Erich found himself in his new unit and was quite comfortable with the arrangement. In the Great War of Bruno's past life, "Stormtroopers" were a development much later in the conflict. They were especially small units who specialized in trench raiding. With the ultimate objective of infiltrating the enemy fortifications and forcing an entry for the regular infantry to break through.
Development of such tactics led to significant gains by the German Army in the months that followed. Or at least relatively so, when 300,000 men died for six miles of land, and a million more were wounded in some capacity, then even a few yards of ground gained was "significant" in such a brutal war of attrition.