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Suppressive fire
Weapons fire that degrades the performance of an enemy force / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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In military science, suppressive fire is "fire that degrades the performance of an enemy force below the level needed to fulfill its mission"[clarification needed]. When used to protect exposed friendly troops advancing on the battlefield, it is commonly called covering fire. Suppression is usually only effective for the duration of the fire.[1] It is one of three types of fire support, which is defined by NATO as "the application of fire, coordinated with the maneuver of forces, to destroy, neutralise or suppress the enemy".
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Before NATO defined the term, the British and Commonwealth armies generally used "neutralisation" with the same definition as suppression. NATO now defines neutralisation as "fire delivered to render a target temporarily ineffective or unusable".[2]