Phalanx (pronounced fey-langks or fal-angks)
(1) In
Hellenic Greece, a group of heavily armed infantry formed in ranks and files
close and deep, with shields joined and long spears overlapping.
(2) A body
of troops in close array.
(3) A
compact or closely massed body of persons, animals or things, usually united or
aligned for a common purpose.
(4) A radar-controlled
20mm Gatling-type gun deployed on US Navy ships as a last line of defense
against cruise missiles.
(5) In
Fourierism, a group of about 1800 persons, living together and holding their
property in common.
(6) In
anatomy and zoology, any of the bones of the fingers or toes (the related
adjective phalangeal).
(7) In
printing, to arrange the distribution of work in a production house as evenly
as possible.
(8) In
botany, a bundle of stamens, joined together by their stalks (filaments).
(9)A
form of vegetative spread in which the advance is on a broad front, as in the
common reed.
1550s:
From the Latin phalanx from phalangis & phalangem (compact body of heavily armed men in battle array)
derived from Greek phalanx (genitive phalangos) (line of battle, battle array). The origin of the use as a descriptor of finger
or toe bone (originally "round piece of wood, trunk, log”) is unknown,
most often thought to be from the from Old English balca (balk), from the primitive Indo-European root bhelg (plank, beam). In anatomy, a phalanx was originally the
whole row of finger joints, which fit together like infantry in close order. The rare adjectival forms were phalangeal
& phalangic. The figurative sense of
"number of persons banded together in a common cause" is attested
from 1600, the most recent adaptation probably the 1937 Spanish Falangist, (a member
of the fascist organization founded in 1933), from the Spanish Falange
(Española) (Spanish), from the Latin phalanx.
Phalanx terminology.
Phalanx live fire test, USS Monterey, November 2008.
Designed essentially to meet any incoming missile with a “wall of metal”, the Phalanx CIWS began life as a close-in weapon system installed on naval warships as defense against anti-ship missiles. Developed and manufactured by the General Dynamics Corporation’s Pomona Division (now a part of Raytheon), it’s based around a radar-guided 20 mm (0.79 in) Vulcan cannon mounted on a swiveling base and is used by more than a dozen navies on every class of surface combat ship. The reliability and flexibility attracted wider interest and a land based variant known as C-RAM has been developed, deployed in a short range missile defense role to counter incoming rockets and even artillery fire. The early models were (hydraulic driven) with a fire rate of 3,000 rounds per minute (rpm) and the magazine drum had a capacity of 989 rounds while the later, pneumatically driven modes fire at a rate of 4,500 rpm from a 1,550-round magazine. Each round costs about US$30 and typically between 100-200 are expended during each targeting. A combination of the appearance of the distinctive, barrel-shaped, radar dome (radome) and the automated operation, meant the Phalanx CIWS units soon attracted the nicknamed "R2-D2", named after the droid from the film Star Wars (1977).
Lindsay Lohan's fractured Phalanx
During an Aegean cruise in October 2016, Lindsay Lohan suffered a finger injury. In this dreadful nautical incident, the tip of one digit was severed by the boat's anchor chain but details of the circumstances are sketchy although there was speculation that upon hearing the captain give the command “weigh anchor”, she decided to help but, lacking any background in admiralty jargon, misunderstood the instruction.
Detached chunk of a distal digit was salvaged from the deck and expertly re-attached by a micro-surgeon ashore, digit and the rest of the patient said to have both made full recoveries. Despite the injury, Ms Lohan still managed to find a husband so all's well that ends well.
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