Types of Fire

Types of Fire

 

When we shoot, we need to understand what it is we’re trying to accomplish by shooting.  The U.S. Military has developed a number of terms to describe the different basic “missions” we may be trying to accomplish with small arms fire.  Some of these terms are described in the current machinegun manuals.  The MG manuals also cover several other types of fire that don’t particularly apply with anything other than a sustained fire capable weapon.  I hope by discussing some of these fire missions it will help you decide what it is you are trying to do when you fire your weapon.

 

Effective Fire - This is the most basic form of fire.  You are trying to hit your target and get all the terminal effect your weapon is capable of. 

 

Suppressive Fire - This is when you are shooting at your opponent(s) to interfere with his ability to function or to “suppress” him.  Suppression fire has also been called “protective” fire.  Suppression fire is not spray-n-pray.  Spray-n-pray, when you spray rounds in the general direction of your opponent and pray that one of them strikes home, is an attempt at effective fire.  Suppression fire is not an attempt to hit your target although, if it does hit him, it becomes effective fire and your opponent becomes very suppressed. 

The thing to remember about suppression fire is that it is primarily psychological in effect.  Your opponent has to decide that the risk of sticking his head up is greater than the risk of staying where he is.  It is very difficult- if not impossible as an individual- to lay down a sufficient volume of fire that your opponent will be unable to move without being hit.  If your target is willing to risk the rounds headed his way, he may not be suppressed.  Herbert McBride wrote that, after awhile, one discovered that there was a lot of space between those machinegun bullets and it became easier (psychologically) to advance in their face.  In general though, well directed suppression fire works.  

A problem with suppression fire is the volume of fire it requires. You have to put enough lead down range that the other fellow decides he’d rather not risk it.  That’s one thing if you have an M249 with a 250 round belt and an assistant gunner to reload you, and it’s another thing if what you have is a 5 shot revolver with five more rounds in a speed strip. 

Another thing to remember is that suppressive fire is defensive in nature.  You win wars with the sword not the shield.  You’ve got some ne’er-do-well pinned down behind a large, totally bullet resistant rock.  You have your tricked out AK and a snazzy bug out bag full of magazines.  You begin laying down some suppression fire.  Every time you let up, your opponent waves his hand or fires a shot to let you know he’s still there so you fire some more.  As the sun sets, you run out of ammo.  Your opponent stands up, dusts himself off, saunters over and prepares to shoot you with his rusty six-shooter.  You draw your Glock and peg him between the eyes.  But, the point is, suppressive fire is not an end of itself but is just a way to buy you, or your partners, time to do something else.  If you’re suppressing this same fellow to give the rest of your fire team time to flank his sorry butt, you save wear and tear on your Glock.  Likewise, you may want to lay down a little suppression fire while you move to better cover or even just to buy enough time to figure out what it is you want to do.  Just keep in mind why it is you are using suppressive fire. 

Effective fire can have the same psychological effect as suppressive fire.  Carlos Hathcock and his spotter kept an entire company pinned down for several days with one-shot-one-kill effective fire.  A two man machinegun team in the same position probably would not have had the same effect because the Vietnamese wouldn’t have been as intimidated by something as familiar as machinegun fire. 

 

Directing fire - This is the quick and dirty method used to bring a target to the attention of the other team members.  You identify a target, get the attention of the other team members, perhaps give coarse directions to the target, and fire one or more rounds of tracer into the target.  Examples would include a sniper trying to bring some direct fire from heavier ordnance onto a strong point or a squad leader trying to direct some suppression fire from the rest of the squad or the MG team. 

 

Reconnaissance by fire - This is sometimes incorrectly called searching fire.  Searching fire is an indirect fire technique for machineguns.  Reconnaissance by fire means firing a round or rounds into an area just in case there’s an opponent there.  Reconnaissance by fire may inflict damage on the enemy or it may cause him to react when he believes you’re shooting at him rather than just guessing.  Obviously this has little civilian application.  An example would be, rather than approaching a closet where someone might be hiding, you fire a burst through the door at about knee height before opening the door.  Another example was a sniper attached to an Army Ranger unit in Viet Nam.  When the unit began receiving relatively close range fire from the brush, but was unable to pinpoint the source, this sniper would assume a stable position and shooting sling with his M21.  He would then proceed to fire a series of closely spaced shots through the concealment across the area of incoming fire.

 

Enfilade fire - When you stack (the old term was “flank”) multiple opponents and begin firing, you are taking them under enfilade fire.  By arranging your opponents in enfilade, the fellow up front acts as cover for you and any overpenetration or misses are likely to hit the fellows in the back.  This is most effective for machineguns as the beaten zone is usually oblong in shape and by maneuvering your opponents in a line along the long axis of the beaten zone, you get the most efficient use of ammunition. 

As an aside, I find it mind-boggling that two of the most elementary principles of tactics - movement, and flanking - have become a lost art and are having to be reintroduced to today’s fighters, but there it is. 

 

As you can see, several of these techniques will be of limited or no use outside the military context or with certain small arms.