When it comes to describing guns in detail, and noting the recent improvements in primers, breeches, chargers and detonating systems, Hawker goes into fearsome detail, together with the most beautifully intricate engravings of his subjects.
(A point-detonating system detonates upon impact).
Mr. Ismay pointed out the relevant detail: "It has the big tank of an Iraqi IRAM, but the fuze looks like a machined point-detonating system".
The attackers targeted the city's transport system, detonating bombs hidden in their backpacks on three London Underground trains just before 9 a.m.
"I always wondered why the enemy went through the trouble of making these elaborate fuzes that rarely worked instead of just making some kind of point-detonating system," he wrote.
While working in Edinburgh, he invented a system for detonating demolition explosives by electricity.
According to the investigators' preliminary reconstruction, the attackers precisely packed a sophisticated plastic explosive and engineered a system of detonating switches and wiring to direct the force of the blast into the Cole's hull.
A 130 x 30 ft hole was created on the starboard side and bottom by a torpedo which was judged to have run deep, striking the bilge keel, and detonating inboard of the side protection system.
From such evidence, as well as from rocket and warhead basics, Mr. Lloyd estimates that the system succeeded 30 percent to 40 percent of the time in detonating enemy warheads.
Law-enforcement officials believe that an embittered Palestinian immigrant came within hours of detonating a nail-studded bomb in the New York City subway system in 1997, in what would have been the first such attack.
At the time it was described as a "five-page document in English" about experiments with a complex initiation system to detonate a large amount of high explosives and to monitor the detonation with probes.
