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The 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 who are able to see their target destroyed is incalculable."
The high-tech gimcracks do have an undeniable allure.
Take the Claribel hostile fire indicator. This truck-mount — ed radar "tracks bullets ... and pinpoints their source but," adds the knowing copywriter, "ignores stones or bricks."
Video equipment is much in evidence, and a helicopter-mounted, gyro-stabilized TV camera could make for a strangely deracinated war: with a fleet of these Heli-Teles swarming over the combat zone, a commander can sit behind the lines and watch the action on color television.
Much of the merchandise is prosaic — flashlights, generators and, for fighting file clerks, a bullet-proof clipboard.
There is throughout a domestic matter-of-factness that jars:
a piece of circuitry "fits any standard bomb," and a suit to protect against radiation and nerve gas "can be laundered."
Even aesthetic and creature comforts are not ignored. An "armoured command vehicle" called Sultan has "a spacious penthouse mounted at the rear," and there is a Vickers division specializing in the interior decoration of warships.
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's sight and prevent the latter from adjusting his fire"; a 105-mm antitank rocket launcher is "designed for use by either a right-or a left-handed soldier." The French grant far more space to the nitty-gritty of war: pistols, plastic explosives and grenades (including one that was "designed to dazzle several antagonists").