Chapter 546: The Eastern Front is Star-Studded... Or Is It?

On September 20, 1915, fifteen days earlier than the initial plan Crown Prince Georg had revealed to Morin, the departure day for the Instruction Brigade arrived.

By the previous night, all preparations were confirmed, supplies loaded, and personnel boarded.

Standing by the main road of the camp, Morin flipped open his pocket watch. The time was exactly 6:00 AM.

Amidst the idling hum of radiant crystal engines, the lead vehicle of the convoy drove out of the camp gates right on schedule, officially kicking off the long-distance maneuver.

Morin climbed into the rear cabin of a half-track armored command vehicle. This was his newly acquired toy; the interior had been specially modified. Compared to his previous modified truck, this vehicle's protection and off-road capabilities were a massive step up.

Most importantly, it instantly exuded that distinct "German flavor."

Manstein rode in the same vehicle as Morin, currently tense as he verified something with another officer. Morin could tell he was exhausted, clearly having stayed up late for the final round of checks.

Rundstedt and Paulus sat in a different half-track armored vehicle, a precaution against putting all their eggs in one basket. If a special situation arose, the Instruction Brigade's command echelon wouldn't be wiped out in one fell swoop.

Morin had divided the Instruction Brigade's long-distance march sequence into five echelons.

Leading the way was the "Vanguard Group" composed of the brigade's engineer company and reconnaissance battalion, tasked with scouting ahead, clearing obstacles, and verifying bridge conditions.

The first echelon following them was Major Weichs' Armored Instruction Regiment, its half-tracks and wheeled trucks forming a terrifyingly long column.

The second echelon was Kleist's Infantry Instruction Regiment, the third was the Artillery Instruction Regiment, and the supply and logistics convoys brought up the rear.

Each echelon maintained a two to five-kilometer gap, depending on road conditions.

From the moment they rolled out the gates, Morin pulled up the system map.

On the flat interface, the markers representing the Instruction Brigade's units stretched into a line at a visible pace.

The vanguard had already advanced nearly four kilometers, the main force of the armored regiment had just cleared the gates, and the infantry was still waiting inside the camp...

Roughly calculating after the entire force stretched out into marching formation, the column spanned over twenty kilometers from the leading recon battalion to the very last supply wagon.

"Having this many vehicles is a hassle..."

Morin popped halfway out of the command vehicle's roof hatch. Looking ahead, he saw an endless trail of exhaust and kicked-up dust... looking back, an equally boundless torrent of steel.

Half-track armored vehicles, wheeled trucks, heavy trailers towing artillery, fully loaded supply wagons... Various vehicles mixed together. The engine noise, the clatter of horseshoes, and the occasional shouts of soldiers merged into a symphony never before heard in this world.

This was the largest mechanized march of a single cohesive unit in the history of the Saxon Imperial Army... or rather, human history.

"Truly spectacular, General..."

Manstein popped his head out the other side like a prairie dog, looking back and forth for a while.

Morin glanced back at him and grinned.

"This is nothing. Wait until mechanized forces undergo rapid expansion in the future; that will be truly spectacular... Besides, if we want to achieve 'armored deep penetration,' this scale isn't nearly enough."

"That may be true..." Manstein leaned on the side of the vehicle, looking back. "But just seeing this column gives us a lot more confidence heading to the Eastern Front."

Morin shook his head. "Hard to say."

"Are you worried about something, General?" Manstein looked at Morin, then asked quietly, "Are you worried the enemy on the Eastern Front is stronger than expected, or worried about friendly forces..."

"Both."

Manstein was momentarily at a loss for words. However, he knew Morin only spoke this candidly with him and Kleist, mostly to keep them on their toes.

On the other side, Rundstedt, experiencing such a massive operation for the first time since joining the brigade, was also poking his head out of a staff car to observe alongside Paulus.

From his perspective of serving in standard infantry divisions, this scene belonged to another dimension.

Infantry divisions marched on two legs and a few wagons.

Here, every combatant rode in some sort of vehicle, marching at a speed completely incomparable to infantry.

But as Morin had once told him, this convenience didn't come without a cost.

The first two hours of the march went smoothly. The vanguard did an excellent job guiding, leaving markers at every intersection, with personnel on horseback or in small cars checking back and forth to ensure no echelon took a wrong turn.

In fact, research into motorcycles was already underway. Morin hoped to replace the cavalry horses of scouts and messengers with them.

The idea didn't even come from Morin, but from the vehicle companies themselves, who were gradually realizing the mechanized future was approaching humanity.

It was just that due to engine miniaturization issues, they were still in the experimental phase and unready for deployment.

