Word: mortar
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First a ring of explosive anchor screws blew off the cone's back cover (see diagram). Fifteen seconds later, when the cone was about 5,000 ft. above the sea, a small explosive charge fired a tight-packed parachute out of a mortar-like container. It was a ribbon chute made of concentric rings of strong fabric 2 in. wide, and at first it was reefed by a band around it to lower the shock of opening. When the falling speed was reduced still more, explosive bolts freed the recovery package, the parachute was unreefed and its powerful drag...
...windswept, heath-covered hilltops of Sardinia stand the remains of more than 6,000 cunningly contrived towers shaped like truncated cones. Built of squared volcanic rock, without mortar, these fortress towers, called nuraghi, range back to the time of ancient Troy, were in use until the culture of the Sards was finally smothered by Roman legions in the 3rd century B.C. Often fire-blackened on top. they may have served for signal fires, funeral pyres or simply strong points of repair for the fierce, feuding warrior clans. In the rubble at the base of the towers Sardinian archeologists have found...
...worked over a 1,600-mile tract of jungle in Perak. On the ground, patrols crept toward the shattered target areas, cutting their way through underbrush as high as a man's head. British artillery plastered one sector near Sungei Siput with 25-pounders. An Australian battery poured mortar fire into another area, while only 400 yds. away a platoon of weary New Zealanders sweated out their 15th day of waiting for the enemy to show himself. For 33,000 Malayan and other Commonwealth troops, it was an exasperating kind of war which in three months had resulted...
...world's architects come to see what is going on in Chandigarh," said India's Prime Minister Nehru. Then, before a vast crowd of officials, clerks, laborers, housewives and children, Nehru troweled mortar from a silver bowl and set the cornerstone for a gigantic, tower-topped legislative hall. The building will be the latest major edifice to get under way in the new capital of the Punjab, a site that only seven years ago was a cluster of mud hut villages on the grassy plain southwest of the Himalayas. Now one-third completed, Chandigarh (pop. 50,000) ranks...
...Soviet 203-mm. gun-howitzer can be emplaced for firing within minutes (compared to 36 hours for the World War II version), throws a conventional or nuclear shell 15 miles. The U.S. 8-in. howitzer is comparable but less mobile. The Russians boast a 240-mm. breech-loading mortar that doubles as an infantry and short-range artillery weapon. While its value in modern warfare is questionable, the U.S. has no counterpart...