African Entrepreneurship Records

Chapter 1031 Arms Trade

To give a typical example, after the outbreak of World War I in the previous life, the direct reason why the United States was able to quickly take over the British market in South America was because the South American countries were afraid of the powerful power of the U.S. Navy. As soon as the warships came to their doorsteps, who would not support "Monroe" Doctrine” and “Free Trade”!

Therefore, according to Ernst's expectation, in the next ten years, the East African Navy will inevitably reach the level of strength second only to Britain, the United States, Germany, and France, forming an absolute advantage over the navies of countries other than Europe, thereby ensuring that East Africa Interests.

Of course, judging from the number of battleships, the East African Navy's expansion plan seems a bit conservative. After all, other powerful countries in the world already have more than a dozen battleships.

However, the new battleships planned to be built in East Africa are basically "dreadnoughts", and the gap is quite obvious.

Take France, for example. In its previous life, France had nearly thirty battleships before World War I, but in the past, it had mostly dreadnoughts and only four dreadnoughts.

On the other hand, among the four battleships that have been built and put into service in East Africa, the Zhongbagamoyo is originally a "quasi" dreadnought.

It's just that there is a lack of power, so East Africa's technology in the construction of dreadnoughts is relatively mature. As long as the first "dreadnought" is built, East Africa is likely to become the first in the world to have a "dreadnought". "Country, of course, the dreadnought was the standard set by the British Navy in the previous life, and the first "dreadnought" in East Africa was definitely not called that.

…

The East African Navy is preparing to join the world naval arms race, and Ernst naturally has arrangements for the East African Army. After all, he cannot favor one over the other.

"Before 1915, the size of the army expanded to at least 350,000 people, especially the army-related military manufacturing industry. During the Second Five-Year Plan period, the national defense industry will further develop, especially overseas projects will also be actively pursued."

The location of East Africa determines that the East African Army basically has no battles to fight. Therefore, although the army is expanded, it is only tens of thousands larger than before. Previously, the East African Army maintained a level of more than 200,000 people all year round, and the peak period was close to Three hundred thousand.

Naturally, Ernst did not have good intentions in expanding the size of the army, but wanted to find a reason to expand the scale of the East African Defense Forces industry.

If World War I breaks out like in the previous life, the two major groups will inevitably have strong demand for various materials, and military products are naturally no exception. Guns and other weapons cannot be directly exported to Europe due to political reasons, so other accessories and military supplies will be much more flexible. Leather, like sugar, tobacco, etc.

Moreover, the outbreak of the European War meant that the arms market outside Europe was vacated. This market was also extremely huge. In the past, the United States and the Soviet Union were both major arms sales countries.

East Africa's current arms market is not large. On the one hand, competition in the international arms market is fierce, and on the other hand, the output scale of East Africa's arms industry has been suppressed.

Therefore, during the Second Five-Year Plan period, Ernst is bound to reshape the East African defense industry and expand it to a certain extent.

"Due to technological progress and the increase in the number of skilled workers and experts, the quality of our country's weapons has significantly improved compared to the 1970s and 1980s, but the feedback of this improvement in the international market is weak."

"The main reason is that the export scale is too small, resulting in low visibility. Moreover, our country's military industry overlaps with Germany, Austria and other countries in the field of gun exports. This has obviously had a certain negative impact on our country's military product exports."

Taking the most basic rifles as an example, East Africa and Germany are both major producers of Mauser rifles. When overseas customers choose products, they will obviously prefer German products. East Africa used to focus on the low-end market.

Although the history of producing Mauser rifles in East Africa was almost at the same time as that of Germany, East Africa's industrial base was weak in the early days, which also caused a certain gap between the quality of East African weapons and Germany.

Over time, the East African Mauser rifles basically closed the quality gap with the German Mauser rifles in the mid-1990s. However, due to previous stereotypes, the influence of many countries on the East African Mauser rifles still remains at seven. , the eighties. At present, the main overseas customers of East African rifles, except for the countries surrounding East Africa, such as the Abyssinian Empire and the Kingdom of South Germany, are only Spain and the Far Eastern Empire that purchase a certain number of guns from East Africa every year.

Spain mainly inspected East African military products during the Spanish-American War, so it accumulated some reputation. At that time, the quality of East African military manufacturing was relatively mature.

The Far Eastern Empire has been a major customer of East African military products since the 1970s. In the early days, it was for the sake of cheapness, but later it was due to usage habits. After all, with the level of equipment of the Far Eastern Empire’s army, they are not picky about performance. After all, many local troops do not even have basic rifles. Not worthy.

Of course, there are also other factors. For example, East Africa exported complete sets of Dresser rifle production equipment to the Far Eastern Empire. Although the Dresser rifle was obviously lagging behind, it was still relatively advanced at the time. After all, most countries in the world had rifles at that time. The performance is not as good as the Dresser rifle.

So far, the Dresser rifle production equipment exported from East Africa is still making contributions to the Far Eastern Empire.

Apart from these countries, the sales of East African rifles in the international market can be said to be very unsatisfactory.

So Ernst said: "During the Second Five-Year Plan, an important goal of our country's defense industry is to build up the reputation of East African guns and artillery. We must leave such an impression on other countries, that is, the quality of the military equipment produced by our country is not at all No worse than other countries, better value for money. ”

"At the same time, during the Second Five-Year Plan, we must continue to improve the level of my country's weapons and equipment manufacturing, improve manufacturing processes, further improve production procedures, and formulate strict standards."

"Build the reputation of our country's guns in the international market, increase publicity in countries around the world, and provide certain discounts. There may be a certain gap in export data, but we must surpass other countries in terms of quality."

It seems that Ernst is giving profits to other countries for the arms business and paying more costs. However, when the European War breaks out and the military industries of European countries turn to the European battlefield, the international arms market other than Europe will basically be vacated. .

In Ernst's view, this was a good opportunity to completely expand the arms trade in East Africa. Before a war broke out in Europe, East Africa naturally had to make preparations first and build a reputation for East Africa's military industry.

Under this premise, it is particularly important to appropriately distribute profits and increase investment in publicity. Opportunities are reserved for those who are prepared. If East Africa can plan in advance, the future profits will be higher.

If East Africa does not prepare in advance, it may face arms competition from non-European countries such as the United States and Japan. Temporary expansion of military production capacity may also lead to a decline in product quality, which is not conducive to future East African military exports.

In fact, before the start of the Second Five-Year Plan, Ernst planned to moderately adjust East Africa's economy and industry in the direction of World War I, including many military industries that East Africa had not been involved in before or had little investment in, and the production of civilian products would all be completed during the Second Five-Year Plan. Established during the planning period.

As long as World War I breaks out according to the trajectory of its previous life, East Africa will temporarily transform into one of the "world's factories" during this period. The reason why it is one is naturally because of the eyesore of the United States.

Even if East Africa plans a war in advance, it is impossible to monopolize the market. After all, the U.S. economy is too huge. Even if East Africa has an industrial plan to accelerate national industrial production, Ernst cannot guarantee that East Africa's industry will reach the scale of the United States before the war breaks out. Especially in the field of light industry, the gap between East Africa and the United States is obvious. During the war, the demand for light industrial products was obviously the most profitable. At that time, the industries of various European countries were bound to concentrate on heavy industry and military industry. Light industry was naturally affected the most, so during the Second Five-Year Plan , Ernst’s plan is to improve the level of light industry in East Africa.

(End of chapter)