African Entrepreneurship Records

Chapter 720 Development of Military Industry in East Africa

 February 3, 1888.

 Constantine inspected the Mbeya Arsenal to observe the development of East Africa's military industry. The Mbeya Arsenal is an advanced representative of East Africa's independent military industry and has been one of the most important military construction units in East Africa since the late 1960s.

The senior management of Mbeya City Arsenal led Constantine to visit various weapons production workshops. Among them, the artillery production workshop is still one of the places of greatest interest to Constantine, a former European war general.

"Improving the French 1807 75mm field gun effectively solved the recoil problem and greatly strengthened the army's firepower problem. So far, the entire army has equipped a total of 378 guns, which are an important component of land mobile support artillery. The output is maintained at around thirty doors." The director of the Mbeya City Arsenal introduced the king.

“In the past three years, our factory has also cooperated with the Austro-Hungarian Empire to produce 120mm heavy artillery, but the application scenarios are few, and a total of forty-nine guns have been produced.”

“More than 2,000 self-developed 1883 grenade launchers were produced, and more than 130 imitation Maxim machine guns were produced.”

East Africa is a country that does not strictly enforce patent laws, so the Maxim machine guns are mainly directly imitated. This has a lot to do with the national conditions of East Africa.

 At present, the most open coastal zone in East Africa is still a semi-open market, while the inland areas are basically not open, so patents are not valid in the inland areas.

This is also a problem in attracting investment in East Africa. It is basically impossible to exchange technology through the market. Just like Maxim will definitely not invest in and build factories in East Africa. After all, East Africa currently pays little attention to intellectual property rights, so after the birth of the Maxim machine gun , East Africa could only purchase and imitate it, and successfully imitated it in 1885. A factory was built in 1886, and large-scale mass production had begun in 1888.

Of course, this itself is due to Ernst’s emphasis on weapons such as machine guns. Long-term research was carried out in East Africa before the Maxim machine gun.

 In East Africa, artillery has a caliber of 75 mm as the standard. Anything below this value is a light artillery, and anything above or equal to this value is a heavy artillery.

Of course, the road conditions in East Africa are actually among the best in the world. During the 1970s and 1980s when large-scale infrastructure was built, the road quality in East Africa was higher than that of Tsarist Russia, and basically the same as that in the United States. However, the roads in the United States are longer and more numerous, while the quality of East Africa's roads is even higher. Excellent.

 It’s just that this kind of research process cannot match Maxim’s genius thinking, so East Africa can only imitate the principles of Maxim’s machine gun, which is not completely plagiarism.

Furthermore, large-caliber artillery is inconvenient to transport. The East African Army, which relies on animal power as its main power and has imperfect road conditions, naturally prefers light artillery.

“So far, the East African Army has been equipped with more than 6,000 artillery pieces of various types, mainly coastal defense artillery and small-caliber artillery.”

 This standard is actually in line with international standards. For example, the British heavy artillery standard has a caliber greater than or equal to three inches, which is 76 millimeters. East Africa is a metric country, so for the convenience of calculation, the metric system is mainly used, which resulted in the 75 millimeter standard.

 The number of large-caliber artillery in the world today is naturally not comparable to that of later generations. The 75mm caliber is also considered a relatively large artillery value.

As for the other European countries, due to land area issues, they are not suitable as references for horizontal comparison of East African roads.

Of course, land transportation in East Africa is not just roads, but also includes railways and inland water transportation, but it does not have any advantages compared with European and American countries.

 One is that the mileage of East African railways is short. Even if the Hesse Railway is opened, the East African railways have only completed the initial network, and they are mainly based on the two main arteries of the Central Railway and the Northern Railway. The second is water transportation. The rivers in East Africa have poor traffic and cannot connect the whole country. They can only provide transportation within the region. This is especially characterized by the developed lake transportation. There are four large lakes in East Africa, even on the world map. It can also be seen at a glance, and the smaller lakes are also among the largest large lakes in other areas of the world, such as King's Lake (Lake Albert), Lake Constantine (Lake Edward), and Lake Hechingen (Lake George). , Lake Kivu, Lake Mweru, Lake Rukwa…

Compared with the prosperity of lake transportation, river transportation is completely in an embarrassing situation. The rivers with the highest shipping value are measured in units of hundreds of kilometers. The only ones that can reach units of 1,000 kilometers and are unimpeded are the White Nile and the Congo River. However, these two There are sparsely populated areas along the rivers.

