Chapter 720 East African Military Industrial Development
February 3, 1888.
Constantine visited the Mbeya Arsenal to observe the development of East Africa's military industry. The Mbeya Arsenal is an advanced representative of East Africa's independent military industry and has been one of the most important military construction units in East Africa since the late 1960s.
The senior executives of the Mbeya Arsenal took Constantine to visit various weapons production workshops, among which the artillery production workshop was still one of the places that Constantine, the former European general, was most interested in.
"The improvement of the French 1807 75mm field gun has effectively solved the recoil problem and greatly enhanced the firepower of the army. So far, the entire army is equipped with a total of 378 guns. It is an important component of land mobile support artillery, and the annual output is maintained at around 30 guns." The director of the Mbeya Arsenal introduced to the king.
"In the past three years, our factory has also produced 120mm heavy artillery through cooperation with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but the application scenarios are limited, and a total of 49 guns were produced."
"We produced more than 2,000 self-developed 1883 grenade launchers and more than 130 imitation Maxim machine guns."
East Africa is a country that does not strictly enforce patent laws, so the Maxim machine gun is mainly directly copied, which has a lot to do with the national conditions of East Africa.
Currently, the most open coastal areas in East Africa are still semi-open markets, and inland areas are basically not open, so patents are not effective in inland areas.
This is also a problem in attracting investment in East Africa. It is basically impossible to exchange technology through the market. Just like Maxim would definitely not invest and build a factory in East Africa. After all, East Africa currently does not attach much importance to intellectual property rights. Therefore, after the Maxim machine gun was born, East Africa could only purchase and then imitate it. It was successfully imitated in 1885, a factory was built in 1886, and large-scale mass production had begun in 1888.
Of course, this itself is due to Ernst's emphasis on machine guns. Long research had been carried out in East Africa before the Maxim machine gun.
However, this research process was ultimately no match for Maxim's genius thinking, so East Africa could only imitate the principle of the Maxim machine gun, which was not actually entirely plagiarism.
"So far, the East African Army is equipped with more than 6,000 artillery pieces of various types, mainly coastal defense artillery and small-caliber artillery."
In East Africa, the standard for artillery is 75 mm caliber. Any artillery with a caliber lower than this value is considered light artillery, and any artillery with a caliber higher than or equal to this value is considered heavy artillery.
This standard is actually in line with international standards. For example, the British heavy artillery standard is a caliber greater than or equal to three inches, which is 76 mm. East Africa is a metric country, so in order to facilitate calculations, the metric system is mainly used, which results in the 75 mm standard.
The number of large-caliber artillery in the world today naturally cannot be compared with that of later generations, and the caliber of 75 mm is also considered a relatively large number of artillery pieces.
Moreover, large-caliber artillery is inconvenient to transport. For the East African Army, which relies on animal power as its main power source and has imperfect road conditions, it naturally prefers light artillery.
Of course, the road conditions in East Africa are actually among the best in the world. In the 1970s and 1980s when large-scale infrastructure construction was underway, the level of roads in East Africa was higher than that of Tsarist Russia and was basically on par with that of the United States. However, the roads in the United States are longer and more numerous, while those in East Africa are of superior quality.
As for the rest of the European countries, due to their land area, they are not suitable as reference for horizontal comparison of East African roads.
Of course, East Africa’s land transportation is not just roads, it also includes railways and inland water transportation, but it does not have an advantage compared with European and American countries.
One is that the East African railway has a short mileage. Even if the Hessen Railway is opened, the East African railway has only completed the initial networking, and it is mainly based on the two major arteries of the Central Railway and the Northern Railway.
The second is water transportation. The rivers in East Africa have poor navigability and cannot be connected throughout the country. They can only achieve regional transportation. This is especially characterized by the development of lake transportation. There are four large lakes in East Africa, which can be seen at a glance even on the world map. The smaller lakes are also the leading large lakes in other parts of the world, such as Lake König (Lake Albert), Lake Constantine (Lake Edward), Lake Hechingen (Lake George), Lake Kivu, Lake Mweru, Lake Rukwa...
