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The cost of war

highlandotter

highlandotter

HONOURED MEMBER RIP
Was reading book on artillery in WW1. I have seen that Britain fired over 170,000,000 shells in WW1. 100.000,000 were 18 pdrs. Using 24 inches for the length of the round, this means laid end to end, they would have made a chain around the earth 1.5 times. When considering the cost of the war, excluding the millions of lives lost, this makes the cost of the war seem more vivid, in resources, materials, energy and this was only 18 pdrs, what about all the small arms, horses, etc? What sadness.
 
This is my favourite military statistic.

After the end of the war in 1918 Krupp demanded over £300,000 in unpaid royalties for the 14 million type 80 fuzes fired by the Allies at the Germans.

The type 80 fuze was a Krupp design originally licensed by Vickers.
 
glevum said:
This is my favourite military statistic.

After the end of the war in 1918 Krupp demanded over £300,000 in unpaid royalties for the 14 million type 80 fuzes fired by the Allies at the Germans.

The type 80 fuze was a Krupp design originally licensed by Vickers.
Click to expand...

The definition of chutzpah?
 
Completely OT, but my favourite definition of chutzpah was the (fictional) tale of a young man who killed both of his parents and then appealed for leniency on the grounds that he was an orphan.
 
If I've added it up correctly the army expenditure for 1 April 1914- 31 March 1919 is £ 2,905,813,951 in 1922, now you've only got to convert it in to today's equivalent.
Daily war expenditure average 1 April 1918- 8 November 1981
£ 7,443,000
 
Tony Williams said:
Completely OT, but my favourite definition of chutzpah was the (fictional) tale of a young man who killed both of his parents and then appealed for leniency on the grounds that he was an orphan.
Click to expand...

A bit like General Motors which was paid $32 million by the U.S. government for damages sustained to its German plants during WWII. Very much a 'win - win' situation.

TimG
 
Glevum,

The Krupp v Vickers case was a bit more complex than that. The Vicker's contract was for 15 years and began in 1902. Krupp was to be paid 1/- a fuze, 1/3d a large fuze (haven't been able to find a explanation for that). It's not known how Krupp arrived at the figure of £320K and Treasury Solicitor thought the figure might be closer to £500K. Some of the file reads that HMG were not going to contest the claim (they stood to pay 60%). However, post war Krupp and Vickers were back in bed together and it was in there mutual interest to resolve the matter amicable and a figure of £50K gets mentioned. The file makes makes no mention what, if any monies were paid.

The second action was against C.O.W. as it was claimed their manufacture of the fuze was patent infringement. Again the file makes no mention of what, if any, monies were paid.

TimG
 
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glevum said:
This is my favourite military statistic.

After the end of the war in 1918 Krupp demanded over £300,000 in unpaid royalties for the 14 million type 80 fuzes fired by the Allies at the Germans.

The type 80 fuze was a Krupp design originally licensed by Vickers.
Click to expand...

Probably offset by the thousands of machine guns the Germans made without paying fees to Vickers ! Bloody cheek. I hope we told them where to put it!

Even before the war started the Germans were breaking the agreement on how many machine guns they were licensed to build.

John
 
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