Chapter 936 Arms Sales
East Africa has no way of knowing the attitude of the Spanish government towards the conflict between the United States and Spain, but this does not delay East Africa from selling various war preparation materials and arms to Spain in advance.
In fact, the arms trade between East Africa and Spain began as early as after the South African War. After the South African War, East African military products, especially army equipment, attracted the attention of many countries.
Spain is among them, because a large part of the Spanish Army's weapons procurement comes from Germany, and the East African Army equipment has the same origin as Germany, which provides convenience for East Africa.
Before the South African War, Spain might have doubts about the quality of East African weapons, but after the South African War, this doubt disappeared.
From the South African War to the present, East Africa has exported more than 20,000 rifles and hundreds of machine guns to Spain. The performance of machine guns in South Africa is undoubtedly the best, which has attracted some attention.
"Mr. Cruise, this is the m1895c Mauser rifle, a special rifle for tropical jungles produced in East Africa. It also belongs to the Mauser rifle series, but the military R&D team in East Africa has modified it according to regional conditions. Improvements, targeted material improvements based on the temperature and humidity of tropical jungle areas, are more suitable for shooting in hot and humid areas," Manske, an East African weapons salesman, said to his old friend Cruise.
Since 1886, Spain has begun to field Mauser rifles. The Mauser rifle used in Spain is the m1893 type, which is a variety used by Germany for export. It is specially designed for Spain. East Africa also has production qualifications. However, the Mauser rifles used by the East African Defense Forces are different in details from Germany or its exported Mauser rifles, mainly to adapt to the climate and terrain characteristics of East Africa, as well as the requirements of the East African Defense Forces.
In the previous Spanish-American War, the m1893 Mauser rifle used by Spain performed so well that after the Spanish-American War, the United States suffered a loss and later developed the m1903 Springfield rifle. It was designed based on the Mauser m1898 rifle under the authorization of the Rifle Arsenal.
So the Mauser rifles now installed in Spain are destined to shine in the war, and East Africa naturally wants to get involved to test the performance of East Africa's weapons and equipment.
Moreover, because of the South African War, the Mauser rifles used by the East African Defense Forces had already achieved good results. This also accelerated the Spanish government's determination to replace Mauser rifles. The army introduced Mauser rifles on a larger scale than in history.
So, now that Spain wants to meet its war needs, it naturally can only go through Germany or East Africa, the two countries in the world that mainly use and produce Mauser series rifles.
In the previous life, Spain ordered more than 500,000 m1893 Mauser rifles, and they were used until 1928. Its domestic Mauser rifles were not officially released until 1916, so now Spain’s Mauser Rifles mainly rely on imports, which provides export opportunities for the East African defense industry.
“Spain has been one of our partners since 1890. After all, the quality of our East African Mauser rifles is no worse than that of German goods, but the m1893 Mauser rifle you use is inferior to that of the local ones. The environment may be good. After all, Spain has a Mediterranean climate with hot and dry summers and mild and rainy winters, but Cuba and the Philippines have tropical rainforest climates with hot and humid weather and lots of jungles. The shooting environment in this case is different from that in your homeland.”
“Take the jungle environment itself, which is different from the conventional on-site environment. Because of the rain and fog, and the dense trees, shooting conditions are naturally limited, so strengthening firepower is more important than range and accuracy. , think about it, the tropical jungle is full of trees, how far can your bullet fly?”
Cruise nodded and said: "What you said makes sense, but when it comes to our understanding of the local environment, we are always better than the Americans. Even if a land battle occurs, large-scale battles are unlikely to take place in the jungle."
After all, neither Spain nor the United States are natives who are comfortable in the jungles of Vietnam. Their colonial focus is on coastal and developed areas.
Mansk knew this very well. He said: "Don't be too absolute. Could it be that Spain gave up when it lost its ports and other areas in the war! And not only the Americans, but also the suppression of the colonies. Big head, those local indigenous people are also a part of your urgent need to fight, and this cannot avoid jungle warfare. "Nowadays, local popular uprisings are emerging one after another in the Philippines and Cuba. The fundamental reason is that Spanish exploitation is too heavy. Of course, there are also Americans behind this. , they imposed targeted economic sanctions on Spain, the most typical of which was increasing tariffs on the Cuban sugar industry. This situation aggravated the economic difficulties in Cuba and other regions, and the changes in the economic situation intensified the resistance of the locals. .
Of course, there are some differences between Cuba and the Philippines. The local resistance forces are actually the local Spaniards. Just like the American independence in the past, they are not satisfied with the central government’s treatment of the locals. Taxation, and in the context of the economic downturn, this contradiction has been further intensified.
The colonial armed turmoil was also one of the important reasons for the failure of the Spanish war. It involved a lot of Spanish energy. With internal and external collusion, Spain had no chance of winning.
Of course, East Africa has nothing to do with the situation in Cuba. East Africa still values the Philippines' belonging, so it is more enthusiastic about helping Spain suppress the Filipino natives.
"It may have been easy for your army to deal with the local indigenous people in the past, but with the support of Americans behind them, it will be different. No one knows what weapons will be found in the jungle." Mansk said. Said pointedly.
Cruz also said with a serious face: "Yes, colonial thugs are indeed a key problem. If they hadn't been causing trouble behind the government, the Americans would not have been able to pose a threat to Spain so easily."
In Cruz's view, these indigenous people or some comprador forces in Spain are typical examples of cheating. Spain may have gone too far, but when the Americans came, they just changed the soup without changing the medicine.
"Then what do you think of this rifle? Do you want to purchase it? You must know that some of our armies have already installed this rifle, especially in the western region."
Mansk then deceived: "m1895c type rifle, the prototype is the m1888c tropical jungle rifle, which once participated in The battle with Portugal has been tested in the South African War. At that time, the rifles were equipped with my country's most elite 331 Mountain Division. This unit has fought from the tropical rainforest of Angola to Maputo in the southeast. It can be said that it has made great achievements. , the excellent performance of this rifle has been tested by war,"
"The m1895c tropical jungle rifle is a new generation of tropical jungle-specific combat rifle that we built on the basis of the m1888c rifle over a five-year period. It can only be said that it is better to learn from the past than to do it. Western East Africa, especially the tropical rainforests, Troops stationed in the area basically use this rifle. Mainly.”
Mansk directly talked about the record. Although the record of the m1895c rifle is mainly inherited from the 1888 model, the relationship between the two is inheritance and development. The East African military industry department follows its actual combat experience. The advantages and disadvantages have been improved, and the performance will only be better than before.
At this time, Cruise was already a little excited. He said to Mansk, we can first purchase 500 tubes to test the effect. If the performance is good, we can expand the scale.
Mansk shook his head and said: "Five hundred is still too few. How about this? I will take you to simulate the terrain to see the actual combat effect directly, and then you can determine the purchase quantity."
No matter how much you say, it is better to just let Ke Russ and the Spaniards did some operations. As weapons purchasers, Cruz and others also knew a lot about firearms. Mansk was confident that this East African rifle would achieve excellent results for them.
(End of this chapter)