Well, the short answer is that economically & physically Italy could not produce it own tube steel bars pre-WWI.
Jim wasn't convinced or converted by my theory on the sourcing of the Belgians on availability of rough bored tubes. But he might be swayed by the underlying currents of Italy's steel woes. In brief, Bagnoli, Piombino, Portoferraio and Terni Italy's major steel production centers. The Terni Steelworks Company was founded on March 10th, 1884 and was a hydro-power(waterfalls) facility, and later electrical, as Italy had little coal. It was a facade and was propped up with national monies and produced costly, poor quality steels from imported pig iron. A gunsmith would not have used poor quality steel in his tubes, even if it was cheap. Low quality & bad name allowed Armstrong(some portion of Armstrong, Whitworth & Co.) to build an armament facility(near Naples?) by 1902 that used Elba's ore. Terni did have a 100 ton hammer, one of the largest at the time. Both Krupp and Vicker's had a stake in the steel market in Italy and in 1905 a Krupp steel process plant was built as a source for steel plates. A year later Vickers amalgamated with Terni for some venture till an abrupt halt in 1922. There were some patent issues with Harvey & Midvale on plates up till WWI.
Now there were some small blast furnaces in the Val Trompia region but Terni either had very small ones or none at all. The ore was mined on the Isle of Elba and then sold to Britain. Then Italy either traded for or purchased pig iron and I would guess that Vicker's involvement began here. Italy suffered from not having an integral cycle steelworks(all stages from ore to steel are completed in one general locale). In 1899 a facility named Portoferraio was built was 2 blast furnaces. A couple years later in 1904/1905 Naples was correcting their financial house and constructed the Piombino facility. By this time Italy had zero coal and imported 75% from England and 25% from Germany. 5 years later an integral cycle steelworks was constructed at Piombino in the Tuscan region but I don't think they would have worked out the kinks till after WWI and probably in the late 1920s when Italy seemed more in control of raw materials as well as quality control.
Kind Regards,
Raimey
rse
