Markus,
That is it. You hit the nail on the head. Thank you for your research on this. Comparing the drawings on page three of the Merkel Patent you found, it is fairly easy to see.
A big thank you firstly to Markus (peevedoff) and fallschirmjaeger. Methinks the quandary is now reasonably solved.
I may be able to fit in the missing puzzle pieces, and to arrange the whole picture, by integrating a side view on economic history:
Hitler notwithstanding, Deutsches Reich and the République Française tried to rebuild and deepen their economic connections after the worldwide Great Depression. A new trade agreement was urgently needed, after the ill-fated and short-lived treaty of 1927. The new 1934 treaty only endured one year, and both sides then frantically endeavoured to re-established a better-concocted one from 1935 onwards. The Reich needed to export, and also needed foreign currency. Here is the scholarly article on it:
https://jlupub.ub.uni-giessen.de/se...c3e5-d239-424b-88af-07ec2e28d130/contentMerkel made use of the advantageous situation, and being the worldwide leader in the newly-fangled over-under combination of double guns, was able to interest the French in using their German know-how and design (they may have planned this in 1933 already, hence their French patent). However, the French wanted to rather build those themselves in St-Étienne, with French tubes - voilà un 'deal' !
Carcano