Compared with the prosperity of lake transportation, river transportation is in a completely embarrassing situation. The rivers with the highest shipping value are measured in hundreds of kilometers. The only rivers that can reach thousands of kilometers and are unobstructed are the White Nile River and the Congo River. However, the banks of these two rivers are sparsely populated areas.
The Zambezi River flows through an important economic region in East Africa, but due to dangerous canyons, rapids and waterfalls, only some sections of the river are navigable.
As of 1888, there were a total of 23 artillery production plants in East Africa, three in the Northern Industrial Belt, six in the Lake Malawi Industrial Zone, four in the Central Province, seven in the Matabele Province, two in the Hohenzollern Province, and one in the Swabia Province.
In general, the focus of artillery production is in the central region. The Lake Malawi Industrial Zone, headed by the city of Mbeya, is also relatively close to the central region. Therefore, the overall military production in East Africa has completed the transition to inland areas. Such a layout is conducive to the security of East African national defense production.
Of the four artillery factories in the Central Province, three serve the navy, and one is a military-industrial enterprise under the Guards Division. At the same time, the Central Province is also the place in East Africa that is easiest to exchange technology with Europe, so the military-industrial enterprises in this region have the best technology, while other artillery factories are more dependent on resource and transportation advantages.
Of course, some artillery factories are just subordinate units of the arsenal and are not only responsible for artillery production. There are a total of 43 arsenal units in East Africa. The army's direct arsenals are mainly concentrated in eight provinces in the central and eastern regions. In addition, there is also an arsenal in the southern port city of New Hamburg. The navy has seven direct arsenals, including three military shipyards.
Take the Mbeya Arsenal as an example. In addition to artillery, it also produces a large number of rifles, machine guns, etc. It is a giant military industrial enterprise. This was the first-mover advantage of Mbeya in the early development of the East African military industry.
When Matabele Province and other central resource-rich provinces had not yet been incorporated into East Africa, the Lake Malawi Industrial Zone became the only heavy industrial production base in East Africa.
It is also a key layout area for the military industry. The industrial city cluster along the Lake Malawi coast, headed by Mbeya City, formed the earliest coal-iron complex in East Africa. It was not until the establishment of Matabele Province that the status of the Lake Malawi Industrial Zone was gradually replaced.
So far, the military production in the Lake Malawi Industrial Zone still accounts for nearly 30% of East Africa, because once an industry is formed, it is not easy to migrate, and the technological accumulation is also stronger than that of the three central provinces headed by Matabele Province.
Many East African domestically produced equipment were first produced in the Lake Malawi Industrial Zone, especially in the field of weapons and equipment manufacturing, which was in an absolute leading position at the time.
Of course, military products are not limited to weapons and equipment. Light industrial products are also an important guarantee for the combat effectiveness of the army, and this is mainly undertaken by the northern industrial belt.
Nairobi and Mombasa in the northern industrial belt are both important textile centers in East Africa, and their cotton and linen textile industries and leather industries dominate East Africa.
At the same time, Mombasa and Nairobi are also the most important food processing centers in East Africa. The northern industrial belt is rich in coffee, tea, and various types of economic or food crops. It is also an important animal husbandry center, close to the northern pastures, and connected to the Indian Ocean in the east and the Great Lakes (Lake Victoria) in the west. The northern mountainous plateau is an important forestry area, and there are almost no shortcomings in the agricultural, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery industries.
The city of Mombasa is also a bridgehead for East Africa's foreign exchanges. It is very convenient to introduce advanced European technology and mechanical equipment. The northern railway connects the economic development of the northern industrial belt. Therefore, the northern industrial belt has considerable say in the field of light industry in East Africa. Thirty-seven percent of East Africa's military light industrial products are provided by the northern industrial belt.
Of course, the shortcomings of the northern industrial belt are also very obvious, that is, it is short on resources, but this is also an important reason for the northern industry to take light industry as the main development direction.
(End of this chapter)
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