African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1027 Alloy Steel

You should know that Japan's steel production at that time was only about 100,000 tons, while the Far East Empire might only be at the level of 20,000 to 30,000 tons. This shows the horror of Belgium's steel production. There is no doubt that a large part of Belgium's steel was exported to France.

Belgium is rich in local coal resources, and its iron ore can basically meet demand. The Belgian Congo also has relatively rich iron ore resources. The combination of the two, plus France's demand, is the main driving force for the current development of Belgium's steel industry.

Of course, the iron ore in the Belgian colonies is also one of the important sources of imported iron ore in East Africa. The Cabinda steel industry is more dependent on the iron ore in the Belgian Congo.

"At present, the development direction of my country's steel industry, in addition to meeting basic industrial and civilian needs, has also made great progress in special steels. During the First Five-Year Plan, steel smelting technology continued to make progress, and a variety of alloy steels were mass-produced, providing a solid foundation for my country's defense industry and shipbuilding industry, and rapidly catching up with other countries in terms of quality."

At the beginning of the 20th century, the steel industry was undergoing major changes. In addition to the fact that iron ore surpassed coal in the steel industry, large-scale production of alloy steel was also an important feature.

Alloy steel is steel with added elements such as chromium, nickel, and tungsten. Adding chromium can increase the hardness and elasticity of the steel, adding nickel can increase corrosion resistance and yield strength. Adding tungsten not only increases the strength of the steel, but also makes it corrosion-resistant, heat-resistant and wear-resistant. Adding a variety of raw materials to steel can greatly improve the performance of steel.

Cannons made of alloy steel can withstand higher barrel temperatures, greater barrel pressures, and can contain more propellant. The barrel caliber is also further enhanced, and steel artillery has therefore accelerated the entry into the era of giant cannons.

The leader in this field is Germany. Although the German steel industry is difficult to surpass the United States in scale, due to technological breakthroughs and talent advantages, the quality of German steel has developed rapidly and begun to surpass that of Britain, France and other countries. This was also an important guarantee for the performance of German artillery and rifles in World War I.

For example, Rheinmetall was the first to produce tungsten steel artillery, leaving the Allies behind in World War I.

East Africa has also developed rapidly in alloy steel. As early as the 1980s and 1990s, East Africa began to lay out the field of material research and development. The results of these layouts were widely used during the First Five-Year Plan, and the steel industry was a beneficiary.

Moreover, East Africa already has resource advantages in this field. In the 1990s, East Africa was already the world's largest producer of manganese and chromium, with rich reserves of manganese and chromium, as well as nickel, zinc, tungsten, copper, aluminum, rare earth resources, etc.

This has created a good foundation for alloy research in East Africa. In addition to being used in the steel industry to produce special steels, East Africa has also made great breakthroughs in copper alloys, aluminum alloys and other fields. Even Ernst himself cannot guarantee which is the strongest country in the world in the field of alloys between East Africa and Germany.

East Africa's emphasis on the research and development of new materials was naturally influenced by Ernst. Coupled with East Africa's advantages in resources and talents, this also led to the explosive growth of the materials field in East Africa in the 20th century.

Many achievements have already been made in various laboratories in East Africa, and the First Five-Year Plan for Industrial Development aims to accelerate the successful application of these pre-planned technologies in industrial production.

"The development of the steel industry has also boosted the development of industries such as railways, shipbuilding, electricity, and automobile manufacturing, and is particularly important for the defense industry."

"The strong demand for special steels for the guns and cannons used by the army and the ships of the navy has greatly improved the competitiveness of our weapons and equipment in the international market. Many countries, including Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, also import a large amount of our special steels. Now our steel industry is not inferior to most countries in terms of quantity and quality."

"This enabled my country's steel industry to not only meet the needs of domestic industrial development during the First Five-Year Plan, but also to move beyond the domestic market and into the international market."

"Of course, my country's steel industry is also facing new challenges. Although the steel industry is developing at an accelerated pace, there is still a large gap compared with the United States and Germany, especially in terms of production capacity." This is actually a normal phenomenon. The industrialization levels of the United States and Germany are far ahead of East Africa, and their demand for steel is naturally greater than that of East Africa. Therefore, the fundamental factor that determines East Africa's steel production is still the country's industrialization level.

Of course, in terms of East Africa's population, the United States may be comparable. Germany's population did not even reach 1900 million in , and East Africa's population was almost twice that of Germany, but the opposite results were shown in steel production.

"Germany's steel production is close to 10 million tons, while the United States is close to 19 million tons. You should know that the data from the last census in East Africa shows that our population is nearly 10 million more than that of the United States and nearly 40 million more than that of Germany. So theoretically, East Africa's steel production should be higher than that of the United States and Germany, but the facts are just the opposite. Therefore, our steel production has developed rapidly during the First Five-Year Plan, but this is not a reason for us to be complacent. Instead, we should take this as a warning and strive to surpass Germany first and then the United States."

"Of course, before this, although our steel production was infinitely close to that of Britain, Britain still ranked ahead of us. Therefore, before the end of the First Five-Year Plan, my country's steel industry should continue to make efforts to officially surpass Britain before 1905."

“During the Second Five-Year Plan, our steel industry should take Germany as its main target and strive to surpass Germany during the next Five-Year Plan.”

Ernst did not say much about the ambitions of the industrial sector, but in Ernst's opinion, it would be difficult to surpass Germany during the Second Five-Year Plan.

Because Germany's steel industry is also developing rapidly, its growth rate may not be as fast as that of East Africa, but it is very difficult to overtake it within five years. This requires East Africa's steel production to almost double again during the Second Five-Year Plan. Even if it exceeds the 10 million ton mark, it will probably be difficult to catch up.

Of course, although Ernst had high hopes for East Africa's first two five-year plans, he was not too enthusiastic. It was very unrealistic for East Africa to achieve the amazing results of the Soviet Union's first two five-year plans.

First of all, the timing was wrong. The Soviet Union’s first two five-year plans encountered the most serious crisis capitalism has ever seen. This period of opportunity was very important, but during the first two five-year plans in East Africa, there was obviously no such opportunity.

Of course, East Africa is not without opportunities. Apart from the great crisis of the capitalist world in the past, have there been opportunities of this scale? The answer is yes, and that is World War I and World War II. Therefore, the Americans are much luckier than the Soviet Union.

Although the Soviet Union made a lot of profits in the first two five-year plans, World War II directly dealt a devastating blow to the Soviet Union. When the war ended, the Soviet Union's light industry, which was not rich to begin with, was basically destroyed, the cities were bombed into ruins, and a large number of young and middle-aged people died on the battlefield. It can be said that many of the achievements of the Soviet Union's two five-year plans were offset by World War II. In contrast, the United States made a lot of money through the two world wars.

Therefore, if East Africa led by Ernst wanted to take advantage of the major development opportunities brought about by the world war, East Africa itself must not be drawn into the vortex of war.

According to the time when the First World War took place in the previous life, it was almost during the East African "Fourth Five-Year Plan" or "Fifth Five-Year Plan". The previous industrial plans must not be too radical in the absence of major historical opportunities.

Therefore, it is unrealistic to surpass Germany in steel production during the Second Five-Year Plan. East Africa still needs to formulate reasonable industrial development goals based on its own conditions. However, the First Five-Year Plan has not yet ended, and Ernst naturally does not want to dampen the enthusiasm of government officials.

The overall progress achieved in the First Five-Year Plan is still enormous for East Africa, mainly because the industrial level in East Africa was relatively low before, so there is a lot of room for improvement. However, we must not be too optimistic because of this.

(End of this chapter)