Chapter 448: The Illusion of Parity
The initial concepts of the Panzer II, built upon the E-25 Chassis, had proved to be effective, and in the years since they first crossed past the alps, and in into Austria as the bulwark in stabilization efforts, improvements had been made to the overall platform, and the chassis had now been perfected in a way for mass production.
And naturally, that meant that experimentation with full scale combined arms integration of the platform had also begun production in Germany. But as always, the world was watching what Germany was producing, just beginning to understand their failures during the Great War, and was now trying their best to produce machines that could keep up.
Interestingly enough, on English soil, the Mk III tank had begun to see its prototyping complete. It was no longer a crude misunderstanding of the Panzer I, but a similar design overall.
Boasting a simplified suspension, albeit not to the level of the torsion bar used on the Panzer I and II in this timeline, the low height, sloped armored tank mounted with a QF 2 pounder main gun, on a rotating turret that was less than ideal when compared to those mounted on German tanks.
The 2 pounds, or 40mm main gun was subpar when compared with the 50mm gun on the German Panzer I, and its ammo was not quite as advanced, but for a tank manufactured in 1918? It was well above and beyond its competition during Bruno’s past life.
There was a reason for this. After all, German advancement had outpaced their competition and their rivals who were defeated and forced to prepare for the future were desperately trying to copy the Reich’s homework.
And this was not the only weapons platform Britain was trying desperately to pump out after more or less having unquelled the majority of unrest across their Empire’s borders. Or what was left of them after the Great War had come to a close in their defeat.
Biplanes with aluminum fuselages, wings, and propellers entered British service—primitive attempts at imitating the German He-51. Even so, to say the plane managed to mimic the Gloster Gladiator from Bruno’s past life was a fairly accurate assessment of the prototype. At least in terms of outward appearance.
Practically speaking, its Powertrain was still lacking, while Britain and other major players like Italy, and those watching overseas in the lands of the United States might be able to mimic Germany’s homework in structural innovation, when it came to producing engines capable of matching said performance, they were woefully behind the times.
So, this was a flying aluminum-wood hybrid coffin, and only so because it was operating with a WWI era Hispano-Suiza 8F, that produced a mere 300-330 horsepower and was designed to carrier wood and canvas planes into the air, not aluminum.