Suppressive fire

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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". 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".

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]