Sometime later, the Instruction Brigade unsurprisingly ran into the greatest enemy of large-scale mechanized forces: traffic jams.

This was brought up during pre-departure meetings, and Morin clearly told everyone it was inevitable.

As long as there were many vehicles, jams would happen, worsening as the mechanized force grew.

What Morin didn't say was that this problem plagued mechanized forces in another world decades later.

During the Battle of France, over 40,000 vehicles mixed with infantry ultimately caused a 200-kilometer super-jam. Even later, during the Sino-Vietnamese War, the Southern Group's mechanized assault encountered terrain restrictions near Cao Bang, resulting in similar traffic jams.

The Guangzhou Military Region had to mobilize massive manpower to cut new roads and divert the convoy, gradually resolving the issue over several days. Even closer in time, there was the Russians' legendary 60-kilometer armored convoy in 2022, stalled on the road for days...

So Morin wasn't surprised at all by the traffic jams. The entire Instruction Brigade's planned marching time had already accounted for traffic delays.

Meanwhile, as the march continued, typical issues of mechanized units reared their heads one by one.

Engine overheating, suspension failures, blown tires, thrown half-track treads, clogged filters...

Various problems emerged, especially in the Armored Instruction Regiment's first echelon. Their new half-tracks became a disaster zone of breakdowns.

Fortunately, Major Weichs, learning from the brigade's past experience, assigned a "recovery and repair vehicle" carrying mechanics, tools, and spare parts for every 30 armored vehicles.

The Demag Company also sent a large batch of technicians to follow the march. They would travel with the brigade until the border station, specifically handling complex issues along the way.

Day two of the march was much smoother; everyone was adapting to the rhythm.

The recovery vehicles proved a correct decision. Most broken-down vehicles towed to the roadside were fixed within twenty minutes.

The Demag technicians' excellent attitude earned them a "five-star contractor" rating from Morin. Not only did they run up and down the column without complaint, but the engineers also didn't hesitate to crawl straight under vehicles for tough repairs.

Of course, this might have been related to Morin "paying them a salary."

As the convoy passed a small village called Göben, Morin noticed crowds lining the road.

Old people with canes, women holding babies, and kids climbing roadside trees—everyone was watching this unprecedented, massive convoy.

Young soldiers popped their heads out of hatches to wave at the girls in the crowd, instantly drawing laughter and chatter.

An old farmer with a mustache approached a truck temporarily stopped for traffic, shouting in a thick dialect at the driver.

"Young man! Where are you headed?"

The driver, a young man in his early twenties, scratched his head and smiled after finally understanding the question.

"East, sir!"

"East? To fight the Slavs?"

"Uh... pretty much!"

Similar scenes occurred repeatedly along the route. After all, civilians in the Saxon heartland had never seen such a spectacle.

Some farmers took the opportunity to hawk their homemade agricultural produce to the convoy.

Facing these reports, Morin didn't forcefully break up this "military-civilian harmony," but he knew limits were necessary.

He ordered all units to forbid soldiers from trading privately with farmers and tasked the logistics troops with bulk purchasing the produce.

On the third day of the march, the Armored Instruction Regiment and the Motorized Infantry Regiment conducted a "march-to-attack" coordinated assault drill in a designated area.

This saved standby time and tested highly practical coordination—rapid transition to attack is common during deep armored penetration.

Watching from a prime vantage point on a dirt mound, Morin, Rundstedt, and other senior officers breathed heavily as half-tracks deployed into an attack formation across the plains. Soldiers nimbly leaped from vehicles, fanning out for a coordinated assault.

Because Morin had standard "mechanized infantry assault protocols" in his head, training manuals were issued before the half-tracks even arrived.

This allowed the troops to conduct extensive "infantry-vehicle coordination" drills with models in advance, drastically speeding up their adaptation once they received the equipment.

In the other world, mechanized infantry coordination only matured in mid-to-late WWII. Even before Morin transmigrated, countries capable of proficient "infantry-tank coordination" could be counted on one hand.

Now, he had force-fed these concepts to the Instruction Brigade thirty years ahead of time.

Morin told everyone that in actual combat, Armored Knights and Thunder Warriors would charge simultaneously, armored airships would follow, and the spearhead would receive artillery support.

Such a breakthrough was continuous, giving the enemy no breathing room.

Once aerial recon cleared the path, mechanized forces would tear open the defense line at top speed. After friendly infantry moved up to hold the line, they would continue pushing forward to completely disrupt the enemy's deployment.

Whether it worked depended on Eastern Front combat testing. But based on today's drill, Morin felt the foundation was solid.

