noun
A noisy but harmless pyrotechnic device used especially in military exercises.
‘We managed to scare the bear away using 30 mm rubber bullets and thunderflashes - a kind of pyrotechnic or firework.’- ‘Or all three so we had to back it up with firing off a thunderflash from a hand pistol.’
- ‘By 1 pm at the latest, the MPs were dead and though a British army Chinook, dropping thunderflashes and possibly firing, had arrived, it was too late.’
- ‘The squaddies who raided his ammunition store for those thunderflashes 60 years ago never confessed, so it was Norman who had to go before his colonel on a charge.’
- ‘Rockets lit up the sky as thunderflashes, flying earth, acrid smoke and the chatter of machine-gun fire filled the air night after night.’
- ‘They turned up with machine guns loaded with blanks, flares and thunderflashes.’
- ‘Unfortunately, Ann's son Caspar flung an Army thunderflash into the confined space, injuring my eardrums.’
- ‘Opinion Leader Research is only one pollster reporting a thunderflash of anger in focus groups that is oddly not reflected in the polls.’
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