This started life as a FReepmail addressed to you, but it grew and I thought others could find it interesting as well.
Thanks very much for sharing this.
It is interesting then that the Franco-Prussian War still carried the faint echo of the arms race first mentioned in the Book of I Samuel (13:19), where the Iron Age Philistines imposed a strict arms control regimen regarding iron on the Hebrews.
I spent quite a bit of time interviewing Bill Verity of AK Steel, one of the mist productive steel companies in the world, and also Ken Iverson, who created Nucor, which melts down scrap to make steel.