Chapter 58: Formation of the Iron Brigade Part III

Chapter 58: Formation of the Iron Brigade Part III



Heidi knew something was wrong the moment Bruno began spending his days around the house. At first she thought that perhaps the man had gotten some extra time of leave for reasons unknown to her. But in the end, she knew this was too good to be true.

Sure she had her ways to find out just what exactly Bruno was up to. But she did not want to go behind the man's back to find out. Rather, she trusted when the time came he would tell her himself.

And because of this, she waited patiently, all the while fulfilling her role as a loving wife and mother. The upside of spending time at his home while organizing the formation of the Iron Brigade was the fact that Bruno had managed to be around his children much more.

They were, after all too young to go to school, and because of this they spent their time at home, being raised by their mother. Now that he was home for the majority of the day, other than a few weekly visits to the Central Division in order to report the updates of his project to his superiors. Bruno found himself taking breaks quite frequently to play with his daughters, and to teach his young son valuable lessons.

As the weeks passed, Bruno found that he had more volunteers from the German Navy than he initially expected. In particular, the German Seebattalion, which was the Imperial German Naval Infantry, in other words their version of Marines had well over two dozen volunteers join the unit.

This made sense when Bruno considered the small scale of the Seebataillon and the fact that they really didn't have much to do, as one only one of its two battalions had been deployed to defend German colonists in the Herero Wars

In fact, now that it was mid-October 1904, Bruno was all too aware of what had happened in the region. It did after all cause some major drama at the Central Division of German High Command. In an act of rebellion, the Khoi and Herero tribes had massacred 125 German settlers in what would be known as Namibia in the 21st century.

In retaliation, General Lothar von Trotha had ordered the extermination of the Herero tribes by killing all the men, as well as forcing the women and children into the desert where they would die from dehydration or exposure.

It was no doubt an act of cruelty, but considering the Herero tribes had murdered innocent German Settlers, Bruno quite frankly considered it not necessarily justified per se, but more so the natural result that would occur when a colonial subject performed such a heinous act against their masters.

In addition to this, Bruno was well aware of Lothar von Trotha's character. Having served beneath the man in China during the boxer rebellion. Well, not exactly directly as Bruno was only a captain at the time who answered to a Lieutenant Colonel. But the man was in charge of the East Aisa Expeditionary Corps, which Bruno was a part of and thus could have been considered the boss of Bruno's boss.NewW novels updates at novelhall.com

In this timeline, the Germans had sent this weapon to the Japanese during their war with the Russians in Manchuria as a means of aid. And by now was also being shipped to the Russians as well. It was Krupp's answer to the Canon de 75 modèle 1897, which was a French weapon that had made the German artillery of the previous century obsolete.

However, the 7.5cm Model 1903 lost in military trials against the Waffenwerke von Zehntner 7.5 cm FK 1901. Which was Bruno's design based upon the interwar era 7.5 cm FK 16 nA from his past life. Which was now being mass produced for military service.

Of course, the 7.5cm Model 1903 was "adopted" in limited numbers for the purpose of counter espionage. Its sole purpose was to basically be used as a display piece for potential spies to observe and report incorrect information to their nation. Because of this, and the export models, Krupp was producing enough to easily supply the Iron Brigade in their wars abroad. Finally, there was one other piece of equipment being employed by the Iron Brigade in this war. And that was the MG 01. Or more specifically, the MG 01/03, which was a variant in this timeline that Waffenwerke von Zehntner manufactured to fulfill the needs of the German Army who had begun investing heavily into machine guns before the MG-34 was ready for mass production.

In other words, it was an MG 08 with a tripod mount rather than the notorious sledge mount. And it also made use of a metallic belt like the PM M1910, which the Russians would adopt in

1910.

This was in contrast to the cloth belt that the Germans, and other nations adopted for their variants of the Maxim Gun, also known by the nickname of "The Devil's Paintbrush" due to the millions of young men whose blood it spilled across no-man's-land during the Great War of Bruno's past life..

It was because this machine gun was in ready supply, and was highly capable of performing the roles Bruno needed it to that he had selected it for service within the Iron Brigade. After all, the German Reich was the only nation currently investing heavily into Machine gun development and production. As most nations still had not understood their value on the battlefield. Even after their prominent use during the Secon Boer War, and the Russo-

Japanese War.

And since this was the case, Bruno knew that the Red Army would not be able to get their hands on such devastating weapons. Perhaps if they were lucky, they could get one or two. But not enough to effectively counter the Iron Brigade. Especially if Bruno fielded Machine Gunners at the platoon level.

Thus, Bruno had finished the requisition forms for the specific equipment he wanted for his Iron Brigade. Which he had no doubt would result in a victory for the Russian Tsar. If there was one concern Bruno had about deploying to Russia, it was simply this.

He had no idea when this war would end, or how many communists he would have to butcher

in the process. Surely he would not become known for painting the Russian landscape red with the blood of Marxists, right?"