Re: Blood and Iron

Trials for the adoption of the He-51 biplane had been concluded. Even now, as the year 1911 entered its final season, Germany had managed to manufacture thousands of biplanes. The problem wasn't manufacturing these metal birds; no, that was easy and cheap to do, even on such a large scale intended for a global conflict.

Rather, the real expense in the fielding of aircraft was not only maintenance and logistic support, but primarily the fostering of those brave souls who would ride them into battle. That's right, founding a dedicated air school was expensive, and so was training pilots.

One couldn't just raise a single crop of these knights of the sky. They would need to be consistently trained over the years. After all, many would certainly die in war, and those who didn't would eventually retire.

Even then, it usually took a year or perhaps even longer to properly train these men, who would be the final exemplars of the ancient chivalric tradition in this world. They were the living legacy of a long-forgotten lineage of warriors who once rode on horseback at breakneck speeds, crashing into one another in an attempt to win glory for God, King, and country.

Such was the spirit not only at the German Air Academy, which was the first of its kind (though it was not its official name), but also among the ranks of those who had already earned their wings. Saying that Bruno had a functional knowledge of dogfighting tactics was an overstatement at best.

Did he understand what dogfighting was and the general principles behind how generations of pilots had learned to properly engage and eliminate their enemies? Eh, even that would be overestimating his knowledge in this regard.

He was an army officer, one who was so good at his job that in his twilight years he was tasked with training the next generation of General Staff for the Heer of the Bundeswehr in his past life. Close air support and how it changed the battlefield were more of his expertise when it came to the proper tactical and strategic employment of aircraft.

As for the battles that took place above himself and his troops in the sky, that was not his area of expertise, much like the wars waged between steel ships on the seas. Sure, he had more knowledge on how to utilize these weapons than even the greatest minds of the era, especially when it came to the importance of air supremacy on a modern battlefield.

But to say he was a genius in either naval or aerial-based warfare was incredibly far-fetched. Even so, what limited knowledge he had in such pursuits had already been given to those better suited to it than himself, such as the use of wolfpack tactics for submarines to the Admiralty of the Kaiserliche Marine.

As for the use of dogfighting tactics, only the most rudimentary knowledge was given to the pilots who founded the German Air Academy. Currently, Bruno stood on the ground outside an airfield that was now under the direct authority of the German Army, one he had invested significant sums in establishing for the testing of his own aircraft.