Chapter 1031 Arms Trade
Take a typical example. After the outbreak of World War I in the previous life, why did the United States quickly take over the British 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 sent to their doorsteps, who would not support the "Monroe Doctrine" and "free trade"!
So under Ernst's expectation, the East African Navy must reach a strength second only to 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, from the perspective of the number of battleships, the expansion plan of the East African Navy seems a bit conservative. After all, other powerful countries in the world currently have more than a dozen battleships.
However, the battleships that East Africa intends to build are basically "dreadnoughts", and the gap is more obvious.
Take France as an example. In the previous life, France had nearly 30 battleships before World War I, but most of them were dreadnoughts, and there were only four dreadnoughts.
On the other hand, among the four battleships that East Africa has built and put into service, the Central Bagamoyo was originally a "quasi" dreadnought.
It just lacks power. Therefore, East Africa's technology in dreadnought construction is relatively mature. It is only waiting for the first "dreadnought" to be built. At that time, East Africa is likely to become the first country in the world to have a "dreadnought". Of course, the dreadnought is the standard set by the British Navy in the past, and the first "dreadnought" in East Africa is definitely not called that.
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The East African Navy is ready to join the world naval arms race, and Ernst naturally has arrangements for the East African Army. After all, you can't favor one over the other.
"The army will be expanded to at least 350,000 people before 1915, especially the army-related military manufacturing industry. During the Second Five-Year Plan, the national defense military industry will be further developed, especially overseas projects will be actively sought."
The location of East Africa determines that the East African Army basically has no war to fight, so although the army is expanded, it is only a few tens of thousands larger than before. Before that, the East African Army has maintained a level of more than 200,000 people all year round, and the peak period is close to 300,000.
Ernst's expansion of the army is naturally not good, but to find a reason to expand the scale of East African national defense military industry.
If World War I breaks out like in the previous life, the two major groups will inevitably have a strong demand for various materials, and military products are no exception. Guns and other weapons cannot be directly exported to Europe for political reasons, but other accessories and military supplies are much more flexible, such as leather, sugar, tobacco, etc.
In addition, the outbreak of the European war means that the arms market outside Europe is vacated, and this market is also extremely large. For example, the United States and the Soviet Union were both major arms sales countries in the previous life.
East Africa is not big in the arms market at present. On the one hand, the international arms market is highly competitive, and on the other hand, the scale of East African military industry output is suppressed.
Therefore, during the Second Five-Year Plan, Ernst must reshape East Africa's 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 with the 1970s and 1980s, but this improvement has a weak feedback in the international market."
"The main reason is that the export scale is too small, which leads to low visibility, and my country's military industry overlaps 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 as an example. East Africa and Germany are the main 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 East Africa's history of producing Mauser rifles was almost the same as Germany, the early East African industrial base was weak, which also made the quality of East African weapons have a certain gap 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 because of the previous stereotypes, many countries' influence on the East African Mauser rifle 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 East Empire, which 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 industry was relatively mature.
The Far East Empire has been a major customer of East African military products since the 1970s. In the early days, it was for cheapness, and later it was for usage habits. After all, with the equipment level of the Far East Empire army, it was not picky about performance. After all, many local troops could not even afford basic rifles.
Of course, there are other factors that affect it. For example, East Africa exported a complete set of Dreiser rifle production equipment to the Far Eastern Empire. Although the Dreiser rifle was obviously backward, 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.
So far, the Dreiser rifle production equipment exported from East Africa is still contributing 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 make East African guns and cannons famous, and to leave such an impression on other countries, that is, 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 weapons and equipment manufacturing, enhance manufacturing technology, further improve production procedures, and formulate strict standards."
"We must establish a good reputation for our guns and artillery in the international market, increase publicity efforts in countries around the world, and at the same time give certain preferential treatment. There may be a certain gap in export data, but we must surpass other countries in quality."
It seems that Ernst is giving concessions to other countries for the arms business and paying more costs, but when the European war breaks out and the military industries of European countries turn to the European battlefield, the international arms market outside Europe is basically empty.
In Ernst's view, this is a good opportunity to thoroughly expand the arms trade in East Africa. Before the war breaks out in Europe, East Africa must naturally prepare first and establish the reputation of East African military industry.
Under this premise, it is particularly important to make appropriate concessions and increase publicity investment. Opportunities are reserved for those who are prepared. If East Africa can lay out in advance, the future benefits will be higher.
If East Africa does not prepare in advance, it may face competition from the United States, Japan and other countries outside Europe. Temporary expansion of military production capacity may also lead to a decline in product quality, which is not conducive to the future export of East African military products.
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 previously involved in or invested little in, and civilian product production will be established during the Second Five-Year Plan.
As long as World War I broke out according to the trajectory of the previous life, East Africa would temporarily become one of the "world factories" during this period. The reason why it was one of them was naturally because of the existence of the United States, which was an eyesore.
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.