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there are 200-ft.-long "fast patrol boats," destroyers, fiber-glass-and-plastic-hulled minesweepers, troop-carrying Hovercraft and even a 670-ft., 14,000-ton Vickers aircraft carrier. Nor is the infantry slighted: there are mortars (51 mm or 81 mm), silencer-equipped submachine guns, four-round sniper rifles (99% accuracy at 400 meters) and a battery-powered grenade launcher. Missiles? Try an air-to-air Sky Flash or a ship-to-air Seawolf, a Rapier ("low cost" and "low weight") or a Swingfire ("long-range" and "antitank"). Once the weapons are ordered, there are British firms that will...
...catalogue's descriptive paeans are seldom graphic about the weapons' deadly effects. Usually the language is willfully neutral: one shell that spews out steel pellets is merely "useful to engage massed infantry at close quarters." But peddler's enthusiasm can overcome the technocratic blankness. A 105-mm artillery piece is "robust" and its "lethal punch" is thus "ideal for use in tough limited war conditions in all climates." One transport is a "tough, roomy, dependable" aircraft, and the catalogue says of the AEL 4111 Snipe aerial drone for antiaircraft gunners: "The morale effect on weapons crews...
France's catalogue is not as lavish as Britain's, but its descriptions (in French, English and Spanish) are more vivid militarily and, in general, less polite. One piece of howitzer ammunition is touted as having "a better ballistic coefficient than the American shell," and a 30-mm aircraft round is "very effective against persons." A 22-lb. French "Commando" mortar is perfect for those times when combat squads "have to fight violently at very short distances." The brief entries tend to a breathless specificity. A smoke bomb lets a tank "escape temporarily from the adversary...
...about 12:40 p.m., midway through the parade, Abu Ghazala pointed out to Sadat six Mirage jet fighters sweeping low overhead, trailing plumes of blue, yellow, red and white smoke across the azure sky. Directly in front of the reviewing stand, a truck towing a Soviet-made 130-mm antitank gun braked to a halt. Other drivers in the four-column-wide procession, apparently suspecting more mechanical trouble, swerved to pass the vehicle. With their eyes cast skyward to watch the planes, the dignitaries in the stand, some 100 ft. away, were oblivious to what was happening in front...
...television picture has about 525 lines. Sony predicts that the picture quality will equal that of regular television before the camera is marketed. The company is also working on a process that would produce pictures with 1,500 lines, which would make the image about as sharp as 35-mm photographs...