Chapter 305: Introducing the Halftrack
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.
Enjoy new adventures from empire
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.