Chapter 461: Evolving Beyond the Competition
Bruno did not have much time to rest after coming home from Russia, instead he found himself back in Berlin after the weekend was over. Why was this the case? Because there were many recent developments over the course of the last two to three years that had been occurring subtly in the background from his weapons engineers, and he needed to witness their more finalized designs first hand.
Insights brought from joint-research projects with the Russian Empire and its best minds had helped bring perspectives that Germany had not thought of by themselves, and incorporate such designs into their overall national arms development directive.
And currently Bruno was standing in the hallowed halls of his family’s arms corporation, who he himself had some shares in, they were used as the in house producer of Germany’s small arms, and artillery, and the next generation was no exceptions.
Bruno had introduced things like semi-automatic rifles, submachine guns, and general purpose machine guns decades before they would become the norm otherwise. And these weapons had helped Germany win the Great War.
But even now, two to three years into a peaceful era, where Germany was at the center of the world’s attention and envy, preparations for future conflicts were being made. And the small arms development was no exception.
By now, the finalized designs of the world’s first true assault rifle had come to life. Initially based upon the Sturmgewehr 44, as was introduced in Bruno’s past life during the end of the second world war, these weapons had undergone further refinement in this life, and were given many needed improvements.
In addition to this, the rifle was made in several variations, including a "k" model which utilized an under folding Mp-40 style stock, and a short barrel with an integrated gas block/iron sight combination, which was intended for vehicle crews and airborne forces.
There was also a squad automatic variant inspired by the RPK from Bruno’s past life. As well as the basic infantry rifle, which was improved in other small ways.
As a result, Bruno inspected these rifles, which had already seen extensive testing in the bush of Africa, and across other austere battlefields by Werwolf units, who provided their feedback to the development team. Ensuring that the most reliable, functional, and optimized variation of the rifle came into existence in this timeline.
As for Sub-machine guns, they had already become obsolete due to the extremely compact variants of the sturmgewehr, and thus would soon be decommissioned from service altogether.
Instead, the other major innovation standing on the table was a new general purpose machine gun, which Bruno instantly recognized as this world’s variation of the Mg-42, the weapon itself was damn near perfect during his previous life, except for some minor mechanical issues regarding the overall design of the bolt which were included in the later Mg-3 variation that continued to dominate battlefields even in the 21st century.
These were naturally included on the weapons platform in this life. But after introducing the Mg-34, over a decade ago, Bruno knew sooner or later someone would refine the weapon into what he was seeing now, and thus he was not surprised by its existence, instead, the two weapons that truly astounded him were designs he had no actual involvement with, but were manufactured nonetheless in what were clearly functional prototypes nearing the end of their development.