1.
Privately held company
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More ambiguous terms for a privately held company are unquoted company and unlisted company. Though less visible than their publicly traded counterparts, private companies have major importance in the worlds economy. In 2008, the 441 largest private companies in the United States accounted for US$1,800,000,000,000 in revenues and employed 6.2 million people, according to Forbes. In 2004, the Forbes count of privately held U. S. businesses with at least $1 billion in revenue was 305, cargill, Koch Industries, Bechtel, Publix, Pilot Corp. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Hearst Corporation, Cox Enterprises, S. C, johnson, McWane, Carlson Companies, and Mars are among the largest privately held companies in the United States. In the broadest sense, the private corporation refers to any business not owned by the state. This usage is found in former communist countries to differentiate from former state-owned enterprises. In the United States, the privately held company is more often used to describe for-profit enterprises whose shares are not traded on the stock market. In countries with public trading markets, a privately held business is taken to mean one whose ownership shares or interests are not publicly traded. Often, privately held companies are owned by the company founders and/or their families, sometimes employees also hold shares of private companies. Most small businesses are privately held, Private companies may be called corporations, limited companies, limited liability companies, unlimited companies, or other names, depending on where and how they are organized and structured. In the United States, but not generally in the United Kingdom, privately held companies generally have fewer or less comprehensive reporting requirements and obligations for transparency, via annual reports, etc. than publicly traded companies do. For example, in the United States, unlike in Europe, in addition, private company executives may steer their ships without shareholder approval, allowing them to take significant action without delays. There is a requirement for large proprietary companies, which are required to lodge Form 388H to the ASIC containing their financial report. In the United States, private companies are held to different accounting auditing standards than are public companies, other companies, like Sageworks, provide aggregated data on privately held companies, segmented by industry code. Privately held companies also sometimes have restrictions on how many shareholders they may have, for example, the U. S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, section 12, limits a privately held company, generally, to fewer than 2000 shareholders, and the U. S. Investment Company Act of 1940, requires registration of investment companies that have more than 100 holders, in Australia, section 113 of the Corporations Act 2001 limits a privately held company to fifty non-employee shareholders. Private enterprises comprise the sector of an economy
2.
Royal Ordnance
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It owned some 16 factories, and employed about 19,000 staff. Royal Ordnance plc was bought by British Aerospace in April 1987, the name Royal Ordnance was retained for almost another twenty years, and the sites retained their former names, either as Royal Ordnance or later RO Defence sites. The Royal Ordnance name was dropped in 2004 and after having traded as Land Systems, the Royal Ordnance Factories can trace their history back to 1560 with the founding of the Royal Gunpowder Factory at Waltham Abbey, Essex. This was linked to the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock, all three were based near London— but not too close in case of explosion. The title of Royal Arsenal was introduced in 1805 to encompass the Royal Laboratories, Royal Gun Factory, and the Royal Carriage, which were originally separate and based in Greenwich. In 1927 these three Royal Factories were transferred, within the War Office, from the Ministry of Munitions to the Department of the Master-General of the Ordnance. As World War II loomed, a further 40 ROFs were built by the Ministry of Supply, from the late 1930s into the 1940s, the number of factory sites and personnel employed shrank considerably after the end of the Second World War. Other parts of the UKs defence research and design capability were later closed down, remained with the UK Ministry of Defence, later to become Dstl, or became part of the privatised QinetiQ. The small number of ROFs involved in weapons production, ROF Burghfield and ROF Cardiff, were removed from ROF management. They were transferred to the control of AWRE, which became the Atomic Weapons Establishment. Its headquarters was moved to ROF Chorley, Lancashire, with its office located in central London. The intention of the government at this stage was to privatise Royal Ordnance as soon as possible through a stock market flotation. In mid-1985 a target date of July 1986 was set, however, by June 1986 the government announced that flotation would not be possible and that it intended to sell the company privately. The following problems were identified as barriers to a flotation, The future of ROF Leeds, the future relationship between the MOD and the company. The financial position of the company.2 million, Vickers became Alvis Vickers and, in 2004, became part of BAE Systems, and the Leeds factory was closed. The relationship with the MOD was resolved by certain guarantees given to the company by the MOD regarding future procurement strategies, the financial position of the company was resolved by a Treasury cash injection and the proceeds of the ROF Leeds sale. Bids for Royal Ordnance Plc were invited in October 1986, resulting in six offers and these were eventually reduced to two, one from British Aerospace and one from Guest, Keen & Nettlefolds. The £188.5 million GBP BAe offer was accepted, at the time of the sale, RO Defence had 16 factories, and some 19,000 personnel were employed
3.
