African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1031 Arms Trade
To give a typical example, after the outbreak of World War I in the previous life, why was the United States able to quickly take over Britain's market in South America? The direct reason was naturally because the South American countries were afraid of the powerful strength of the US Navy. Once the warships were heading to their doorsteps, who would not support the "Monroe Doctrine" and "free trade"!
Therefore, according to Ernst's prediction, the East African Navy will inevitably reach a strength second only to that of Britain, the United States, Germany, and France in the next ten years, forming an absolute advantage over the navies of countries outside Europe, 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 that East Africa plans to build are basically "dreadnoughts", and the difference between them is quite obvious.

Take France for example. Before World War I, France had nearly thirty battleships, but most of them were dreadnoughts, and there were only four dreadnoughts.

In contrast, of the four battleships built and commissioned in East Africa, HMS Bagamoyo was originally a “quasi” dreadnought.

It just lacks power, so East Africa's technology in building dreadnoughts is already relatively mature, and it is just waiting for the first "dreadnought" to be built. By then, East Africa is likely to become the first country in the world to own a "dreadnought". Of course, dreadnought is a standard set by the British Navy in the previous life, and East Africa's first "dreadnought" is definitely not called that.

……

The East African Navy was preparing to join the world naval arms race, and Ernst naturally had arrangements for the East African Army as well. After all, he could not favor one over the other.

"The army will be expanded to at least 1915 men before . In particular, the army-related military manufacturing industry will be further developed during the Second Five-Year Plan, and overseas projects will also be actively pursued."

The location of East Africa determines that the East African Army basically has no wars to fight, so although the army has been expanded, it has only increased by tens of thousands compared to before. Before that, the East African Army had maintained a level of more than 200,000 people all year round, and at its peak it was close to 300,000.

Ernst naturally had no good intentions in expanding the size of the army, but rather wanted to find a reason to expand the scale of the East African Defense Forces industry.

If World War I broke out like in the previous life, the two major groups would inevitably have a strong demand for various materials, and military products would be no exception. Guns and other weapons could not be exported directly to Europe for political reasons, but other accessories and military supplies were much more flexible, such as leather, sugar, tobacco, etc.

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

East Africa’s current scale in the arms market is not large. On the one hand, the international arms market is highly competitive, and on the other hand, the output scale of East Africa’s military industry is suppressed.

Therefore, during the Second Five-Year Plan, Ernst had 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 weapons has improved significantly compared to the 1970s and 1980s, but the feedback from this improvement in the international market is weak."

"The main reason is that the export scale is too small, which leads to low visibility. In addition, my country's military industry has overlapped with Germany, Austria and other countries in the field of gun exports, which obviously has a certain negative impact on my country's military product exports."

Take the most basic rifles for 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 East Africa's production of Mauser rifles was almost simultaneous with that of Germany, East Africa's early industrial base was weak, which also led to a certain gap in the quality of East African weapons compared with Germany.

As time went by, the East African Mauser rifle basically closed the gap in quality with the German Mauser rifle in the mid-1990s, but due to the previous stereotypes, the influence of the East African Mauser rifle in many countries still remained in the 1970s and 1980s. At present, the main overseas customers of the East African rifle, in addition to the surrounding countries of East Africa, such as the Abyssinian Empire and the Kingdom of South Germany, are only Spain and the Far Eastern Empire, which purchase a certain number of guns from East Africa every year.

Spain mainly tested East African military products during the Spanish-American War, so it accumulated some reputation. At that time, the quality of East African military manufacturing industry was already 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 cheap prices, and later it was for usage habits. After all, given the equipment level of the Far Eastern Empire's army, it was not picky about performance. After all, many local troops could not even afford basic rifles.

Of course, there were other factors that had an impact, such as East Africa exporting complete sets of Dreiser rifle production equipment to the Far Eastern Empire. Although the Dreiser rifle was obviously outdated, it was still relatively advanced at the time. After all, the performance of rifles in most countries in the world at that time was not as good as that of the Dreiser rifle.

To date, the Dreyse rifle production equipment exported from East Africa is still contributing 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.

Therefore, Ernst said: "During the Second Five-Year Plan, an important goal of our national defense industry is to establish the reputation of East African guns and cannons, and to leave the impression on other countries that the quality of military equipment produced by our country is no worse than that of other countries, and the cost performance 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, upgrade manufacturing processes, further improve production procedures, and formulate strict standards.”

"We need to build up the reputation of our guns and cannons in the international market, increase publicity efforts in countries around the world, and at the same time give certain preferential treatment. There can be a certain gap in export data, but we must surpass other countries in quality."

It seemed that Ernst gave concessions to other countries in the arms business and paid more costs, but when the European war broke out and the military industries of European countries turned to the European battlefield, the international arms market outside Europe was basically empty.

In Ernst's view, this was a good opportunity to thoroughly develop the arms trade in East Africa. Before the war broke out in Europe, East Africa naturally had to make preparations and establish the reputation of East Africa's military industry.

Under this premise, it is particularly important to make appropriate concessions and increase investment in publicity. Opportunities are reserved for those who are prepared. If East Africa can plan ahead, the future returns will be higher.

If East Africa does not make preparations in advance, it may face competition from arms from countries outside Europe, 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 had planned to make appropriate adjustments to East Africa's economy and industry in the direction of World War I, including many military industries that East Africa had not previously been involved in or had invested little in, and civilian product production would be established during the Second Five-Year Plan.

As long as World War I breaks out according to the trajectory of the previous life, East Africa will temporarily become one of the "world factories" during this period. The reason why it is one of them is naturally because of the annoying existence of the United States.

Even if East Africa prepared for World War I in advance, it would not be able 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 African industry can reach the scale of the United States before the outbreak of the war. Especially in the field of light industry, there is a clear gap between East Africa and the United States. During the war, the demand for light industrial products is obviously the most profitable. At that time, the industries of European countries are bound to concentrate on heavy industry and military industry, and light industry will naturally be the most affected. Therefore, during the Second Five-Year Plan, Ernst's plan is to improve the level of light industry in East Africa.

(End of this chapter)