The period immediately after World War I was a time of serious problems: excessive production capacity, the need to convert the production to civil uses, more expensive raw materials and competition from the United States. These problems weighed heavily on the personnel, resulting in strikes, sit-ins and large-scale firing. In the 1920s the Officine Galileo's activity expanded with new military productions. In 1929 it purchased the F. Koristka company of Milan, specialized in microscopes, photographic lenses (often with Zeiss patents) and optical instruments in general. The plant was enlarged and other firms were incorporated, in Milan and at Battaglia near Padua. Numerous new products were introduced, such as scales and automated distribution systems, in addition to an increasingly vast range of electrical instruments for measurement, topography, geodesy and photogrammetry.