First off, requisitions. There are a few ideas and possibilities, and I think making one of those would upgrade the mages combat capabilities without forcing us to spend a magic design on it, which might be useful if enemy goes for something offensive and bent on killing our dudes.
1) Shotgun. eS said the military doesn't have a shotgun, but we could try to get something from civilian market. I'm not sure, maybe.
2) Grenades. eS confirmed military does have grenades, but I'm worried about their quality and price, considering this is early on in the war. The only problem would be that they might be limited to regular grenade use, because I don't think they will be the size of a saxophone dog, so might not be able to be thrown with telekinesis.
3) Small artillery shells.
eS said we have something like this, so my guess would be taking the shell from one of the smaller cannons and yeeting it at enemies when in trouble. The downside is the relatively high weight, but if telekinesis numbers are right we could probably throw the shells with power high enough for them to explode at short-medium range.
4) Something else, I dunno. I don't really know what would spotting scope be useful for.
As for designs - I think making an uniform isn't useful yet. I love Infantry QoL as much as everyone, but we don't actually have a lot of things to put on them, apart from fashion. While fashion is an important part of combat effectiveness, I'd appreciate if our new uniforms served a specific role, presumably protective. If we have nothing, we might just as well fix the hat with a revision.
There was an idea to make night vision, which I think could be relatively possible to achieve. Either due to "MAGIC I DUNNO LOL" or trying to change the wavelengths or someshit, the scientific theory is there, so a properly engraved and enchanted ~~monocle~~ pair of goggles could probably work.
I'm not sure if listening to people's thoughts will be that effective in terms of war, but I am pretty sure Austria would FUCKING LOVE the ability to hear their own people's thoughts. Make what you will from that. To be honest, I don't feel the gain would even be worth it, considering I doubt the enemy specifically made spells that make people more resistant to traditional... persuasion efforts. I also somewhat dislike the idea because it might cause mages to be wildly distrusted - being able to read people's minds is a very frightening idea for the people whose mind is read, and they don't really have an insurance we won't do it to them.
Some form of protection would be nice. I find telekinetic and various "barriers" energy intensive, so I'm not sure. Maybe it could work better as an enchantment rather than evocation or sorcery, either as force fields or strengthening the actual armour, but non-personal ways of protection should be looked into, I just think they might be too complicated and power hungry for our own good.
I don't know, I'm just sparking discussion because we apparently do very little of it.