Printing Force

Print Action, Nov 2004

A United States Army Deployable Print Production Center (DPPC) along with its National Guard contingent, several of whom are stationed in Iraq, where they drop psychological leaflets from identical equipment units, occupied a popular booth under an American flag banner. Comprised of a colour scanner, PC, Corel Draw software, Riso digital duplicator and cutter, this mobile factory is mounted on a Humvee towing an equipment trailer. The print production equipment has been slightly modified to Army specifications to include shock mounting.

Its cadre of two to five print warriors prepare thousands of 4-colour leaflets that are banded together and inserted into a plastic "bomb" disseminator. This "bomb" is dropped from Air Force or Navy jets from an altitude of about 30,000 feet. At 10,000 feet, the bomb is programmed to come apart and automatically scatter the leaflets over a multi-mile radius for an expected saturation of one leaflet per square metre. Nearly two dozen different samples of the actual leaflets deployed in the pre-Iraq war were handed out to Graph Expo attendees.