For the final stretch, Morin ordered a "continuous day-and-night march."

This meant from that afternoon onward, aside from necessary refueling and personnel rotation, the brigade would not halt for major rest until they reached the transfer station.

Night marching was another test for mechanized units.

Headlight covers restricted beams to a minimum; drivers had to rely on the dim taillights ahead to judge distance.

Half-tracks moved slower and more carefully on the bumpy dirt roads at night, yet some still veered off due to poor visibility.

Morin didn't sleep either. He spread communication logs and real-time echelon reports across the command vehicle's table, staring at them by the swinging cabin light until dawn.

Just past 6:00 AM, the vanguard radioed back: the transfer station area was in sight.

They were four hours behind schedule.

"Not bad," Morin evaluated.

Manstein yawned as he hopped out of the command vehicle alongside Morin. Wiping his face to wake up, he asked, "General, a four-hour error... do you consider that a passing grade?"

"For the first time, yes."

What Morin didn't say was that the General Staff had actually given the brigade an extra day and a half buffer. But there was no need to tell the subordinates; a sense of urgency helped maintain peak condition.

The "transfer zone" was essentially a rail hub comprising four temporary stations located close together.

From afar, the rails gleamed with a grayish-white metallic luster in the morning light. The platforms were packed with empty boxcars and repurposed passenger cars, surrounded by a sea of infantry waiting to board.

A vanguard half-track rolled into the clearing outside the station.

A middle-aged railway official with a whistle around his neck ran out. Seeing the endless stream of armored vehicles and trucks pouring in behind the lead vehicle, his expression shifted from confusion to shock.

Once he realized what unit this was, shock turned into frantic panic.

"Wait... wait a minute!"

He waved desperately at the lead recon vehicle.

"Wait, turn right! Instruction Brigade, don't park here, we already cleared a dedicated parking area for you!"

The vanguard commander jumped out and quickly verified deployment documents with the railway official.

"Why does your brigade have so many vehicles... and those don't look like trucks, they look like tractors..."

He looked at the convoy still surging in behind him, his voice cracking.

"My god, I'm worried the space we cleared for you won't be enough..."

However, having seen massive mobilizations over the past two years, the railway staff quickly recovered their professionalism after a moment of panic.

The managers of all four stations met with Morin's staff, hammering out a loading plan in about an hour.

"General, according to their calculations, loading the entire brigade will require at least twenty-two standard military trains. Given our high vehicle count and it being our first rail transfer, we might need extra trains." Rundstedt reported the coordination results. "We'll rest today. An infantry division ahead of us hasn't finished loading yet, so our turn won't come until tomorrow afternoon."

"Final destination?"

"Several temporary stops about thirty kilometers west of Kyiv. The dispatcher says the railway from here to there is all Saxon standard gauge. Half was pre-laid, and the other half was adjusted by the Eighth Army after they moved in."

Rundstedt unrolled a map and pointed to the stations.

"Nothing further, though. The track gauges toward Kyiv haven't been adjusted yet due to the fighting; railway troops and engineers have all gone to help reinforce Kyiv's defenses."

Morin tapped the 30-kilometer blank zone on the map.

"No matter, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Loading officially began the next afternoon.

Operating simultaneously across four stations, railway workers and brigade logistics troops drove half-tracks, trucks, and artillery up ramps onto flatcars, securing them with chains and chocks.

The process was slower than Morin anticipated—mainly because driving half-tracks onto flatcars was incredibly tedious.

The width was just barely enough, so slight deviations caused problems, forcing drivers to back out and realign several times.

Plus, the workers had never loaded such equipment, leading to initial chaos before efficiency gradually picked up.

Rundstedt and the others timed the process on the platform, recording each train as it finished.

By the time the first fully loaded train departed, the sky was darkening. The locomotive blew its whistle, and heavy wheels clacked rhythmically over the rail joints as it slowly pulled out of the station.

Soldiers peered through boxcar vents at the receding platform lights before shrinking back into their seats.

No one knew what awaited them on the Eastern Front, but at this moment, the train was heading in the right direction.

Loading continued for a full twelve hours, from the afternoon straight through the night until the next morning.

Staff worked double shifts under bright lights. Every hour or so, a fully loaded military train left the platform, plunging into the eastern darkness.

Morin and the brigade headquarters rode on the fifteenth train.

The train traveled smoothly through the night, the monotonous clack of wheels an excellent sleep aid.

Morin sat in a modified officer car—an attached passenger car with half its seats removed to make room for map tables and radios. The expanded brigade staff practically filled it.

Paulus sat opposite him, compiling data reports