BAE Systems
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BAE Systems plc is a British multinational defence, security, and aerospace company. Its headquarters are in London in the United Kingdom and it has operations worldwide and it is among the worlds largest defence companies, it was ranked as the third-largest based on applicable 2015 revenues. Its largest operations are in the United Kingdom and United States, other major markets include Australia, India and Saudi Arabia. The company was formed on 30 November 1999 by the £7. V, since its formation it has made a number of acquisitions, most notably of United Defense and Armor Holdings of the United States, and sold its shares in Airbus, Astrium, AMS and Atlas Elektronik. BAE Systems is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE100 Index, BAE Systems was formed on 30 November 1999 by the £7.7 billion merger of British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems. As a result, BAE Systems is the successor to many of the most famous British aircraft, defence electronics, British Aerospace was a civil and military aircraft manufacturer, as well as a provider of military land systems. The company had emerged from the consolidation of UK aircraft manufacturers since World War II. British Aerospace was formed on 29 April 1977 by the nationalisation and merger of The British Aircraft Corporation, both BAC and Hawker Siddeley were themselves the result of various mergers and acquisitions. Marconi Electronic Systems was the subsidiary of British engineering firm The General Electric Company, dealing largely in military systems integration, as well as naval. Marconis heritage dates back to Guglielmo Marconis Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company, GEC purchased English Electric in 1968 and thereafter used the Marconi brand for its defence businesses. GECs own defence heritage dates back to World War I, when its contribution to the war effort included radios, World War II consolidated this position, as the company was involved in important technological advances, notably the cavity magnetron for radar. Between 1945 and 1999, GEC-Marconi/Marconi Electronic Systems became one of the worlds most important defence contractors, in June 1998, MES acquired Tracor, a major American defence contractor, for £830 million. In June 1997 British Aerospace Defence managing director John Weston commented Europe, is supporting three times the number of contractors on less than half the budget of the U. S. European governments wished to see the merger of their defence manufacturers into a single entity, as early as 1995 British Aerospace and the German aerospace and defence company DaimlerChrysler Aerospace were said to be keen to create a transnational aerospace and defence company. The two companies envisaged including Aérospatiale, the other major European aerospace company, but only after its privatisation, as well as Airbus, British Aerospace and DASA were partners in the Panavia Tornado and Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft projects. A merger was agreed between British Aerospace chairman Richard Evans and DASA CEO Jürgen Schrempp in December 1998, meanwhile, GEC was also under pressure to participate in defence industry consolidation. GEC favours forging a national champion defence group with BAe to compete with the giant US organisations, when GEC put MES up for sale on 22 December 1998, British Aerospace abandoned the DASA merger in favour of purchasing its British rival. The merger of British Aerospace and MES was announced on 19 January 1999, Evans stated that in 2004 that his fear was that an American defence contractor would acquire MES and challenge both British Aerospace and DASA
4.
Enfield Lock
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Enfield Lock is an area in the London Borough of Enfield, north London. It is approximately located east of the Hertford Road between Turkey Street and the Holmesdale Tunnel overpass, and extends to the River Lee Navigation, the locality gains its name from the lock on the River Lee Navigation. Todays Enfield Lock was rebuilt in 1922, the area forms part of the Lee Valley Park and the Enfield Lock Conservation Area. On its eastern boundary Enfield Lock has marshland formerly used as a site between the Royal Small Arms Factory and the Gunpowder Mills. To the south is Brimsdown, the north Waltham Cross and to the west Bullsmoor, Enfield Lock forms part of the London boundary. Enfield Lock is recorded thus in 1710, earlier as Norhtlok, The Locke, i. e. the lock or river barrier, from Middle English lok. The area was first developed from about 1812 when a rifle factory. The factory was built towards the end of the Napoleonic War on the instructions of the Board of Ordnance on marshland at Enfield Lock on the banks of both the River Lea and the River Lee Navigation. The RSAF was closed in the late 1980s, shortly after privatisation, the original machine shop frontage and the older part of the rear structure has been retained and was converted into workshops and retail units by the Enfield Enterprise Agency. Until the construction of the M25 in the 1980s, and the building of the A1055. Roads such as Ordnance Road, Salisbury Road and Medcalf Road are still populated by families who have lived in the Enfield Lock area for several generations. After rioting had spread from neighbouring Tottenham on 8 August 2011, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, was shown the destroyed distribution centre by chief police officers and firefighters on 12 August 2011. In September 2012, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, opened the rebuilt warehouse, the Enfield Lock ward, which also covers Enfield Island Village, is 54% white as of the 2011 census. 23% of the population is black, nick de Bois had previously beaten Joan Ryan, who had served as the Enfield North MP between 1997 and 2010. The path connects with the Lea Valley Walk above Enfield Lock at Ordnance Road, angling is allowed on the River Lee Navigation upstream and downstream of Enfield Lock. Information from the River Lea Anglers Club, national Cycle Route 1 follows the River Lea towpath to Gunpowder Park. Gunpowder Park, which lies to the east of Enfield Lock, is an open space consisting mostly of marshland. The land is owned and managed by the Lee Valley Regional Park and is open to the public
5.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
6.
