African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1044: Chapter 513: Arms Trade

Take a typical example: After World War I broke out in the previous life, why could the United States quickly take over the British market in South America? The direct reason was naturally the fear of the strong power of the United States Navy by various South American countries. When warships appear at the doorstep, who wouldn’t support the ”Monroe Doctrine” and ”free trade”!

Therefore, in Ernst’s expectations, the East African Navy will inevitably reach a strength second only to that of the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, and France in the next ten years, forming an absolute advantage over naval forces of countries outside Europe, thereby ensuring East African interests.

Of course, from the number of battleships, the East African Navy’s expansion plan seems somewhat conservative, after all, other great powers already own more than ten battleships each.

But the battleships that East Africa plans to build are basically all ”Dreadnoughts,” which makes the difference quite obvious.

Take France for instance. In the previous life, France had nearly thirty battleships before World War I, but most were older models, and there were only a mere four Dreadnoughts.

On the other hand, East Africa has already built and commissioned four battleships, and the China-Brazil Jia Mo Yue is already considered a ”quasi-Dreadnought.”

It’s just lacking in terms of power, so, in the construction of Dreadnoughts, the technology in East Africa is quite mature. Once the first ”Dreadnought” is built, East Africa very likely becomes the first country in the world to own a Dreadnought, though the first East African Dreadnought naturally won’t be called by this name, as that standard was set by the Royal Navy.

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The East African Navy is preparing to join the world naval arms race, and as for the East African Army, Ernst naturally has arrangements, after all, one can’t favor one over the other.

”Before 1915, the army scale should be expanded to at least 350,000, especially the army-related military manufacturing industry during the Twenty-Five Year Plan where the Defense Army Industrial sector will further develop, and overseas projects will actively seek participation.”

East Africa’s location has determined a situation where the East African Army basically has no battles to fight, so even though the army is expanded, it is only to increase the scale by tens of thousands, whereas previously, the East African Army maintained a level of over 200,000, peaking at nearly 300,000.

And Ernst’s expansion of the army size is naturally with ulterior motives but instead to find a reason to expand the scale of the East African Defense Army Industry.

If World War I breaks out as it did in the previous life, the two major groups will inevitably have a booming demand for various materials, and military products are no exception. Because of political reasons, weapons like guns cannot be directly exported to Europe, but other accessories and military supplies are much more flexible, such as leather, sugar, tobacco, etc.

Moreover, once the European war breaks out, it would mean that the arms market outside Europe is vacated, and this market is extremely huge. Both America and the Soviet Union were major arms sales countries in the previous life.

At present, East Africa’s scale in the arms market is not big. On one hand, the international arms market competition is fierce, and on the other hand, East African military-industrial production scale has been suppressed.

Hence, during the Twenty-Five Year Plan, Ernst is bound to reform East African defense industry, expanding its capacity to a certain extent.

”Because of technological progress, and the increasing number of skilled workers and experts, the quality of our weapons has significantly improved over the 70s and 80s, but this improvement has weak feedback in the international market.”

”The main issue is the export scale is too small, leading to low recognition, and our military industry overlaps with gun exports from countries like Germany and Austria, which obviously has a negative impact on our military product exports.”

Take very basic rifles as an example, both East Africa and Germany are major producers of Mauser rifles, and overseas clients will certainly tend to choose German products, with East Africa previously focusing on the low-end market.

Although East Africa has almost simultaneously started producing Mauser rifles with Germany, early industrial base weakness in East Africa resulted in some quality gap with German weapons.

As time passed, by the mid-90s East African Mauser rifles almost leveled the quality gap with German rifles, but because of outdated perceptions, many countries’ views on East African Mauser rifles still remain in the 70s and 80s.

Currently, the major overseas customers for East African rifles, besides nearby countries like the Abyssinia Empire and Southern German Kingdom, are only Spain and the Far East Empire purchasing a certain amount of firearms annually from East Africa.

Spain mainly tested East African military products during the Spanish-American War, thus accumulating some reputation as East African military manufacturing was qualitatively mature by then.

The Far East Empire has been a major customer of East African military products since the 70s, initially for cheapness, eventually for habit, as the Far East Empire’s troop equipment levels don’t strictly demand performance, considering many local units can’t even afford basic rifles.

Of course, there are other influencing factors, such as East Africa exporting full sets of Dreyse Rifle production equipment to the Far East Empire. Although the Dreyse Rifle is clearly outdated at present, it was rather advanced at the time, given most countries worldwide had less effective rifles than the Dreyse Rifle.

So far, the Dreyse Rifle equipment exported by East Africa continues to contribute to the Far East Empire.

Besides these few countries, East African rifles sales on the international market are quite disappointing.

Ernst thus stated: ”During the Twenty-Five Year Plan, one important goal for our defense industry is to establish the fame of East African guns and cannons, leaving other countries with the impression that our military equipment is no worse in quality than other nations, and better in cost-effectiveness.”

”Meanwhile, during the Twenty-Five Year Plan, we shall continue improving our weapon and equipment manufacturing level, advancing the manufacturing craft, further perfecting production procedures, setting strict standards.”

”Establish our guns and cannons’ reputation on the international market, intensify promotional efforts worldwide, and provide certain discounts. While export numbers may differ, we must surpass other nations in quality.”

At first glance, Ernst seems to aim for sacrificing profits for arms business with other nations by offering better deals, but once the European war erupts, when European countries’ military industry turns to the battlefield, the international arms market outside Europe would essentially become vacant.

In Ernst’s view, this is a great opportunity to fully expand East African arms trade, and before the European war breaks out, East Africa must be prepared, establishing East African military industry reputation.

Given this premise, appropriate profit sacrifice and increased promotional investment become particularly significant. Opportunity is for the prepared, if East Africa can arrange its strategy in advance, future gains will be even higher.

If East Africa doesn’t prepare, it might face competition from the United States, Japan, and other countries outside Europe in the arms market. Hastily expanding military production might also lead to quality decline, detrimental to future East African arms exports.

In fact, before the Twenty-Five Year Plan even started, Ernst had already planned to moderate adjustments of East African economy and industry to align with potential World War tendencies, including many defense and civilian production sectors that were previously untouched or had minimal investment, all to be organized during the Twenty-Five Year Plan.

Once World War I breaks out according to the previous life trajectory, East Africa temporarily becomes one of the ”world factories,” naturally one of them, due to the substantial presence of the United States.

Even with East Africa arranging for World War in advance, it can’t monopolize the market, given the overwhelming economic size of the United States, even with industrial plans accelerating national industrial production, Ernst can’t guarantee East African industry reaching U.S. scale before war breaks out, especially in the field of light industry, where the gap with the United States is obvious, and during war, demand for light industrial products is evidently most profitable, given European countries’ industry is bound to shift towards heavy and military industry, affecting light industry the most. Thus, during the Twenty-Five Year Plan, Ernst’s strategy is to improve East African light industry level.