Suppressive Fire - History

History

Suppressive fire became possible with the advent of firearms or projectile weapons capable of rapid fire (particularly automatic weapons). However, its significance did not fully emerge until tactics evolved to combine firepower and manoeuvre between forces prepared to use cover instead of standing in the open.

World War I marked a step change because of the development of indirect fire techniques and the protection provided by trenches. By late 1915 the British Expeditionary Force realised effects of artillery fire could not smash an opening in German trench lines. They therefore developed artillery techniques to suppress the enemy in trenches to allow their infantry to approach them. Thereafter suppression became the defining British artillery tactic, a barrage could suppress a line of front several miles wide.

Infantry tactics also evolved and suppression became a key element in ‘winning the fire fight’. However, suppression by infantry direct fire weapons is generally only tactically useful against targets that do not have mutual support from adjacent positions and ammunition stocks may only be available for several minutes of firing.

In World War II amphibious assaults, "naval warships would open fire with their main armaments at known or suspected enemy artillery, mortar, or machine gun positions, on or behind the landing beaches", "to suppress enemy fire from these positions which could be directed against the landing troops".