Re: Blood and Iron

The war at the Italian border continued to push in the favor of the central powers. All the while fights were being had on the western front as the allies began attacking positions other than the border with Germany shared with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

Elsass-Lothringen seeing the first major action since the initial outbreak of the war was hit hard and fast by allied armor. All the while Southern Belgium came under a similar onslaught. But the defenses were solid, in the case of the German fortifications they had spent practically a decade reinforcing their lines of defense. Discover stories at

While the Belgians had been undergoing an extensive process over the course of the last year. Even so, after two years of repeated Allied charges, the most terrifying aspect of the German defenses, the S-Mines embedded within no-man’s-land had become close to depleted.

Bodies after bodies had activated these mines over the course of the last two years, and by now it was a far more rare occurrence for the explosive fondly nicknamed the "bouncing betty" by Americans during Bruno’s past life to actually propel itself into the air and detonate when the French and British launched an assault

Even so, it was not so rare that it was entirely unheard of. Thousands, if not tens of thousands of mines, were still dug beneath the soil of every ten kilometers worth of borderlands. And because of this, Allied forces who were what one might call willing participants of a charge were few and far between.

Perhaps it was naivety, on the part of the Allies, or maybe overconfidence. But when their troops became too frightened to advance among the repeated detonations of anti-personnel minds the commander in charge of the Army advanced towards Elsass-Lothringen gave the order to move forward with tanks.

A strategy, which while good on paper, failed to take into account one critical piece of information that the allies were missing. And that was the fact that the Germans had long since prepared for such an eventuality when building their defenses.

Especially over the course of the last year, when the introduction of allied armored vehicles became a very real concern to counter. Because of this, as the Mk II tanks advanced over the landmine and barbed wire riddled no-man’s-land they encountered an undesirable surprise waiting in store for them.

--- ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ novèlfire.net

A gunner aimed down the sights of the PaK 38 Anti-tank gun. The loader had already made sure that a fresh 5cm Panzergranate 39 shell was loaded in the chamber, when the roar of the allied tank’s engines became apparent.

The efficiency of German production lines truly shocked Bruno, as his arms corporations had produced more barrels for 5cm anti-tank guns than he had tank chassis to strap them on.