Yes, Ive seen that NY Times article too Drew. I also have a reference book about turn of the century int'l trade which talks a lot about steel.
I didnt mean to infer that those U.S. steelmakers were making barrels (although clearly they COULD have). I should have clarified...I mentioned it to say that clearly Krupp was licencing their method, and if they did so in Belgium as well, then it would suggest that maybe quite a few "makes" of fluid steel were actually Krupp recipe.
This would only have accelerated after the outbreak of WW1, when nobody felt the need to pay for it anymore..."wartime spoils," as it were.
I wonder if by the end of WW1 "Krupp steel" had essentially just become the standard recipe for fluid barrel steel.
Sort of the way the Mauser action was so thoroughly "borrowed" until it simply became rebranded as "bolt action." Pity poor ole Paul Mauser...but nobody's crying tears for Krupp.
NDG
