was one thing that his army was currently severely lacking if he truly desired to make the push into Rome as quickly as possible. His engineers had been working overtime with solutions based upon either their own ideas or Bruno’s suggestions to come up with new armored vehicles, which would increase the overall firepower and mobility of Bruno’s army.
While designing a fully enclosed armored personnel carrier was still a few years away from completion, much progress had been made on another form of armored troop transport. The initial up-armoring of 3 ½ ton trucks had mitigated casualties for infantry forces deploying into battle, but they had proven to suffer some difficulties in less than ideal conditions.
As a result, Bruno’s engineers had begun tampering with designs with the 3 ½ ton truck chassis on how to make a vehicle better suited towards mobile warfare.
And after much trial and error, they discovered that tracks could be mounted to the rear half of the chassis, increasing its ability to cross adverse terrain, while the hull itself could be made of one continuous piece of steel armor, rather than steel plates riveted to an aluminum chassis.
The result was the creation of a larger, and more powerful version of the Sd.Kfz. 251 Half-Track from Bruno’s past life. Not only did this halftrack operate as a superior version of a troop transport, insofar as it could protect the soldiers inside its cargo bay with superior protection against enemy fire, but it could also be used in a variety of roles.
Whether as an armored ambulance, engineering vehicles, self-propelled guns of all kinds, or even in the roles of reconnaissance and logistics. The half-track proved to be a widely versatile platform, as much as the 3 1/2 truck if not Moreso.
The only real downsides it had were simply the fact that it ultimately suffered from inferior speed when compared to a standard 3 ½ ton truck platform. So its use in logistics was less than ideal, even if it could serve the role if need be. The tens of thousands of three and a half ton trucks that were already manufactured were far better suited to this role in war.
As Bruno gazed upon the Half Tracks in front of him, and the wide variety of roles they could fulfill, he had to admit; he had underestimated the intelligence and creativity of the men he employed. They were, after all some of the best minds suited towards engineering in this current era.
But even so, he didn’t suspect they would be able to replicate some of the less advanced forms of WW2 era technology so early in this life, with the advice and direction he had already given them.
However, after telling them to make a universal tracked armored vehicle chassis platform that could easily be modified and scaled up or down for whatever task it suited, the next logical assumption was to figure out how to do the same with the robust truck chassis he had given these same men.
Because of this, Bruno sat there in silence for a long time while his engineers waited for his response. He was thinking through about a thousand matters altogether. Most of which was how best to implement these new weapons before the Spring Offensive of 1916 began.
In fact, Bruno was thinking down to the most minute details, of exactly how many of each variant he would need for his combined arms battalions, and what roles they would properly perform, as well as the tactics and training required to pull it off.
Currently, the German 8th Army was about 300,000 infantry, with supporting elements of artillery, and tanks, and some anti-aircraft capabilities.
This would need to be scaled down to about 50,000 men or roughly 50 Combined Arms Battalions. These 50,000 men would naturally be composed of his most elite men, while the rest would be transferred to serve in other Army Groups which were of the older design.
The 8th army would serve as the prototype for the modern field army, and would preferably be supported by an Air Wing, which itself would have a variety of aircraft designed to support the combined arms army.
After calculating within his head everything he needed to bring a modern army to the forefront of the Great War, Bruno immediately voiced his thoughts aloud, giving notice to the Engineers the precise amount of equipment he would need and the time he needed it in.
After they ran the numbers, the engineers responded to Bruno’s demands as swiftly as they could.
“We can have what you request manufactured and ready for combat by the mid of march at the latest.”
Seeing as how the Spring Offensive was not intended to begin until April at the Earliest, Bruno accepted this answer with a silent nod of his head before departing. With his approval, the Half Tracks would immediately begin mass production to serve alongside the armored units already within a service of Bruno’s Eighth Army.
Meanwhile, Bruno returned from his factory in Berlin, to the Headquarters that belonged to the central division of the German High Command, where he gave voice to exactly how many aircraft he would need to properly amount his assault on the Allies within the Alps.
At first, the other Generals thought Bruno was mad, by saying he needed a single air wing to accompany his 8th Army which he would be dividing by six of its total size in order to create a smaller, armored, and more mobile combined arms force.
But after going through a lengthy discussion of exactly what the restructuring of his army meant, and how the rest of the units would be used to support his advance, the man after all had an uncanny ability to predict the future of warfare. Almost as if he had personally witnessed it himself.
And because of this, Bruno got exactly what he wanted. The 2nd Air Wing of the German Combat Air Forces was immediately given orders to prepare as an attached unit to the 8th German Combined Arms Army.
At the same time a grand restructuring within Bruno’s forces was being compelled to the men involved, many of those who had served with Bruno in the Balkans sighed in relief when they were not selected for the newly reconstituted German 8th Army, while others were offended that they had not proven themselves to be worthy enough of selection for this elite fighting force.
Bruno would ultimately spend the next few weeks, assuring each and every one of those who felt some kind of grievance with the selection as to why they were chosen for the role they were given, while also getting his soldiers acquainted with their new tactics, and equipment. The very introduction of things like Half Tracks, and the Fedorov Avtomat as a standard issue rifle would take much time and practice getting used to.
But one thing was certain: by the time February came knocking, each and every German soldier in the 8th Army had undergone enough mock battles and training scenarios where they were well accustomed to the war that was about to be waged in the Alps.
In fact, they understood their new equipment on such an intimate level that it might as well have been a family member or a childhood friend.
And it was these preparations when introducing new equipment, rather than simply and haphazardly issuing it to soldiers with little more than a crash course to get acquainted with it that ultimately would set the German Army apart from their enemies on the battlefield.
Something which Bruno was naturally all aware of due to the life he had lived, and the casualties he had seen sustained by men given new equipment that they had little knowledge of how to operate. After all, no matter how advanced a weapon system may be, if given to a conscript with no training its advantages were instantly negated.