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Comment by laurent92 | Hacker News Reader

The titanium for the SR-71, all came from Russia, which the US acquired by mounting lots of shell companies across the world. When there is overlap between supply chains of countries at war, I have to say I find it quite comical. https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/21105/how-was-ti...

It is similar to the legend that says the Germans supplied the red ink for the bright army pants of French soldiers on the field in 1914 « for a good price » (you bet!), although I think this one is rather a legend, as it is true that French costumes were too fancy for war, I think the traditional red pants were not in widespread application at the time.

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The French were aware that their traditional (mid-19th century) red trousers were not appropriate for modern warfare. Unfortunately, getting them replaced was not an easy task due to political difficulties. This article (in French) is a good summary of the French army's efforts from 1903 to find a uniform more suited to modern warfare: http://rosalielebel75.franceserv.com/reforme-uniforme.html It does mention the importing of red dye from Germany, in the context of the planned future uniform being a patriotic mix of red, white and blue, and the red being omitted due to the supply being curtailed.

There was also this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World_War_glass%E2%80%93...

I had no idea the Ludlum novel "The Rhinemann Exchange" had a basis in a historical event. The war is different, but the plot the same.

I read somewhere that a popular British firearm was licensed from Germany during WWI. A rifle action of some sort.

You'd think they would copy, not license, an enemy design during war.

Regardless of the number of companies making M4/AR-15 pattern designs, the TDP[0] is only known to a handful of companies with licenses.

[0] https://87gn.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/what-is-the-tdp/

Corporate profit must be protected at all costs.

Well it's unlikely that has complete control over the supply chain and so it's corporations doing business with each other. They'll find a rapidly decreasing number of people willing to do business if they ride roughshod over others IP.

Corporate profit is the driver of all modern wars.

You're thinking of the US Springfield 1903. It used a Mauser style bolt-action that was protected by a patent. Mausesr sued and won. The US gov had to pay license fees for it. I think actual payment was delayed until after the war was over.

Yes that's it. Thank you!

It went far father than firearms, later - in WWII you had a shared military-industrial-complex supplying both sides, with entities like GM and Ford supplying huge quantities of armaments to both sides - Ford went so far as to enslave most of the population of Rostov-na-Donu.

I wonder if at some point there will be unified suppliers and supply chains for all armaments for all actors, acting entirely independently of any nation state. Corporations are more or less there in terms of their ability to hop jurisdictions and work around international law.

In fact, maybe we do already have this, but it’s non-obvious.

It's worth remembering that international subsidiaries inside Germany were entirely cut off from their parent companies. There were no executives from the parent corporation present in Germany, all the other employees were Germans, no money could be transferred out of Germany, and after a while they even had to get special permission to send telegrams in or out. They still called themselves Ford Germany or IBM Germany or whatever, but the reality is that this was just a name that they used; there were no real ties of ownership or control left. Naturally when France fell, the French subsidies suffered the same fate, or even worse.

So when Coca-Cola Germany could no longer get Coke syrup, they came up with their own flavors, called Fanta, which are still with us today.

Today's Fanta is actually a completely different beverage.

ITT was another conglomerate that got fat selling to both the Allies and the Axis; radar sets made by ITT subsidiary Federal Telephone and Radio were used to shoot down planes built by ITT subsidiary Focke-Wulf (partially owned by radio manufacturer and ITT subsidiary Lorenz).

Kind of reminds me of the 40mm Bofors AA gun in WWII, the design being sold to both sides during the war (though was mostly used by the allies)

> When there is overlap between supply chains of countries at war, I have to say I find it quite comical.

The US and the Soviet were never at war though.

Depends if you include proxy wars as two nations being at war I suppose.

But no, there was never declaration of war and direct hostilities.

The Germans were leaders in chemical dyes at that time.

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