British military rifles
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The origins of the modern British military rifle are within its predecessor the Brown Bess musket. While a musket was largely inaccurate over 80 yards, due to a lack of rifling, the use in volley or in mass firing by troops meant that rate of fire took precedence over accuracy. Early rifles were non-standard and frequently used adaptations from components of the Brown Bess and it was not until the late 19th century that the rifle fully supplanted the musket as the primary weapon of the infantryman. Civilian rifles had on occasions been used by marksmen during the English Civil War. In the 1750s, a few German rifles were used by British light infantry regiments in the French, in January 1776,1,000 rifles were ordered to be built for the British Army. A pattern by gunsmith William Grice, based on German rifles in use by the British Army, was approved for issue as the Pattern 1776 Infantry Rifle. The barrel is 30.5 inches with hook breech in.62 calibre, eight hundred were delivered through four Birmingham producers, William Grice, Mathias Barker, Galton & Sons and Bejamin Willets. Two hundred more were obtained from Hannover and this weapon was issued to the light company of each regiment in the British Army during the American Revolution, these were probably present at most battles in the conflict. Also in 1776, Major Patrick Ferguson patented his breech-loading Ferguson rifle, the Baker rifle was a muzzle-loading flintlock weapon used by the British Army in the Napoleonic Wars, notably by the 95th Rifles and the 5th Battalion, 60th Regiment of Foot. This rifle was a weapon for its day with reported kills being taken at 100 to 300 yards away. The rifle was in service in the British Army until the 1840s, the Mexican Army under Santa Anna used British Baker Rifles during the 1836 Texas-Mexican War. The Brunswick rifle was a.704 calibre muzzle-loading percussion rifle manufactured for the British Army at the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield in the early 19th century. The weapon was introduced to replace the Baker rifle and weighed from over 9 and 10 pounds without its bayonet attached, depending on the pattern. The weapon was difficult to load but remained in production for about 50 years and was used in both the United Kingdom and assorted colonies and outposts throughout the world, the Brunswick had a two-groove barrel designed to accept a belted round ball. There are four variants of the British Brunswick Rifle. The first rifle produced in whole to a set pattern at Enfield was the Baker rifle, Brunswick rifles were also produced there, but prior to 1851, rifles were considered speciality weapons and served alongside the muskets which were issued to regular troops. Relatively few of these were produced since a new design was adopted two years. The rifle used the lock and bayonet mount from the Pattern 1842, the new Minie ammunition allowed much faster loading so that rifles were no longer slower to load than smoothbore muskets
7.
Musket
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A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smoothbore firearm, fired from the shoulder. Muskets were designed for use by infantry, a soldier armed with a musket had the designation musketman or musketeer. The musket replaced the arquebus, and was in turn replaced by the rifle. By the end of the 17th century, a version of the musket had edged out the arquebus, and the addition of the bayonet edged out the pike. In the 18th century, improvements in ammunition and firing methods allowed rifling to be practical for use. In the 19th century, rifled muskets became common, combining the advantages of rifles, about the time of the introduction of cartridge, breechloading, and multiple rounds of ammunition just a few years later, muskets fell out of fashion. Musket calibers generally ranged from 0.50 to 0.90 in, rifled muskets of the mid-19th century, like the Springfield Model 1861, were significantly more accurate, with the ability to hit a man sized target at a distance of 500 yards or more. However, in the Italian War of 1859, French forces were able to defeat the longer range of Austrian rifle muskets by aggressive skirmishing and rapid bayonet assaults during close quarters combat. According to the Etymology Dictionary, firearms were often named after animals, and the word derived from the French word mousquette. An alternative theory is that derives from the 16th century French mousquet, -ette, from the Italian moscetto, -etta, the Italian moscetto is a diminutive of mosca, a fly. Hand cannons arrived in Europe from Asia sometime in the early 14th century and they were more commonly used by the early 15th century, particularly in the Hussite wars. It is possible that the noise was at least as important as the missile and these were very short ranged, inaccurate and difficult to load and fire. Hand cannons had a handle, or no handle at all. A wooden stock was added, allowing the weapon to be easily held. The hand cannon evolved into the arquebus by the mid 15th century, the matchlock mechanism was a simple solution to this problem, and placed the match in a clamp on the end of a lever. When a trigger was pulled, the lever would rotate and allowed the match to come in contact with the touch hole, the first European usage of firearms in large ratios was in Hungary under king Matthias Corvinus. Every third soldier in the Black Army of Hungary had an arquebus, gradual advances in the empirical understanding of the corning of gunpowder made possible a more powerful explosive. The cost of gunpowder also gradually fell, by the 16th century the handheld firearm became commonplace, replacing the crossbow and longbow in all advanced armies, and known as the arquebus
8.
