Word: phalanxed
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Most preposterous claim. Gephardt, facing a phalanx of news cameras immediately after the debate was over and saying, "We went from the Seven Dwarfs to the Magnificent Seven...
...been on, the Stark's Phalanx defense system would probably have been able to spray a Gatling-gun burst that could have turned the incoming missile into a brief footnote to the news. The Stark was sailing at Condition Three, the middle of five stages of alert, and its weapons systems were supposed to be fully manned and operational. But there was an inexplicable lapse, with key radars failing to detect the missile's launch and the Phalanx system remaining off. This was clearly a tragic failure for a vessel sailing in an area where more than 200 ships have...
There was almost no time to react. The first Exocet would hit the Stark within ten seconds. To Brindel, that was not enough time to get the ship's Phalanx antimissile system switched from a manual to an automatic mode and into action...
Like most U.S. warships, the Stark has a last-ditch weapon: the Phalanx, a six-barreled Gatling gun capable of firing 3,000 rounds a minute of uranium, 2 1/2 times as dense as steel, to create a wall of metal in front of the attacking missile. But the Phalanx system has its limitations: it operates only at close range and has difficulty tracking sea-skimming missiles amid the radar "clutter" caused by waves. Even under manual operation, the Stark's Phalanx system should have detected the incoming missiles, but the ship's only warning came just seconds before impact...
...shit," he said. "I sold them that Phalanx...