The Zambezi River flows through an important economic area in East Africa, but due to canyons, dangerous shoals and rapid waterfalls, only some sections of the river can be navigable.

As of 1888, there were a total of twenty-three artillery factories in East Africa, three in the Northern Industrial Belt, six in the Lake Malawi Industrial Zone, four in the Central Province, seven in Matabele Province, and two in the Hohenzollern Province. Home, a family in Swabia.

Overall, the focus of artillery production is in the central region. The Lake Malawi Industrial Zone, headed by Mbeya City, is also relatively close to the central region. Therefore, the overall military production in East Africa has completed the transition to the inland. This layout is beneficial to East Africa. Defense production security.

Three of the four artillery factories in the Central Province serve the navy, and one is a military industrial enterprise affiliated with the Guards Division. At the same time, the Central Province is also the place in East Africa where it is easiest to conduct technical exchanges with Europe, so the military industrial enterprises in this region have the best technology, while other artillery factories Build more on resources and transportation advantages.

Of course, some artillery factories are just subordinate units of the arsenal and are not only responsible for artillery production. There are a total of forty-three arsenal units in East Africa. The arsenals directly under the army are mainly concentrated in eight provinces in the central and eastern regions, except for the New Hamburg Port City in the south. There is also an arsenal, and then the Navy has seven directly affiliated arsenals, including three military shipyards.

Take the Mbeya City Arsenal as an example. In addition to artillery, it also produces rifles, machine guns, etc. It is a giant military industrial enterprise. This was the first-mover advantage of Mbeya City in the early development of the East African military industry.

 At the beginning, before Matabele and other central resource provinces were integrated into East Africa, the Lake Malawi Industrial Zone became the only heavy industry production base in East Africa.

It is also a key area for the military industry. The industrial city cluster along Lake Malawi, headed by Mbeya City, formed the earliest coal-iron complex in East Africa. It was not until the establishment of Matabele Province that the status of the Lake Malawi Industrial Zone was gradually replaced.

  So far, the military production in the Lake Malawi Industrial Zone still accounts for nearly 30% of East Africa’s production, because once the industry is formed, it is not easy to relocate, and the technology accumulation is stronger than that of the three central provinces, led by Matabele Province.

 Many domestically produced equipment in East Africa were first born in the Lake Malawi Industrial Zone, especially in the manufacturing of weapons and equipment, which was an absolute leader at the time.

Of course, military products are not limited to weapons and equipment. Light industrial products are also an important guarantee of the military’s combat effectiveness, and this is mainly borne by the northern industrial belt.

  Nairobi and Mombasa in the northern industrial belt are both important textile industry centers in East Africa. The cotton and linen textile industry and the leather industry dominate East Africa.

At the same time, Mombasa and Nairobi are also the most important food processing industry centers in East Africa. The northern industrial belt area is rich in coffee, tea, and various types of economic or food crops. It is also an important animal husbandry center, close to the north. Pasture, and is connected to the Indian Ocean to the east and the Great Lake (Lake Victoria) to the west. The northern mountain plateau is also an important forestry area, and there are almost no shortcomings in the agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery industries.

Mombasa is also the bridgehead for East Africa's foreign exchanges. It is very convenient to introduce advanced European technology and machinery. There is also a northern railway connecting the economic development of the northern industrial belt. Therefore, the northern industrial belt has a considerable say in the field of light industry in East Africa. The East African military Thirty-seven percent of light industrial products are provided by the northern industrial belt.

Of course, the shortcomings of the northern industrial belt are also very obvious, that is, the shortcomings in resources, but this is also an important reason for the northern industry to focus on light industry as its main development direction.

 (End of this chapter)