Word: cannoneer
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Reason for this sudden interest in subs was the realization that, apart from the airplane, the 1942-model sub is the best U.S. bet for an offensive weapon. Weighing over 1,500 tons and 300-plus feet long, it shoots torpedoes fore & aft, carries quick-firing cannon and anti-aircraft guns, is fast enough to keep up with any fleet. It can cruise on its own for months, with a radius of 20,000 miles. From any angle the sub looked like the best way to clip the tensing strings of Japan's supply lines...
...feet long, are stuffed with 416,000 cubic feet of helium, cruise up to 2,000 miles at 55 m.p.h. Crew totals eight; armament includes machine guns, light cannon, bombs, depth charges. They are less vulnerable than laymen think, since helium is noninflammable. Airplane attack from above would be more or less ineffectual, unless their fire practically sawed off a section of the airship: some blimps can romp home despite a goodly number of bullet holes, despite losing as much as one-third of their gas volume. Such holes are easily patched, even in flight. And if the airplane swings...
Besides their torpedoes, fired from deck tubes, German E-boats carry anti-aircraft cannon, machine guns and depth charges. They cannot hide as submarines can, but they can run. They are cheaper and quicker to build than submarines, and they are fine for hit-&-run raids on shipping not far from shore. The Germans are building a lot of them-just how many, the British would like to know...
...boats until its ammunition was gone, damaged one, retired. A squadron of Spitfire fighters sighted four E-boats, one of them crippled from a previous clash. The Germans put up a screen of flak, but the British planes dived right through it, opening up with their 20-mm. cannon. All four of the Germans were hit and one caught fire. The German fusillade punched 150 holes in one of the Spitfires and broke its elevator cable. But its pilot kept it in the air for a hundred homeward miles and landed safely. Reconnaissance planes found only a litter of wreckage...
...Before the war," Blum said, "private industries sold material to Italy, so that when the war came enemies shot at us with French-manufactured cannon shells...