Chapter 324: Logistic Simplicity
Shells were loaded into the back of a 15cm gun, as the crew fired the weapon, before ejecting the spent cartridge only to begin the process again. The heavy artillery was dug in behind concrete reinforced trenches at the rear echelons of the battlefield.
All the while the Austro-Hungarian army tried its darndest to push through the Italian defenses. Throwing bodies at the problem until it solved itself. If there was one upside to the fact that the Austro-Hungarians had aligned themselves with the Germans and Russians, it was the fact that they had all decided to standardize weapons and munitions midway through the war.
Because of this, every Austro-Hungarian rifleman was equipped with a selective fire battle rifle, which was largely based upon the Fedorov Avtomat of Bruno’s paste life. The differences being it was chambered in the German 7.92x57mm Mauser cartridge and utilized MG-13 style magazines.
In addition to this, the stubby grip was removed from the for the end of the rifle, but more or less everything else was the same. Meanwhile, Austro-Hungarian and Russian soldiers also adopted the G-43 semiautomatic rifle as a sniper and were primarily issued to those who had perfected their marksmanship scores.
And while the Germans themselves had largely replaced the MG-08 machine gun with the Mg-34, the variation of the maxim gun Bruno had improved upon in this life was still standard issue to Austro-Hungary and Russia. Other sharing of military technology included the issuing of the Mp-34 submachine gun to NCOs and officer.
When it came to small arms, more or fewer munitions, magazines, and belts were completely interchangeable between the three factions. This had many, many practical benefits for the war effort.
Whether it was the scale of manufacturing, logistic simplicity, or sharing of resources in the field. The Central Powers had an advantage in all of these things.
If for example, one of the Central Powers nations had manufactured more rifles than the quota demanded, they could give the spares to an ally, and those soldiers would not only have the right ammunition for it, but they would also have the training necessary to operate the weapon efficiently in the field.
This also applied to the sharing of ammunition on the battlefield. If a soldier ran dry on ammunition in his magazines, he could ask an ally from any of the nations fighting beside him for extra, and he could quickly insert it into his rifle, and it would fire without issue.
The Allies did not have this benefit. In fact, the only technology they really shared was the use of the Mk II Tank, which was a joint project between Great Britain and France. But when it comes to the use of weapons, loading mechanisms, and ammunition, there was not a single unified standard among the Allied Powers.
This created many difficulties that their enemies did not have to face. And because the Germans had motorized logistics, they could effectively bring their spare resources to their allies at any battle that was being waged nearby.
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Which is exactly what was happening now to the Austro-Hungarians. Bruno’s trucks came to their aid as they began to run low on artillery shells time and again. Meanwhile, the Italian crewman was forced to yell at their French and British allies whose weapons used entirely different shells.