Sword
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A sword is a long bladed weapon intended for slashing or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the epoch or the geographical region under consideration. A sword consists of a blade attached to a hilt. The blade can be straight or curved, thrusting swords have a pointed tip on the blade, and tend to be straighter, slashing swords have sharpened cutting edge on one or both sides of the blade, and are more likely to be curved. Many swords are designed for thrusting and slashing. Historically, the sword developed in the Bronze Age, evolving from the dagger, the later Iron Age sword remained fairly short and without a crossguard. The word sword continues the Old English, sweord, the use of a sword is known as swordsmanship or as fencing. In the Early Modern period, western sword design diverged into two forms, the thrusting swords and the sabers. The thrusting swords such as the rapier and eventually the smallsword were designed to impale their targets quickly and their long and straight yet light and well balanced design made them highly maneuverable and deadly in a duel but fairly ineffective when used in a slashing or chopping motion. A well aimed lunge and thrust could end a fight in seconds with just the swords point, the saber and similar blades such as the cutlass were built more heavily and were more typically used in warfare. Built for slashing and chopping at multiple enemies, often from horseback, most sabers also had sharp points and double edged blades, making them capable of piercing soldier after soldier in a cavalry charge. Sabers continued to see use until the early 20th century. The US Navy kept tens of thousands of sturdy cutlasses in their armory well into World War II, non-European weapons called sword include single-edged weapons such as the Middle Eastern scimitar, the Chinese dao and the related Japanese katana. The Chinese jian is an example of a non-European double-edged sword, the first weapons that can be described as swords date to around 3300 BC. They have been found in Arslantepe, Turkey, are made from arsenical bronze, some of them are inlaid with silver. The sword developed from the dagger when the construction of longer blades became possible, from the late 3rd millennium BC in the Middle East, first in arsenic copper, then in tin-bronze. Blades longer than 60 cm were rare and not practical until the late Bronze Age because the strength of bronze is relatively low. These are the type A swords of the Aegean Bronze Age, one of the most important, and longest-lasting, types swords of the European Bronze Age was the Naue II type, also known as Griffzungenschwert
9.
Rifle
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A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called lands, which contact with the projectile. When the projectile leaves the barrel, this spin lends gyroscopic stability to the projectile and prevents tumbling and this allows the use of aerodynamically-efficient bullets and thus improves range and accuracy. The word rifle originally referred to the grooving, and a rifle was called a rifled gun, the word rifle is now used for any long hand-held aimed device activated by a trigger, such as Air rifles and the Personnel halting and stimulation response rifle. Rifles are used in warfare, hunting and shooting sports, formerly, rifles only fired a single projectile with each squeeze of the trigger. Modern rifles are capable of firing more than one round per trigger squeeze, some fire in an automatic mode. Thus, modern automatic rifles overlap to some extent in design, in fact, many light machine guns are adaptations of existing automatic rifle designs. A militarys light machine guns are chambered for the same caliber ammunition as its service rifles. Generally, the difference between a rifle and a machine gun comes down to weight, cooling system. Modern military rifles are fed by magazines, while machine guns are generally belt-fed, many machine guns allow the operator to quickly exchange barrels in order to prevent overheating, whereas rifles generally do not. Most machine guns fire from a bolt in order to reduce the danger of cook-off. Machine guns are often crewed by more than one soldier, the rifle is an individual weapon, the term rifle is sometimes used to describe larger crew-served rifled weapons firing explosive shells, for example, recoilless rifles. In many works of fiction a rifle refers to any weapon that has a stock and is shouldered before firing, the origins of rifling are difficult to trace, but some of the earliest practical experiments seem to have occurred in Europe during the 15th century. Archers had long realized that a twist added to the feathers of their arrows gave them greater accuracy. This might also have led to a increase in accuracy. Rifles were created as an improvement in the accuracy of smooth bore muskets, the black powder used in early muzzle-loading rifles quickly fouled the barrel, making loading slower and more difficult. Since musketeers could not afford to take the time to stop and clean their barrels in the middle of a battle, rifles were limited to use by sharpshooters, muskets were smoothbore, large caliber weapons using ball-shaped ammunition fired at relatively low velocity. Due to the high cost and great difficulty of manufacturing, and the need to load readily from the muzzle
