Chapter 399: The Next Generation of Infantry Weapons Part I
Bruno emerged from the bath, a long and hot steam having done wonders not only for his fair and ivory complexion but also for his mental health. Sometimes, one simply needed to soak away their troubles and put things in perspective.
Because of this, the man emerged from his bath and noticed that the way he had washed his hair left it naturally slicked back, its golden sheen highlighted beneath the illumination of the light bulbs.
But something was off... His hair had gone too long without a proper cut, several millimeters beyond regulatory length for service within the German Army. As a result, he was quick to reach into the nearby drawer and pull out a pair of fine scissors, personally styling his own hair until it was prim and proper.
Afterward, he applied a product that allowed it to be styled and set before properly dressing himself. His body was littered with scars of every kind imaginable—on the front at least. Bullets, bayonets, fragmentation; there were even a few jagged and uneven slashes from more makeshift weaponry like entrenching tools. The scar tissue was perfectly layered within his fine jade complexion, like the watery pattern of carbon within Damascus steel.
It enhanced his already rugged and masculine body more than it detracted from it. Nevertheless, he was not some savage who walked the outside world without any shame. No, Bruno was quick to get himself dressed as he emerged from his bathroom and headed towards his personal office, where the papers he had been dabbling with the night before lay atop his desk.
The ink had dried throughout the cold and dehumidified night, and yet his work remained painfully unfinished. What was this work, you might ask? The introduction of the Reich’s next standard-issue rifle.
If one had any inclination of basic military weaponry, the design displayed was perfectly obvious to those who gazed upon it. The weapon was a typical assault rifle design, a concept that was still completely alien to the rest of the world.
What was an assault rifle? And how did it remain distinctive from other rifles currently in service, like the select-fire Fedorov Avtomat or the semi-automatic Gewehr 43? Well, the answer lay in the cartridge with which the weapon was chambered.
For example, both the G43 and Avtomat rifles made use of a full-sized rifle cartridge. The advantages, of course, being power and range. The disadvantages were its controllability in automatic fire and, of course, factors like magazine capacity and the weight of the ammunition a soldier needed to carry.
The assault rifle, or the "sturm rifle," was a concept created by the Germans during the Second World War of Bruno’s past life, first entering service in limited numbers as the MkB 42 in 1942 and later refined into the MP-43 and STG-44 variations. The rifle was distinctive from all others insofar as it made use of an 8x33 Kurz cartridge.