Word: mortars
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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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...
...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...
...Phil Hart, easygoing Charlie Potter will discover a serious threat to second-term ambitions. Pennsylvania-born Hart is, like Potter, a wounded World War II veteran; he was hit by D-day mortar fire on Utah Beach. Lawyer Hart has eight photogenic children and an attractive, politically savvy wife. Jane Briggs Hart pilots her own Beechcraft Bonanza, flies her husband around Michigan at campaign time, has money enough as the daughter of the late Walter 0. Briggs (auto bodies, the Detroit Tigers) to afford the airplane and the campaigns...
...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...