firing - the act of firing weapons or artillery at an enemy; "hold your fire until you can see the whites of their eyes"; "they retreated in the face of withering enemy fire"barrage fire, shelling, barrage, bombardment, battery - the heavy fire of artillery to saturate an area rather than hit a specific target; "they laid down a barrage in front of the advancing troops"; "the shelling went on for hours without pausing" broadside - the simultaneous firing of all the armament on one side of a warship fusillade, volley, burst, salvo - rapid simultaneous discharge of firearms; "our fusillade from the left flank caught them by surprise" call fire - fire delivered on a specific target in response to a request from the supported unit covering fire, cover - fire that makes it difficult for the enemy to fire on your own individuals or formations; "artillery provided covering fire for the withdrawal" concentrated fire, massed fire - fire from two or more weapons directed at a single target or area (as fire by batteries of two or more warships) counterfire - fire intended to neutralize or destroy enemy weapons crossfire - fire from two or more points so that the lines of fire cross destruction fire - fire delivered for the sole purpose of destroying material objects direct fire - fire delivered on a target that is visible to the person aiming it grazing fire - fire approximately parallel to the ground; the center of the cone of fire does rise above 1 meter from the ground harassing fire - fire designed to disturb the rest of enemy troops and to curtail movement and to lower enemy morale indirect fire - fire delivered on a target that is not itself used as the point of aim for the weapons interdiction fire - fire directed to an area to prevent the enemy from using that area neutralization fire - fire that is delivered in order to render the target ineffective or unusable observed fire - fire for which the point of impact (the burst) can be seen by an observer; fire can be adjusted on the basis of the observations radar fire - gunfire aimed a target that is being tracked by radar registration fire - fire delivered to obtain accurate data for subsequent effective engagement of targets searching fire - fire distributed in depth by successive changes in the elevation of the gun supporting fire - fire delivered by supporting units to protect or assist a unit in combat suppressive fire - fire on or about a weapon system to degrade its performance below what is needed to fulfill its mission objectives unobserved fire - fire for which the point of impact (the bursts) cannot be observed |