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 South American countries were afraid of the powerful power of the U.S. Navy, and warships went to With the door open, who does not support the "Monroe Doctrine" and "free trade"!
So according to Ernst's expectation, the East African Navy will inevitably reach a level second only to Britain, the United States, Germany, and France in the next ten years, and it will pose a threat to the navies of countries outside Europe. absolute advantage, thereby ensuring the interests of East Africa.
Of course, judging from the number of battleships, the expansion plan of the East African Navy 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.
Looking at the four battleships that have been built and served in East Africa, the Zhongbagamoyo is originally a "quasi" dreadnought.
It’s just a lack of power. Therefore, 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 world’s first “dreadnought” ship. A country with a "dreadnought", of course, the dreadnought is the standard set by the British Navy in the previous life, and the first "dreadnought" in East Africa is definitely not called that.
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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 industry manufacturing industry. During the Second Five-Year Plan period, the national defense industry will further develop, especially overseas projects are also 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. Before that, the East African Army maintained a level of more than 200,000 people all year round. At its peak, it was close to 300,000.
Ernst naturally had no good intentions in expanding the size of the army, but wanted to find a reason to expand the industrial scale of the East African Defense Forces.
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. Other accessories and military supplies Products are much more flexible, such as leather, sugar, tobacco, etc.
And 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.
So during the Second Five-Year Plan, 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 improved significantly compared with 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 obviously has a certain negative impact on our country's military product exports."
Take 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 low-end products. 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.
As time goes by, the East African Mauser rifles basically closed the quality gap with the German Mauser rifles in the mid-1990s. However, due to previous stereotypes, many countries have a negative impression of the East African Mauser rifles. The influence still remains in the 1970s and 1980s. 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 big customer of East African military products since the 1970s. In the early days, it was for cheap, but later it was a habit. After all, with the equipment level of the Far Eastern Empire’s army, they are not picky about performance. After all, many places The troops could not even afford basic rifles.
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.
Except for 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 the reputation of East African guns and artillery. We must leave such an impression on other countries, that is, our country's production The quality of military equipment is no worse than that of other countries, and the cost-effectiveness is higher. "
"At the same time, during the Second Five-Year Plan, we must continue to improve the level of our 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."
< br>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 empty. came out.
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 up the reputation of East Africa's military industry.
Under this premise, it is extremely 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 the future. East African arms 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 prepares for a war in advance, it is impossible to monopolize the market. After all, the U.S. economy is too large. Even if East Africa has an industrial plan to accelerate national industrial production, Ernst cannot guarantee that East Africa’s industry will grow before the war breaks out. can reach the scale of the United States, especially in the light industry, East The gap between Africa and the United States is obvious, and during the war, the demand for light industrial products was obviously the most profitable. At that time, the industries of European countries were bound to concentrate on heavy industry and military industry, and light industry was naturally affected the most. Therefore, during the Second Five-Year Plan, Ernst's The plan is to improve the level of light industry in East Africa.
(End of this chapter)